Taylor outlines vision for new look Liberals
The new Liberal leader revealed his key focus for the party moving forward, saying they would not be “One Nation lite”.
Source: AAP
Angus Taylor has emphasised that tougher immigration policy will be a key focus for the Liberals under his leadership, declaring: “If someone doesn’t subscribe to our core beliefs, the door must be shut.”
The conservative challenger comprehensively defeated Sussan Ley 34-17 in a leadership showdown at Parliament House on Friday morning, with Victorian senator Jane Hume winning the deputy leadership.
Shortly afterwards, Ley – who was the Liberals’ first female leader – announced that she would be quitting politics, issuing a parting barb to Taylor’s backers.
“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,” she said.
Addressing media in Canberra after the spill, with Hume by his side, Taylor outlined his vision for the struggling party, which he acknowledged “is in the worst position that it has been since it was founded in 1944”.
“We must look ahead and put the disagreements of the recent past behind us,” he said.
“The choice is simple for the Liberal Party: Change or die. I choose change.”
He pulled no punches when asked about immigration, saying the Liberals’ policy would be “for lower numbers and for higher standards”.
Crucially, he said, it must put Australians, and “Australian values”, first: “If someone doesn’t subscribe to our core beliefs, the door must be shut.”
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Taylor said Australia’s borders had been open to “people who hate our way of life, people who don’t want to embrace Australia, and who want Australia to change for them”.
The new leader said his focus would also be on home ownership, lower taxes, and improving the economy.
He warned PM Anthony Albanese that the Liberals would oppose every “bad tax” – including carbon taxes – and fight “reckless spending policy that drives up inflation and keeps interest rates higher for longer”.
He acknowledged the Liberals got it wrong at the last election – when he was shadow treasurer and Hume the finance spokeswoman – when they ran a platform of higher taxes.
Hume also admitted that her anti-work-from-home policies were a mistake: “That’s why we didn’t take it to the election and why we won’t be taking it to a future election.”
Taylor denied he would seek to make the party “One Nation-lite”. However, he said the Liberals had to restore faith in voters who might be thinking of shifting their support to Pauline Hanson’s party, which has now overtaken the Coalition in the polls.
“We do need to focus on protecting Australia’s way of life, but we also need to focus on what we know works in an economy – which is, if you put faith in Australians to invest in the future of our country, they will do it.”
Earlier, former PM Malcolm Turnbull told the ABC the Liberal Party had to “stop living in this right wing populist bubble and focus on the economy”.
“If you think you are going to win back people who have gone to Hanson by showing yourself to be even more tough, more anti-immigration than her, that’s a game you can’t win,” Turnbull said.
Sussan Ley said it is important the new Liberal leader ‘gets clean air’. Photo: AAP
Labor had already released its attack ads on Taylor minutes after the party room concluded, previewing that it would focus its attention over the next two years on his economic credibility.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers wasted no time in tearing down his old sparring partner after the spill result was announced.
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“Angus has zero credibility on the economy and neither does the bin fire that is the Coalition,” he said.
Taylor also faces criticism for deposing the first female leader, with her supporters arguing she wasn’t given enough time in the job and had constantly been undermined by the conservative faction.
Liberal MP Melissa Price admitted taking down the party’s first female leader was “a bad look”.
“We’ve got a bit of repairing to do … but I’m still here and I look forward to doing that,” she told AAP.
Albanese said in a social media post that he had spoken to Ley, who he congratulated for showing “grace and dignity” on a “very difficult day”.
Asked what impact toppling Ley would have, Taylor said his focus was bringing back everyone who had been disappointed with the party.
“To those who we wanted to have vote for us at the last election but didn’t, male or female, it doesn’t matter,” he told reporters in Canberra.
“We have lost voters across the board, across all age groups.”
The Women’s Electoral Lobby said the party’s “reliance on individual ‘merit’ as the sole criterion for leadership has failed Liberal women”.
“It’s time the ‘boys’ own party within the Liberal Party came to an end,” national convenor Kay Anastassiadis said.
Ley said she would tender her resignation in coming weeks following 25 years in parliament. That will spark a byelection in her regional NSW seat of Farrer.
She said she had no hard feelings for her detractors and wished Taylor well.
“I know he has experience, energy and drive. I know the whole team will have what it takes to fight this awful Labor government. I will be cheering them on,” she said.
Ley entered and emerged from the meeting in a suffragette white suit, flanked by her moderate backers.
She becomes the party’s second shortest-serving leader, eclipsing Alexander Downer by only 24 days.
Hume toppled incumbent deputy Ted O’Brien for the deputy leadership, coming through a contested field that also included O’Brien as well as Dan Tehan and Melissa Price.
–with AAP
