The federal Liberal party believes it has “cauterised the wound” caused by the furore around Indian migrants, after leader Sussan Ley dumped a popular conservative senator from shadow cabinet.
But the opposition leader has been criticised for the way she managed Jacinta Nampijinpa Price after the Northern Territory senator suggested last week that the government favoured Indian migrants because they vote Labor.
It culminated in the senator being sacked from the frontbench on Wednesday after she did not, when repeatedly asked, declare her confidence in Ms Ley’s leadership.
She had already rejected earlier calls from her colleagues to apologise for her comments, which infuriated the Indian community.
The senator has maintained she was trying to make a point on “mass migration” under Labor rather than single out a specific community.
Liberal Senator Jane Hume said there had been “mishandling on all sides”.
“The good news is we have cauterised the wound,” she told Seven’s Sunrise on Friday.
“We are going to move on now and talk about what’s important to ordinary Australians.”
Asked if she backed Ms Ley as the right person to lead the Liberal Party, Senator Hume said: “absolutely”.
Liberal sources don’t expect a challenge in the short term to Ms Ley, who won the leadership after the party’s disastrous federal election result in May under Peter Dutton.
Many in the party considered the senator’s comments about Indian migrants as having crossed a line, but say Ms Ley should have confronted her sooner and not allowed the issue to drag on.
Ms Ley apologised for Senator Nampijinpa Price’s comments on behalf of the Liberal party on Thursday.
The furore placed Ms Ley in an uncomfortable situation and was “symptomatic” of the issues within the Liberal Party, Monash University head of politics Zareh Ghazarian said.
Ms Ley’s leadership would be under pressure throughout the term, he said.
“Sussan Ley has taken a pre-emptive approach to assert her authority on the party, but it’s going to be incredibly difficult because the party is so far behind in terms of where it was even at the last parliamentary term,” Dr Ghazarian said
Liberal MP Andrew Hastie, who has confirmed his own leadership ambitions, said the “knives are not being sharpened” against Ms Ley.
On Thursday the leader did not answer questions on whether Senator Nampijinpa Price would be reappointed to the front bench at some stage, or respond to criticism of her handling of the saga.
“I addressed that situation, or the situation more broadly about Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and the circumstances that led to the decision that I made, and I’m certainly not going to reflect on colleagues this morning,” she told reporters.
Ms Ley’s immediate task is to fill the spot on the front bench. Senator Nampijinpa Price was the coalition’s spokeswoman on defence industry and personnel.
The front-runners include the Queensland LNP’s Phil Thompson and Tasmanian Liberal Senator Claire Chandler.
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