Australia’s centre-right Liberal Party has elected Angus Taylor as its new leader, replacing Sussan Ley after less than a year in the job, local media reported. The move elevates a prominent conservative who lobbied to drop the party’s commitment to net zero emissions, signaling a sharpened debate over the opposition’s direction on climate policy and its broader appeal to voters.
Taylor, a former energy minister, emerges from the party’s “national right” faction and was seen as a key proponent of the Liberals’ decision in November to abandon their net-zero target. That reversal marked a break with a policy introduced in 2021 by then-leader Scott Morrison when he was prime minister, and has intensified the party’s internal struggle between moderates and conservatives over how to position itself after a heavy election defeat last year.
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Ley, the first woman to lead the Liberal Party, was ousted following a leadership challenge that prompted several members of her leadership team to resign. Her brief term was marred by visible factional friction and a public clash last month with the Liberals’ long-standing coalition partners, the rural-based Nationals, with whom the party has governed for much of the past century.
The party’s shift on emissions has rekindled Australia’s long-running “climate wars,” a domestic fight over energy and environmental policy that has strained governments for years and complicated investment and planning. While successive leaders have wrestled with targets and timelines, the country remains dependent on its fossil fuel economy for growth, underscoring the political and economic stakes as energy costs, reliability and regional jobs jostle against emissions pledges.
For the Liberals, Taylor’s ascent clarifies a strategic bet: doubling down on skepticism toward climate legislation and appealing to voters worried about the cost of transition, even as centrist factions argue the party must modernize to win back suburban electorates lost at the last election. That contest of ideas—over net zero, social policy and multiculturalism—has defined the party’s internal debate since the devastating result.
A trained economist and the son of a sheep farmer, Taylor built his political profile on energy and resources, portfolios at the heart of Australia’s industrial base and export earnings. He also drew online ridicule in 2019 for mistakenly replying to his own social media post with praise—“Fantastic. Great move. Well done Angus”—a gaffe that belied his rising influence in the party’s right wing.
Labor, led by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, won power by a wide margin last year and will not be forced back to the polls until a general election due by May 2028. That gives the opposition time to settle its platform and repair relations with the Nationals, whose rural seats have often provided the numerical backbone of conservative federal governments.
Taylor’s leadership puts energy policy back at the core of Australia’s political contest. Whether the Liberals seek an alternative to net zero or articulate a different path to emissions reduction without a formal target will help determine how they reconnect with metropolitan voters while holding regional support. It will also test the durability of the conservative coalition that has defined much of Australia’s modern political history.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
