Speakman firms as Liberal leader after Perrottet officially calls leadership spill

Former NSW premier Dominic Perrottet has enacted his final move as leader of the NSW Liberal Party, calling the first party room meeting since his election defeat at which colleagues will end almost one month of speculation over who will replace him.

The meeting, to be held in NSW Parliament next Friday, will mark a turning point for the party in the throes of an identity crisis since the Coalition was swept from government after 12 years on March 25.

Former NSW attorney-general Mark Speakman, seen in a file picture, is expected to run for the vacant Liberal Party leader’s job at a party room meeting next Friday.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

While former planning minister Anthony Roberts is the only MP to formally announce his intention to run for the vacant leader’s position, multiple party sources told the Herald former attorney-general Mark Speakman will also put his hand up.

The former barrister, from the party’s dominant moderate faction, is the favourite among Liberal MPs but has been torn by the lure of a switch to federal politics should former prime minister Scott Morrison retire from the seat of Cook as expected.

However, five senior Liberal MPs on Thursday told the Herald they believed Speakman had made up his mind and would nominate for leader. Speakman would have the backing of moderate heavyweights including former MP turned lobbyist and factional powerbroker Michael Photios.

Speakman did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

In an email to his parliamentary colleagues on Thursday afternoon, Perrottet said he was calling the meeting for next Friday, given the absence of an elected whip to either house of parliament.

“I have received advice that as the current leader of the NSW Parliamentary Liberal Party, I have the authority to call a meeting of the Liberal Party Room,” he wrote, signing off the email as “Dom”.

National Party leader Paul Toole on Thursday said he had only been contacted by Roberts about an intention to run for opposition leader.

“I’m sure if there is anyone else interested in running for the position they would be reaching out, in order for the Coalition to work together to hold the government to account,” he said. “I would want someone who is the leader to also be focused on regional NSW.”

It follows an intervention on Thursday from Liberal Party elder Damien Tudehope, who called on his party to “get on with being the opposition” and elect a new leader.

In comments to the Herald, Tudehope insisted the failure to land a new leader more than two weeks after the state election had left a vacuum and allowed the new Labor government to go unchallenged.

A Liberal Party agenda sent to MPs on Thursday afternoon in Perrottet’s email outlined the schedule for the meeting in which members will vote on six leadership positions: party leader, deputy leader, party whip in both houses, and leader and deputy leader in the upper house.

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