Hastie departure ‘messy’ but Coalition chaos is ‘democracy at work’ says deputy opposition leader Ted O’Brien

The chaos gripping the opposition is “democracy at work”, Sussan’s Ley’s deputy says, as a major poll shows Coalition support hovering near record-lows.

Tensions in the Coalition were laid bare last week when Andrew Hastie quit shadow cabinet after Ms Ley informed him he would not set the opposition’s immigration policy.

It was a blow to the former home affairs spokesman and came after weeks of broadcasting his vision for the Liberal Party through very public displays, which he insisted did not undermine his boss.

With Mr Hastie’s departure, Ms Ley has now lost two opposition frontbenchers in less than a month.

But Deputy Opposition Leader Ted O’Brien appeared nonchalant as he fronted media on Monday morning, instead focusing “on the many, many flaws in the Albanese government” as parliament sits this week.

“I know it does look messy, but in truth, this is democracy at work,” Mr O’Brien told Nine’s Today.

“It’s a bit messy, I get that, but this is the way you get good policy.

“And we’re not shy of going in to bat and debating policy.

“And that’s really what you’re seeing here. That’s what it’s all about.”

Pressed on why it was taking so long for the Coalition to unite, he said that “it hasn’t”.

He went on to say “we’ve got two jobs to do”.

“One is to hold the government to account – that’s what we’re going to be doing this week,” Mr O’Brien said.

“But secondly, it’s formulating our own policy and our policies are up for review.

“And we have suffered a pretty severe loss at the election, and so you do have this time where you need to battle the ideas out.

“So that’s really what’s going on.

“But I can tell you this week we are absolutely focused on a bad government, which is making a lot of very bad decisions on the run.”

Meanwhile, the latest Newspoll showed support for One Nation has nearly doubled since the federal election in May.

Taken between Monday and Thursday last week, the poll showed One Nation’s primary vote hit 11 per cent while the Coalition was at 28 per cent – one per cent higher than its all-time low of 27 per cent recorded last month.

Labor, on the other hand, has only grown support since its landslide victory at the ballot box, with core support rising to 37 per cent – its highest primary vote since June 2023.