Nat Barr has confronted Sussan Ley over reports that a growing number of moderate Liberal MPs are withdrawing their support for her and instead backing Andrew Hastie as the next leader.
‘The sharks are circling,’ Barr told Ley on Monday morning, while holding up the front page of The Australian
‘We’ve got a front page where Andrew Hastie is basically doing the numbers for his leadership tilt on the front page.
‘We have Angus Taylor, doing a soft interview with News Corp over the weekend talking about what he learnt since he lost the leadership spill to you.
‘Are you worried? Is your leadership terminal?’
Ley said she wasn’t worried and was staying focused on her policies.
‘I know you have to ask the questions. I’m not going to lose focus on the things that matter.
‘I won’t lose focus on the plan that I’m talking about right now which is about people. It’s about Australians.
‘It’s about affordable energy as a priority. It’s about looking after the next generation who right now are going to have a lower standard of living than their parents.
Nat Barr has confronted Sussan Ley over reports that a growing number of moderate Liberal MPs are withdrawing their support for her and instead backing Andrew Hastie as the next leader
Andrew Hastie is emerging as the man many inside the party now believe has the numbers to take over
‘You know what when energy is unaffordable everything is unaffordable. We can see that in the economy.
‘I’m not going to lose focus on the really important things that I’m going to be talking about every day.’
On Sunday, Daily Mail political editor Peter Van Onselen revealed a view among moderates – one of the two key factions of the party – that Ley’s leadership is finished.
‘The moderates have reached the point where they are prepared, in principle, to support a socially conservative former Andrew Hastie leader,’ he said.
‘They are ready to bypass conservative leader-in-waiting Angus Taylor, and end what they see as a period of drift and mismanagement under Ley.’
Key moderates have confirmed that if Hastie challenged Ley for the leadership, he would have their support if a spill were held.
‘He just needs to bring his own conservative colleagues with him,’ one moderate said.
Another added: ‘Ley didn’t dance with those who brought her so we are moving on.
‘Even if it’s Hastie, that’s better than a leader that stands for nothing.’
A third said: ‘We have reached a point where radical change is necessary.
‘Hastie isn’t my cup of tea, but he can have his go and if he’s right our polls will improve.
Moderates say they’re now more inclined to back Andrew Hastie over Angus Taylor (pictured) if it comes to a showdown
‘But if he’s wrong we need to reassess the decisions already made.’
The breaking point for the moderates has been the handling of net zero and the re-emergence of coal as the Coalition’s preferred energy source.
Moderates are now seething that the joint Coalition plan contains no meaningful emissions cuts, arguing the Nationals’ proposal from just two weeks ago was far more credible than Ley’s.
Moderate Senator Anne Ruston claimed she never agreed to taxpayer underwriting for new coal plants.
This was slapped down by energy spokesman Dan Tehan, who insisted it was the position Liberal ministers had already signed off on last week.
Along with ditching net zero, the energy policy calls for keeping ageing coal-fired power stations running for as long as possible, lifting the ban on nuclear power, and scrapping a suite of Labor measures that Liberal MPs describe as ‘sneaky carbon taxes’.
Despite internal feuding, former prime minister Tony Abbott, who signed Australia up to the Paris climate agreement in 2015 but urged later governments to leave the accord, said he was encouraged by the Liberals’ approach.
‘You should never put cutting emissions ahead of saving jobs, keeping industries and trying to make people’s cost of living affordable,’ he told Sky News.
