‘Change or die’: Taylor puts forward new vision as Ley lobs byelection bomb on way out

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 byelection 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.”

Hume’s promotion to deputy will help counter the perception the party is now hostile to women and metropolitan voters. The Victorian senator from the Moderate faction is a high-profile performer who lives in Melbourne, where the party has lost all but one urban seat. She won the deputy ballot by 30 to 20 against Ted O’Brien, the former deputy leader.

Hume is the first deputy leader from the Senate for several decades. O’Brien’s role as shadow treasurer might go to Goldstein MP Tim Wilson, but some right-wingers are pushing for James Paterson to take the job, although the position is traditionally held by a lower house MP.

Standing in front of six Australian flags, Taylor used new rhetoric to talk about the problems with Australia’s migration program. He argued that not only were migration numbers too high, but that too many people who “hated” Australia were arriving, embracing the more hardline stance espoused by another top Liberal, Andrew Hastie, and risking a backlash from multicultural advocates.

Taylor emphasised cultural talking points dominating conservative party agendas across the world, decrying “bad immigration”, promising to “unapologetically defend Australian values”, and arguing the “door must be shut” to migrants who do not believe in liberal democratic principles.

Migration had improved Australia, Taylor said, but “the truth is that some people do not want to change in order to fit with our core values”.

“We’ve had the worst terrorist attack on our soil in our history, by Islamic extremists.”

One Nation announced it would contest the Farrer by-election, which Labor is unlikely to contest and which Liberals portrayed as a form of revenge by Ley against Taylor. Pauline Hanson said, “They’ve changed the leader, but they’re still on a dead horse.”

Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, a consistent critic of his party, said, “what a lot of people say about Angus Taylor is he is the best-qualified idiot they’ve ever met”. Another former leader Tony Abbott said that Taylor was “the best person for the job”.

Taylor also flagged that he would campaign against Labor’s expensive universal childcare plan, suggesting families should not be pushed to put their children in care.

Ley announced about an hour after the leadership vote that she would resign from parliament. Her nine months as opposition leader was the second-shortest stint in Australian history, excluding those who became prime minister.

“I leave it for others to judge this period of my leadership now … while I’m sure plenty of people will have plenty to say, I’ve never sought to influence what other people think of me,” she said.

“It is important that the new leader gets clear air, something that is not always afforded to leaders, but which in the present moment is more important than ever.”

Ley thanked colleagues who had voted for her and said she wished Taylor well, saying she had “no hard feelings” towards him.

Read more on the Liberal Party leadership spill:

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter.