How Sussan Ley’s Liberal Party leadership unravelled
In the weeks after her colleagues narrowly elected her as the first female leader of the federal Liberal Party, Sussan Ley’s voice was often filled with the optimism that comes with new beginnings.
He promised to be a new leader with a new tone, a new team and a new agenda. He wanted to move his party to the so-called logical center. It would reclaim Australian women, young people, cities and multicultural communities. He would listen to his colleagues and create a cohesive and consultative party room process that appealed to a diversity of views.
So many promises for a big mission. Nine months later, most of this remains unfulfilled.
With the Opposition sinking in the polls and the Coalition splintering, Ley was defeated this time by 34 to 17. The numbers turned against him in the demoralized and divided Liberal Party chamber, which he was trying to revive after the disastrous May election.
“There is no doubt it is a challenging period to lead the party after suffering its worst defeat in 81 years,” Ley said on Friday. “It’s been hard. Sometimes it’s very hard.”
The truth is that Ley set out his goals and largely failed to achieve them. The question is whether this is due to his own shortcomings and a few bad calls, or the fact that most of his peers never planned to give him a chance. He took over as the norms of Conservative politics were breaking down and the Liberal Party was reckoning with its own cause; It’s complicated ground for any leader, let alone the first woman.
Even Ley’s colleagues who stabbed him admit he was dealt a tough hand. “This isn’t just her fault,” Sen. James Paterson said Thursday after leaving Ley’s front seat. “This is a collective responsibility.”
Paterson acknowledged that he had been harmed by the sniping, but argued that a new leader was clearly needed. “Newspaper polls show his personal approval rating is -39. This is the worst performance by an opposition leader in the last 23 years,” he said.
Ley will leave parliament in a few weeks and will not be standing on the sidelines. “When I came to the leadership of the Liberal Party nine months ago, my mother had just died. One of the things she said was: ‘When something ends in sadness, don’t dwell on the disappointment. Be grateful that you have it all,'” he said.
“It’s important for the new leader to get some fresh air – something that’s not always possible for leaders – but right now it’s more important than ever… I really have no hard feelings. I wish Angus Taylor the best of luck.”
These were elegant words that barely hinted at the harshness that marked his tenure as Liberal leader. They also deny that there was a mine placed at its exit. Taylor will soon face a by-election in the regional NSW seat of Farrer; Ley demanded this on behalf of the Liberals 25 years ago, much to the chagrin of the National Party.
The four-cornered rivalry between the Liberals, Nationals, One Nation and independents will be an early litmus test for Taylor and show just how deep the Coalition’s troubles run.
In the corporate world, they would call Ley’s predicament the “glass cliff”; This is a phenomenon where women are set up to fail, put into positions of power when their organizations are on the verge of collapse.
This simple framework does not capture the full picture: the undersized district MP who campaigned for the job and won it fairly in a tight contest against Angus Taylor of the Right faction. Still, it’s a shame that the Liberals’ first female leader had such a short tenure. This won’t reflect well on a party that already has a bad reputation among many Australian women.
Some of Ley’s supporters leave this episode thinking that Ley’s gender played a role in this outcome and how she was undermined from the beginning. “Gender plays a bigger role in politics than probably any of us would like to admit. That’s the truth,” said liberal senator Maria Kovacic.
“Sussan is a trailblazer. She led in extraordinarily difficult circumstances and wasn’t actually given a fair chance.”
Other MPs say being a female leader has nothing to do with it; some even think Ley was given extra leeway in this regard. “Political leaders are judged on their performance, not their gender,” Paterson said.
Ley was not chosen as the future leader. His time as minister in health, aged care and the environment became known for the travel rights scandal that forced him to resign. His performance as Dutton’s deputy last term left no legacy: he said he wanted to win back the turquoise seats but failed to make progress; She was the shadow minister for women when women were leaving the party.
And he was a shapeshifter of sorts. Ley remained silent on some issues on which he once spoke strongly (defense of Palestine and banning the export of live sheep). He had no strong affiliation with a faction; Although he has recently been portrayed as a moderate, he has spent more time on the centre-right.
But when the time came last May, Ley made a strong pitch for one of the toughest jobs in politics.
He didn’t start on the front foot, but not because he didn’t want to try. Within three weeks of his election in May and just days after his mother died, the National Party abandoned the Coalition for its first brief split.
Ley ignored the National Team’s implosion and made some early changes to Peter Dutton’s way of doing business. His front-row appointments signaled a new, more centrist direction. His office was proactively engaged with the press. He made a point Addressing the National Press ClubHe opened his speech with an Acknowledgment of Country and then toured remote Indigenous communities.
In a series of speeches, Ley argued for lower personal income taxes, budget repair, intergenerational justice and a strong defense force. Behind closed doors, he emphasized to his colleagues the importance of solidarity and discipline.
Freed from frontline discipline, Hastie and Price have pressed for a reckoning on climate policy, as have MPs from the National Party and other right-wing groups. They won: The Coalition abandoned net zero as a policy position. The confusion of the debate revealed Ley to be a leader of weak authority and loose faith.
There may have been a moment when Ley steered the Liberals towards the position he thought would best serve the party, but he never voiced his own views. There are Liberal MPs who still think he could have saved the climate target if he had spoken out in Ley’s favour. Instead, the Moderates, who started with majority support for net zero, lost their grip on the debate.
Ley embraced the politics of Nationals; It was a move that ran counter to his goal of reaching young people or urban voters at the center of his post-election speech.
Asked what that would be like with climate-challenged Australians in seats turning teal, Ley didn’t seem to mind. Ley did not repeat his remarks when asked whether he still believed in the need to pull liberals to the “sensible centre”.
In an effort to become an advisor, he had capitulated to the party’s loudest conservative voices. He now owed it to his backbencher for wanting to stay in the job.
Ley tried to prevent a repeat of that incident by stepping up the Liberals’ immigration policy late last year. But as of this week, it had not yet come to light, and neither had other important policies that would directly appeal to women.
The promise to build a policy platform from scratch was a noble attempt to keep MPs in the tent and all options open after a shattering election loss. In practice, this means that unhappy MPs have little to talk about other than themselves.
There were other goals along the way.
Much of Ley’s oxygen has been consumed by infighting, but he has also squandered capital in pursuit of short-term victories that appear shallow and lead nowhere: attacking the prime minister over his Joy Division T-shirt, for example, and demanding Kevin Rudd’s resignation as US ambassador after the prime minister’s largely successful meeting with Donald Trump.
These calls shook confidence in Ley’s political judgment. Meanwhile, polls showed the Coalition’s primary vote falling, One Nation’s numbers rising and Ley’s personal vote falling sharply.
Ley’s response to the Bondi attack in December was crucial. The opposition leader kept his colleagues aside as he devoted all his energy to defending the Jewish community; which helped push Labor to set up a royal commission and undermined Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
However, this did not translate into a surge in Coalition support and Ley’s overreach ultimately paved the way for this week’s decline. Parliament requested Come back now to pass new lawsand when you get what you want, hit the truth that emergency legislation is not a simple task.
However, this did not translate into a surge in Coalition support and Ley’s overreach ultimately paved the way for this week’s decline. He demanded that Parliament return immediately to pass new laws, and when he got what he wanted he was faced with the reality that emergency legislation is no simple task.
This proved to be the deadliest of his short-sighted appeals: the National Party refused to vote for the Bondi bill because it was too rushed; fallout divided the Coalition; and the messy saga spurred Friday’s leadership challenge.
National leader David Littleproud bears significant responsibility for the dysfunctional dynamic that has embarrassed the Coalition and damaged Ley with repeated splits and reconciliations. Many of Ley’s colleagues supported him throughout, angered by Littleproud’s interventions. Still, criticism that Ley did not pick up the phone or communicate at crucial moments compounded the damage.
Throughout it all, Ley has highlighted and confronted music in parliament, on radio and on breakfast television. He maintained his courage while his colleagues openly speculated about moving against him; This happened thanks to his courage and determination.
Another Ley ally, Senator Paul Scarr, said Thursday: “Sussan has demonstrated great resilience, great strength of character, great integrity and kindness. I want to emphasize that.”
But nine months later, Australians still have little idea of what the Ley actually represents, other than self-preservation. Even his parting words on Friday suggested that his belief in himself had been the strongest force that had driven him over the last nine months.
“I leave it to others to evaluate this period of my leadership now and over time. While I’m sure many people have a lot to say, I have never tried to influence what other people think of me,” he said.
“As some of you know, I was part of the first punk rock movement in Canberra. I will continue to find wisdom in one of punk’s defining themes: a fearless and honest belief in yourself.”
Did he have a chance? Leading the Liberals to a centrist policy platform that met his checklist required authority over a unified party and a loyal front line. None of this happened on Ley.
