Jacinta Price ‘chickened out’ of deputy vote, say infuriated and blindsided Angus Taylor backers

Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price shocked the allies who brought her into the Liberal Party when she did not put her hand up to run as deputy once her running mate, Angus Taylor, lost the leadership ballot against Sussan Ley.

Price had not told anyone in Taylor’s camp that she would only run if Taylor won, prompting fellow conservative Phillip Thompson to nominate on the spur of the moment to fill the gap.

Frustrations: Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Angus Taylor.Credit: James Brickwood, Alex Ellinghausen

The Northern Territory senator’s defection from the Nationals to the Liberals last week to run on Taylor’s ticket caused bad blood between the Coalition partners and alarmed Liberal moderates worried that the maverick politician did not have the experience for the role, having been in parliament for just three years. But senior Liberals, including Tony Abbott, engineered the move believing she would energise the party’s base.

But in Tuesday’s meeting in Canberra, Price failed to put her hand up when nominations for the deputy position opened. Energy spokesman Ted O’Brien, who supported Ley as leader, immediately declared his candidacy for the deputy spot when nominations opened at 10.17am.

Price, according to several MPs in the room, turned to look towards a section of the opposition party room where her Right faction allies, including Andrew Hastie and others, were seated. She shook her head, the MPs said, indicating she would not be running.

Conservative senators Jono Duniam, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, Claire Chandler and Michaelia Cash enter Tuesday’s party room vote.Credit: James Brickwood

Last-minute nominee Thompson, an up-and-coming 37-year-old from Townsville, lost the ballot to O’Brien by 38 votes to 16, but his conservative allies were relieved that he chose to create a contest and represent his Right faction.

“She totally f---ed us,” one supporter of Taylor said of Price’s blindsiding.

Similar sentiment was expressed by six Taylor supporters to whom this masthead spoke in the hours after Ley – backed by Alex Hawke’s centre-right faction and party moderates – became the first woman to lead the party.

“There’s no other explanation other than that she chickened out. The Gus [Angus Taylor] vote was first and he lost. She knew she would have lost by a bigger margin, so she chickened out,” another MP said.

Some of Taylor’s conservative supporters in the Senate were unenthusiastic about the prospect of Price as deputy leader, as she could have leapfrogged them for higher-ranking Senate positions.

Thompson, who almost won his northern Queensland seat of Herbert on primary votes alone, said he knew he was unlikely to win when he unexpectedly threw his hat in the ring, but said he was a “firm believer that you have to be in the arena to have a shot”.

“As a proud and passionate North Queenslander, I made the decision to have a crack. While I didn’t get the outcome I had hoped for, I’ll never stop fighting for North Queensland,” he said, congratulating Ley and O’Brien and pledging his support.

“Democracy in action is a beautiful process and something for which I hold enormous respect, particularly having fought under the Australian flag to protect our democratic rights.”

Price compounded the frustration among her Liberal colleagues when she appeared on Sky News hours after she pulled out of the ballot and entertained a question about moving to the lower house to potentially become the prime minister one day.

Liberal leader Sussan Ley and her deputy, Ted O’Brien, on Tuesday.Credit: James Brickwood

“Well, there is that,” she said when asked by host Chris Kenny about becoming the prime minister. “I know there’s a lot of Australians who’d love to see that.”

Asked if the Liberal Party would unite behind Ley, Price’s endorsement was lukewarm. “Well, that is the hope,” she said. “I will be supporting the leadership because that is what we have to do if we want to do a good job in opposition.”

Credit: Matt Golding

Taylor’s allies in the Right, according to several MPs, do not plan to destabilise Ley’s leadership in the short term. However, they are watching closely to see if Ley rewards the powerbrokers who secured her win – including Hawke and Andrew Bragg’s NSW moderates – to the exclusion of right-wingers.

Ley appeared alive to the risk of disunity when on Monday when she said: “My shadow cabinet will include people who did support me in this room this morning, and people who did not.”

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