Squiz Shortcuts - Sussan Ley

Your Shortcut to… Sussan Ley

The newly minted leader of the Liberals Sussan Ley has taken on the challenge of rebuilding the party after the Coalition’s recent election defeat. She’s been in public life for over 2 decades, but we’ve heard from many Squizers that they don’t know much about her. So, in this Squiz Shortcut, we’ll get you across:

• her background

• her career in politics

• and the job ahead…

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What’s the story with Sussan Ley?
There’s plenty to tell, but the first thing to know is that she’s the new leader of the Liberal Party after Peter Dutton lost his seat in the election in early May. The party suffered a massive defeat and she’s been voted to lead the rebuild.

So, she’s got a big job ahead
Yep… And she’s wasted no time. Since the poll, she’s announced a full review of the party’s policies; she’s been negotiating a new Coalition agreement with the Nationals (which caused the partnership to break-up) and on top of that, her mum also died. 

That’s… a lot
It’s a heavy load for sure… In her first press conference in the position, Ley credited her mother’s values of resilience, self-reliance and persistence with helping her to become the first female leader of the Liberal Party in its 80-year history. But Ley’s no stranger to leadership positions…

Give me her LinkedIn spiel
She’s been in politics for 24 years, and before the election she was the Deputy Leader of the Libs under Peter Dutton. Before that, she’d held cabinet positions in 3 Coalition governments - the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments - and over the course of her career, she’s managed the portfolios of health, sport, aged care, and environment… She’s 63yo but she wasn’t always heading for a career in politics.

Where did she grow up?
She was born in Nigeria in 1961, and her childhood wasn’t your everyday variety… Her father was a British military intelligence officer who taught her how to use a gun, and she has fond memories of joining him during fieldwork for MI6 when the family moved to the Middle East. She went to boarding school in England from 10yo, which she says taught her resilience and independence, and kindled her interest in politics, which she’d often write home to her dad about. And then, when she was 13, her family moved to Australia…

That’s a big change, where did they live?
It sure was - Sussan went from an English boarding school to a cattle farm, before the family eventually settled in Canberra. After school, she went through a punk phase, sporting purple spiky hair, a dog collar and multiple piercings.

What does she say about that?
She says it was a way of finding her identity and it didn’t necessarily signpost her politics or views, and that “People sometimes assume that by being a punk, you weren’t a conservative, but quite clearly you could be, and I was then.” A recurring theme with political watchers is that Ley isn’t a follower - she also legally changed her name…

How so?
She added an extra ‘s’ because in numerology, it meant she’d have “an incredibly exciting life”. 

Has it worked?
Well, you’d be hard-pressed to say her life was boring… She’s worked in a variety of jobs, including as a livestock musterer, shearer’s cook, farmer, air traffic controller, and pilot - and she got her commercial pilot’s licence back in the 80s in a time when she was one of the only women in Australia to hold one. 

Does she still hold it?
Yep… On her declaration of interests, she has a Cessna 182 plane which she uses to fly around her electorate of Farrer in south-west NSW - it’s one of the largest in the country (the electorate, not the plane)… She says she would’ve liked to have flown passenger jets, but back then, very few women were being considered for those roles, so she got her first gig as a pilot being an aerial musterer instead. 

What else has she done?
In between all of that, she was a farmer’s wife, raised 3 kids on the land, and then enrolled in university in her 30s to study taxation and accounting, before entering public life… 

Tell me about her seat
Farrer is over 95,000 square kms of deep regional country - it spans a good slab of the NSW Riverina and extends north to the red dirt of Cobar, and west to the South Australian border… It’s full of farmers and producers, and it includes the vibrant regional cities of Albury and Griffith. 

So it’s right in the middle of Nationals' heartland?
It is… and there’s a bit of tension there because the seat was held by Tim Fisher for the National Party from 1984 up until he retired in 2001. 

What happened then?
It was open to the Liberals to run a candidate to contest the seat, which they did, being Ley, and she beat the Nationals candidate and has held it ever since. But many Nationals members reckon it should be theirs - so that tension hasn’t really gone away… 

Has it surfaced much?
There have been a couple of times when it’s come to the fore - one of those was when Ley was Minister for the Environment in Scott Morrison’s cabinet and had to navigate competing interests from the Nats - and the Agriculture Minister at the time was none other than the current Nationals leader David Littleproud. Just to explain, those portfolios have quite a bit of overlap, and there are some conflicting stakeholders there to manage. 

So there’s a bit of history between Ley and Littleproud?
Yes, and in the past week, we’ve seen the 2 navigating some choppy waters in working out the Coalition agreement…

What about the rest of Ley’s time in parliament, has she had a smooth ride to the top? 
No, it hasn’t all been smooth sailing… She stepped down as Health Minister in 2017 from Malcolm Turnbull’s Government after a scandal broke when she admitted to using a Commonwealth car during a ministerial trip to attend an auction on the Gold Coast where she bought an $800,000 investment property. 

Not a work expense?
No - a personal one. At the time she said it was an “error of judgement” and repaid the cost of the trip but she ultimately paid for it with her Ministry. 

Any other issues?
There have been some controversies over policy -  she changed her mind on the issue of same-sex marriage after initially opposing it, and earlier this year she copped criticism for comparing the landing of the First Fleet with Elon Musk’s mission to Mars. She’s also given some conflicting statements regarding her views on Palestine’s right to statehood and where she stands on support for Israel. But right now, her mind will be turning to policies closer to home, and uniting her party…

What’s her plan?
She’s starting with a “back to basics” look at Liberal values. She says she’ll be looking first to stem the leakage of core Liberal voters - paying particular attention to why the party has lost so much ground with women. And, of course patching up relations with the Nationals to reunite the Coalition by the time parliament resumes in July.

Why is it important to work things out with the Nats?
Because, to have a chance at being competitive at the next election, any party in Opposition will have to win back more than 30 seats - and together as the Coalition, the Libs and the Nats stand a far better chance to peel that lead back than going it alone. 

What are her chances of survival as leader?
There has been plenty of commentary around saying the leadership was a “glass cliff”, meaning she’s been set up to fail and only voted into the position because it’s a clean up job, but Ley is backing herself, saying “One hundred per cent I will be here in three years - but more than that, we will be in a competitive position.”

We said it before, it’s a big job.
Sure is, but she’s got the backing of the party (for now) and she says she’s up to the challenge.

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Reading: This piece in The Guardian is a good overview (with some entertaining anecdotes) of Ley’s political rise and the challenges she faces as leader of the Liberals.

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