{"id":391664,"date":"2025-11-20T06:43:18","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T06:43:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/391664\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T06:43:18","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T06:43:18","slug":"nsw-liberal-leader-mark-speakman-resigns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/391664\/","title":{"rendered":"NSW Liberal Leader Mark Speakman resigns"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mark Speakman has announced he is stepping down as leader of the NSW Liberal Party.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Speaking at a media conference, Mr Speakman said first-term MP Kellie Sloane told him on Thursday afternoon “she wished to take the leadership”.<\/p>\n

Live updates, reactions and contributions from ABC readers.<\/p>\n

1m agoThu 20 Nov 2025 at 6:41am<\/p>\n

Staying on frontbench at TBC for now<\/p>\n

Mr Speakman says he’ll have more to say in the next few days about whether he’ll stay on the frontbench<\/b>.<\/p>\n

“I’ll have to digest all that and then see where we go from there,” he says.<\/p>\n

2m agoThu 20 Nov 2025 at 6:40am<\/p>\n

Who is Kellie Sloane?<\/p>\n

Kellie Sloane is a first-time MP. She is the Member for Vaucluse and shadow health minister<\/b>.<\/p>\n

When asked if she has enough experience for the top job, Mr Speakman says she brings a wealth of it from a media, business and life perspective.<\/p>\n

\n

“So I think she’s someone who is extremely capable of taking that far up.<\/p>\n

“And let’s be honest, she has been an absolute stellar performer.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

5m agoThu 20 Nov 2025 at 6:37am<\/p>\n

Colleagues have to ‘absolutely get behind’ new leader<\/p>\n

Mr Speakman says there has been speculation about his leadership from “the day I took it”.<\/p>\n

\n

“I would hope that 16 months out from an election, my colleagues realise that whoever they elect tomorrow is someone they have to absolutely get behind.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

6m agoThu 20 Nov 2025 at 6:35am<\/p>\n

‘Not an overwhelming number of colleagues’ call for exit<\/p>\n

After rumours he was tapped on the shoulder, Mr Speakman says no-one came up to him to say “go one mate, on your bike”.<\/p>\n

\n

“I had some colleagues today indicate for the first time, after my media expos\u00e9 this morning, that they thought it better if I went.<\/p>\n

“But certainly I’ve not had that from an overwhelming number of colleagues.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

8m agoThu 20 Nov 2025 at 6:33am<\/p>\n

Sloane’s ‘analysis is correct’<\/p>\n

Mr Speakman is discussing his one-on-one conversation with Ms Sloane today.<\/p>\n

\n

“She indicated that she wished to be the leader, that she thought our prospects were best if she were.<\/p>\n

“I have reluctantly agreed that her analysis is correct.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

13m agoThu 20 Nov 2025 at 6:29am<\/p>\n

Speakman to remain Member for Cronulla<\/p>\n

Mr Speakman is now taking questions.<\/p>\n

He says he will stay in his Cronulla seat<\/b> until the next election and intends to recontest when the time comes.<\/p>\n

15m agoThu 20 Nov 2025 at 6:26am<\/p>\n

‘I’d rather not be giving this press conference’<\/p>\n

\n

“Obviously I’d rather not be giving this press conference, but it is in the best interests of the Liberal Party,” Mr Speakman says.<\/p>\n

“To clear the air, make sure that the party and the leader has clean air going into the next election.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Mr Speakman says he will do “whatever I can” to help Ms Sloane with the transition.<\/p>\n

16m agoThu 20 Nov 2025 at 6:25am<\/p>\n

Labor ‘cutting ribbons on our projects’: Speakman<\/p>\n

But he isn’t going without a jab at the Minns government.<\/p>\n

Mr Speakman says Labor has “plagiarised a lot of our legislation”.<\/p>\n

\n

“It is a government that is light on the big picture, light on the vision.<\/p>\n

“Excellent at cutting ribbons on our projects.<\/p>\n

“It’s also been a government that has, putting it as politely as possible, a very modest legislation plan.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

18m agoThu 20 Nov 2025 at 6:23am<\/p>\n

Speakman’s values<\/p>\n

Mr Speakman is currently speaking about policies and values he believes the party should continue to focus on.<\/p>\n

In the mix is AI<\/b>, metros<\/b>, diversity <\/b>and housing<\/b>.<\/p>\n

21m agoThu 20 Nov 2025 at 6:20am<\/p>\n

Speakman’s message to the Libs<\/p>\n

\n

“To all the members of the Liberal party, it is tough times to be a Liberal at the moment.<\/p>\n

“But don’t give up we have the right values and the right policies,” he says.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Show more<\/p>\n

“She believed that the interests of the party would be best served if she took the reins, and I have reluctantly agreed that that is so,” he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Speakman said there had been “challenges” to the modern Liberal Party, but he had done his best to address them during his leadership.<\/p>\n

“You know that when you become a first-term opposition leader, you know what the odds are.” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“You know that no first-term opposition leader has won an election either in New South Wales or federally since the 1930s.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“You know what the odds are. But I wanted to give it a red-hot go and I believe I have given it a red-hot go.”<\/p>\n

Speakman started day defiantly<\/p>\n

Earlier today, he declared he would need to be “blasted out” of the role, but his stance shifted this afternoon when it became clear his support had eroded.<\/p>\n

Shadow Attorney-General Alister Henskens has been testing support among MPs for a potential challenge to Mr Speakman’s leadership.<\/p>\n

The two men sat centimetres from each other in parliament during question time, while government frontbenchers made quips about Mr Speakman’s perilous position.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Kellie Sloane has been backed to take over the leadership. (AAP: Bianca De Marchi)<\/p>\n

Ms Sloane, the shadow health minister, has significant support among Liberal MPs and would easily defeat Mr Speakman in a leadership challenge.<\/p>\n

However, she has been reluctant to call for a spill out of loyalty to the leader.<\/p>\n

Arriving at parliament today, Liberal MP Wendy Tuckerman publicly declared her support for Mr Henskins in the event of a leadership spill.<\/p>\n

She resigned from the frontbench earlier this year, citing frustration with the party’s energy policy.<\/p>\n

Several moderate faction MPs who have long supported Mr Speakman told the ABC they were surprised and frustrated when Mr Speakman dug in this morning.<\/p>\n

The first sign of Mr Speakman’s change of heart occurred at lunchtime, when his office delayed a series of television interviews he was due to give.<\/p>\n

Then, the media appearances were cancelled altogether as Mr Speakman prepared to make an announcement about his future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mark Speakman has announced he is stepping down as leader of the NSW Liberal Party.\u00a0 Speaking at a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":391665,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[186240,4740,186241,69178,186236,50,17364,186239,186237,186238],"class_list":{"0":"post-391664","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-alister-henskens","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-kellie-sloane","11":"tag-leadership-spill","12":"tag-mark-speakman","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-nsw","15":"tag-nsw-liberal-leader","16":"tag-nsw-liberal-party","17":"tag-nsw-opposition-leader"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115580673398756331","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}