TV interview with Minister Butler, Sunrise - 30 January 2026

NATALIE BARR, HOST: Angus Taylor and Andrew Hastie's not-so-secret talks about who should challenge Sussan Ley for the top job at the Liberals have gone nowhere, with both men from the conservative side of the party so far refusing to step aside so the other can spill the leadership. It's allowed Ms. Ley to dig in her heels for now as she prepares to name a new front bench without the Nationals. For more, we're joined by Health Minister Mark Butler and Liberal Senator Jane Hume. Good morning to both of you. Jane, was it inappropriate for a bunch of men to be in a room discussing a potential challenge to the first woman leader on the morning of a female former colleague's memorial?
 
JANE HUME, LIBERAL SENATOR: Nat, I don't think it was an entirely edifying moment for anybody. Certainly for a secret meeting, it wasn't so secret. I'm very glad that both Andrew Hastie and Angus Taylor didn't decide to become spies. That wouldn't have worked so well. But the most important thing here is that there is no challenge to Sussan Ley's leadership. No-one has put their hand up and said, I am going to challenge. That means that Sussan Ley is the unchallenged leader of the Liberal Party and she will continue to be so until there is a party room meeting where something else happens. That clearly is not happening.
 
BARR: But Jane, is there no challenge because these two men can't agree who's going to fold?
 
HUME: Well that's entirely up to them. I wasn't part of those meetings quite clearly and but neither of them have actually put their hand up and said we're concerned about the leadership and we are going to challenge or I am going to challenge.
 
BARR: So why are they meeting?
 
HUME: Sussan Ley is the leader, and she continues to be. She continues to have the support of her party room and she continues to have the support of her shadow cabinet.
 
BARR: So is this a case of who's got the biggest ego between Hastie and Taylor?
 
HUME: I wouldn't speculate on that Nat at all. What I would say is that the Liberal opposition is at its very best when we are unified, when we're focused on the job at hand which is holding a bad Labor government to account.
 
BARR: So does this mean you're at your very worst right now?
 
HUME: And presenting a credible alternative to make sure that at the next election Australians can see that the Liberal Party is the choice that represents their dreams, their hopes and their aspirations. We are not doing that right now, quite clearly, starting with a dummy spit from our coalition partners or former coalition partners in the Nationals. And right now we need to be focusing on the job at hand. Parliament returns next week. The economy is tanking. Inflation's going up. The growth is stalling. Productivity is going backwards and living is going backwards and living standards are going backwards. This is what we should be talking about every single day, not ourselves.
 
BARR: Mark, let's go to you. How will Parliament function next week when the Liberals stand on their own without the Nationals as the opposition?
 
MARK BUTLER, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGEING, MINISTER FOR DISABILITY AND THE NDIS: Well, that's really a matter for them. We know what we have to do. We're getting on with the job of governing. We're rolling out a whole range of commitments we made to the Australian people last year. We've got a National Cabinet meeting in a couple of hours' time where we're still very hopeful of striking a new five-year agreement for hospital funding. Inspite of all of these pretty bizarre displays of division and, frankly, disloyalty from Andrew Hastie and Angus Taylor yesterday, we'll just get on with doing our job. The Liberal Party could do well to listen to Jane Hume. She's been talking all week about the need for unity on that side because Australians know if you can't manage your own party there's no way you can challenge for the privilege of managing the country. I thought yesterday's display was just extraordinary. A so-called secret meeting where the cameras happened to turn up, on a day when the Liberal Party was mourning the loss of one their much-loved colleagues.  They learned nothing from the crassness of the coalition split last week on the National Day of Mourning of all days. Even after all of the displays of disloyalty and disunity, they still can't decide what to do.
 
BARR: Okay, let's move on to something else. Former Army chief Peter Leahy says Australia should have its own missile defence dome, similar to that of Israel, in the wake of advanced rocket technology. He says Australian military bases are legitimate targets and that we no longer have the benefit of distance to avoid an attack on home soil. Mark, would you consider a dome?
 
BUTLER: We know we are facing the most challenging strategic environment really for decades. We've talked very openly about that. I think that's something that the Liberal Party and the Labor Party recognise very clearly. That's why we've got the biggest increase in defence spending in peacetime history. And it's not just on existing capabilities. It is on those new capabilities that our defence people advise us we do need to meet that challenging strategic environment. We're constantly looking at the need not just to increase existing capabilities but whether there are new things we need to consider. If we get that advice from defence officials then the political leaders of the government will look at that very closely.
 
BARR: They'd look at a dome?
 
BUTLER: I’m not saying particularly we'd look at a dome. This is a news story from a very well-respected former leader in the ADF but obviously the existing leaders of the ADF are our advisors about the way in which we spend taxpayer funds on our defence capabilities. I make the point though that we have been over the last several years changing to new capabilities to recognise and reflect the fact that we live in this very challenging strategic environment.
 
BARR: Jane, would you back a dome over Australia, despite the huge cost? Is it something we need?
 
HUME: Well Nat, I'm not going to claim to be an expert in specific defence technologies, but what I would say is that the Defence Strategic Review, which was initiated by the Labor Government, is already out of date. It happened before the incursion into Ukraine and the way we've seen defence technologies used in the Middle East. We want to make sure that there is more investment into our defence force and that includes technologies and we need to do that not just to ensure that our defence personnel are better protected and more effective but also to defend our civilians because let's face it, our geographic strategic advantage has been superseded by technology. That is increasingly clear. So what is the answer? We'll be looking to Government to tell us what it is that they're hearing they need in order to defend our citizens every single day.
 
BARR: Okay. We thank you both. We'll see you next week.