Angus Taylor becomes opposition leader after defeating Sussan Ley in Liberal party leadership ballot | Angus Taylor

Angus Taylor has been elected the Liberal party’s new leader, ousting Sussan Ley in a partyroom ballot, 34 votes to 17.

The stronger than expected victory sees the conservative and former shadow defence minister become the party’s 17th leader, ending Ley’s nine-month tenure as Australia’s first female opposition leader.

Victorian senator and Taylor backer Jane Hume is the party’s new deputy leader, with Ley’s number two, Ted O’Brien, expected to take a frontbench role after losing the ballot.

Hume won 30 votes to O’Brien’s 20. Frontbenchers Dan Tehan and Melissa Price were both eliminated in the early stages of the ballot for deputy.

Taylor won after the initial spill motion to change the leader passed 33 votes to 17, with one informal vote.

The Liberal partyroom met on Friday morning for the hotly contested ballot, the culmination of a months-long campaign from conservative forces inside the Liberal party to undermine Ley, who had been supported by the moderate faction to lead the party after Peter Dutton’s crushing election defeat in May 2025.

Ley’s leadership has been undermined by right faction opponents since she took the top job in May last year, and her position has been questioned by critics seeking a stronger conservative stance from the opposition.

Despite overseeing a partyroom process to dump the Liberals’ commitment to net zero by 2050 – a position agreed in 2021 when Taylor was energy minister, under prime minister Scott Morrison – and taking a position of full-throated support for Israel, Ley’s critics were unhappy she hadn’t been more forceful on migration and cultural issues, or moved more quickly to release policies on cost-of-living.

Ley’s leadership was also damaged by two separate splits from the National party, fuelled by bitter disagreements with the minor party’s leader, David Littleproud. After the second split in January, following Nationals breaking from shadow cabinet solidarity over the Coalition’s response to the Labor government’s legislative response to the Bondi terror attacks, Ley’s challengers again started circling.

Conservatives MP Andrew Hastie had considered running against Ley, but opted not to contest the race over a lack of support. Taylor eventually challenge Ley on Thursday, with the Hume MP emerged as the right faction’s preferred candidate.

Taylor resigned from the frontbench to bring on the challenge, sparking a series of high-profile resignations in a pressure campaign, including shadow ministers James Paterson, Jonno Duniam, Dan Tehan, and key Ley supporter James McGrath.

Former Liberal prime minister Tony Abbott told ABC TV the party should immediately unite under Taylor’s leadership.

“He’s the best person for the job,” Abbott said.

“Everyone should get behind him because we need to win and be a strong opposition. The Liberal party remains the best hope of better government in this country.

“The next election is winnable. It is winnable. Never forget that oppositions, in a sense, don’t win. Governments lose.”