Tony Abbott was elected unopposed as Liberal Party president on Friday. The position, which is unpaid and typically low-profile, oversees the party’s administrative and campaigning wing and operates separately from the parliamentary leadership.

Abbott, Australia’s 28th prime minister, lost his federal parliamentary seat in the 2019 election to independent Zali Steggall. He remained on the sidelines in 2025 to avoid distracting then-leader Peter Dutton and was previously mentioned as a possible appointee to fill the late Jim Molan’s Senate seat in 2023. His name had also been floated ahead of the Farrer byelection, which ended in a heavy loss for the Liberals.

In his acceptance speech, Abbott said, “I owe the Liberal Party big time, and that’s why I regard it as my duty to serve the party in this time of existential crisis.” Opposition leader Angus Taylor, who asked Abbott to stand for the role despite reservations from some colleagues, welcomed his appointment. “I welcome him to the role, because he’s been one of our most successful opposition leaders in history, and he’s going to work with me and rebuild the party.” Taylor described Abbott as a “great patriot” and a “great believer in this country.”

The party president chairs the Liberal federal executive, the party’s top administrative decision-making body, and traditionally does not participate in policy development. Abbott intends to use the position to push for the “democratisation” of all state and territory branches to give branch members greater control over candidate preselections. He and Taylor will also jointly choose a new campaign chief to replace outgoing official Andrew Hirst, with Matthew Sheahan of the right-wing lobby group Advance rumored to be under consideration.

Critics within the party expressed concern. One Liberal MP said installing Abbott was “another step on the road to our self-destruction.” Another remarked, “Sometimes he’s brilliant, sometimes he’s crazy, sometimes he’s halfway in between. But paradoxically, he’s the guy that might take us to the right further, but also the guy that was the number one prosecutor against One Nation.” Labor minister Chris Bowen said, “Tony Abbott has been utterly out of touch with the views of mainstream Australia for 20 years. If he is going to play a bigger role in Liberal party policy, that is bad for the Liberal party and good for the Labor party.”