The Liberal party's appointment of Sussan Ley is an historic moment – but not the one that matters

The Guardian

14-05-2025

In 2018, Scott Morrison addressed the Liberal party room with an evangelical Trumpian fervour. Having just blown up Malcolm Turnbull's government to become Liberal leader and prime minister ahead of Peter Dutton and Julie Bishop, he seemed oblivious to the bloodshed he had just caused.
He pointed to the framed photographs of previous Liberal leaders and prime ministers and said, in what I'm sure he thought was a Churchillian tone: 'One day there will be a woman there.' The room was glum with silence, pierced only by Bishop's quiet quip. In which century?
That day marked the beginning of the Morrison and Dutton show. Women centrists such as Bishop, Kelly O'Dwyer and me jumped ship. Kerryn Phelps won Turnbull's seat of Wentworth and Zali Steggall won Tony Abbott's seat of Warringah in 2019, the same year as Morrison's 'miracle' win. In the 2022 election, six women – business leaders, lawyers and doctors among them – pushed men out of 'blue ribbon' seats that had been held by Liberal party since last century.
A slow but steady trail of destruction continued. The reactionary right, emboldened by Trump 1.0, and later Trump's second coming, has continued to flavour their talking points accordingly and develop copycat policies. They consoled climate deniers with a Gina Rinehart-friendly pro-nuclear stance, and reinforced their antiquated attitude to women by preselecting more men, and temporarily telling men and women that they would have to ditch working from home and return to the office.
Women voters deserted the Liberal party in 2022 and fled it again in 2025 – to the Labor party and teal independents.
The Liberals have finally appointed a women, Sussan Ley, as leader. Their excited declaration that this was an important moment in history – Ley is the first woman the party has appointed in its 80 years – contains the subtle implication that the appointment will fix their deep-seated dysfunctional woes and make up for a shocking electoral defeat.
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The more significant historic moment, which the Liberal Party would prefer we not see, is that the 48th Australian parliament will include a record-breaking number of women and that about 50 of them are likely to be Labor MPs, compared with only about seven Liberals. Added to that number are the five women teal independents who held their seats in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. The Liberals say they are 'the sort of women' who should be in the Liberal party while remaining oblivious to the fact that literally millions of women have demonstrated they wouldn't go anywhere near the Liberal Party – because they are women who care about the climate, about health and education and about the economy for future generations and who share the values of integrity, respect and equality.
After the 2022 election, Ley, as deputy leader of the party and shadow minister for women, often said she was ''alking with women', going on a 'listening tour', and that the party wanted to win back the urban seats lost to the six female teals. During this time, a 60-page post-election review of the Liberal party unsurprisingly found that a decline in support from female voters was an important factor in the loss. After this year's emphatic loss, it appears the review went unheeded; basic things such as the Liberal party's intransigent resistance to quotas remained and the community independents movement grew.
As Ley takes up the leadership, she has vowed to lead from the 'sensible centre'. But how exactly? The Liberals came out of this election beholden to the National party and remain underpinned by a Trumpian support base. They went into this election preferencing One Nation and Family First in electorates across the country – parties with longstanding positions against equality, abortion, LGBTQI+ rights, multiculturalism and renewable energy. There does not appear to be anything remotely 'sensible' or 'centrist' left in that party room, especially when it comes to the issue of women.
It's going to take more than the appointment of a female leader declaring a 'new narrative', and a 'fresh approach' to rebuild the party.
Words alone don't cut it with the Australian people.
Ley declared that her appointment sends a signal to Australian women. But does the party really believe Ley's appointment is going to fix the deeply dysfunctional and embedded problems the Liberals face?
Ley's picture will be hung on the wall with former Liberal leaders, but much more needs to be done to ensure it's not perched on one of the biggest glass cliffs in Australian history.
The most profound and meaningful signal has already been sent, and it is not the one the Liberal party sent by appointing its first female leader. It's the one the Australian people sent on 3 May.
Julia Banks is an author, leadership consultant, keynote speaker, lawyer, and former Liberal and Independent MP