SYDNEY: Australia’s opposition Liberal Party elected as leader on Friday a conservative who lobbied to drop its commitment to net zero emissions, as it seeks to counter an insurgent populist right and rebuild support after a disastrous election loss last year.
The Liberals have endured an agonizing existential crisis since their second consecutive defeat by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Labor, torn between centrist factions and right-wingers skeptical of climate legislation and multiculturalism.
Angus Taylor — a former energy minister — replaced Sussan Ley, the party’s first female leader who had been in office for just nine months.
Speaking following his election, Taylor said his party faced a choice: “Change or die.”
He struck a hardline on immigration, claiming “our borders have been open to people who hate our way of life.”
And he said the party would stand against “Labor’s net zero ideology.”
Ley was ousted after a leadership challenge was called on Thursday, leading multiple members of her team to resign.
Opinion polling showing it falling behind the right-wing populist One Nation had spooked her party’s leadership.
Far-right One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has long been a fixture on the fringes of Australian politics, sparking outrage last year wearing a burqa in parliament in a stunt condemned as racist.
In an upbeat statement after she was ousted, Ley thanked her supporters and said she would quit politics.
Last month she endured a public spat with longtime coalition partners the Nationals, with whom the Liberal Party has governed Australia for much of the past century.
And in November the party dropped its commitment to net zero emissions, introduced in 2021 by former leader Scott Morrison when he was prime minister.
New leader Taylor was seen as a key proponent of the decision to drop the commitment to zero emissions.
The son of a sheep farmer, he is seen as part of the Liberal’s conservative faction.
He attracted online ridicule in 2019 when he replied to his own social media post with: “Fantastic. Great move. Well done Angus.”
‘Best qualified idiot’
“Angus Taylor has just taken on the hardest job in politics,” Zareh Ghazarian at the Monash School of Social Sciences said.
“Angus Taylor now has to demonstrate what his vision is for the party, and what approach he will take to unite the party and galvanize support from the broader community,” he said.
Former Liberal leader and prime minister Malcolm Turnbull warned the party against further drifting to the right.
“That will condemn the Liberal Party to further irrelevance,” Turnbull, a prominent centrist, told national broadcaster ABC.
“A lot of people say about Angus Taylor is he has been the best qualified idiot they’ve ever met,” he said.
“He has this hugely qualified resume but then when you look at what done in politics so far it has been disappointing.”
Australia’s next general election must be held by May 2028.