Mark Speakman has announced he is stepping down as leader of the NSW Liberal Party, endorsing first-term MP Kellie Sloane as his replacement.<\/p>\n
Mr Speakman called a snap media conference on Thursday afternoon after speculation about his future throughout the day.<\/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
Mr Speakman said Ms Sloane told him “she wished to take the leadership”.<\/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
Mark Speakman made his announcement at a snap media conference. (ABC News: Nick Dole)<\/p>\n
In a statement issued shortly after the announcement, Ms Sloane confirmed she would be nominating herself for the vacant position on Friday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I have enormous respect for Mark and thank him for his leadership of our party,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I appreciate his endorsement of me this evening.”<\/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
Chairman of the NSW Liberal Party Management Committee, Nick Greiner, said Mr Speakman had led the party with “integrity during a challenging period”.<\/p>\n
“His resignation was a gracious and humble act of someone who always put the people of this state first,” he said.<\/p>\n
Sloane named as frontrunner<\/p>\n
Kellie Sloane has been backed to take over the leadership. (AAP: Bianca De Marchi)<\/p>\n
Ms Sloane is the Member for Vaucluse and shadow health minister.<\/p>\n
She had been resisting pressure from her colleagues to directly challenge Mr Speakman following days of leadership speculation.<\/p>\n
“Kellie Sloane will be a fantastic leader if selected by the parliamentary Liberal Party,” Mr Speakman said.<\/p>\n
“She is someone of enormous talent … she is someone I hope will lead the Liberal party to the next election.”<\/p>\n
Mr Speakman said he implored his colleagues to get behind Ms Sloane and give her “the energy, the unity… and focus” to win government.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I think she’s someone who is extremely capable of taking [the party] that far up,” he said.<\/p>\n
“And let’s be honest, she has been an absolute stellar performer.”<\/p>\n
Mr Speakman will remain the member for Cronulla and plans to recontest his seat at the next election.<\/p>\n
While on the frontbench, he said he would remain a strong advocate for a ‘very aggressive” pro-housing approach and continue to push for net zero by 2050.<\/p>\n
Speakman started day defiantly<\/p>\n
Alister Henskens has been testing support among MPs for a potential challenge. (AAP: Dan Himbrechts)<\/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
Ms Sloane has significant support among Liberal MPs and would have easily defeated 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
Look back at how ABC readers and other Australians responded to this live
\n moment.<\/p>\n
8h agoThu 20 Nov 2025 at 6:44am<\/p>\n
Speakman hands over baton<\/p>\n
\u00a0The press conference is finished now.<\/p>\n
Mr Speakman says he has “no regrets” taking on the job and he was proud of what he achieved.<\/p>\n
“I’m sorry that I’m resigning and no doubt there are plenty of mistakes that I’ve made.<\/p>\n
“I think I’ve had a difficult set of cards handed to me [and] I’ve done my best with those, but I think now’s the time to hand over the baton.”<\/p>\n
8h 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.<\/p>\n
“I’ll have to digest all that and then see where we go from there,” he says.<\/p>\n
8h 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.<\/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
“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
Show more<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mark Speakman has announced he is stepping down as leader of the NSW Liberal Party, endorsing first-term MP…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[170277,43,170278,167122,26298,44,2733,170276,170274,170275,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-297266","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-alister-henskens","9":"tag-headlines","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","18":"tag-top-news","19":"tag-top-stories","20":"tag-topnews","21":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}