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Centre Right Faction | |
|---|---|
| Faction Leader | Alex Hawke[1][2][3] |
| Founder | Alex Hawke[4][5] |
| Ideology | |
| Political position | Centre-right[7] |
| Associated party | Liberal |
| House of Representatives | 3 / 28 (2025 seats) |
| Senate | 1 / 23 (2025 seats) |
| Part ofa series on |
| Liberalism in Australia |
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| Part ofa series on |
| Conservatism in Australia |
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TheCentre Right Faction orCentre Right Group[6][8][9] is afaction within thefederal AustralianLiberal Party that constitutes one of its major internal groupings, with the other groups as of 2021 being theModerate and theNational Right faction to its right.[6]
The faction's mainideology can be seen as a soft mix[clarification needed] of both the adjacent factions' ideologies. As noted byThe Sydney Morning Herald in 2021: “The group's unifying philosophy is pragmatism – that means an adherence tofree-market economics and relatively conservative social values.”[6] The ideological position, and pragmatism ("to yield results"),[10] of the Centre Right Faction, is one of the reasonsScott Morrison was appointed leader of the party in2018.[10] As its nickname underScott Morrison (Morrison Club) signifies, its figurehead was then-Prime Minister Scott Morrison, withAlex Hawke known as the leader of the faction.[1]
During theMorrison government years, the Centre-Right was the largest faction, with 32 of 91 Liberal MPs belonging to the group.[11] However, the2022 Australian federal election saw a significant realignment of factional affiliations within the Liberal Party, with the Centre-Right going from being the largest faction to the smallest faction, plummeting from 32 members to just 6, caused by a combination of members losing seats as well as members moving to other factions; the aftermath of the election saw the emergence of a "Centrist" faction consisting of former Moderate and Centre-Right MPs, mostly hailing from Victoria, with this group espousing similar ideological leanings to the Centre-Right faction in being more economically dry than the National Right and more socially conservative than the Moderates.[12] Most of the factional power following the election defeat and leadership change was transferred to the Conservative Right led by the newParty LeaderPeter Dutton.[13]
As of 10 October 2025[update].[14][15]
| Name | Constituency | Current Shadow/Former Government Positions | State/Territory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alex Hawke | Member forMitchell | Manager of Opposition Business in the House Former Minister forImmigration andForeign Affairs | NSW |
| Melissa McIntosh | Member forLindsay | None | NSW |
| Scott Buchholz | Member forWright | Former Assistant Minister for Road Safety and Freight Transport | QLD |
| Andrew McLachlan | Senator forSA | Former Deputy President of the Senate | SA |
One the soft-right's own, Melissa McIntosh, is being challenged by conservative candidate Mark Davies in Lindsay, the marginal seat around Penrith in Sydney's west. There is talk of a conservative challenge against Sussan Ley, the Environment Minister and member for Farrer, but nominations for her seat have not opened.
:1 was invoked but never defined (see thehelp page).