First-term Liberal MP Mary Aldred has rebuked rebel colleague Andrew Hastie for quitting his frontbench role and warned the party will turn into a Victorian-style basket case if it continued to navel-gaze and let Labor off the hook.
In Tuesday morning’s Liberal Party room meeting in Canberra, Aldred stood up and said she and other colleagues would lose their seats at the next election if the party did not unite, focus on its core strengths and turn the heat on the government.
Mary Aldred took aim at her Liberal colleagues on Tuesday.Credit: Eamon Gallagher
The new MP for the regional Victorian seat of Monash clipped Hastie in her speech, saying she disagreed with the way he handled his resignation and reflecting the sentiment of many of his colleagues, including some of his allies.
“This is how we become like the Victorians,” three MPs, unable to publicly speak about the closed-door meeting, quoted her as saying. The Victorian Liberal division has functioned poorly for years, having won a single election since 1996.
Aldred told colleagues she came to Canberra to fight Labor, not to feud internally.
Hastie was sitting in the room but did not speak. It is rare for MPs to criticise colleagues in party room meetings. Opposition Leader Sussan Ley did not address Hastie’s frontbench resignation, which happened on Friday, in her speech to the meeting.
Andrew Hastie after a press conference in Perth on Saturday.Credit: Colin Murty
The opposition’s dirty linen was aired on Monday as this masthead revealed that Dutton, who led the historic election loss in May, was highly critical of Hastie’s work ethic and policy development in his private submissions delivered to the party’s election review in July.
Senior Liberals have called for leaks to stop so the party could focus on policies, including resolving its position on emissions reduction, as Ley inches closer to a compromise to retain net zero as a goal with new economic caveats.
