Jane Hume breaks ranks with Sussan Ley and blasts 'silly' calls for Kevin Rudd to resign
The former minister, dumped from the Coalition frontbench, said Kevin Rudd should be given credit for helping secure a critical minerals deal with the Trump administration.
Opposition leader Sussan Ley’s attempts to ramp up pressure on US ambassador Kevin Rudd lasted all but 24 hours. After Rudd received a public dressing down from US President Donald Trump on Tuesday, Ley immediately declared his position untenable.
By Wednesday, Ley was refusing to repeat the demand, after a key backbencher Jane Hume broke ranks to publicly dismissed it as “churlish”.
Expanding on her critique soon after Ley’s press conference, Hume told Capital Brief that the Albanese-Trump meeting was “far from perfect” because it did not result in a reduction in tariffs or commitments over pharmaceuticals.
But Hume, who Ley dumped from the frontbench in May, stressed that her leader had consistently demanded that Albanese “lead Team Australia, to sit down with the president, and to seek assurances on AUKUS”.
