Sussan Ley marks a new beginning – but there's still a long way back for the Liberals

The Guardian

13-05-2025

As Liberal MPs trudged into the opposition party room to choose a new leader, Anthony Albanese and his euphoric Labor frontbench were being sworn in to their portfolios at Government House.
There's just six kilometres between the corridors of Parliament Houseand the governor general's residence in Yarralumla, but a vast chasm separates the moods of the two parties after the 3 May election.
It took just 15 minutes for Liberal MPs to choose Sussan Ley over Angus Taylor, 29 votes to 25, making her the first woman to lead the Liberal party in its 80-year-history.
As the WA senator Dean Smith quipped to media assembled outside the party room on Tuesday morning, it is a 'new beginning'.
Clear-eyed Liberal MPs view it as just that and only that: the first step in a long, difficult march back to political relevance. Ley and her new deputy, Ted O'Brien, inherit the leadership of a divided and diminished party that has found itself, or allowed itself to become, detached from mainstream Australia.
That is the lesson of consecutive election thumpings, where large sections of society – not least women – have deserted the party and, in doing so, rejected its policies in areas such as climate action.
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In that context, Tuesday's leadership ballot was a pivotal juncture. Liberal MPs could have chosen Taylor, a male conservative, and running mate Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, a rightwing firebrand, to lead the rebuild. That would have sent a message.
Instead, they chose a woman with moderate Liberal values and a man unaligned with any of the party's factional tribes. That, too, sends a message.
But to suggest Ley's views and gender might be enough to win back lost voters would naively undersell the nature and scale of the task before her and O'Brien.
The Liberals' biggest problem is in the capital cities, where it has been almost wiped out in the past two elections. Ley hails from regional NSW, while O'Brien represents part of Queensland's Sunshine Coast, two areas geographically distant from the voters the Liberals must win back.
Then there's the policies. Voters didn't just reject Peter Dutton and his macho brand of political leadership; they also rejected the Coalition's agenda – including its plans to build nuclear power plants.
Asked if the controversial nuclear plan – the brainchild of her new deputy – would remain, Ley insisted there would be no 'captain's calls' and all policies would be reviewed.
She offered the same noncommittal answer when pressed on the Liberals' commitment to net zero by 2050, declaring only that 'we need to reduce emissions'.
In one regard, it is common for a new leader to avoid immediately locking themselves into policies, even if those positions were evidently unpopular (nuclear) or the entry point for credibility (net zero).
Another reading of Ley's responses was that they offer a preview into the delicate balancing act she will need to perform as the leader of a fractured and bruised party room.
She might be more moderate but Ley's positions on welcome to country ceremonies and 'uniting' behind the Australian flag, for example, were not so far removed from her rightwing former leader.
A once vocal supporter of Palestine statehood, Ley said her views had changed. She launched an unprompted spray at Albanese and Penny Wong for 'letting down Jewish Australians' in the aftermath of Hamas's 7 October attack.
Ley said governments were formed in the 'sensible centre', while offering subtle, comforting nods to colleagues on the party's left and right.
Which brings us to the questions of mandate and unity.
Just as Albanese's clear majority hands him enormous control over the Labor caucus, Ley's slim victory means her leadership begins on shaky foundations.
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The margin of Tuesday's ballot would have been even tighter had the vote been held in July, when two of her supporters – Hollie Hughes and Linda Reynolds – will no longer be in parliament.
Ley, Taylor and their senior colleagues were on Tuesday preaching the need for unity.
Early decisions will decide if that loose bond quickly fractures.
Liberal MPs expect Ley to reward supporters Alex Hawke, Jason Wood and Scott Buchholz with frontbench promotions as she pieces together her shadow cabinet. Julian Leeser, who quit shadow cabinet in 2023 to campaign for the voice to parliament, is expected to be brought back into the fold.
Taylor's allies are cautiously optimistic that Ley won't completely sideline those who supported the shadow treasurer. There is a warning if she does.
'If they [Ley] take a winner-takes-all approach … we are all screwed,' one Liberal MP cautioned.
What now for Price, who defected from the Nationals to run as Taylor's deputy, only to pull out after he lost the leadership ballot? The 'disappointed' Indigenous senator pledged to work with the new leadership to ensure the Coalition was a 'formidable opposition'.
The unity will also be tested by arguably the biggest lesson of the Dutton leadership – the perils of discipline.
Senior Liberal MPs privately regret placing so much trust and faith in their former leader, and obediently falling into line rather than vigorously debating ideas.
The unity under Dutton was heralded as a virtue but it masked a party in crisis, sleepwalking into political oblivion.
Labor had its fights after Bill Shorten's 2019 defeat. There was leaking and blazing rows in shadow cabinet. It was messy. But it was necessary.
Six years on, Albanese and his ministry posed for selfies with governor general Sam Mostyn, still basking in the afterglow of an election win that netted 93 seats and the real prospect of at least six years in power.
It is a long road back for the Liberals.
At least they've taken the first step.