Dutton lost his seat. His colleagues were talking about his leadership before a vote was counted

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Senior Coalition figures are jockeying for the leadership after suffering a crushing loss to Labor that has set the stage for furious recriminations and a reckoning over the party’s identity in the coming days.

Frontbenchers were organising meetings for Sunday morning to discuss the leadership before Dutton had even lost his seat of Dickson – or a vote had been counted – with Angus Taylor, Andrew Hastie, Dan Tehan and Sussan Ley emerging as the contenders to steer the Coalition through the tumult of a disastrous result.

Peter Dutton goes to cast his vote in Dickson on Saturday.Credit: James Brickwood

Treasurer Jim Chalmers put an early target on Taylor, the shadow treasurer, by saying he should bear responsibility for the Coalition’s defeat. “He shouldn’t escape the blame,” Chalmers said on Saturday night.

“I think Peter Dutton will be accountable for what has happened here, but he shouldn’t be accountable on his own for what’s happened here. I think Angus Taylor has been one of the biggest reasons why we have outperformed expectations, and I say that as his direct opponent.

“I couldn’t believe my luck politically when they opposed the tax cuts and said they would legislate higher income taxes on 14 million Australians.”

As speculation began on Saturday night, shadow attorney-general Michaelia Cash told Seven that fellow West Australian Hastie had “always been seen as leadership material”.

“When you look at his background, former SAS, he is someone who comes with a great pedigree … He does not take one vote for granted in that seat,” she said.

Hastie was one of few Liberal MPs to record a significant swing towards him on Saturday night, having increased his margin by as much as 8 per cent. Elsewhere, about 12 Coalition MPs were set to lose their seats.

The Coalition’s delays in announcing policy, overconfidence and Labor’s scare campaign were all quickly cited as having contributed to the catastrophic result.

Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce said his colleagues had gotten ahead of themselves.

“There’s only been one one-term government in the history of Australia ... And what I never wanted to do, and what I’d say to my colleagues, is don’t overbid on what you’re saying when you go in,” he said.

Liberal National Party senator James McGrath said he would not examine the Coalition’s loss so early, but it was clear there must be a “serious, considered look at the party and how we need to grow”.

“It is not a good night for us. There will be a lot of soul-searching,” he said. “We have got to make sure we take stock of why we lost this election and have a serious review into those reasons.”

Country Liberal Party Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price downplayed her role in the Coalition’s defeat – having generated headlines with a Trump-esque pledge to “make Australia great again” – but conceded it was a tough ask to unseat a first-term prime minister.

“There’s a lot that we’re going to have to consider going forward, and regrouping as the Coalition,” she said. “Certainly we could have provided our policies sooner to the Australian people ... We could have called out [Albanese’s] lies earlier on in the piece.”

Finance spokeswoman Jane Hume conceded the Coalition had campaigned in ways “that we will never do again” but slammed Labor’s negative scare campaign that claimed Dutton would cut Medicare to pay for a $600 billion nuclear power policy.

“It was so disappointing to take part in an election where there were so many lies told.”

But Hume said her first act on Sunday would be to go through the Coalition’s review of its 2022 loss, which she co-authored, and examine which recommendations had not been followed. “Because there are some similarities I can see,” she said.

“There is an extraordinary amount of work we need to do, there is no doubt about that. Turning a party around is not an easy thing to do. We will need to start from scratch with great candidates, great policies.”

Liberal strategist Tony Barry says the party needed to “stop drinking the Kool-Aid from the firehose”. “We need to have a serious review. It can’t be like past reviews where we punish the innocent and protect the guilty,” he said on the ABC.

“We delude ourselves that we are just a few tactical devices away from winning an election. Back when we used to be the party of lower taxes and lower government spending, we could compete on the values-based narratives.”

Former Coalition minister Christopher Pyne said: “If there’s one lesson the Liberal Party has to learn out of tonight’s result, which is hardly a good one, is that we have to remember that we are about moving to the centre.”

Former Liberal prime minister Tony Abbott urged the Coalition’s voters to keep faith. “At our best, we are the freedom party, we are the vision party, we are the patriot party. And at our best, I believe that we can be the national party of government,” he said.

Groups on the left and right of the party had been quietly considering leadership scenarios for weeks, according to factional sources on both sides of the party. Coalition MPs believed Dutton required a five-to-10-seat haul to remain leader.

While Hastie recorded the biggest swing towards him, Taylor, Ley and Tehan all retained their seats without losing significant ground to Labor.

Tehan, when asked on Saturday night if he would run to lead the party after successfully fighting off a well-funded challenge by independent candidate Alex Dyson, said: “I haven’t had any time to think about the future”.

Hume, seen by other moderates as a future deputy leader, began contacting colleagues in NSW, Victoria and South Australia on Friday, asking for face-to-face meetings or phone calls for Sunday morning.

Hume has a close relationship with Taylor, who has been talked about as a potential replacement for Dutton. But his path to leadership is complicated by the NSW moderate grouping, which would support Ley, Tehan or Hastie over Taylor, who is one of the leaders of the NSW right.

The moderates do not have a clear leadership option in the lower house, where party leaders must sit, making Hume an option as deputy to any future leader. However, her comments this week on Chinese spies have lowered her prospects.

Jane Hume is considered a potential future deputy leader of the Liberal party. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Hastie and Taylor are from the right, but it is not clear if Hastie is keen to run. Ley is supported by the small centre-right faction associated with Alex Hawke, while Tehan is a Victorian who does not neatly fit with any group.

Less likely leadership options include NSW MP Julian Leeser and energy spokesman Ted O’Brien. Powerbroker Michael Sukkar, another outside shot, was also on track to lose his seat in Melbourne.

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