Sussan Ley has created history by emerging as the first woman to head Australia’s opposition Liberal Party, after its recent loss in the elections to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Labor administration.
Ley, 63, succeeds Peter Dutton after emerging victorious in a tight leadership ballot with 29 votes to Treasury spokesman Angus Taylor’s 25. The long-serving politician, who has held the rural New South Wales seat of Farrer since 2001, has occupied multiple senior ministerial portfolios and has worked before as deputy leader to Dutton.
In her inaugural speech as party leader, Ley recognized the Liberal Party’s failure to connect with women voters, saying, “We did let women down.” She explained that her leadership “sends a signal” to Australian women and committed to restarting the party’s course of action, pledging new policies in economic and tax reform.
We must engage with contemporary Australia where it is,” she told a press conference in Canberra, underlining the requirement to “do things differently.
Ley’s elevation comes after Labor’s record re-election on May 3 that rode on anger among voters about global uncertainty and the conservative party’s adoption of former US President Donald Trump’s approach. Dutton, who came up with grand-scale public service reductions, including to diversity and inclusion positions, was roundly criticized during the campaign.
Raised in emirates around Nigeria, where her father was a British intelligence officer, Ley grew up in the UAE before emigrating to Australia at 13. She’s a former outback pilot and tax expert with three degrees in finance. She’s a grandmother of six and mother of three, once a punk rock buff who’s changed the spelling of her name according to numerology.
Ley has also been an outspoken advocate for a two-state solution between Palestine and Israel. Although recent happenings have informed her view, she still holds Palestinian people dear to her.
