A Detailed Explanation Of The 5 Different Liberal Party Factions Currently Destabilising Sussan Ley

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Ever since their dehumanising defeat at the 2025 Federal Election, the Liberal Party in-fighting has been a topic of daily media interest.

Sussan Ley, as Deputy Leader under Dutton, was rightfully elevated to the Leader of the Opposition. Immediately, speculation began to swirl over whether or not she had been stitched up.

Has Sussan Ley smashed through the glass ceiling as the first female leader of a the boys club? Or is she just a seat-filler until a man feels ready to take on such an important job?

The 'glass cliff' theory has been dismissed by both Ley and her colleagues, but it has not squashed the very clear attacks at her leadership from within.

Less than a month after Labor stormed home to win 94 seats, Ley's Coalition partners in the National Party spat the dummy and decided to de-merge over petty grievances regarding policies that they were happy to sign up to under male Liberal leaders.

This was short-lived, mostly because it became glaringly obvious that both of them were far less electable as seperate entities than as the were as this rag-tag collection of fringe-dwelling misfits.

But the Nats aside, every day it seems another Liberal MP, from another previously unknown Liberal faction, is having a crack at their own leadership.

Who are these Liberal factions? It's hard to imagine that there is so many with only 28 seats between them.

The Opposition Leader and her Deputy leader, Ted O'Brien, represent 'The In-Betweeners' of ideologically lost Liberal MPs who still can't decide whether Net Zero is actually popular with voters - or if they should listen to their membership base of 80-year-old suburban millionaires whose brains are so fucked from Sky News that they think Sussan Ley is a leftist.

Underneath them, there are five Liberal factions at war with each other.

The Betoota Advocate has detailed all of them below.

*This list does not include the one-man faction of Ted O'Brien, who is also just as likely as the rest of them at having a crack at replacing Ley. It also doesn't delve into the three or four factions that are currently tearing the National Party apart.

1. The Army Boys

Basically, what it says on the tin. Both Andrew Hastie (Townsville) and Phillip Thompson (South West WA) served their country. Because of this, they both believe that mental illness is real and place value on an economically liberal social safety net. Both are young men with young families who understand that housing and affordability is an issue for people their age. There's probably a bit of religion sprinkled in there too. Both walk the walk when it comes to community service and attempting to cast a wider net than their current voter base. They are conservative - but the 1990s-version where they think long-haired middle class 'slackers' are far more of a threat to the fabric of society than single mums or the NDIS. The right-wing media are completely torn when it comes to this faction. As fake patriots, the Seven/Murdoch/talkback commentators cannot be seen to attack anyone who has been on a battlefield. This becomes a problem when the Army Boys refuse to do as they are told - like Abbott and Scomo would, and like Turnbull refused to do before he was relieved of his job by their next useful idiot in Peter Dutton. As politicians, the Army Boys aren't as interested in that boomer brand of culture wars - this might be because they've actually fought in real wars. Although, it seems that making heaps of noise about Net Zero and immigration has been a good way for Hastie to test Sussan Ley's leadership.

2. The Blue Bloods

The dying breed of Liberals. These men would have thrived under Malcolm Fraser. They are higher-born and born to rule. The right-wing media loves them because they are very agreeable to big business, but unfortunately they aren't that relatable to the great unwashed (everyday voters). They are absolutely incapable of holding a conversation with the average Aussie, unless they are elderly rural women who are easily charmed by a good jawline and protestant sensibilities. Their whole lives they have been told that they will lead the country one day, and it's getting more and more difficult the closer they get. So far they are being heavily outperformed by the Army Boys as the next in line to take over leadership. This may be because their brand of razor-blade conservatism isn't very palatable to the general public who clearly enjoy having access to Medicare and paid parental leave. In an idyllic blue blood Liberal utopia, there would be no public housing, no Centrelink, no 'public' schools and no employers would be forced to provide sanitary bins in the women's toilets. Every citizen should just pull themselves up by their boot straps and make hundreds of millions of dollars through multinational agribusiness co-ops and water licensing deals. Angus Taylor (Rural NSW) is unpopular within the party because they think he white-anted Peter Dutton as the Treasurer, and the biggest political threat facing Dan Tehan (Western Victoria) is the former Triple J host Alex Dyson who has run against him three times as an Independent with ever-shrinking margins.

3. The Acid Tongues

These are the Young Liberal products who convinced themselves that the Coalition could be reformed into a modern political institution that welcomed a more diverse voter base (young white people and rich gays). The high watermark for this faction was under Malcolm Turnbull, back when marriage equality was reluctantly legalised and for a brief moment it looked like we had a Liberal Party that believed in climate change. Unfortunately around the same time, Sky News became available on free-to-air TV. Since then, Andrew Bragg (Sydney) and Tim Wilson (Melbourne's East) have been completely at odds with the direction of the party's membership base. To their credit, the Acid Tongues were the first Liberals to admit that we might have a housing crisis in this country, but they may as well have not said anything at all, because they only made things worse when they put forward their extremely unpopular policy to allow working Australians to drain the superannuation accounts into home deposits. They still believe this is the only way to solve the issue. They hate the fact that their entire brand of politics has been absorbed by the Teals - who do a better job at it. Tim Wilson actually lost his seat to a Teal in 2022, and won it back by 150 votes after four recounts in 2025. But now under Sussan Ley, once again, he has to contend with some uppity woman having the job that he wants.

4. The Brain Rot Faction

It is not yet clear why these politicians are even members of the Liberal Party, and it could be safely assumed that both will be contesting the next election as One Nation candidates. This is the 'extremely online' faction of the Liberal Party who thrive on imported American culture wars. Senator Alex Antic made a name for himself during the Pandemic as staunch anti-lockdown and anti-vax campaigner. He's gone down the same conspiratorial rabbit holes as the one bloke in your group chat who is starting to see patterns in the Matrix. Jacinta Price was once tipped to be a future Prime Minister after her impressive campaigning during the 2023 Indigenous Voice Referendum, but it soon became clear that she really lacks any form of consistency, other than her desire to be on TV as much as possible. Price is now recognised as a monster of Peter Dutton's creation. Veteran Indigenous rights advocate Noel Pearson faced extreme backlash from the Murdoch kingmakers for suggesting Price was 'caught in a redneck celebrity vortex' - but it seems that his summation of her unsustainably rapid rise through the party ranks was absolutely bang on. She has burnt bridges in every single Liberal and National Party faction in her relentless mission to stand under those bright lights that she has been chasing since her short-lived career as an amateur R&B singer in Alice Springs.

5. The Hillsong-Hindu Alliance

The closest thing that Sussan Ley has to allies are these low-profile suburban Sydney MPs who try to balance 'moderate' Liberal politics while also championing 'faith-based' communities. That means they get really uncomfortable with the overt and politically unproductive racism that the rest of their party has been thriving off since they wasted all of their campaign resources and political capital fighting against a handful of Indigenous elders during the Voice. An example of this was their quick slap down of Jacinta Price for her MAGA-inspired vilification of Indian migrants. That shit doesn't fly in the Hills District, because nowadays the Hindus are just as important as the Happy Clappers, and both communities make for very reliable branch stackers. The Hillsong-Hindu Alliance was once the most powerful faction in the country under Scott Morrison, but the 'centre-right prayer circle' was gutted during the 2022 Federal Election. This faction is not necessarily gunning for Ley's downfall, but they are certainly destabilising her with their clunky attempts at defending her leadership. Alex Hawke (North-West Sydney) seems to be very unpopular with the Murdoch press, and Julian Leeser (North-North-West Sydney) is next on the chopping block to lose his seat to a Teal in 2028 - especially now that his party has decided to bin Net Zero and gender quotas.