Teena McQueen told to quit as Liberal vice-president after she celebrated defeat of ‘leftie’ candidates

Federal Liberal party vice-president Teena McQueen has been told there is "no justifiable place" on the executive for disloyalists after she appeared to celebrate the defeat of moderate Liberal candidates in the May election.

McQueen told the CPAC Australia conference on the weekend that "the good thing about the last federal election is a lot of those lefties are gone - we should rejoice in that".

"People I've been trying to get rid of for a decade have gone, we need to renew with good conservative candidates," she said in Sydney.

The Liberal party, Senator Simon Birmingham and others have now attacked McQueen over the "offensive" comments, with some insisting she resigns.

"Members of the federal executive are rightly expected to support our MPs and candidates - if they can't do that then they have no justifiable place being on the federal executive," Birmingham told Guardian Australia.

Asked on Thursday if McQueen should resign, Birmingham replied: "Yes."

"That would be a far better thing for her to do," he told ABC radio.

"If she doesn't want to support or endorse Liberal candidates or sitting Liberal MPs, then she shouldn't be sitting around the federal executive table of the Liberal party. I certainly won't be supporting her re-election if she contests her position again. Her position is untenable."

McQueen called on CPAC attenders to rejoin the Liberal party when acknowledging the concerns of conservative critics and celebrating the defeat of moderate Liberal MPs in blue-ribbon seats. "We're listening to you. We hear you. We're moving forward," she told a panel featuring former Liberal senators Amanda Stoker and Nick Minchin.

McQueen did not single out any specific members. Moderate MPs including Dave Sharma, Trent Zimmerman, Tim Wilson, Jason Falinski and Josh Frydenberg - who had been criticised by some in the party for advocating less conservative positions on issues such as climate and LGBTQ+ rights - were among the high-profile casualties at the election.

Numerous Liberal moderates have said they were enraged by McQueen's comments, as the moderate wing starts to regroup after the election. The Liberal party said it did not agree with McQueen.

"The Liberal party team, including thousands of volunteers, fought very hard to try and retain government and re-elect every Liberal member of parliament," a spokesperson said. "Ms McQueen's comments are unfortunate and not shared by the Liberal party."

Guardian Australia attempted to contact McQueen through the Liberal party.

Nelson Savanh is a federal vice-president of the Young Liberals who sits on the Liberal party's federal executive alongside McQueen. In a tweet on Sunday, he called McQueen's comments "disgraceful and disloyal".

"Ms McQueen celebrating Liberal candidates losing means she should be gone from federal executive. This group are out of touch. And this GOP/Farage homage at CPAC will only see us consigned to opposition for a generation," he wrote.

The tweet was liked or retweeted by the federal and New South Wales branches of the Young Liberals, several Young Liberal members, staffers to federal Coalition MPs and Birmingham himself - the federal party's leading moderate.

Birmingham, the shadow foreign minister and opposition Senate leader, said McQueen's "celebration of the defeat of Liberal MPs is both offensive and disloyal".

Savanh said many party members were angry at the comments.

"Loyal members are sick to death of people not having the party's best interests at heart, and lecturing us what it means to be a true Liberal," he told Guardian Australia.

"A lot of people are questioning why someone like that is still on our party's federal board. If she wants to celebrate Liberals losing, lots of people think her position is pretty untenable."

Queensland Liberal National party MP Sam O'Connor, the shadow environment and science minister, was one of those who liked Savanh's tweet. He said the party needed to talk more seriously about climate change to win back voters.

"Having someone in such a senior federal party position rejoice at us losing MPs is shameful. It's an insult to the hundreds of volunteers who fought hard to hold those seats," he said.

"Thinking that going further to the right is the solution to winning back seats we lost to the left defies all logic and reason."

The federal opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has called for an end to infighting within the Liberal party. He told Sky News the Coalition had to appeal to "a broad section of the broader Australian community" rather than the fringes.

"Locking in 15 or 20% primary vote is a way to keep yourself in opposition forever," he said on Tuesday.