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February 13, 2026 — 9:19am
Angus Taylor has won the Liberal leadership in a party room vote, promising to make the opposition a strong alternative after several months of record-low polling.
He won the leadership ballot on Friday morning by 34 votes to 17 against Sussan Ley, who served as Liberal leader for nine months after being elected in the immediate aftermath of the Coalition’s disastrous election in May.
The margin was bigger than anyone in the party would have thought a few days ago. Taylor is the 17th person to lead the federal Liberal Party.
The powerbroker who has guided Taylor’s strategy, Senator James Paterson, laid out a brutal assessment of Ley’s leadership on Thursday.
“At the last election … almost 5 million Australians voted for us. They put their trust in us. Over the last nine months, according to the most recent opinion polls, 2.1 million of those people have since deserted the Coalition,” Paterson said, admitting Ley had been dealt a bad hand.
“That’s more than 200,000 votes a month. It’s more than 50,000 votes a week. It’s more than 7,000 votes a day. This cannot go on. If it goes on, there’ll be nothing left of the Liberal Party by the next election.”
Taylor’s supporters have flagged a more conservative agenda in contrast to Ley’s stated appeal to shift to the centre.
More to come.
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