Deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley has urged the party to move on from the 2022 federal election loss, saying the time “to sook and moan is done”.
Instead, the Liberals needed to regroup as a party and be a strong opposition to ensure they were competitive at the next election, Ms Ley wrote in an opinion piece in The Australian on Friday.
She said party discipline was not as strong as it was when the Liberals last won government from opposition in 2013.
“There was no sniping from inside the tent. There were no factional chiefs threatening to bring the party down … we weren’t beating our chests trying to out-right wing or out-left wing each other ” she said.
“The time to blood-let after our defeat a year ago is over. The time to sook and moan is done.”
The Liberal-National Coalition trails Labor 44-56 on a two-party basis in the latest polls.
The Liberal Party no longer holds government anywhere on the Australian mainland, hit a record low primary vote at last year’s federal election and lost what was considered an unloseable by-election in the Melbourne seat of Aston.
Ms Ley said disunity had become a bigger issue in the party over time, and Liberal MPs needed to focus on the concerns of Australians, rather than themselves.
“[Disunity] has been an issue and we shouldn’t shy away from that. And I also make the point that in 2013 we selected great candidates, we fought as a unity team,” she told ABC TV on Friday.
“Australians need us, they need us to be a strong opposition, everybody needs the opposition to be strong, even if you support the government, because that gets the best possible public policy outcomes.”
She said the party needed to represent people from all walks of life, not just those in the cities or suburbs, as well as stand for aspirational Australians.
“It is our job to convince people who just want to keep more of the money they earn, who just want a better life for themselves and their family, who want governments to help facilitate their ambition and not curb it, that we are the party for them,” Ms Ley said.
Asked if Opposition Leader Peter Dutton was the right person to help the Liberals win back inner-city seats lost to independents last May, Ms Ley said “absolutely”.
“The road back to government is through every single one of those teal seats,” she said.
“I want to be a senior member of a Dutton government after the next election, on the Expenditure Review Committee, on the National Security Committee, and bringing to the Australians that I have met in the last 16 days the policies that I know are in the interests of them and their families.”
Her comments came as the NSW Liberals continue to mull who will fill the Senate seat previously held by the late Jim Molan.
Nominees for the seat are expected to include former party state president Maria Kovacic and former NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance.
Mr Constance previously ran for the NSW south coast seat of Gilmore at the last election but narrowly lost.
The party’s controversial candidate for Warringah at the 2022 federal election, Katherine Deves, withdrew from contention earlier this week.
-with AAP
