Angus Taylor elected new Liberal Party leader, Jane Hume deputy
‘Change or die’: Taylor puts forward new vision as Ley lobs by-election bomb on way out
Paul Sakkal and Natassia Chrysanthos - February 13, 2026
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor says his mission to save the Liberal Party from extinction will focus on home ownership and shutting out “bad migration”, as he pledged to make the party competitive by restoring middle-class wealth and national pride.
Taking over the party at its lowest ebb this century, Taylor and new deputy Jane Hume acknowledged the depths of the party’s crisis, with Taylor admitting it was a “change or die” moment.
The party entered a new era on Friday when Sussan Ley was deposed as leader by 34 votes to 17, handing Taylor a mandate to reshape the party and re-orient it around free-market economics.
Ley handed Taylor an immediate test by triggering a by-election in her regional NSW seat of Farrer. Ley, 64, said she would “completely and comprehensively” exit public life, creating an unpredictable electoral contest that might see the Liberals and Nationals go head-to-head against One Nation and the independents in a seat that seems tailor-made to underscore the Coalition’s bleeding to both its left and right flank.
“The choice is simple for the Liberal Party: change or die. And I choose change,” Taylor said. “We’re in this position because we didn’t stay true to our core values because we stopped listening to Australians because we were attracted to the politics of convenience, rather than focusing on the politics of conviction.”
Taylor declared “what we have to do in Australia is fight for Australia first”, in a patriotic pitch that also rejected the interventionist model promoted by leadership rival Andrew Hastie and his brand of politics.
After a short and turbulent nine-month stint in which Ley talked about moving back to the centre and focusing on women voters, Taylor and Hume made no such promise as the party sheds voters across the board.
“We’re going to take the Liberal Party forward, not left, not right,” Hume said.
Taylor said: “Male and female, it doesn’t matter. We have lost voters across the board, across all age groups, and it’s our job now … to roll up the sleeves and get working”.
Taylor and Hume were the Liberal Party’s heavily criticised economics team at the last election, and both admitted election campaign errors on income tax and working from home policies respectively.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who refrained from publicly attacking the party’s first female leader in her first months, assailed Taylor on this masthead’s Inside Politics podcast, claiming he had “gone on strike” since losing the leadership to Ley last year.
“He went to an election arguing for higher taxes and higher deficits. It’s diabolical. And the idea that what the Liberal Party needs is to become more right wing is, to me, to miss the message that has been given to them,” Albanese said, arguing Taylor had a “born-to-rule” attitude. “It’s fair to say Sussan Ley hasn’t been given a fair crack.”
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