SYDNEY, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Australia's opposition Liberal Party on Friday elected former Energy Minister Angus Taylor as its new leader, replacing Sussan Ley, as the conservatives seek to rebuild less than a year after a heavy election defeat at the hands of the centre-left Labor Party.
Taylor, a leading figure in the party's conservative wing and the son of a fourth-generation sheep farmer, defeated Ley in a ballot of Liberal members of parliament by 34 votes to 17.
Taylor now faces the challenge of reviving support for Liberals, which has continued to slide since the May election. Recent opinion polls indicate the opposition coalition has lost voters to far-right populist Senator Pauline Hanson and her anti-immigration party, One Nation.
Two separate polls in January showed One Nation's primary vote had overtaken that of the coalition, while a Newspoll published this week by The Australian newspaper described Ley as the most unpopular major party leader in more than two decades.
Following her defeat, Ley said she would resign from parliament, triggering a byelection in her rural New South Wales seat of Farrer, which she has held since 2001.
"I look forward to stepping away completely and comprehensively from public life, to spend time with my family, to reconnect with my enduring passion, aviation," she told reporters in Canberra.
A former outback pilot who once mustered livestock, Ley made history in May by becoming the first woman to lead the Liberals after the party's election rout but her tenure lasted only 276 days, the second-shortest in the party's history.
Ley's popularity fell amid infighting, both within the Liberal Party and with its National Party coalition partner, over issues including action on climate change, hate speech laws and immigration.
Australia's Treasurer Jim Chalmers said Taylor's appointment showed the Liberals "could not care less about the cost of living or the economy," describing him as "the architect of their plan for higher taxes" during last year's election campaign, when Taylor served as shadow treasurer.
(Reporting by Renju Jose in Sydney; Editing by Chris Reese, Deepa Babington and Lincoln Feast.)
