Hate speech laws: Sussan Ley has lost three more frontbenchers
Updated ,first published
At the Midwinter Ball in August, Sussan Ley was trying to be funny.
The opposition leader spoke off the record and among his colleagues of the quiet torment of early leadership struggles. The Nationals came in for some scolding.
“The Prime Minister has decided that he can solve peace in the Middle East. If you need help negotiating with religious fundamentalists, I am ready. After all, I am in coalition with the National Party,” he joked.
It went down as gallows humour. But it also hinted at a reality that the Ley must now govern in all its guise: a Coalition that requires constant negotiation and a relationship dominated by challenge, not harmony.
This challenge reached a dramatic climax this week. What started with three National senators leaving Labor under a shadow cabinet decision to support antisemitism, hatred and extremism legislation has now escalated into a full-blown rebellion. After Ley insisted that Susan McDonald, Bridget McKenzie and Ross Cadell resign from the front bench, all 11 National MPs, including leader David Littleproud, walked away from the shadow ministry in protest. The coalition’s junior partner retaliated against Ley’s assertion of authority, effectively pushing the partnership to the brink.
The original conflict was extraordinary. The legislation was quickly drafted, debated and voted on following the Bondi terrorist attack. The emotions were raw. The processes were flawed. Positions shifted, amendments failed, and key figures abstained. Even Ley acknowledged the Nats’ confusion: “They had three different positions in both houses of Parliament.”
The bill passed the Senate by 38 votes to 22, with an alliance of Labor and the Liberals, giving the home secretary new powers to ban membership of designated hate groups and revoke the visas of people believed to be spreading hate in Australia. The coalition’s shadow cabinet had decided on Sunday night to support him with some changes; but no agreement could be reached on some of the Nationals’ disputes.
On Tuesday night, three senators on the front bench of the National Assembly voted against the bill. Cadell, McKenzie and McDonald subsequently resigned from the opposition front bench. Cadell framed the issue as a matter of tradition rather than rebellion: “I understand, if you commit crimes, you have to serve time, and if so requested, I will resign.”
Ley’s options were clear. He could have ended the episode by citing extraordinary circumstances and heightened emotions. But this risked creating a dangerous precedent: effectively giving the National Party a sabbatical while demanding discipline from its own Liberals. Shadow cabinet solidarity either applies across the Coalition or does not apply at all.
Alone, there was a debate about tolerance. Former Nationals leader Michael McCormack made this clear. “Was this decided in a joint caucus where we would vote for or against a bill as one body? No, it wasn’t,” he said, also pointing to the Liberals’ abstention as a complicating factor. Asked if this made Ley’s job harder, he replied: “The short answer to that is yes.”
According to Ley, accepting the resignations was strategically the cleanest way to reassert a single standard. But from the public’s perspective, the landscape remains grim. Execution does not equal consistency. With the entire national front row now gone, the Coalition appears torn to the core, its authority bleeding and its primary votes near record lows.
For Labor, this is another delay. Even at a time when Anthony Albanese is stumbling over Bondi, messaging and political instincts, the outburst of dissent is setting the bar low. A wounded government may move on by default rather than performance.
And for Pauline Hanson, decadence is a gift. Every visible break in the coalition confirms One Nation’s narrative: the major parties are weak, intransigent and lacking clarity. Chaos is his proof point. His shares in the polls continue to rise.
Ley chose rule over renunciation. It remains unclear whether it will strengthen authority or simply delay another lead in the next test. But what is clear is that, in a party already struggling to demonstrate consistency, pretending this week never happened was never a realistic option.
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Rob Harris is a national correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, based in Canberra. He is a former European correspondent.Connect via email.
