Inside the battle for the soul of the Liberal Party

Lads, Johnny, thank you very much, thank you very much. Well tonight it's not the night that we wanted for the Liberal Party, or for our coalition, or indeed for our country.

As I saw Dutton on Saturday night giving his concession speech, I saw a gentleman.

I saw grace.

Earlier on I called the Prime Minister to congratulate him on his success tonight. It's an historic occasion for the Labor Party and we recognize that.

And he took complete responsibility for the loss.

Now, we didn't do well enough during this campaign. That much is obvious tonight, and I accept for responsibility for.

That which someone in the Liberal Party described to me as a demolition to the party. I mean, what humiliation for Dutton twenty four years in Parliament and there he is the first opposition leader to lose his seat.

From Schwartz Media, I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am. The Liberal Party's sole searching has begun as it looks to select a new leader and consider its future direction. But as some in the Liberal Party call for a return to its traditional values, the question of where to now is complicated firstly by Peter Dutton having led the party further to the right and then the election itself

You're right, it's going to be a big job, and it was a big job after the twenty two loss. You know, we saw an election review then by Jane Hume and Brian Locknane, major recommendations at that time which have largely been ignored, especially to do with women. Labor does have a super majority now of eighty seven, but the coalition have to build on what we see at the moment of like thirty eight thirty nine. But they have to sort out the leadership first, that's a big question,

And I argue that we need a national Register of child sex offenders.

If you were PM, would you bring that in?

Yes, yeah, very much soon. I think it's important. We tried to push it when we're in government. The States largely weren't interested.

And not listening to the wider community and their concerns, particularly in a cost of living election, and where were these policies?

Okay, And so obviously there's a lot going on behind the scenes, lots of phone calls, people doing the numbers. How long could all of this take before we have an opposition leader.

Well, the first thing that the party has to do is wait. They have to wait, unfortunately, until all the seats counted and all have been declared, and that will take some days. And then all these calls are being made behind the scenes to get support. The MPs have to come together in Cambria as a party room to decide who is going to be put forward and who's going to be chosen as the next leader and deputy leader and also I would say for the position of

Is there any word yet on who the front runner is?

I think Angus Taylor has been talked of for a long time. He's certainly very ambitious and he is in a very prominent portfolio of shadow treasurer. But he has a lot of baggage as well.

Let's start with surprise from the budget, the tax cuts, all the coalition suport.

Well, can I say this is a budget for the next five weeks, not for the next five years and beyond. And what was offered was a bribe, an election bribe of seventy cents a day starting in a year's time. And frankly, this is not even going to touch the sides of the economic pain that Australian households have felt over the last two and a half years since labor's been empowered.

We've also got Dan Tiern, who also did well up against Alex Dyson, the Independent candidate in Wannen to retain his seat. And we've got Susan Lee who's the deputy Opposition leader currently acting Liberal leader. She's holding the ford at the moment until they sort it out.

We need more homes. State governments have failed us. Let's be honest. We're stepping right up here and we're saying we will provide the impetus to actually build these homes at local government level, and local governments around the country have got projects waiting to go. They talked to me about them all the time.

They're the three people being spoken of at the moment, but no clear number one. There's also a chance for the Defense spokesperson, Andrew Hasty. He's widely seen as a potential future Liberal leader, but perhaps now is not his time. I would have to say though, that being opposition leader after such a trouncing is a poison chalice and would be very difficult for someone to carry through to the

And you mentioned that Angus Taylor carries a lot of baggage As the Shadow Treasurer, he probably had the highest profile during the election campaign other than Peter Dutton. So does the fact that the coalition's message on cost of living failed to cut through? Does that failure lie with Angus Taylor? And will that hinder his chances to become the leader?

That is a live potential. I have to say. Some of the Coalition members that are coming out at the moment, the likes of Andrew Bragg comes to mind. He's a moderate, he has been pointing out the economic message failure during the campaign.

We didn't do enough on the economy, and I don't think we did enough to capture the center of the Australian public support, and I think ultimately that's where the campaign went wrong.

You would have to then take the next step forward in your mind and go, well, who's responsible for that. Well, Angus Taylor and Jane Hume came up with a number of those policies and they didn't really cut through. So now that is being pointed out by people such as Andrew Bragg, but also Holly Hughes, no friend of Angus Taylor, They've got some history. She's also pointing out the failings of Angus Taylor. So that's very much out in the media at the moment.

I'm on the record publicly, so I'm not worried about saying this. I've said it before.

I have.

Concerns about his capability. I feel that we have zero economic policy to sell. I don't know what he's been doing for three years.

And Karen under Peter Dutton, the Liberal Party has been more to the right. There's been this focus of immigration. There was of course the opposition to the Voice to Parliament, and then more recently he waded into the quote unquote culture wars, talking about Australian flags on Australia Day and welcome to country. So do you think that the Coalition is going to start to walk away from those sorts of topics, those sorts of talking points now that Dunton is out.

That's very much your wait and see. They're certainly being advised to stop doing that and they should focus more on the economic message rather than matters of culture.

We saw you wearing a make Australia Great Again hat at a time when Donald Trump poison to the world.

We are seing the likes of the firebrand senator in an aperture Price come out and say in a statement that the Coalition should have in fact stood taller on some of these issues and shouldn't go backwards and go more to the center.

Will you give a speech in which you used a Donald Trump statement to make Australia great again? So can I come back to the question are you partly responsible? Can I the Liberal Party? Let me come back to Peter Dutton's loss of his seat.

Let me come back to the question. That's a whole lot of muddet just slung right there. Can I just say, in terms of wanting this country to be great. Donald Trump doesn't own those four words, right.

But on the other side, the numbers of the moderates are even smaller now than they were in the last election, and they were being gutted then and certainly they're very small in number now. And so while the moderates that are left are calling for the coalition to go back to the center, and that's where the the main votes are, the main election fights usually are, they are still being dragged further to the right.

After the break the infighting in Labor over its new front manche.

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Karen Anthony Albanezi is set to renew his ministry as well. Before the election, he said that he would keep his core leadership team in play, but he wouldn't be drawn on what that would mean for other cabinet ministers, so people like Catania Plibasac for example. So let's talk a bit about their relationship and what is the heart of the tension.

Well, basically, while they were friends back in the early days, for them within the Labor Party, it does come down to who backed who when Albanzi was running for the leadership and who backed Bill Shorten. Tania Plibersek backed Bill Shorten, and so therefore there is this view on Albanzi's side of the betrayal, and this has played out ever since

States, Richard Males in defense, Penny Wong in foreign affairs, Jim Chalmers in Treasury, Don Farrell in Trade, and Katie Gallaher in finance bring a stability to the show that is really important.

During the campaign he did say that the main leadership group with the likes of Jim Chalmers's treasurer, the Deputy Prime Minister's Defense Minister, Katie Gallaher as Finance Minister, those sort of leadership group members will stay the same. But it did appear that everything else was up for grabs. So would you have a wider cabinet reshuffle but leave those leaders in place that you named.

We're not getting ahead of ourselves in terms of the broader issues and the caucus makeup. Of course, the caucus elect the front bench, but quite clearly the leader's team and the economic team are important we will have.

This is what's being sorted out now. It's going to be fascinating to see who gets what. But he did say that Plebisik would stay as a cabinet minister.

And Anthony Albanezi always said that he wanted to be a two term prime minister, that he was thinking about the next election when he won the first one, and I think because of that, his first term was quite measured. He didn't want to go beyond his first term mandate. But I think the question now that a lot of people have is that with this huge victory, is there a case for a more bold Alberisi government. Do you think we will see that?

Yeah, ambition was certainly put to the Prime Minister by journalists during the camp and it was something that he addressed at the first Prime minister or press conference back at Parliament House when he got back to work.

We're not getting carried away. We're in an orderly government. We're being a reform government. The thing that I reject is the idea that we haven't been ambitious. Look at our agenda on the clean energy economy, on childcare, on gender equality, on education, where we went beyond where we said we would.

I didn't problem.

He does have space, though I would say to be more ambitious. What he has now is a large mandate from the voters, being that he has a seat buffer so large, and a lot more possibility of getting items through the Senate, even though he has to depend on the Greens. But I do know, you know, when you talk about the two term strategy, he's a prime minister who's now confidently looking at the possibility of a third term.

Well, Karen, thank you so much for your time today.

Thanks very much.

Also in the news today, US President Donald Trump has praised Anthony Alberzi on his election victory, telling reporters in the US the pair are very friendly, while proclaiming to have quote no idea who the other person is that