Sarah Henderson says Liberal Party at lowest point during her time in parliament
Liberal senator Sarah Henderson has launched a scathing attack on her party’s leadership, declaring the opposition is at its lowest point in more than a decade.
Sarah Henderson says the federal Liberal Party is at its lowest point since she was first elected to parliament more than a decade ago.
Speaking to Sky News on Friday morning, the Geelong-based senator said support for Liberal leader Sussan Ley was falling and abandoning the party’s policy of net zero could not come quick enough.
“I can’t sit here and pretend everything is OK,” she told host Peter Stefanovic.
“It’s not OK … we’ve had this policy vacuum for too many months.
“I do believe she (Ley) is losing support because of what’s happened since she became leader, and we are all working very hard to get our party back on track.”
The senator stopped short of calling for Ms Ley to be toppled as leader, but painted a bleak picture of the current state of the party.
“I can’t back in the way things are … it’s a very difficult time for the Liberal Party,” she said.
Ms Henderson’s latest swipe at Ms Ley comes less than two months after she claimed “there was an unfortunate targeting of senior Liberal women” in her shadow cabinet appointments.
Ms Henderson was dumped from her education portfolio following the party’s disastrous May election result.
“We have to be a highly effective opposition, and I’m not happy, I mean, when I lost my position as the shadow education minister, I made a statement expressing my concern, and then there was some brutal briefing out against me,” she said on Friday.
“There’s a culture at the moment which has got to change in our party … there’s been a lot of pretty brutal backgrounding and I don’t want to do that.
“I want to be authentic and I want to be honest.”
Ms Henderson said she was “vehemently opposed” to net zero and hoped the party would abandon the policy when Liberal MPs and senators gathered in Canberra next Wednesday to formalise its position.
“It’s sending our country backwards, it’s causing enormous environmental and economic harm,” she said.
Speaking to media at Parliament House following her Sky interview, Ms Henderson said her party was in its worst position since she was elected to parliament in 2013 as the member for Corangamite.
“I think a lot of my colleagues are very concerned about the way things are going … all I can say to you, authentically and honestly, is I don’t support the way things are at the moment,” she said.
“The infighting has been terrible and I’m terribly sorry about what’s been going on in the Liberal Party.”
Ms Henderson cited the “dire Newspoll”, published Monday, that found primary support for the Liberals at a record low 24 per cent and Ms Ley’s approval rating at minus 33 – below Peter Dutton’s worst result of minus 24.
More Coverage
Originally published as Sarah Henderson says Liberal Party at lowest point during her time in parliament
