Federal Politics: Angus Taylor’s Winter of Discontent deepens amid leadership rival Andrew Hastie’s poll vow

Angus Taylor and despondent Liberal colleagues are flying out of Canberra for the long Parliamentary winter break, but the sense of bleakness will persist well after they’ve departed the chilly capital. There’s a growing sense of despair inside the once dominant political party as it still struggles to improve its electoral standing under a new leadership team.

Over the five-week recess the Liberal Leader is planning to blitz cities and electorates in all states and territories, to “sell their plan” to voters, but a string of recent opinion polls show Australians are not buying whatever Angus Taylor and the Coalition are trying to spruik.

Despite growing grumpiness towards the Albanese government, now into its second term, the Opposition has made few inroads since dumping Sussan Ley as leader almost four months ago.

Instead, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party is enjoying record popularity, mostly at the expense of the Coalition, but also from some voters who previously declared support for Labor.

The predicament faced by the Liberals was highlighted this week when frontbencher Melissa McIntosh suggested her party might need a “rebrand” to win back voters who continue to desert the opposition.

“You can’t polish a turd”, Labor backbencher Sally Sitou joked, before being forced to withdraw the “unparliamentary remark” on Thursday.

On Wednesday night the sense of hopelessness inside the Liberals was amplified at Parliament’s Midwinter Ball when Angus Taylor delivered what MPs on both sides of politics derided as a “dreadful” speech, which barely failed to raise a laugh.

So memorably bad was Mr Taylor’s performance, that senior Labor ministers even discussed it during their formal Cabinet meeting on Thursday morning.

“That’s likely to be the first and only Parliamentary ball speech Angus will give, and thank goodness for that,” one Labor figure told The Nightly shortly after sitting through the excruciating remarks.

“Angus was terrible,” a shadow minister also declared, after listening to their leader fail to land a series of gags at the Prime Minister’s expense.

At last year’s Midwinter ball, held in September because of the election, the then-Opposition Leader Sussan Ley drew widespread praise for delivering an animated, self-deprecating and amusing speech which also poked fun at Labor.

Another Liberal frontbencher closely watching Angus Taylor flounder on stage on Wednesday night was leadership rival Andrew Hastie, who on Thursday was forced to shoot down fresh speculation he could soon abandon his party.

“I’m not on my way out - I’m here to stay and I will recontest the next election. It’s as simple as that,” he told Sydney Radio 2GB.

The latest murmurs about the West Australian’s future were sparked by veteran political commentator and former Liberal staffer Nicki Savva in a column titled: “Why Andrew Hastie is on the brink of abandoning the Liberal Party”.

“Angus Taylor’s leadership hangs by a thread. Without dramatic changes, including a concerted corporate effort to cut down One Nation, he invites rebellion or defections or both,” she wrote in Nine Newspapers.

“Taylor’s obvious replacement, Andrew Hastie, a conservative who can be both cerebral and cut-through, has pledged to destroy Hanson before she destroys him.”

“If he feels abandoned by the Liberal Party in this fight to the death, he will abandon the Liberal Party,” she predicts.

Pushed by 2GB host Luke Grant about the speculation, the former soldier made his case for wanting the Liberals to succeed.

“I think the Australian people have a rotten government, a government that can’t be trusted, whether it’s on taxation or super or borders. Pick an issue, they can’t be trusted.”

“We need to deliver centre-right government for the Australian people. We need to focus on the Australian people’s challenges and problems, and we need to come up with solutions that improve our prosperity, improve our security, and give Australians more hope for the future”.

Over the next five weeks Angus Taylor will doggedly try to convey a similar message during his tour of the country, hoping he gets a better reception from voters than those who attended Wednesday’s “Canberra Bubble” Midwinter ball.