Leader of the Liberal Party of Australia

The Leader of the Liberal Party, also known as Leader of the Parliamentary Liberal Party, is the highest office within the Liberal Party of Australia and is the leader of the Liberal–National Coalition. The incumbent leader is Sussan Ley, who was elected on 13 May 2025.

History

The Liberal Party leadership was first held by former United Australia Party leader and eventual co–founder Robert Menzies, along with eighteen political organisations and groups.
Following the oustings of two Liberal prime ministers in three years, Scott Morrison introduced a new threshold to trigger a Liberal Party leadership change in government, requiring two-thirds of the partyroom vote to trigger a spill motion. The change was introduced at an hour long party room meeting on the evening of 3 December 2018. Morrison said the changes, which were drafted with feedback from former prime ministers John Howard and Tony Abbott, would only apply to leaders who lead the party to victory at a federal election.

Role

Since the days of Menzies, the Liberal Party has either been in government in a coalition or in opposition to Labor. Thus, the leader of the Liberal Party has always served as either the Prime Minister of Australia or the Leader of the Opposition. Furthermore, the leader picks the Cabinet and is also the leader of the Coalition. The Liberal Party has only had one leader of the party from the Senate, John Gorton, for a brief period in January 1968 before he resigned from the Senate to contest the Higgins by-election in February 1968.

Leaders of the Liberal Party

Federal leaders by time in office

This list ranks federal leaders of the Liberal Party by their time in office. Leaders that also served as Prime Minister are in bold. Where leaders served non-consecutive terms, their total time as leader is ranked together.

Rank		Leader	Time in office
1	1st	Robert Menzies	20 years, 133 days
2	8th	John Howard	16 years, 184 days
3	6th	Malcolm Fraser	7 years, 355 days
4	13th	Tony Abbott	5 years, 287 days
5	12th	Malcolm Turnbull	4 years, 59 days
6	9th	John Hewson	4 years, 50 days
7	14th	Scott Morrison	3 years, 279 days
8	7th	Andrew Peacock	3 years, 142 days
9	3rd	John Gorton	3 years, 59 days
10	15th	Peter Dutton	2 years, 338 days
11	5th	Billy Snedden	2 years, 91 days
12	2nd	Harold Holt	1 year, 333 days
13	4th	William McMahon	1 year, 270 days
14	11th	Brendan Nelson	292 days
15	16th	Sussan Ley
16	10th	Alexander Downer	252 days

Federal deputy leaders

#	Name	State	Term start	Term end	Duration	Leader
1		New South Wales	21 February 1945	26 September 1956		Robert Menzies
2		Victoria	26 September 1956	20 January 1966		Robert Menzies
3		New South Wales	20 January 1966	10 March 1971		Harold Holt John Gorton
4		Victoria	10 March 1971	16 August 1971		William McMahon
5		Victoria	18 August 1971	20 December 1972		William McMahon
6		Victoria	20 December 1972	8 April 1982		Billy Snedden Malcolm Fraser
7		New South Wales	8 April 1982	5 September 1985		Malcolm Fraser Andrew Peacock
8		Victoria	5 September 1985	17 July 1987		John Howard
9		Victoria	17 July 1987	9 May 1989		John Howard
10		Western Australia	9 May 1989	3 April 1990		Andrew Peacock
11		Victoria	24 March 1990	13 March 1993		John Hewson
12		Victoria	13 March 1993	23 May 1994		John Hewson
13		Victoria	23 May 1994	29 November 2007		Alexander Downer John Howard
14		Western Australia	29 November 2007	24 August 2018		Brendan Nelson Malcolm Turnbull Tony Abbott
15		Victoria	24 August 2018	30 May 2022		Scott Morrison
16		New South Wales	30 May 2022	13 May 2025		Peter Dutton Herself
17	Ted O'Brien	Queensland	13 May 2025	Incumbent		Susan Ley