Our country is in trouble. The Labor government has failed and the Liberal Party has lost its way.
The knives are out the leader. The spill is on.
Because we're running out of time and Australia is worth fighting for.
Today, Liberal MP Angus Taylor will challenge Susan Lee for the leadership and a party room showdown at nine am. Their colleagues scrambling to pick sides as the face off looms.
This cannot go on. If it goes on, there'll be nothing left of the Liberal Party by the next election. To effectively knife the Liberal Party's first female leader in under a year, it's actively, in my view, unacceptable.
I'm Daniel James, and you're listening to seven AM today Contributing editor at The New Daily, Amy Remikus on Taylor's chances, the gender question, and whether a leadership change can save the Liberal Party. It's Friday, February thirteen. Amy, How is the last twenty four hours planned out? I mean, what has Angus Taylor said about his reasons for challenging now?
The last twenty four hours have been a pretty big mess, mostly because Angus Taylor was pushed to doing this leadership challenge.
Now it was a real shit to get.
Off the pot moment for the Liberal Party where Susan Lee basically was saying, if you're going to challenge me, challenge me. Now Susan Lee is hanging on to her job but only just surviving today's Liberal Party room meeting
without a leadership spill. It was only when he came out on Thursday morning that he said yes, I am going to challenge for the leadership, and that included a very snazzy social media video that he did, complete with very you know, swelling, swelling orchestral music behind it.
I'm dedicated to serving you, the Australian people and giving you I.
Thought it was very much a case of good job Bang as well done.
Yeah, yeah, good job Bang is well done.
Fantastic He put that out and then we started seeing a lot of his supporters joining him in quitting the shadow cabinet.
Jess and I made the decision that there's no more talking about it, no more whispers, no more talking about ourselves.
We are getting this on some of our colleagues that they think she should be given until the budget.
I don't think delivering a budget and reply is going to save us in this crisis.
It's for those reasons that this morning I tended my resignation to Susan Lee as to the leader of Liberal Party, Susan Lee.
The happiest person maybe was Victorian Senator Sarah Henderson, who was almost glowing with happiness as she announced that the leadership spill would happen, which dates back to when Sarah Henderson didn't get a shadow Cabinet position and basically has sworn vengeance ever since.
I am just going to say at the moment that I cannot support the way things are with Susan Lee as leader. It sounds like you're not supporting her positions leader. Well, I can't back in the way things are pete and I've got to be.
So you're seeing a lot of petty vengeances being played out. But the interesting thing for political watches is that Ankus Taylor hasn't actually mapped out anything that he would do different to Susan Lee. His platform is that he wants to protect Australia's way of life and focus on the economy.
You know, at the end of the day, what we're seeing is household standards of living collapsing in front of our eyes.
And if you've listened to Susan Lee for the last nine months. That is pretty much all she's been saying that she wants to maintain Australia's way of life. Right now, Australians are struggling even more with the cost of living crisis. This is Labour's We don't have any policies from the party, so we can't say if Angus Taylor's policies would be any different. He's just saying we need a decisive leader and that's going.
To be me.
Like you said, Susan Lee hasn't been given a full year in the job nine months. Some of her supporters just said that she hasn't been given a fair crack at the top job. In your view, Amy, has she been given a fair go?
It's hard to answer because I mean, okay, she probably hasn't been given a fair go, but I'm not sure if anybody could in that party. But she didn't have any authority when she stepped into the leadership. She didn't have any policies, she didn't have any direction. And guess there have been times when it's been out of co control, like the tantrums that we've seen from the National Party. You know, there was Australia's worst terrorist attack, she's been
dealing with all of that. It was also her decision to politicize that attack, that horrendous attack, by demanding Parliament be recalled, by demanding all of this legislation that then led to the latest breakup with the coalition because of rushed laws that she originally had called on the Prime Minister to do. And then you have to look back and say, well, Susan Lee has been in the Parliament for a long time, she has been a senior member
of that parliament for a long time. She is also responsible for the direction of the Liberal Party, and so is Angus Taylor. So you can't say that they haven't been able to change course because the architects of the last six years of Liberal Party policy, and you know that this decline that we've seen in the vote are the same people who are telling you now that they can take the Liberal Party in a different direction.
So despite all that, though, it's not really a great look to knife the first female leader the Liberal Party has ever had, especially given the problems that the party has with women. Did gender play a role in this decision?
I mean, it's hard to look at the Liberal Party and say that gender didn't play a role in the decision. I think that the fact that it has only been nine months gender does play a role in that there's a lot of people in the Liberal Party who were never going to vote for Susan Lee, who have not actually wanted her to have any time, or wouldn't even afford her the grace, and her being a woman would
play into that. Not saying that you know that they that's their only reason, but it's certainly one of the reasons I think that they feel so comfortable in moving this quickly against Susan Lee. I think though, the bigger problem for Susan Lee was when you hand women the hospital pass of a failing job, or a failing party or a failing organization, it always seems to be the woman who's meant to clean up the mess and then when it all, you know, inevitably implodes, that ends the
woman's career. That is not unique to the Liberal Party, but Susan Lees had her own issues in that any principle or policy that she has previously supported in her time in Parliament, she has turned her back on in this quest for the leadership, and that has meant that she has lost allies, she has lost the foundation of principle to be able to guide the party, and she's lost authority. She never had it walking into the leadership.
So this is really it was inevitable that we would reach this point.
So what she tipped in Amy is Anger's going to win.
Look, you can never know, as Malcolm Turnbull once said that the only person that you can actually trust in a leadership spill is the one telling you that they're absolutely not going to vote for you. So you know, and these are tight numbers. They haven't really changed since May when they first did this. She only won by a couple of votes then, and it's only going to be a couple of votes now.
There's been a changeover in the Senate.
Some of Susan Lee's supporters like Holly Hughes are no longer there. They've been replaced by Angus Taylor supporters like Jess Collins. But that doesn't mean that Angus Taylor absolutely has its sewn up. I would say it's the most likely outcome, but it's still going to be close, I think, and I don't think it's actually going to solve any of the Liberal's fundamental problems, which is, what is the Liberal Party in twenty twenty six, what does it stand for,
what direction is it heading in? And who does it want to vote for it? Because at the moment, the answer to all of those questions are very.
Unclear coming up. Can a leadership change fix the Liberal Party's problems? Amy The Liberal leadership may in dispute, but what is not in dispute is that the Liberal parties in distrates. Will it change in leadership go any way to solving the problems?
I would say on the face of it, no, I don't think that people know who Angus Taylor is, and I don't think that people were necessarily marking the Liberal Party down because of Susan Lee. I think they were marking the Liberal Party down because of the Liberal Party.
And that's not just been in this last nine months.
That's been at the twenty twenty five election and then the twenty twenty two election, and again Angus Taylor hasn't offered up any changes of how he would take the fundamental problem of that tension between what is left of the moderate wing the Liberal Party who want to win inner city seats that the Teals hold, and then the national right of the Liberal Party, which are very focused
on just fighting off one nation. So unless you find some way to solve that problem of how the Liberal Party appeals to the city while also trying to face off against one nation, then you are not going to see any material change in how people view the Liberal Party.
It's no secret that despite their Happy Families press conference on Sunday, it was only Sunday.
Press bakers for lifetime.
Nationals leader David Little Proud wants Susan Lee gone. Despite what he said in the press conference. What does this change in leadership do if it happens due to the coalition.
Well, I think David Little Proud will probably work a little easier with Angus Taylor than he has with Susan Lee because it will calm down a lot of the rabid conservatives within the National Party. But again, that doesn't mean that that solves the Liberals problem, because if Angus Taylor is going to be looking after the Nationals and making sure that they get their policy positions in place, then that means that any Liberal who wants to win or hold on to an inner City seat can pretty
much just kiss that chance goodbye. I also think that this idea that Angus Taylor is going to be able to communicate better to people who are flirting with one Nation than Barnaby Joyce and Pauline Hanson is a bit of wishful king. Angus Taylor has never been a great communicator. Jim Chalmers in the Parliament this week equipped that Angus Taylor had been born with a silver foot in his mouth.
The Member four Hume was born with a silver foot in his mouth, mister speaker.
Now, just when we thought that they couldn't go any law and it got a very big laugh, not just from the Labor benches but also from Angus Taylor's own colleagues because.
It rings true.
So you've already got the attacks that Labor is lining up here, which is going to hurt those inner city liberals as well as you know, the alter suburban liberals, which is this is a misogynistic move by the Liberal Party to get rid.
Of their first female leader in under a year.
That makes it a lot easier for the Labor Party to carry out this battle in this current political climate because it's not somebody you know coming down on a woman leader. It's man against man, and that's a lot easier political fight to have.
And finally, Amy, it's been an incredibly dramatic few weeks for the coalition and I guess I won't say for the country. We saw the breakup, then the makeup. Now this is this the end of the chaos?
Amy, No, I'd say that we'll be talking many, many, many more times about the chaos within the Liberal Party. It's just it's not something that they can arrest with.
A change of leadership.
You just have to look at the polling and you know, people like a Redbridge group caused Samaras who are saying, well, you know, the Liberal Party are not reaching women, they're not reaching people in the regions, they're not reaching young people.
None of this is new.
This has been a problem for the Liberal Party for years now and they have not arrested the slide. And I don't think that someone like Angus Taylor, who has been an architect of Liberal Party policy that has got them to this place. I don't see how well anything is going to change now that he's going to be directing Liberal Party policy moving forward.
Well, Ami, it looks like we're going to be speaking many, many, many more times in the near to distant future. So thank you so much for your time anytime. Also in the news, New South Wales Premier Chris Mins says he won't apologize to the Muslim community after police were filmed disbanding a prayer session at Monday's mass protest against the
Israeli president. The New South Wales Police Commissioner has apologized after condemnation for Muslim groups and the Grand Mufty of Australia, but only for any offense that may have been taken. The sheikh leading the prayer has described police actions as unhinged and aggressive. A Reserve Bank Governor Michelle Bullach has lashed out at National Senator Matt Canavan. Canavan accused her of gaslighting millions after she said the economy was quote
doing okay when their lived experience is terrible. Billick said she was not gaslighting anyone, saying she only stated that certain parts of the economy are doing well. I'm Daniel James. You've been listening to seven Am. We'll be back tomorrow.