'Depleted' Liberal team needs to keep fighting: Senator

Every member of a depleted Liberal team needs to pull their weight, a sidelined senator says after an outspoken MP’s withdrawal from the shadow cabinet.

Liberal MP Andrew Hastie is expected to provide more clarity on Saturday for his decision after Opposition Leader Sussan Ley claimed he didn’t cite policy concerns to her.

Mr Hastie, who has touted himself as a future leadership aspirant, sensationally announced his exit from shadow cabinet on Friday evening after rocking the boat for weeks.

The 43-year-old former soldier said he made the call after his boss made it clear he would not lead the coalition’s response to immigration matters despite being opposition home affairs spokesman.

“On this basis, I made the decision that I was not able to continue in this role and remain silent on immigration,” Mr Hastie said in a statement.

“Out of respect for Sussan’s leadership, I am resigning from the frontbench.”

But in a statement released shortly after Mr Hastie’s, Ms Ley appeared to contradict his version of events.

The Liberal leader said she made it clear the convention of solidarity covered both public commentary and parliamentary votes in charter letters sent to shadow cabinet members this week and one-on-one conversations, including with Mr Hastie.

He told her in a phone call that he “would be unable to comply” with the “longstanding and well-understood requirement” and “did not raise any matters relating to policy on this call,” Ms Ley said.

Victorian Liberal Senator Jane Hume said on Saturday losing Mr Hastie, “a man of enormous talent and great integrity”, from the frontbench was a blow.

“But to be honest, we’re such a small and depleted team after the last election, everybody, whether they be front bench or back bench, has to stump up and pull their weight,” she told Nine’s Weekend Today program.

Ms Ley did the right thing in communicating her expectations to shadow cabinet members and Mr Hastie in withdrawing to avoid destabilising her leadership.

“He doesn’t think he can deliver on those expectations,” Senator Hume said.

But he remains a popular and strong voice in the party.

“We want to make sure that his talents are utilised as best as they should be,” she said.

Senator Hume held ministerial positions in the Morrison government and was part of former opposition leader Peter Dutton’s shadow cabinet but not Ms Ley’s.

Mr Hastie is scheduled to front the media in Perth on Saturday but has signalled that he won’t immediately challenge the leadership of the party, which has struggled for relevancy after May’s election defeat.

He said Ms Ley deserved the opportunity to lead “unencumbered by interventions from shadow cabinet colleagues” and wished her and the frontbench “every success in this term”.

The upheaval comes after Mr Hastie publicly pushed for migration to be curbed and threatened to quit shadow cabinet if the coalition retained its net-zero emissions target.

He joins Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price on the backbench after she was dumped for failing to back Ms Ley’s leadership.