Peter Dutton has declared the outspoken Liberal moderate Bridget Archer is “an important part of our team” in response to a suggestion from a veteran party insider that the Liberal party could dump her ahead of the next federal election.
The federal opposition leader told journalists on Wednesday that Archer worked hard and represented the views of her constituents in the marginal electorate of Bass in Tasmania.
He acknowledged there was “a divergence of views in a number of issues” but said it was open to Liberal MPs to cross the floor – as Archer has done several times before Scott Morrison lost the election last May, and subsequently under the Albanese government.
“In the Labor party if you cross the floor, you have to resign from the party,” the Liberal leader said. “In our party room, there’s a greater capability.”
Dutton said he was hopeful the Liberal party would soon preselect a candidate in the neighbouring seat of Braddon adding that the incumbent MP, Gavin Pearce, had been “an incredible local member”.
A transcript later issued by Dutton’s office indicated that the reference to Braddon ought to have been to Lyons, the neighbouring seat which was narrowly retained by Labor’s Brian Mitchell at the 2022 election.
“I think there’s opportunity for us in Tasmania and I hope that Bridget can continue to work with her colleagues in Canberra,” Dutton said.
Archer and Pearce held their northern Tasmanian seats last May despite a significant anti-government swing and the Liberal party also invested significant resources in the neighbouring seat of Lyons. Labor held the seat, but the result went down to the wire.
The questions to Dutton followed a report in Guardian Australia that some local Liberal party branch members had raised objections to Archer’s independently-minded positioning during a recent electoral meeting in Bass.
Additionally, a former senior strategist to a Tasmanian Liberal premier and the rightwing powerbroker Eric Abetz has declared “certain forces” in the party are contemplating a “politically crazy” move to dump Archer before the next election.
Brad Stansfield, a veteran backroom Liberal party adviser and now partner at Tasmanian lobbying and public relations firm Font PR, made the claim about Archer on the latest episode of his podcast.
Stansfield said on the podcast he wasn’t going to “name names” when it came to the Liberal party forces lining up against the high-profile moderate.
But he alleged a move was on against “the most electorally successful Liberal member for Bass since [the Howard-era minister] Warwick Smith 25 years ago – the woman who, it could be argued, won Scott Morrison the winning seat in 2019 … they want to have her replaced”.
Stansfield said some of Archer’s recent positioning had been a provocation to internal party critics. But he also said the Liberal party dumping her would was not only “politically crazy”, it would be a seminal call, because it would demonstrate the party was no longer a broad church.
“It’s hardly a broad church when you seek to excommunicate someone whose views you disagree with,” Stansfield said on the podcast.
• This story was amended on 2 March 2023 to correct the name of Lyons MP Brian Mitchell, who in an earlier version was mistakenly referred to as Rob Mitchell.
