Daily London
Less than 18 hours after news broke of a looming leadership challenge for Brad Battin, first-term MP Jess Wilson this morning emerged as Victoria’s new opposition leader.
The shock move means the state Liberal Party has had more leaders during this stint in opposition than they have years in government this century.
Battin might not finish the week as the only Liberal leader trying to pull a knife out of his back, with rumblings that Mark Speakman’s future is also in danger.
The NSW opposition leader avoided a challenge at a party room meeting this morning, but the week is still young, and speculation has been building for months that another first-termer, Kellie Sloane, will take the party to the next state election in early 2027.
Alongside them, Nationals already have a new leader, with Gurmesh Singh elected unopposed following Dugald Saunders’ shock resignation yesterday.
In Australia’s most populous state, the opposition’s primary vote is languishing at 28 per cent, according to the latest Resolve Political Monitor in the Sydney Morning Herald.
Federally, the polls are even more dire, pointing to a primary vote of 24 per cent after weeks of infighting and division over energy policy.
Little wonder Sussan Ley can barely go a single day without facing questions about whether her leadership is secure.
But having only defeated Angus Taylor by a handful of votes in that contest – three of whom are no longer in the party room – her grip on the leadership is tenuous.
Last night, Ley said she could “absolutely” guarantee that she’ll still be in the top Liberal job come the 2028 election, but a challenge, whether from Taylor or Andrew Hastie, appears more a matter of when, not if.
It’s a far cry from the start of the year, when there was genuine optimism that Peter Dutton could win the federal election, and the newly installed Battin would make inroads in Victoria, where the state Labor brand is on the nose after more than a decade in power.
It appears he actually did just that, with a Herald Sun poll released this morning giving the Coalition a 51-49 lead over the government, and Battin a 45-34 lead over Jacinta Allan as preferred premier.
With just a year and 10 days to convince voters to back her at next year’s election, Wilson promised to “focus on Victorians”, but faces a tough task in such a short time.
“Wilson has a big job ahead of her, not just to appeal to voters, but of course, to try to repair a fractured party room once more,” 9News state political reporter Heidi Murphy said.
Further north, Speakman and Ley will simply be hoping to keep their own party rooms from fracturing – or at least continuing to fracture – in the first place.
