Opposition Leader Angus Taylor has sought to energise the Coalition during Tuesday’s joint party room meeting, calling for his team to “fight for the soul of the country” in an impassioned address.
The noticeably more fiery pep talk comes after days of media headlines about the possibility of a political comeback by former Treasurer Josh Frydenberg promoted by a media blitz for his memoir.
The former Liberal MP for Kooyong proposed a string of policies he believed the Coalition should act on and insisted in interviews that he felt “things have to change” after Liberal polling fell to an all-time low.
Some of his suggestions included expanding the GST and introducing a mandatory system of “civic service” for school leavers.
However, Mr Frydenberg’s name was left out of discussions in the joint-party room on Tuesday and Mr Taylor shared a roaring applause after his rallying cry.
“Colleagues, over the coming months and years and beyond, we are fighting for the soul of our country,” Mr Taylor declared.
“We are fighting for what we want our country to be.
“We have seen Australia going backwards in the wrong direction, like at no time in my life.
“We have a responsibility to deliver that plan. To fix our economy, to protect our way of life.
“The key to that is a team with the skills and the background of these people, you people in this room.
“We’re going to fight every single day, all the way through the elections, because Australia is worth fighting for now more than ever.”
Despite poor polling over the past year and Mr Frydenberg’s criticisms, Coalition enjoyed cent one point bumps in both the Newspoll and DemosAU ranking, bringing its primary support to 20 per cent and 22 per cent.
Some in the party have raised concerns about Mr Frydenberg’s public intervention so close to a key election in Victoria where Jess Wilson is seeking to defeat a long-term Labor government.
During the partyroom on Tuesday the 45 day countdown to the Victorian State Election was raised with colleagues and their need to assist Ms Wilson and the “brilliant job” her team was doing.
Mr Taylor ramped up pep talk to colleagues on Tuesday came after he faced a grilling in Question Time as parliament returned on Monday over Mr Frydenberg’s looming political threat to his leadership.
Jim Chalmers warned that Mr Taylor was now being “stalked” from inside by his frontbencher Andrew Hastie and out by the Liberal’s former COVID-era Treasurer.
“Now, the leader of the Opposition is being stalked from the inside by the member for Canning (and) is being stalked from the outside by the failed former member for Kooyong,” the Treasurer told Parliament.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese referenced Mr Frydenberg’s public comments in the House, insisting he was “campaigning openly against the frontbench”.
Several pieces of legislation were raised in the joint-partyroom on Tuesday, including Coalition’s plan to support a private health insurance amendment to remove the $5,000 cap for medical technology and another to axe technical issues with Australia’s autonomous sanctions on Iran and Syria.
The Coalition also pledged bipartisan support for a child support and family assistance legislation amendment.
The change addresses Australia’s more than $2 billion child support arrears, protects domestic violence victims’ privacy, aligns child support with family tax benefits to avoid lump-sum penalties, and mandates ongoing international payments.
Among issues Mr Taylor and his junior party leader Matt Canavan raised in the partyroom was the cost pressures facing motorists and households.
Deputy Opposition leader Jane Hume and shadow treasurer vowed to introduce private members bills in the House and Senate on Tuesday to tackle recent woes with the Australian Taxation Office’s decision not to accept credit card payments.
Shadow Energy Minister Dan Tehan will also introduce a private members bill to “scrap net zero cheaper energy bill” in the House, while shadow defence minister James Paterson will introduce one in the Senate titled “protecting Australia’s defence heritage bill”.
Senator Paterson’s bill comes after the Australian government vowed to sell off either wholly or in part 67 military sites around Australia.
He will insist that if the government seeks to sell assets, the relevant minister must make a statement in the House explaining why and the finance minister would introduce a disallowable motion to give the Senate 14 sitting days to disallow the sale of defence assets.