{"id":767575,"date":"2026-06-29T10:27:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T10:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/767575\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T10:27:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T10:27:10","slug":"liberal-frontbencher-calls-for-party-rebrand-after-drop-in-polls-prompting-ridicule-from-labor-liberal-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/767575\/","title":{"rendered":"Liberal frontbencher calls for party \u2018rebrand\u2019 after drop in polls, prompting ridicule from Labor | Liberal party"},"content":{"rendered":"

Liberal frontbencher Melissa McIntosh has said the party might need a \u201crebrand\u201d to win back voters who continue to desert the opposition, with the Coalition<\/a> hitting a new historic polling low.<\/p>\n

Her comments came after the opposition leader, Angus Taylor<\/a>, claimed the Morrison government \u2013 of which he was a senior minister \u2013 had \u201cbreached trust\u201d with the electorate during the Covid pandemic by supporting \u201cbig government\u201d.<\/p>\n

On Monday, he defended himself against criticisms, telling 2GB radio: \u201cYou can\u2019t turn around a tanker in a few months.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than four months on from rolling Sussan Ley<\/a> amid dwindling polling numbers, Taylor\u2019s leadership has seen the Coalition\u2019s slide continue. The Coalition\u2019s primary vote dropped to 17% in Monday\u2019s Newspoll \u2013 well behind Labor (33%) and One Nation (29%), and barely above the Greens (13%).<\/p>\n

A separate poll, from Redbridge research and released on Monday, also found rising support for Labor amid a dip in support for One Nation<\/a> and the Coalition.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n

Taylor\u2019s leadership is not under imminent threat<\/a>, but after a series of underwhelming performances<\/a>, Liberal MPs have quietly begun discussing their concerns<\/a> about the party\u2019s direction.<\/p>\n

McIntosh, the shadow minister for the NDIS, said the party needed something fresh.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s time for the Liberal party<\/a> to rebrand itself,\u201d she said on Sky News.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people think that we\u2019re stuck in the past and our policies need to resonate with the Australia of today and the future. So I think it\u2019d be a really good time for us to revisit our values.\u201d<\/p>\n

Noting Sky\u2019s own rebrand<\/a>, with the channel to be known as News24 from next month, McIntosh didn\u2019t reject questions about whether the Liberal name should be changed.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoes that mean changing name? You mentioned the Sky News rebrand, is it a problem with the word liberal these days?\u201d McIntosh was asked.<\/p>\n

She replied: \u201cWell, this is the thing. We need to get some experts in and I was just inspired by Sky News.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut when things aren\u2019t going right within brands, it is a time to take a bit of stock and look at where we can go in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

McIntosh said the Liberals needed to not \u201clook like we\u2019re stuck in the past\u201d but instead present as \u201ca modern party with modern values that resonate with not only older people, but women as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

McIntosh\u2019s remarks were ridiculed by Labor in question time.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo wonder they\u2019re struggling over there, Mr Speaker. We had a shadow minister earlier today speak about abandoning the Liberal party name,\u201d Anthony Albanese claimed.<\/p>\n

The housing minister, Clare O\u2019Neil, said: \u201cWe\u2019ve got frontbenchers [in the Coalition] openly saying that they need to rethink the existence of their political party. On this side of the parliament, we\u2019re living a very different experience. We don\u2019t need any experts to tell us what the great Australian Labor party stands for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrew Hastie, seen as a future Liberal leader, praised Taylor\u2019s leadership and said he was leading a \u201cgood process\u201d of policy development.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to take time to sell those policies but we\u2019re in winter. We have time and we\u2019ve just got to not get rattled and focus on the mission, which is winning government,\u201d he told the ABC.<\/p>\n

Taylor, speaking on 2GB radio, said the party had more work to do but attempted to put a positive spin on the situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, we were in freefall [during Ley\u2019s leadership],\u201d he said. \u201cNow, the Coalition is solid as a rock.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to take time because people need to rebuild trust in a Coalition, in a Liberal party, in a National party that has breached trust,\u201d Taylor conceded.<\/p>\n

In an interview with The Australian, Taylor claimed the pandemic was one of the times the Coalition breached voters\u2019 trust.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe allowed big government to become accepted, and we don\u2019t believe in big government. Australians felt that government got too big, too heavy, too close to their daily lives,\u201d Taylor told 2GB.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe needed to come out of Covid with a strong plan to pare back on both spending and the role of government in people\u2019s lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that is widely accepted on our side of politics now. But that did breach trust and we\u2019ve got to rebuild that trust and rebuilding trust takes time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Liberal senator Jonno Duniam, who has announced his impending retirement from politics, said his party had been \u201clost in the wash\u201d amid a \u201ccrowded marketplace\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Liberal frontbencher Melissa McIntosh has said the party might need a \u201crebrand\u201d to win back voters who continue…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":767576,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-767575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767575","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=767575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/767576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}