To survive, the Liberal party needs to win back women and young people. It’s going about this the wrong way

The Liberal party’s new leader Angus Taylor. ‘Leadership spills that disproportionately remove senior women risk amplifying distrust, particularly among younger educated female voters who are already drifting away,’ Intifar Chowdhury writes. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

Since its historic defeat at the last federal election, the Liberal party has been engaged in a frenetic search for its internal compass. What’s transpired has been less a course correction and more a series of sharp, haphazard turns: appointing its first ever female leader, walking away from net zero, reopening tensions with the Nationals, purging said female leader, and now pivoting towards One Nation voters with a hardline stance on immigration. If there’s a single unifying theme, it’s chaos.

Angus Taylor has declared his new shadow ministry will improve living standards and “protect” Australia’s way of life. But if you look at the voting trends from the last federal election, the Liberal party remains deeply out of step with modern Australia. And the Coalition is not doing well to mend relations with women and younger voters.