Angus Taylor

Early life and education Taylor was born on 30 September 1966 in Cooma, New South Wales, to Anne and Peter Taylor. He was raised alongside his three brothers on their family property "Bobingah", a sheep and cattle farm in Nimmitabel. He is partly of Jewish descent, with a Jewish grandmother.

Taylor's father is a fourth-generation sheep farmer. Taylor's maternal grandfather was engineer Sir William Hudson. His mother died from cancer in 1988 at the age of 48. Contemporaneous to her death was a collapse in wool and beef prices due to drought, an event that brought financial stress on the Taylor family. His father eventually became President of NSW Farmers and Vice President of the National Farmers Federation.

Taylor completed primary school at Nimmitabel's local primary school. He then boarded at The King's School, Parramatta. Upon graduation, he studied at the University of Sydney while residing at St Andrew's College, graduating with a Bachelor of Economics and a Bachelor of Laws.

Taylor then won a Rhodes Scholarship, and elected to study a Master of Philosophy in Economics at New College, Oxford. He studied "Smith, Bentham, Burke, Mill, Marshall, Schumpeter, Galbraith, Keynes and Friedman". During his studies he developed an interest in the game theory of John Forbes Nash Jr. He applied Nash's theories to make an analysis of English pubs, to argue that they ought be protected from being dominated by large brewing companies. While at Oxford in 1991, Taylor also met future Prime Minister of Canada Mark Carney, who was also studying at Oxford and both had attended an economics post-graduate course together.

Early career Taylor had a career in management consulting Reporting in November 2013, the taskforce recommended that the State of Victoria should promote the production of additional and largely on-shore gas supply.

Agribusiness startups After leaving Port Jackson Partners, Taylor developed several businesses with family members and fellow investors, largely connected to irrigation and agriculture. Some of these businesses were relinquished on his taking his seat in parliament, while others continue, wholly or partly owned by the holding company of Taylor's family Gufee Pty Ltd, a family trust. to 2012. In mid 2008, he was also a director and secretary of its parent company, Eastern Australia Agriculture (EAA). By the end of 2009 he had ended his relationship with the company. and had not received any financial benefit from the water purchase.

Farm Partnerships Australia was a farm-leasing business venture holding a non-controlling stake through Gufee until it sold its interest in early 2020. Operations at this property came under the scrutiny of environmental agencies when managers used a herbicide that was later seen to be a threat to an endangered species of native grass. The investigation by NSW Environment & Heritage concluded in April 2017, finding there was no case to answer. The Federal Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment began its own investigation and Taylor met with officers from the Department of Environment. This was seen as "a potential breach of the ministerial code of conduct", generating intense media scrutiny, particularly in The Guardian and came to dominate Question Time in Parliament by late 2019.

Jam Land is a holding company also part owned by Gufee Pty Ltd. Taylor's brother and business partner, Richard, is one of the three owners. that while the company should have appeared on his register of parliamentary interests "the company did no business, and earned no income, and I received absolutely no benefit from it".

Political career Angus Taylorresults in Hume2013 2016 2019 2022 2025 1st preference % 53.9753.8350.3043.1243.85 2-party-preferred % 61.4760.1862.9957.7258.06 Taylor first showed an interest in politics when he returned from Oxford, joining the Liberal Party when he was 26. He volunteered as a staffer for Barry O'Farrell, then a member of NSW state parliament. O'Farrell encouraged him to "have a career before politics" and Taylor moved to consulting.

Taylor's wife, Louise Clegg, stepped back from her career as a barrister and law lecturer to run Taylor's election campaign "with military precision and solid financial support". Under Coalition rules, the Nationals were also entitled to run a candidate against Taylor, but decided not to. Taylor was elected as Member for Hume with over 61% of the two-party preferred vote and over 54% of the primary vote. Taylor joined the Government benches under new Prime Minister Tony Abbott. In an interview early in his parliamentary career he said, "I hate, I mean really hate, fart-arsing around. I insist on getting things done. And yet that is what government specialises in. It specialises in fart-arsing. In stopping anything from happening, or insisting that the longest route is taken. I do delivery." are increasing electricity costs, and proposed cheaper carbon reduction methods. He was particularly supportive of turning to natural gas as "a better way to reduce carbon emissions". At points he has used inflammatory language against supporters of windpower, describing them as "the new climate religion". As a speaker at the "Wind Power Fraud Rally" Taylor both criticised windpower while accepting the need to reduce emissions: I am not a climate sceptic. For 25 years, I have been concerned about how rising carbon dioxide emissions might have an impact on our climate. It remains a concern of mine today. I do not have a vendetta against renewables. My grandfather was William Hudson – he was the first Commissioner and Chief Engineer of the Snowy Scheme, Australia's greatest ever renewable scheme. He believed in renewables and renewables have been in my blood since the day I was born. In these forums, he argued against increasing government debt, saying that Australia's long-term prosperity is characterised by high real wages and low inequality, and that only by increasing productivity and participation, will Australia's broad-based prosperity continue. Taylor was not given any portfolio by Abbott during this Parliament. The Australian Financial Review said that he had been "left to languish" which, The Guardian speculated, was because other MPs "had deeper political networks".

Mobile-phone black spots were a prominent concern for people in the Southern Tablelands and Taylor said he was "determined to fix this". By 2015, funding had been secured for new towers in Wollondilly, one of 18 new towers for the region funded under round 1 of a federal program.

Turnbull government (2015–2018)

In September 2015, Abbott was replaced by Malcolm Turnbull as prime minister, and Taylor was sworn in as the Assistant Minister for Cities and Digital Transformation following a rearrangement in the First Turnbull Ministry in February 2016. Taylor was "instrumental in ensuring that a single digital profile would be adopted for clients of the federal agencies, rather than letting departments run off in all directions".

At the 2016 federal election, the Turnbull government was returned to power with a severely reduced majority. Taylor faced a pre-selection threat, from Russell Matheson, which was averted. His seat was also redistributed, making it less regional and more urban, which was thought to favour the Labor Party.

Shortly after the election, Taylor was brought to the front bench as Minister for Law Enforcement and Cybersecurity. In this role, he appointed the first Commonwealth Transnational Serious and Organised Crime Coordinator. This innovation has been seen by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute as providing "a mechanism to lead and strengthen national disruption efforts" against organised crime. It was also expected to lead to arrests for human trafficking and child pornography. While reluctant to say the Turnbull-era National Energy Guarantee was "dead", it became clear that the only part of the policy which would remain would be its "focus on reliability". He began receiving criticism for his performance in his portfolio, with the ABC querying a "rejected a billion-dollar plan to help struggling households pay their power bills" and, more seriously, that his claims that Australia would still meet its commitments to the Paris Agreement were "not what the figures show". Senator Penny Wong, the Labor leader in the Senate said, "I don't think there's been a climate minister, energy minister who's been more anti-renewable than Angus Taylor."

Morrison government (2018–2022)

Following the 21 August 2018 leadership spill which challenged Malcolm Turnbull for leadership of the Liberal Party, Taylor was one of several frontbenchers to announce his resignation. Taylor wrote in a letter to Turnbull that he was resigning due to his support for Peter Dutton: "I have previously relayed to you my concerns about the direction of this Government, and my views on the policies that should characterise a traditional centre-right Liberal Party." After a second spill later in the week, Turnbull resigned as Prime Minister, with Scott Morrison elected as leader. Taylor was subsequently appointed as Minister for Energy, characterised by Morrison as "Minister for reducing electricity prices". His appointment prompted strong criticism from renewable energy advocates.

In the run up to the 2019 federal election, Taylor was accused of scandal by progressives on Twitter and was targeted in the electorate by GetUp! Against pressure to move to a 45% renewable energy target, Taylor put emphasis on reducing the cost of energy with two announcements. First of a default market offer price, which would limit the price that retailers can charge residential and small businesses. and a wholesale price target "at less than $70 a megawatt-hour by the end of 2021". Taylor said a 4000-megawatt portfolio of power projects underwritten by the government would "put the big energy companies on notice" if they did not achieve these price targets. Taylor increased his two-party-preferred margin from 10.18 to 12.99 points. The Morrison government was returned with a stronger majority and Taylor was invited to join the second Morrison ministry. Criticism for his performance continued and in October 2019, Taylor was said to be repeating misleading claims about the previous Labor government's poor record on carbon emissions. As minister, Taylor threatened the introduction of "big stick" laws which would force the break up of energy companies if they did not reduce their energy prices. Analysts began projecting that wholesale energy prices would drop and that 50% of energy would come from renewable sources by 2030, though they would not credit government policy for this. The legislation was later called "extreme and arbitrary" by the energy industry.

During the COVID-19 recession, Taylor announced the establishment of a National Oil Reserve. This would involve an AUD$94m purchase of oil, reserved for Australia, but stored in the United States. The move went directly against the advice of Australian Institute of Petroleum who argued that "the crude oil market is a global market and it is well supplied". While supported by conservative Liberal Party backbenchers such as Andrew Hastie, the move was ridiculed by Labor leader Anthony Albanese, with the decision to locate the storage in the US as being, "rather bizarre". The move was characterised as a "downpayment" on doing "something more permanent in Australia" which as a result of closures since the 1990s has only four refineries.

Parliamentary controversies Beginning in 2019, a number of stories about Taylor were published that caused controversy regarding him as a minister. Journalist Anne Davies stated that the stories were "all uncovered by The Guardian", though these stories were subsequently re-reported by other media outlets. By September 2019, Labor opposition leaders began insisting he should "step down", "should resign or be sacked" and "should have stepped down a long time ago". By the end of 2019 Davies described Taylor as going "from the Liberals' golden boy to a man on the edge".

Watergate Taylor was accused of using $80 million of taxpayers' money to buy water licences from two Queensland properties owned by Eastern Australia Agriculture (EAA). Taylor was a director of EAA, though he resigned from his position in November 2009. The Guardian and Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young began circulating reporting on this as #watergate. The Twitter campaign was "driven by several activists who support independent political candidates challenging Liberal MPs, including former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull's son, Alex Turnbull, mining heir Simon Holmes à Court, and former Sydney Morning Herald journalist Margo Kingston." When questioned concerning his involvement in herbicide use and his subsequent meeting with officials, Taylor informed parliament that he was discussing "long and detailed concerns" on native grass legislation with a farmer in Yass on 21 February 2017, whereas parliamentary records instead show that Taylor was in Sydney participating in a High Value Data Roundtable discussion. Environment minister Josh Frydenberg sought urgent information about an investigation by his department against a company in which Taylor and his relatives held an interest. Jam Land, part owned by Taylor and his family, was under investigation for alleged illegal clearing of grasslands at the time. About 30 hectares of the critically endangered grassland known as the natural temperate grassland of the south eastern highlands had been allegedly poisoned at a property in Delegate, New South Wales, in late 2016. a City of Sydney Council document and providing that document to The Daily Telegraph. The incident stemmed from a letter the Lord Mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore wrote to the Minister, asking him to declare "a climate emergency". In his reply, Taylor criticised her own department's travel – claiming that the City of Sydney Council spent $15.9 million on travel for the 2017–18 period, which he attributed to an annual report document available on the council's website. Moore responded publicly, saying the figures had been altered as the actual annual report showed they had spent less than $6,000 in travel expenses, and that no report with the figures given by Taylor had ever existed.

It was later revealed through freedom of information that Taylor had been informed almost immediately after he reported the figures on 30 September that they were incorrect, though did nothing to correct the mistake until 22 October 2019, when he apologised to Moore for the incorrect figures. Taylor and his representatives, however, continued to insist the document was obtained from the Council website, despite evidence to the contrary from archived versions of it on Trove. Metadata showed the version of the document on the website has been unchanged since November 2018. Further, data from the website shows there were no downloads of the document during the time period Taylor's office alleged they had accessed the version with the incorrect figures. On 26 November 2019, NSW Police announced that they had commenced an investigation.

Despite calls from the opposition for Taylor to be stood down during the investigation, Prime Minister Scott Morrison stated there was "no action required" on his behalf. On 1 January 2020, the investigation was referred to the Australian Federal Police (AFP). On 6 February 2020, the AFP announced that they would not continue to pursue an investigation into the origin of the document as it was determined there was no evidence to be found. Moore lodged a formal complaint with the Australian Press Council over The Daily Telegraph article.

"Well done Angus" Taylor made headlines during the 2019 election campaign when, on 1 May, he posted an article regarding a commitment to building car parks in a neighbouring electorate held by the Labor Party, then there appeared a comment from Taylor saying, "Fantastic. Great move. Well done Angus." He was mocked on social media for the act, and it was suggested Taylor or one of his staff were deliberately making positive remarks using false accounts. His comment resurfaced in 2026 when he challenged the Liberal leadership, with many social media users commenting it on Taylor's social media posts.

Naomi Wolf conflict In his 2013 maiden parliamentary speech, Taylor stated he first encountered "political correctness" in 1991 at Oxford University when "a young Naomi Wolf lived a couple of doors down the corridor. Several graduate students ... decided we should abandon the Christmas tree in the common room because some people might be offended." Taylor went on to say democratic rights were being "chipped away by shrill elitist voices". Taylor denied any form of antisemitism and demanded an apology from her over the claim, stating the accusation was offensive as he had a Jewish grandparent.

Electricity price rise delay Before the 2022 election, Taylor reportedly ordered the Australian Energy Regulator to delay their announcement of the Default Market Offer by several weeks. The announcement indicated that benchmark electricity prices would rise up to 18.3%. Incoming energy minister Chris Bowen accused Taylor of having ordered the delay to increase the Coalition's chances at the election.

Opposition to the Voice Taylor and fellow Liberal MP Andrew Hastie caused controversy after misquoting former High Court Justices Robert French and Kenneth Hayne regarding the 2023 Australian Indigenous Voice referendum.

Shadow cabinet (2022–2026)

Following the Coalition's defeat at the 2022 election, he was appointed as shadow treasurer in the shadow ministry of Peter Dutton. Taylor was re-elected at the 2025 election, and, following Dutton's defeat in his own seat, contested the Liberal leadership election, losing to Deputy Leader Sussan Ley.

On 28 May 2025, after his leadership election loss, Taylor was appointed to the position of shadow minister for defence in Ley's shadow ministry. On the evening of 11 February 2026, he resigned from the shadow ministry amidst rising speculation of a leadership spill from him against Ley. Taylor formally announced his candidacy for leader of the Liberal Party on the morning of 12 February, with a spill motion being launched on that day. He defeated Ley at the subsequent leadership spill, winning 34 votes to Ley's 17. Senator for Victoria Jane Hume was concurrently elected as deputy leader, replacing Ted O'Brien.

Leader of the Opposition (2026–present)

Upon being elected as the leader of the Liberal Party and the leader of the Opposition, Taylor announced the issue of immigration being his top priority. His election was to the dismay of notable Moderates, with former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull saying that people regarded him as "the best qualified idiot they've ever met".

During his first speech as party leader and leader of the Opposition at a press conference, Taylor announced a revised Liberal Party policy, calling for lower immigration and an immigration policy that "puts the interests of Australians first, and puts Australians values at the centre of that policy", stating Australia should deny access of immigrants from high risk regions who bring violence and hate. He also targeted "net-zero ideology" and the Albanese government's "bad carbon taxes", and voiced support for lower inflation, interest rates, and taxes.

Taylor formally announced his shadow ministry on 17 February, having largely demoted factional enemies from the Moderate and Centre Right factions of the Liberal Party, and promoted prominent allies from the National Right faction. Key demotions included Alex Hawke and Andrew Wallace; promotions to the shadow cabinet included Andrew Hastie, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, Tim Wilson, Claire Chandler, Sarah Henderson, and Phillip Thompson. Andrew Hastie was additionally appointed deputy leader of the Opposition and deputy leader of the Liberal Party exclusively in the House of Representatives; a procedural action taken as a result of Deputy Leader Jane Hume's status as a senator.

Publications Taylor has published reports as part of the ANZ Bank Insight series. The first of these, Earth, Fire, Wind and Water – Economic Opportunity and the Australian Commodities Cycle, focused on the opportunities and challenges faced by Australia's commodity exporters in the face of the commodities boom, and was described as a "landmark report" by The Australian. The second was Greener Pastures – The Soft Commodity Opportunity for Australia and New Zealand, arguing that a soft commodity boom was taking over from the hard commodity boom. Other reports and articles include The Future for Freight, focused on reform in the freight transport sector, and "More to Nation Building than Big Bucks", critiquing the Labor Government's comparison between its National Broadband Network and the Snowy Mountain Scheme.

In February 2013, Taylor authored the report, "A proposal to reduce the cost of electricity to Australian electricity users" while a director at Port Jackson Partners. The report said that the Coalition could immediately drop the renewable energy target entirely and save up to A$3.2 billion by 2020 and still meet emissions reduction targets.

Taylor was a member of a taskforce asked by the Victorian Government to investigate the development of a coal seam gas industry in the state.

Personal life Taylor is an amateur triathlete; he competed in the 2009 ITU Triathlon Age Group World Championship on the Gold Coast representing Australia, placing 36th.

He resides near Goulburn on a farm with his wife, Sydney barrister Louise Clegg and their four children.