🚨What Hastie quitting means for Sussan Ley

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When big news breaks around the world, we've got the time to get into what's happened.

I've seen lots of robust argument, but nothing like that.

The Kremlin propagandists are very happy.

And we can find out what it means for us in Australia.

I think we're like a kangaroo caught in the headlights.

What's perhaps more pertinent for Australia is ensuring that this kind of fracture that we've seen across the Atlantic is one that doesn't happen across the Pacific.

Three and a half hours of Radio National Breakfast condensed into a pop to the shops, maybe a tea break or a walk of the dog.

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Spirit, I'd love to see you, but I never expect to see you on a Saturday.

Here we go.

Look, I work Saturdays, given that we do a Sunday morning show.

Called Insiders, great show.

But to see me in a suit and tie on a Saturday is unusual.

I've just been doing some TV and look, why is that, Brett?

Well, I'm far more casually dressed than you you are, but Andrew Hasty, when news is meant to die on a Friday afternoon, uh, we have found ourselves with some news on our hands on the show.

I know, and it feels like a story that's just been building and building, and finally, uh, the final straw on the camel's back.

And uh, yep, he's gone, he's quit the front bench.

It's all happening, all right?

Let's get into this.

Hello, I'm Brett Worthington, and I'm David Spears.

Spearsy, is it on?

No, I don't think it's on in terms of a leadership move, as that phrase

implies.

Look, the mood in the Liberal Party is Andrew Hastie has quit as a matter of principle or integrity, however you want to put it, because he simply wants to stick with the Westminster Convention that when you disagree

with the leader, you quit the shadow ministry.

But he's not counting numbers, making calls, trying to encourage others to follow him out the door and get a snowball effect going here to bring down the leader.

Sure, he wants to be leader one day, but everything he has said and others are saying privately tells me that

this is not about an immediate move on Susan Lee on the leadership.

Nonetheless, this puts enormous pressure on her, Brett, right?

I mean, and this really brings to light once more

the fundamental fracture in the party right now over the direction they should be going in.

We are five months from the last federal election.

You have got a Liberal leader who is the first woman to lead the Liberal Party.

One thing, when she rose to that role, role, it seemed that Susan Lee would probably likely have a period of being able to establish herself and being able to start to map out what a future coalition looks like.

A lot of talking about meeting people where they are, a focus on those heartland seats that have now long been lost to Teals and even to some Labour in parts of suburban Melbourne in particular.

What is the rush here?

What is going on?

Well, that's what you've got to ask.

You know, why did Andrew Hastie want to bring this on now?

The catalyst for him quitting, as he puts it, is this charter letter that Susan Lee sent during the week to all shadow ministers explaining what she expects of them in their portfolio, what sort of policy areas she wants them working on.

Andrew Hastings' letter made no mention of immigration.

Now, given he is the shadow home affairs minister, if that's the case, I haven't seen the letter, but if that's the case, that is a little unusual.

Home affairs normally is the senior portfolio for immigration.

The more junior minister or shadow minister is the immigration minister, but they answer to or work with the more senior cabinet level home affairs minister.

So that would be a bit weird.

And that, as I say, is the catalyst for him saying, okay, well, if that's the case, I reckon I should be playing a role in developing the immigration policy.

I'm going to go because that really matters to me.

That might be the catalyst, but we know he's been,

this has been building and building, you know, immigration, net zero, manufacturing.

He's got some big differences with Susan Lee.

And he said it today in the press conference he just held over in the West that fundamentally he thinks the party should be chasing back those votes on the right that have gone to One Nation.

That needs to be the priority, bringing those back into the tent.

Susan Lee, as you put it, Brett, is trying to chase those urban voters in the centre that the Liberals have lost to Teal, to Labor, even the Greens.

So you have a big difference over the direction the party should be going in.

So we've seen a series of polls now in recent weeks where you've seen, in many accounts, a doubling of One Nation's primary vote.

You talk to some of the hardheads within parts of the Liberal Party, and they're not so stressed about that in that our preferential system means that they will very likely come back to Liberals on those how to, when you cast your vote, that tacking back to a centre position, trying to attract more women, trying to attract more urban voters is where the future of the party is if it wants to get to majority government in its own right.

But hearing from Andrew Hastie today saying that I'm not going to be silent on some of these key issues, immigration, energy, housing, in going to the backbench, he can now speak more freely on a whole range of issues.

And I wonder the extent to which after the election, he was making signals he was keen for a domestic and economic portfolio.

He got put in home affairs where the focus was very much abroad.

The theory being the former SAS soldier, straight from central casting in terms of liberals, recognises that he needs to build up his political portfolio on a domestic front.

To what extent do you think we'll see more of a focus on those key domestic issues now?

I think that was a frustration for him, right?

He's someone who wants to be leader.

One day down the track, he needs to broaden his appeal beyond the hardman national security stuff.

He'd tick that box, A, being a former Special Forces older, but B holding the defence portfolio last term.

He ends up lumped with Home Affairs, which is another national security role.

So you can see he's frustrated about that.

Yeah, you're right.

Now he's got that backbench freedom to do what he wants.

And I think he will still command attention because he's Andrew Hastie.

He is a compelling media performer.

He is someone who is seen as a potential future leader.

So for those reasons, he'll attract attention in a similar way that Jacinda Numpenjiba Price, also on the backbench and from the right of the party, also attracts attention.

So that's a problem for Susan Lee that you've got two really prominent Liberals now sitting on the back bench saying very different things about where the party should be and where it should go.

The other point here is I don't think you can divorce what's happening in the Liberal Party here to what's happening globally with centre-right parties.

And Hastie kind of touched on this as well.

You look in the US, where MAGA has completely replaced the more centrist Republicans.

They're just gone.

Non-existent.

Non-existent.

You look at in the UK, reform.

Nigel Farage is way ahead of, well, he's ahead of Labor, but way ahead of the Conservatives as well.

And the Conservatives are having this

crisis of

where they need to be as well.

Europe too.

So this is happening at a global level to centre-right parties, and it's the tension point now here in Australia for the Liberal Party as well.

We have compulsory voting.

It brings voters back to the centre, as we often say.

So maybe it will play differently here to some of those other countries.

But

this is the real challenge Susan Lee now faces.

And we've seen again Susan Lee,

he's the break-in case of an emergency, isn't he?

He was picked by Peter Dutton to be the campaign spokesman.

We're talking about James Patterson here, someone who had the Home Affairs portfolio in the last term, wanted to stay in that area in this term.

He's the shadow finance spokesman.

He's already taking on the acting role of Home Affairs.

And the timing of this, in many ways, for the Liberal Party, couldn't be worse.

You've seen a story emerge late yesterday about the use of the the term here is ISIS brides.

We're talking about six women who either went to Syria by choice as the partners of Islamic State fighters or by coercion to go there.

They have languished in Syria.

We now learned that six have managed to smuggle themselves into Lebanon and now back into Australia.

This is a key issue that the coalition wants to be targeting the government on.

And we saw James Patterson give it a red hot go earlier today, but the first question he got, what's going on with your party?

So this is the issue that the Liberals get really excited about, right?

And you can see they were waiting for some news on this to happen.

It does look like it was a bit of a coincidence the timing here.

Hastie called Susan Lee Friday morning to say I'm going.

Apparently an amiable conversation.

Then later in the day the news breaks about the ISIS brides coming home and Susan Lee was pretty disappointed that Hastie had chosen this day to go.

I don't know.

It looks like he actually had decided and informed her before the news broke.

But anyway, on James Patterson, it's like a comfortable pair of shoes that he's put back on.

He's tried and true, isn't he?

He barely slips that.

He's Mr.

Fixit, Mr.

solid hands for the liberal party who you know safe hands for the liberal party who can just um seemingly you know prosecute an argument unlike anyone else uh in that show at the moment yeah he kind of nailed the line did the government know about this or not if they did know why didn't they tell us if they didn't know what the hell's going on leading in these people so yeah he nailed the line but you're right the questions didn't linger on the isis brides did they it was all about the internals and he's a fascinating character in my mind within the liberal party he's a young man like andrew hastie he's not in the moderate faction he's a conservative young man.

Susan Lee appointed him to the leadership group after Jacinta Numpakimpa Price was moved on from the front bench.

She has turned to him again now.

Now, he was very adamant and forceful in his press conference earlier today.

I support Susan.

There is no challenge on Susan.

But we are in an interesting time in that conservative part of the Liberal Party because five months ago the candidate was Angus Taylor to be the leader, not Andrew Hastie.

What is happening on that part of the party?

It's interesting just to think about Patterson's role there.

I don't know if you'd use the word Praetorian Guard, but it does remind me of the period when Malcolm Turnbull, before it all turned to mud and they all went their separate ways, but you had Matthias Cormann, actually, who is not someone who would have backed him in a leadership vote, was from the Conservative side of the party, but was critical in protecting Turnbull for a long time there and dealing with the right.

until, as I say, it all went pear-shaped.

But you kind of get that similar vibe right now that Patterson just wants the Liberals, and he said it today in the questions that he got, that the sooner we can unite, the better.

And I think he said it a few times.

It was a pretty clear message to his colleagues, I thought, that, guys,

all well and good to have our differences immediately after getting smashed in an election.

But the sooner we can stop this, we can get together and start settling some policies and putting some heat on the government, the better.

Now, it's simple, right?

That's politics.

It's pretty fundamental.

He's got to make that point to them.

And I think the fact that he is the one making that point to them is going to carry more weight with the right than anything Susan Lee says.

Now, it is just after half past 12 here on East Coast time on a Saturday.

This story is moving in many different ways.

I will channel you and ask for a prediction or observation about where we go from here.

This is obviously fast moving.

The Parliament is back next week.

Annika Wells, the Communications Minister, was bracing for a lot of incoming from the Coalition over Optus, what is happening there.

To what extent do you think Andrew Hasties' departure to the backbench will be a gift for Labour as the parliament comes back, where you've got estimates, and then the House of Representatives.

It's funny, I was just talking to a Labour minister just before we recorded this about some other stuff, and they said to me, Phew, the Senate estimates this next week are looking a little easier because the focus will be once again on the Liberal internals.

So, yeah, that's probably right.

I think there will be, obviously, you know, everyone will be clamouring to see what Susan Lee does in terms of another mini reshuffle here

and how she reacts reacts to this,

whether she's going to try to get Hastie back onto the front bench somehow or live with this, whether there's a risk of others following Hasty and how Susan Lee holds the show together from here.

Yeah, this will inevitably be another big focus in the parliament next week.

Well, in the short term, Insiders will be on your TVs tomorrow.

You'll be able to find out what is going on.

And in the meantime, I've also got a new Insiders on Background episode, which is coming into the feed.

It's just dropped as well.

This is a conversation with the Deputy Foreign Minister of the Palestinian Authority, Omar Awadallah.

It's all about the Trump peace plan and where the Palestinian Authority sits on this.

We recorded it before Hamas's statements today,

which are somewhat positive.

They're conditional.

There's obviously negotiations to go from here, but they're not rejecting the plan.

But anyway, interesting to hear from Omar.

Omar Awadallah about the Palestinian Authority's view of where this goes from here.

And then I'll be back with Politics Now on Monday with Jacob Greber.

And I think we can guarantee what we'll be talking about come Monday.

But it is fast-changing, so stay across ABC platforms for all the latest here.

Nice to hang out on a Saturday.

Unexpected, but it's always a bonus in my mind.

CBS.

See you, mate.