Taylor Challenges Ley for Party Leadership as 3 Frontbenchers Resign

The Coalition has endured two prolonged splits since May, and the Liberals are now recording some of their lowest polling numbers since their founding.

The Liberal Party's Angus Taylor speaks to the media during a press conference in Sydney, Australia, on July 4, 2023. AAP Image/Bianca De Marchi

Liberal Senator Jess Collins and now-former shadow NDIS spokesman Phillip Thompson have officially handed a spill motion to Opposition Leader Sussan Ley as several shadow cabinet members step down amid a long-awaited leadership challenge.

Collins and Thompson requested a special party meeting where the leadership spill would take place largely between the right and moderate factions—that meeting is be expected to be called on either Feb. 12 or 13.

Opposition deputy whip in the Senate, Matt O’Sullivan, has resigned from his position in support of the leadership challenge, alongside Thompson who shed his shadow role.

Shadow home affairs spokesman Jonno Duniam, finance spokesman James Paterson, and cyber spokesperson Claire Chandler also resigned from the frontbench.

Expected challenger, the right faction’s Angus Taylor, stepped down from his shadow defence role on Feb. 11, and a day later announced his intention to challenge.

“Our country is in trouble,” he said. “The Labor Party has failed and the Liberal Party has lost its way.

“I’m running to be the leader of the Liberal Party because I believe that Australia is worth fighting for.”

Taylor said Australians needed “strong and decisive leadership.”

“I’m dedicated to serving you, the Australian people,” he said in a video on X.

Taylor had challenged Ley for the leadership after the May election defeat but narrowly lost. It’s expected this time he may have the numbers to win.

Ley’s stewardship of the party has not been easy. The Liberal-National Coalition has endured two prolonged splits since May, and the Liberals are now recording some of their lowest polling numbers since their founding.

The conservative-leaning One Nation has surged in popularity instead, demonstrated by consistent, multiple polling results over the past six months.

Their policies include rejecting high volume immigration, net zero, transgender ideology, progressive education in schools, and big welfare—positions the Coalition has not been able to articulate as strongly.

Chandler Explains Resignation

The right faction’s shadow cyber spokeswoman Chandler made her announcement on social media.

“In recent weeks, I’ve been contacted every day by Tasmanians, by Australians who feel that the Liberal Party has let them down,” she said.

“They don’t see an opposition that is tackling the Albanese government head-on and holding them accountable for their failures.

“They just see an opposition that is obsessed with talking about itself. Now I know that the Liberal Party is capable of so much better than this.”

Chandler said she did not believe the Liberal Party could improve under its current leadership.

“As an opposition and as the Liberal Party we need to do so much better at engaging with Australians and explaining to them how the values that we hold dear—reward for effort, individual freedoms, small government, investing in national security ...”

Opposition Leader Ley is yet to make formal statement, but has continued to express her intention to improve Australian lives.

“We will take the pressure off families, fix the budget, and keep Australia safe,” she wrote on X.