Farrer by-election set for 9 May 2026 after Sussan Ley resignation
Voters in western New South Wales will go to the polls on 9 May 2026 after former Liberal leader Sussan Ley resigned, triggering a by-election in the federal seat of Farrer. Both the Liberal and National parties are contesting the seat, alongside One Nation and possibly independent candidates, setting up what is expected to be a fiercely fought race.
The outcome will be watched closely as the first electoral test for new Liberal leader Angus Taylor and as a gauge of One Nation’s support in regional New South Wales. Farrer covers 126,563 square kilometres along the Murray River from Albury to the South Australian border, taking in communities such as Corowa, Deniliquin and Balranald.
It also includes the western parts of the Riverina district, including Griffith, Leeton, Narrandera and Hay. It is the second-largest electorate in New South Wales by area, accounting for 15.8 per cent of the state. Created in 1949 and named after wheat breeder William James Farrer, the seat has been a safe conservative stronghold, returning only four members over seven decades.
It was held by Liberal ministers David Fairbairn (1949–75) and Wal Fife (1975–84), and by National Party leader and former deputy prime minister Tim Fischer (1984–2001). After Wagga Wagga was moved from Farrer to Hume in 1984, Fife shifted electorates and Fischer won Farrer, later leading the Nationals following the party’s reverses at the 1990 election.
He defended the Howard government’s new gun laws and faced the rise of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation before retiring in 2001. Ley captured Farrer at the 2001 election, defeating the Nationals’ candidate by 0.1 per cent while holding a 16.4 per cent margin over Labor.
With no National challenger at subsequent elections, she retained the seat comfortably. Born in Nigeria and raised in the Middle East before migrating to Australia with her British parents, Ley worked as an air-traffic controller and pilot, mustered sheep from the air, and later studied economics and served in the tax office in Canberra.
She campaigned across Farrer in 2001 using a shearing van in which she slept at caravan parks. In government, Ley served as assistant minister for education after the Abbott government took office and became health minister in December 2014. She resigned from the ministry in early 2017 following a travel expenses row, later serving as environment minister between 2019 and 2022.
She was deputy leader of the Liberal Party under Peter Dutton from 2022 to 2025. After the party’s 2025 defeat, Ley narrowly won a leadership ballot against Angus Taylor; nine months later, amid polling showing significant support shifting to One Nation, a spill was called and the vote went the other way.
The by-election result will be scrutinised for what it signals about conservative dynamics in regional New South Wales and the standing of the major parties as campaigning intensifies toward polling day.