Angus Taylor is the new leader of the Liberal Party, winning by 34-17.
Opposition Leader Sussan Ley, the first female leader of the party, has been deposed.
This is a bigger margin than anyone would have thought a few days ago.
In the weeks after she was narrowly elected by her colleagues as the federal Liberal Party’s first female leader, Sussan Ley sounded full of the optimism that often comes with fresh starts.
She promised to be a new leader, with a new tone, new team and new agenda. She wanted to move her party to the so-called sensible centre. She would win back Australian women, young people, cities and multicultural communities. She was going to listen to her colleagues, and forge a cohesive and consultative party room process that catered to a range of views.
Those many promises made for a mighty assignment. Nine months later, they’re mostly unfulfilled.
With the opposition sinking in the polls and the Coalition fractured, Ley has been turfed, this time defeated 34 to 17.
The numbers turned against her in the demoralised and divided Liberal Party room she was trying to resuscitate following the disastrous May election.
The reality is that Ley laid out ambitions and, largely, did not deliver. The question is whether it was because of her own shortcomings and a few bad calls – or the plain fact that many of her colleagues never planned to give her a chance. She took over as the norms of conservative politics were falling apart, and the Liberal Party was reckoning with its very purpose – a complicated backdrop for any leader, let alone the first woman.
Read federal political correspondent Natassia Chrysanthos’ full analysis.
State independent MP Helen Dalton, who represents the NSW seat of Murray, says she is open to the idea of contesting the federal seat of Farrer that will be left vacant when Sussan Ley resigns from parliament.
“My mobile has been burning up since Sussan announced she was leaving politics. I understand that the people of my region want their voices to be heard and whatever I decide to do, I will be doing it to make sure their voices are a lot louder,” Dalton said in a statement this afternoon.
“While the calls for me to run are heartfelt, I need to make sure that whatever I do, it will give the people of my region the best possible representation. That might be in federal politics or it might be in state politics. This news is only a few hours old and I have some serious thinking to do.”
Dalton was elected as a representative of the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party in 2019, before leaving to become an independent in March 2022. She was re-elected as an independent at the 2023 state election.
Her state electorate of Murray overlaps with Ley’s federal seat of Farrer, taking in the regional city of Griffith. Ley won the seat for the Liberals in 2001, which was a shock upset to the Nationals who had held the seat beforehand.
In the 2025 federal election, the two party preferred vote came down to Ley and independent candidate Michelle Milthorpe, who was backed by the Climate 200 movement.
Dalton said the key message of the moment was that people in rural Australia did not feel represented by their political leaders.
“Rural Australians are the heart and soul of this country and yet, we continue to be ignored by state and federal governments. For now, I will continue to talk to the people in my region to get a better gauge of what they want,” she said.
“Sussan gave the electorate everything she could and that’s important. I sincerely wish her all the best… I thought Sussan’s exit speech was elegant and heartfelt, given she has had a very tough time in politics, especially in the last 12 months as opposition leader.”
Angus Taylor might be hoping for a fresh start as he gears up to drag the Coalition from its polling depths, but Australians have long memories – particularly when it comes to gaffes.
After Taylor posted his inaugural opposition leader photo to social media, thousands of comments flooded in, though they’re probably not the sort Taylor was hoping for.
“Fantastic. Great move. Well done Angus,” commenter after commenter posted, referring to the moment when Taylor replied to himself on social media, thinking he was posting from a burner account.
Labor MPs have already been making hay with the six-year-old blunder, with a series of ministers working the phase into their responses during question time throughout the week.
One Nation’s Barnaby Joyce has already declared his new party will run a candidate in Farrer, now that Sussan Ley is going to retire, triggering a byelection in her sprawling NSW electorate, which covers 123,563 square kilometres stretching from Albury to Broken Hill.
In 2025, remedial therapist Emma Hicks, the One Nation candidate, attracted 6.6 per cent of the primary vote. Independent candidate Michelle Milthorpe, who received funding from teal-backing group Climate 200, came second to Ley, with 20 per cent of the primary vote and 43.8 per cent of the preference count.
Here’s what the contest looked like last time:
The ABC’s election analyst emeritus Antony Green has already posted an analysis of the Farrer seat ahead of the byelection on his own website, if you’d like a deep dive. Here’s some of his analysis:
In two-party contests, Ley has held the seat with double-digit margins since her first victory in a three-cornered contest in 2001. But that margin has been reduced in contests versus independents at two of the last three elections, to 10.9% in 2019 and only 6.2% in 2025.
If Ley resigns it will set-up a very messy by-election for new Liberal leader Angus Taylor. Under the Coalition agreement, the Nationals did not contest Farrer while Ley was member.
With the seat vacant, it is certain that the Nationals will run against the new Liberal candidate. Given current polling, One Nation would be certain to contest. Two of the last three contests for Farrer have seen independents reach second place. Labor may contest the byelection, but the party has not reached a quarter of the primary vote since 2007. More likely Labor would sit out the contest and leave the field free for a conservative slugfest.
You can read more here.
Liberal senator and Sussan Ley supporter Maria Kovacic has thanked the former opposition leader for her service to the party and country.
“At every turn, Sussan has been a demonstration of strength, integrity and leadership in the face of continued adversity. Sussan stepped forward to lead our party after our worst ever election result. She did so with grace and dignity, and always had her focus on what matters to Australians. She has been unwavering in her commitment,” Kovacic said in a statement.
Kovacic congratulated Angus Taylor and his deputy Jane Hume.
“They carry the burden of a significant responsibility to ensure that what we offer Australians genuinely reflects their needs and aspirations, particularly at a time when metropolitan voters, women and young Australians have walked away from us,” she said.
“I look forward to the Liberal Party returning its focus to serving Australians.”
Newly elected Opposition Leader Angus Taylor is due to address the media soon after successfully ousting former leader Sussan Ley.
We will bring you a livestream and rolling updates from Taylor’s address here on our live blog.
One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce has applauded former opposition leader Sussan Ley for her handling of the “poisoned chalice” of her job, as he urged voters to select a One Nation candidate in the upcoming byelection triggered by Ley’s resignation.
“The work that she’s done for our nation, for the Coalition, and the dignity in which she basically saw the poison chalice that was handed to her, which was being the first leader after an election loss, she gave it her very best,” Joyce told Sky News.
“One Nation, we will be standing in Farrer already, and we look forward to giving people in Farrer the opportunity to see the clarity, the unity, the strength and a decisive change because that’s what they’re asking for the nation,” he said.
Joyce said voting for an independent candidate in the byelection would simply be symbolic, after independent Michelle Milthorpe won 20 per cent of the vote in the May election, coming second to Ley.
“We know that area. We know regional NSW. And we look forward to having a candidate who’s also very au fait with the issues of Griffith, as they are of Albury as they are of Hay.”
Liberal MP Melissa Price says Sussan Ley was not given “a fair crack of the whip”, and that her leadership was derailed by chaos within the Coalition and the Liberal Party that robbed her of the opportunity to prove herself.
Speaking to Sky News this morning, Price said, “She’s been in the job for nine months, and really wasn’t given a great gift after the 2025 election loss, so there was an enormous amount of rebuilding to do for her, and during that time, she had two break-ups with the Nationals … That all just sucks the energy out of a leader, and not just the leader, but her team as well.
“I think she should have been given a chance to turn the ship around.”
Price also paid tribute to Ley’s time in politics, saying she was saddened to see her friend and former leader quit.
“I’m a little bit sad. I mean, she’s a friend of mine, and I was pretty emotional after she announced that, and I thought that was an amazing press conference. What an elegant woman she is, and a real leader, but I’m happy for her. She’s been in this place for over 25 years, you know, now she gets to write the next chapter for Sussan Ley.”
Sussan Ley’s final press conference, after a larger-than-expected loss to Angus Taylor, was all class and hinted at the person Australians never quite got to know.
Ley started by talking about her mum, Angela Braybrooks, who died a few days after her daughter became Liberal leader.
“One of the things she said was when something ends in sadness, don’t dwell on the disappointment. Be grateful that you had it at all,” Ley said.
She declared no hard feelings towards Taylor, thanked all her constituents and staff and name-checked some of her achievements – securing a royal commission into antisemitism, landing an energy policy and bringing the Coalition back together (twice).
And then she dropped a bombshell foreshadowed a few days ago – that she was quitting politics and causing a byelection in Farrer.
Her exit made sense after 25 years in parliament, with six grandchildren, a love of aviation to reconnect with (and a plane to fly) and access to the generous defined benefits pension scheme that was abolished in 2004.
She even managed to end on a punk note, promising to continue to find wisdom in one of the genres defining themes, “a fearless and honest belief in yourself”.
Ley handled her exit with aplomb. She also left a massive landmine for her successor, Taylor, as winning the Farrer byelection will be no easy feat. The Nationals, One Nation and an independent candidate are all likely to run hard to win the seat from the Liberals.
Taylor’s first gift to the party room could be the loss of another lower house seat.
Former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Turnbull says new Opposition Leader Angus Taylor is not the solution for the Coalition’s significant slide in the polls, instead calling for the party to move back to the centre of politics.
“What they really need to do is move back to the centre. They’ve got to start talking about the economy and talking about it, not just in bland motherhood statements: lower taxes, less government, all that stuff,” Turnbull told ABC television.
“They’ve got to actually have some plans. They’ve got to demonstrate that they’re serious people and that they’re thinking about the changes that can be made to make the Australian economy grow faster and to be fairer,” he said.
“They’ve got to have positive, detailed plans to promote housing affordability. They’ve got to have detailed plans about tax reform, they can’t just get away with sound bites that may go down well on Sky News.”
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
