Peter Dutton elected unopposed as Liberal party leader with Sussan Ley as deputy

Peter Dutton and Sussan Ley will lead the Liberals in opposition, after the pair were elected unopposed as leader and deputy at a party room meeting on Monday.

The former defence minister and environment minister take the reins of a much-depleted Liberal-National Coalition, likely to hold just 58 or 59 seats in the House of Representatives.

Since the Morrison government’s defeat at the 21 May election, Dutton, the leader of the conservative faction, has argued the party needs to “come together”, promising to lead a broad church that is Liberal rather than just moderate or conservative.

The Liberal whip, Bert van Manen, announced the result on Monday morning, thanking Scott Morrison “for his service and his leadership of our party over the last three and a half years”.

He also thanked outgoing deputy Josh Frydenberg, who lost the blue-ribbon seat of Kooyong, taking him out of contention for the leadership.

After leaving the party room meeting, Scott Morrison “heartily” congratulated the new leadership team, who he described as “enormously experienced”.

“They’re well-versed and deeply committed Australians both to Liberal cause and the cause of the nation,” he told reporters in Canberra. “They’ll do an outstanding job.”

Dutton served as the minister for health then immigration in the Abbott government, eventually consolidating his power in the home affairs portfolio before an unsuccessful tilt at Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership paved the way for Morrison to take over the party.

Ley is a former minister for aged care and sport. She took the environment portfolio and re-entered cabinet in May 2019 after a few years in the political wilderness over a parliamentary expenses scandal.

Earlier on Monday the leader of the Liberal moderates, Simon Birmingham, said that Dutton and Ley would provide the party “a new start”, adding that it had “lessons to learn” from its defeat.

Birmingham described Dutton as “a good man, a good guy”, arguing that his personality was “more complex … than many people would appreciate”.

Dutton is viewed as a hard-head due to past actions including boycotting the apology to the stolen generations, and controversial remarks about African gangs and Muslim Lebanese migration.