Andrew Hastie denies leadership challenge after saying Liberals will be in ‘exile’ over net overseas migration
Liberal frontbencher Andrew Hastie has denied he will challenge Sussan Ley for the leadership, but said he is being a “little bolder” in stating what policies he supports.
Liberal frontbencher Andrew Hastie has moved to hose down speculation he is gearing up to challenge for the party’s leadership insisting he is still a “team player” and Sussan Ley has his support.
Mr Hastie sparked rumours he was preparing to make a bid for the Liberals’ top job after launching a series of posts opposing action on climate change, his desire for an “Australia first” approach to local manufacturing and reducing net overseas migration, and saying if the party retained its support for net zero emissions by 2050 he’d be out of a job in the shadow ministry.
But Mr Hastie on Thursday rejected the suggestion his recent actions amounted to frustration with the party’s direction under the leadership of Ms Ley.
“I support Sussan,” he told 2GB.
“Anyone who’s speculating otherwise is being mischievous.”
Mr Hastie said his “main concern” was the “fragmenting” of the centre right in Australian politics, pointing to a rise in votes for One Nation and other micro parties on the right.
“Having us fragmented on the right is very strategically advantageous for Labor, and so I’m simply saying what people out on the street are looking for in their political leadership,” he said.
Mr Hastie also refused to divulge any conversations he had recently with Ms Ley on the policy concerns he had been raising.
“By answering that question, I’m not being tricky, but I just don’t want to start a whole bunch of speculation,” he said.
“So my conversations with the leader are private, I want to respect that.”
Mr Hastie said he was “still on the team” led by Ms Ley.
“I’m a team player,” he said.
“I’m just being a little bolder in some of the policy positions that I think we should adopt.
“Now, there’s work to be done, but these are pretty straightforward principle positions which I think a lot of people are looking for us to adopt.”
SINODINOS’ WARNING TO LIBERALS
A former senior Liberal minister has also criticised prominent conservatives for focusing on “culture wars” over “bread-and-butter issues” saying now is the time for the party to be “united” and not go “out on the extreme right”.
Arthur Sinodinos, who worked for John Howard before entering politics himself and later became Australia’s former ambassador to the US did not name Jacinta Nampijinpa Price or Mr Hastie, who have both been critical of the party’s position and advocating a move to the right on migration, climate and industry.
“What all these people should be doing on the front bench, on the back bench of the Liberal Party at the moment, is putting their heads down and getting on with coming up with specific policies and keeping the government to account,” Mr Sinodinos told ABC RN.
He said the Liberal Party “should understand that Australia is very much a centrist country”.
“It’s not Labor-lite to be towards the centre,“ he said.
“If you go towards the centre, you’re seeking to maximise your vote.
“You will not find … votes out on the extreme right. It doesn’t exist.”
HASTIE’S WARNING OVER MIGRATION
It comes after Mr Hastie warned his party will “be in exile for a long time” if it does not act in the “interests” of Australians and slash net overseas migration.
Days after he railed against the nation’s failure to maintain a domestic car industry and called for a return of local manufacturing to reduce Australia’s reliance on China for critical goods, Mr Hastie has taken aim at immigration levels in a lengthy post shared to Instagram on Wednesday.
He said his “allegiance” was to the Australian people, and “making sure they have a roof over their heads,” blaming the current housing crisis on a record increase to net overseas migration (NOM) post-Covid.
“Labor talk about a housing supply crisis, but this is a housing demand crisis,” he said.
“Driven by unsustainable immigration.”
Coalition immigration spokesman Paul Scarr last week criticised Labor for failing to demonstrate a long term plan to bring NOM down to a “sustainable level”.
But Mr Hastie went further by suggesting Australians were “starting to feel like strangers in our own home”.
As the Coalition’s home affairs spokesman, Mr Hastie has focused his recent posts on migration, energy security and industry, but his commentary has attracted speculation the West Australian MP is gearing up for a leadership tilt.
Mr Hastie previously declared he had a “desire to lead” his party in the future after opting not to challenge Sussan Ley and Angus Taylor for the top job in May due to “timing”.
Earlier this week Mr Hastie hit back at Liberal colleagues who were privately scathing of his public crusading, calling those who offered anonymous critiques “nameless cowards” and “muppets”.
On Wednesday, one Liberal source said they believed the party was building toward a leadership challenge against Ms Ley, suggesting the move would be instigated by several “disgruntled” backbenchers with Mr Hastie and Mr Taylor then able to capitalise on the opportunity.
The Liberal said December or early next year was a “realistic” timeline for such a challenge, though questioned if the right faction could coalesce behind a single challenger to Ms Ley, who has the backing of the moderates and the centre right.
In his latest post on migration, Mr Hastie criticised the post-Covid boom in net overseas migration, which peaked at 446,000 people in 2023-24 — more than double the annual average of the decade before the pandemic.
Mr Hastie said the “simple” answer was to reduce NOM, and warned the Liberal Party would “be in exile for a long time until we act in the interests of the Australian people”.
“That means getting immigration to a sustainable level,” he said.
“If we don’t act, we can expect anger and frustration.
“We might even die as a political movement. So be it.”
The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimated the NOM was just below 316,000 in the year to March — with Treasury forecasting by 2026-27 the annual figure would drop to 225,000 as the temporary migrants who fuelled the post-pandemic population boom exit the country.
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