Ley tells Liberal Party it can come back from ‘rock bottom'
At a meeting of Liberal MPs in Canberra before the return of parliament on Tuesday, Ley said the Coalition was willing to work with the Albanese government on legislation but declared it would not bow to calls to 'just get out of the way' and wave through Labor's legislation.
Multiple Liberal MPs said that Ley's private remarks to the party room included words to the effect of 'we've hit rock bottom and can only go up from here', while others said she told her colleagues the party was at the 'bottom of the mountain' and would begin to restore its standing with voters.
Underlining the divide within the party between conservatives and moderates, three of the Liberal MPs who voted for Ley in her narrow 29-25 leadership victory over Angus Taylor have since resigned or failed to win a spot in parliament.
Despite Ley's seemingly tenuous grip on the leadership, one Liberal MP who voted for Taylor said: 'It would be electoral suicide for us to knife our first female leader because the numbers have tightened. No one is close to talking about doing that.'
Loading
The MP, who asked for anonymity to speak about internal party matters, said: 'Angus's inner sanctum believes she needs to fail on her terms for him to ever come back. She'll be given time.'
Another Taylor backer said: 'There are some aggrieved parties, but regardless of how the hypothetical numbers would be now, it would be insanity for anyone to challenge her. Angus is not agitating. She will sink or swim on her own merits.'
The Liberal Party has 28 MPs in the new parliament, down from 39 in the Albanese government's first term, after its crushing election defeat.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Sydney Morning Herald
an hour ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Cutting HECS debt is the least Albanese could do for young Australians. He should do more
You don't pay the tuition fee upfront – the government pays the university on your behalf, and you repay the government. But, unlike any commercial loan you'll ever get, when you to have start repaying, and the size of your repayment, depend on how much you're earning. So, in principle, you should never be paying more than you can afford. Loading You don't pay interest on the loan, but the outstanding balance is indexed to the rate of inflation – which, to an economist's way of thinking, means you're paying a 'real' interest rate of zero. If you never earn enough to be able to repay the loan – say because you become a monk – you never have to pay the loan back. That's by design, not accident. Trouble is, successive governments have not only made the scheme less generous, the post-COVID inflation surge has added greatly to people's HECS debts. Debts have become so big they reduce the size of the home loans banks are willing to give graduates. Worse, in the name of encouraging young people to take supposedly 'job-ready' courses such as teaching, nursing and STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths), in 2021 the Morrison government reduced their annual tuition fees, whereas fees for courses such as business, law and the humanities were greatly increased. Fortunately, this half-brained scheme did little to change students' choices, but did mean abandoning the previous arrangement in which the fees for various courses were geared roughly to the size of the salaries those graduates were likely to earn. The cost of an arts degree is now about $17,000 a year, or a massive $50,000 for the full three years. So it's people who have studied the humanities who now have debts quite out of whack with their earning ability. Smart move, Scomo! Albanese's 20 per cent cut in debt levels will do little to fix this crazy misalignment of fees with future earning potential. The cut will have a cost to the budget of about a huge $16 billion in theory, but more like $11 billion when you allow for all the debts that were never going to be repaid anyway. By making it a percentage cut rather than a flat dollar amount, too much of the benefit will go to highly paid doctors and lawyers. And, in any case, of all the young adults having trouble with the cost of living in recent years, those on graduate salaries are hardly the most deserving. On the other hand, at a time when, justifiably, the young feel the system has been stacked against them, I can't be too disapproving of Albo's flashy measure to help keep the younger generation's faith that, in the end, the democratic process will ensure most age groups get a reasonable shake. Loading The young are right to feel bitter about the way earlier generations have enjoyed the ever-rising value of their homes while allowing the cost of home ownership to become unreachable for an ever-growing proportion of our young. And that's before you get to other features of our tax and benefits system that favour the old. Thankfully, the government is making the rules for HECS repayments much less onerous, making them work the same way as the income tax scale. The minimum threshold for repayments will be raised from income of $56,000 a year to $67,000. Your income between $67,000 and $125,000 will require a repayment of 15 per cent, and 17 per cent on income above that. This will yield significant savings to those with debts. But, of course, the lower your repayments, the longer it will take to clear your debt and the more your outstanding balance will be indexed for inflation.
The Age
an hour ago
- The Age
Councillor Jane Agirtan turns her sights on CBD columnist
Our item about independent Kingston councillor (and former Liberal Party member) Jane Agirtan receiving back pay after her council suspension was rescinded, hit a nerve with one reader … Jane Agirtan herself. Regular readers will recall the recent news Agirtan was allowed back on council after escaping conviction in Moorabbin Magistrates' Court. A magistrate ordered that the Liberal-turned-independent councillor make a $2000 donation to the Royal Children's Hospital as punishment for breaching an intervention order. Agirtan was in hot water after she allegedly doxxed a lawyer who had posted anonymous criticism of her online. The breach occurred when the post in question was not removed within 24 hours as per a court order. After our item, which detailed that Agirtan had exposed the lawyer's name and work firm, and urged her followers to help the lawyer overcome their 'Aunty Jane derangement syndrome', the councillor and tax manager responded in a social media post by … doxxing your columnist in an Instagram post. Loading 'Can't talk, too busy collecting backpay… and receipts,' Agirtan wrote, with a screenshot of our attempts to reach out. She followed up with what we took was criticism of our attempts to get in contact with her (none of which were responded to). 'Frantically ringing my council phone like it's Triple J's Hottest 100 vote line is giving … unpaid intern,' she wrote over a screenshot of this columnist's phone number.
The Age
an hour ago
- The Age
Cutting HECS debt is the least Albanese could do for young Australians. He should do more
You don't pay the tuition fee upfront – the government pays the university on your behalf, and you repay the government. But, unlike any commercial loan you'll ever get, when you to have start repaying, and the size of your repayment, depend on how much you're earning. So, in principle, you should never be paying more than you can afford. Loading You don't pay interest on the loan, but the outstanding balance is indexed to the rate of inflation – which, to an economist's way of thinking, means you're paying a 'real' interest rate of zero. If you never earn enough to be able to repay the loan – say because you become a monk – you never have to pay the loan back. That's by design, not accident. Trouble is, successive governments have not only made the scheme less generous, the post-COVID inflation surge has added greatly to people's HECS debts. Debts have become so big they reduce the size of the home loans banks are willing to give graduates. Worse, in the name of encouraging young people to take supposedly 'job-ready' courses such as teaching, nursing and STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths), in 2021 the Morrison government reduced their annual tuition fees, whereas fees for courses such as business, law and the humanities were greatly increased. Fortunately, this half-brained scheme did little to change students' choices, but did mean abandoning the previous arrangement in which the fees for various courses were geared roughly to the size of the salaries those graduates were likely to earn. The cost of an arts degree is now about $17,000 a year, or a massive $50,000 for the full three years. So it's people who have studied the humanities who now have debts quite out of whack with their earning ability. Smart move, Scomo! Albanese's 20 per cent cut in debt levels will do little to fix this crazy misalignment of fees with future earning potential. The cut will have a cost to the budget of about a huge $16 billion in theory, but more like $11 billion when you allow for all the debts that were never going to be repaid anyway. By making it a percentage cut rather than a flat dollar amount, too much of the benefit will go to highly paid doctors and lawyers. And, in any case, of all the young adults having trouble with the cost of living in recent years, those on graduate salaries are hardly the most deserving. On the other hand, at a time when, justifiably, the young feel the system has been stacked against them, I can't be too disapproving of Albo's flashy measure to help keep the younger generation's faith that, in the end, the democratic process will ensure most age groups get a reasonable shake. Loading The young are right to feel bitter about the way earlier generations have enjoyed the ever-rising value of their homes while allowing the cost of home ownership to become unreachable for an ever-growing proportion of our young. And that's before you get to other features of our tax and benefits system that favour the old. Thankfully, the government is making the rules for HECS repayments much less onerous, making them work the same way as the income tax scale. The minimum threshold for repayments will be raised from income of $56,000 a year to $67,000. Your income between $67,000 and $125,000 will require a repayment of 15 per cent, and 17 per cent on income above that. This will yield significant savings to those with debts. But, of course, the lower your repayments, the longer it will take to clear your debt and the more your outstanding balance will be indexed for inflation.
