The rise of Taylor and Hume is improbable. It’s also farcical

February 19, 2026 — 5:00am

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Now that Angus Taylor and Jane Hume hold the Liberal Party’s top two positions, how are we to assess their elevation? Is it a tale of redemption and forgiveness?

Sure, as the opposition’s chief economic policymakers and advocates in the lead-up to the election just nine months ago, they contributed mightily to the Coalition’s landslide defeat. But let’s face it: who hasn’t made a mistake or two at work?

The process of life is learning from one’s mistakes, surely. Or is the placement of the duo at the top of the Liberal tree a sign of the depths of a talent and policy deficit within the Liberal party room and potentially the wider organisation?

It is definitely a reminder of how much the world of politics is an irony-free zone. This came home strongly when Taylor and Hume held their first joint media conference in their new roles last Friday. Here was a first. They had both won their ballots by resounding margins. But out of the gate, they both had to begin by admitting they had screwed up separately when they last worked together, entrusted as they were with the task of maintaining the most important and enduring element of the Coalition’s “brand”: its primacy on economic management.

The Australian Election Study, which has been surveying voter attitudes for 14 elections going back to 1987, found that at last year’s election, for the first time, Labor........

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