Decimated and divided Liberal Party insiders at odds over what went wrong and what they stand for

Australia Broadcast Center

25-05-2025

The Liberal Party room is deeply divided over its future direction, with a profound schism emerging between those who want the party to move to the "sensible centre" as articulated by new leader Sussan Ley, and others who believe moderates are hijacking the devastating election loss to suit their agenda.
Four Corners has spoken to senior frontbenchers and key Liberal figures who believe the campaign was botched by campaign headquarters, with one frontbencher calling for heads to roll over the stuff ups.
Rising conservative star Andrew Hastie, widely seen as a future leader of the party, has warned the Liberal Party's problems are so deep that without serious change, it may cease to exist.
Several frontbenchers have revealed their policies were either dumped or buried, in what all describe as a confused and incoherent campaign.
Mr Hastie told Four Corners he pushed to have his defence policy announced with details of where the new money being committed would be spent.
"I just assumed that we were going to announce it in the first week or two and then it blew out to the week of Anzac Day," he said.
He was left frustrated that a key Coalition strength was being squandered.
"It became very difficult to talk about defence during the campaign without a policy," he said.
Shadow minister Sarah Henderson said her education policy was "buried" by the campaign because it was obsessed with talking about the cost of living and steered away from values-based policies.
"On Thursday night [before the election], the policy was uploaded onto the website … my media release was withdrawn and a lot of incredible hard work by my team and many others right across the Coalition, unfortunately, didn't see the light of day," she said.
"This is a policy which spoke to our values. It was all about aspiring to be a top 10 education nation to ensure that every young Australian reached his or her best potential, supported by evidence-based teaching, underpinned by parental choice and a strong commitment to faith-based education as well."
Senator Henderson said many of her colleagues were frustrated.
"Too many taxation policies were not pushed forward … [there was a] housing policy delivered on the run, a defence policy looking like an afterthought," she said.
"We failed in a number of different ways, but we lost sight of our values."
Tasmanian frontbencher Jonno Duniam let rip at the party for relying on "fatally flawed" polling and not heeding his warnings that the campaign wasn't working.
"Something went off the rails," he said.
"It's like having a compass telling you to go in one direction. In fact, you know you should be going in another. And that's what we did. We made decisions based on bad polling."
Senator Duniam believes bad advice from campaign headquarters was behind Peter Dutton's backdown on his work-from-home policy.
"Our numbers started to fall off a cliff the day we backed down on that policy," he said.
"Not because people loved the policy, but they were feeling that they were mistaken about our leader and whether or not he was a strong man and whether he could be prime minister."
Senator Duniam suggested people in the professional wing of the Liberal Party should consider their positions.
"We were frankly in a very competitive position at the start of 2025, and that completely evaporated," he said.
Some are blaming the organisational wing of the party for not running a better negative advertising campaign against Anthony Albanese.
Four Corners has learnt that Peter Dutton was so frustrated he raised in a mid-campaign meeting that he wanted advertisements commissioned that called Mr Albanese a liar.
A source said it wasn't pursued because Liberal campaign headquarters believed it wouldn't be persuasive. Another source said it was highly unusual to have a candidate try to suggest campaign advertising.
Others in the party believe they went into the campaign with a false sense of confidence.
The Liberal Party's own pollster said they overestimated the number of so-called Labor "defectors" to the Coalition. They wrongly assumed those who voted No in the Voice referendum were more likely to favour the Coalition at the election.
Mr Hastie said while the referendum had plenty of downsides for Mr Albanese, the upside was that people also saw he was prepared to "politically die for something".
"People saw that he was prepared to go hard for an idea even if he was going to fail. And I think you can't quantify that, but people certainly, I think it reflected that people thought he had some convictions," he said.
"He put a referendum, he lost and moved on. But at least people, I think in the end, saw that he was willing to follow through on it."
Not all Liberals agree the campaign was the ultimate problem.
Former Liberal minister George Brandis said the policies announced alienated Australians.
"We alienated women. We offended public servants. We offended multicultural communities. We insulted people who live in the inner cities. It was almost as if we were running out of new people to offend," he said.
"I think people who say that it was just because of a bad campaign, that we got the worst result we've ever got and ignore the orientation of the party and the image of itself that it projected to the community over some years, are kidding themselves."
New Liberal leader Sussan Ley has committed to change, saying the party must "reflect modern Australia" and that government is formed "in the sensible centre".
Senator Henderson rejected critiques that the party moved too far to the right and focused too much on so-called culture wars.
"The answer is not to move to the centre, but to move forward as one united team … continuing to bring together classical Liberals and conservatives in our great party together with the Nationals," she said.
"That is the best and most important way forward for our party."
NSW Liberal Senator Maria Kovacic said the party must address deeper problems if it ever wants to win elections again.
"If we focused on our economic credentials, if we focused on making Australia a better and more prosperous country returning and restoring living standards in a more meaningful way, then I think we would've connected with people."
Four Corners explores the Liberal Party's existential crisis of what it stands for and who it represents. Watch tonight on ABC TV and ABC iview.
Internally, a debate is brewing about nuclear power and whether the Liberals should stick with its promise of net zero emissions by 2050.
Mr Hastie told Four Corners he wanted the party's commitment to net zero reconsidered.
"I think the question of net zero, that's a straitjacket that I'm already getting out of," he said.
"The real question is should Australian families and businesses be paying more for their electricity? And should we allow this sort of hypocrisy at the heart of our economy to continue whereby we sell coal and gas to India and China, and we deny it to our own people? That's the question that I think we need to answer."
While Mr Hastie wants Australia's moratorium on nuclear lifted, Senator Kovacic said it was time for the party to dump the policy.
"It was going to be hard enough as it was," Senator Kovacic said.
"Even if we'd started on it on Monday, if we'd won the election, [it would have been] hard to deliver. Three years into the future, it's going to be even harder.
"Most young Australians believe that climate change is real and we have to deliver energy policies that ensure that we reach our net zero targets and that we deliver stable power … that is as cheap as possible."
Former Liberal MP Jason Falinski, who lost his seat of Mackellar in Sydney to teal independent Sophie Scamps at the 2022 election, said the party needs to stop viewing energy policy through a culture lens.
"If we are talking about coal versus nuclear versus renewable versus whether it's even happening at all, then you are in a culture war scenario and our opponents love that issue," he said.
The Liberals' split, and looming reunion, with the Nationals exposed the mistrust in the Coalition.
The Nationals ended the partnership when Sussan Ley would not immediately commit to key policies.
Senator Duniam called the Nationals' demands "contrived", telling Four Corners it was unrealistic to have policy decisions settled within weeks of an election.
"The Nationals wanted to dictate to the Liberals what their policies should be. Now imagine if the tables were turned … I can't imagine my Nationals colleagues abiding by that and going quietly," he said.
Nationals Senate Leader Bridget McKenzie denied the party had pushed Ms Ley into policy commitments.
"We had every right to assume that the policies we took to an election only three weeks earlier remained Coalition policy," she said.
Ms Ley's leadership may face another test soon.
The first female leader of the Liberal Party won the leadership ballot by just four votes earlier this month, beating Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor. But three party room members nominally aligned with the moderate leader who took part in the vote will have left by next month.
It has left some observers wondering whether the muddy majority leaves the door open for Ms Ley's authority to be undermined by conservatives eyeing the leadership.
Lindsay MP Melissa McIntosh said the party "can't let that happen".
"I feel the sense of the party room getting behind her … but every female, I think stepping up as a first, does face unique challenges," she said.
Ms McIntosh survived a pre-selection challenge during her last term, when Peter Dutton was forced to step in to protect her, then promote her to shadow cabinet.
She says structural change is needed to protect women like her in the Liberal Party.
"[Women] need to feel like part of something and they need to be protected. And that's gonna take time. And I think Sussan's, you know, she's our first female leader, but she understands this. So, she's a great leader to push these changes as well."
New Deputy Leader Ted O'Brien said Ms Ley being the first female leader of the party was a point of pride, but it was "first and foremost because she's the right leader for the party".
"I believe she'll lead with a united team," he said.
Not everyone is as optimistic.
Asked if the party had hit rock bottom, Jason Falinski laughed, "I think the answer is no".
"There's further for us to go, but that's necessary. I think we've put off a lot of arguments for a long time and it's time to have it out."
Watch Four Corners's Decimated, reported by Patricia Karvelas, tonight from 8:30pm on ABC TV and ABC iview.