Former defence minister Peter Dutton was elected as the new Liberal leader without opposition, with former environment minister Sussan Ley taking over as deputy leader.
Mr Dutton will be the Liberal Party’s first Queenslander to lead the party.
Since the coalition’s loss of power, the Dickson MP has been mentioned as a possible replacement for Scott Morrison.
After being named the Opposition Leader, Mr Dutton has already taken aim at the Labor Party in his maiden address.
‘By the time of the next election in 2025, we will have presented a plan to the Australian people which will clean up Labor’s inevitable mess and lay out our own vision,’ Mr Dutton said.
‘Make no mistake, and Australians understand this, the next three years under Labor is going to be tough for the Australian people.
‘Already they’re breaking promises and foreshadowing policy shifts.’
Mr Morrison put on a brave face when he arrived at Parliament House on Monday to watch his successor be elected.
Speaking to reporters on Monday morning, Mr Morrison said both he and Ms Ley were an ‘enormously experienced team’.
‘I was very pleased that they served in my cabinet, they did outstanding jobs,’ he said.
‘They’re incredibly experienced, well versed, deeply committed Australians to both the Liberal cause and of course the cause of the nation and I think they’ll do an outstanding job.
‘It was a good opportunity for me to thank my colleagues for their great loyalty and support over these past more than three and a half years and to do that both on my behalf as well as on behalf of my dear friend Josh Frydenberg, who we’re all very sad couldn’t be with us today.
‘It’s been a great privilege to lead the federal parliamentary Liberal Party and I hand it over to Peter and Sussan and wish them all the very best.’
Ms Ley said she would work hard to gain the trust back from women across Australia.
‘We know that we didn’t receive the support of all women at the last election, and my message to the women of Australia is we hear you,’ she said.
We heard you. We’re listening. We’re talking. And we are determined to earn back your trust and your faith.’
Mr Dutton’s likely main challenger was Mr Frydenberg, but after he lost his seat of Kooyong in the Federal Election, it became a one-horse race.
The new Liberal leader also admitted his walk out of the apology to the Stolen Generations was a mistake.
‘I made a mistake in relation to the apology and largely that was because of my own background and experience,’ he said.
‘Many of you have lived out in regional areas and many of you haven’t. I worked in Townsville. I remember going to many domestic violence instances, particularly involving Indigenous communities, and for me at the time I believed that the apology should be given when the problems were resolved and the problems are not resolved.
There are little boys and girls in parts of our country in 2022, in this year, that slept in a shipping container last night to get through the hours of darkness in Indigenous communities and it’s completely unacceptable.’
He was also asked if he still saw the Biloela children as ‘anchor babies’, to which he noted he’d had ‘hundreds of cases I acted on grounds of compassion in relation to migration policies’.
‘The Minister of immigration is one of the most difficult jobs in the government,’ he said.
‘One of the things I didn’t have when I was Minister for Immigration and Border Protection and Home Affairs were calls at two o’clock or three o’clock in the morning from the Admiral telling me that the boat had listed and women and children had drowned.
‘And I was conscious of that because I spoke to men and women of the Australian Defence Force and the Navy in particular and are still suffering from PTSD today because of that policy failure when Labor was last in government.
‘So wish the family well, I have no gripe against the family. I want to make sure that we don’t see the tragedy of kids in detention, we get all the children out of detention.’
Ahead of the vote by Liberal MPs, Queensland’s Stuart Robert said Mr Dutton and Ms Ley would be unopposed.
‘(I’m) super happy about the party room and the leadership team we’re bringing in,’ he told Nine Network on Monday.
NSW Liberal senator Hollie Hughes says Mr Dutton will lead the party back to the centre-right as it looks to rebuild.
Former immigration minister Alex Hawke says the party had a strong history of containing both progressives and conservatives.
‘That’s a strength not a weakness and I think that blend is very important,’ he said.
Mr Hawke also denied the party had struck the wrong balance between the two at the election.
‘The regions struck very strongly with the Liberal and National parties, the suburbs and outer suburbs … very strong results in western Sydney,’ he said.
‘We were blindsided in areas of Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. Votes that went to the Greens, votes that went to the teals, this is something we have to look at, what policies will appeal to those people.’
Former home affairs minister Karen Andrews, also a Queenslander, says the leadership duo will offer the skills and depth needed to take the party forward.
Mr Dutton, a former police officer, spruiked his credentials for the job of opposition leader following his nomination.
