Michelle Grattan: Key tests looming for Opposition leader Sussan Ley
On Wednesday, Opposition Leader Sussan Ley will front the National Press Club. So why is that a big deal?
For one thing, her predecessor Peter Dutton never appeared there as Opposition leader. For another, it's a formidable forum for a new leader.
It could all go badly wrong, but she's right to make the early appearance. It sends a message she is not risk-averse.
Ley wants to establish a better relationship with the Canberra Press Gallery than Dutton had. He saw the gallery journalists as part of the despised 'Canberra bubble' and bypassed them when he could. That didn't serve him well — not least because he wasn't toughened up for when he had to face daily news conferences (with many Canberra reporters) on the election trail.
Ley's office has set up a WhatsApp group for gallery journalists, alerting them to who's appearing in the media, and also dispatching short responses to things said by the Government (such as links to ministers' former statements). This matches the WhatsApp group for the gallery run by the Prime Minister's Office. One of Ley's press secretaries, Liam Jones, has also regularly been doing the rounds in the media corridors of Parliament House, something that very rarely happened with Dutton's media staff.
To the extent anyone is paying attention, Ley has made a better start than many, including some Liberals, had expected. She came out of the tiff with the Nationals well, despite having to give ground on their policy demands. Her frontbench reshuffle had flaws but wasn't terrible. She's struck a reasonable, rather than shrill, tone in her comments on issues, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's failure thus far to get a meeting with US President Donald Trump. Her next significant test will be how she handles at the Press Club questions she and her party are confronting. So here are a few for her.
One (the most fundamental): How is she going to thread the needle between the two sides of the Liberal Party? John Howard's old 'broad church' answer no longer holds. The church is fractured. In an era of identity politics, the Liberals have a massive identity crisis. The party's conservatives are hard line, have hold of its (narrow) base, and will undermine Ley if they can. Its moderates will struggle to shape key policies in a way that will appeal to urban small-l liberal voters.
Two: How and when will she deal with the future of the Coalition's commitment to net zero emissions by 2050? She has put all policies on the table (but made exceptions for several Nationals' core policies). There is a strong case for her staking out her own position on net zero, and getting the policy settled sooner rather than later. With younger voters having eschewed the Liberals, Ley told The Daily Aus podcast this week,'I want young people to know first and foremost that I want to listen to them and meet them where they are'. One place they are is in support of net zero by 2050. If the Liberals deserted that, they'd be making the challenge of attracting more youth votes a herculean one.
For the Opposition net zero is likely THE climate debate of this term — and such debates are at best difficult and at worst lethal for Liberal leaders.
Three: Won't it be near impossible for the Liberals to get a respectable proportion of women in its House of Representatives team without quotas? Over the years, Ley has been equivocal on the issue. She told The Daily Aus: 'Each of our (Liberal State) divisions is responsible for its own world, if you like, when it comes to (candidate) selections'. This is unlikely to cut it: she needs to have a view, and a strategy. Targets haven't worked.
Four: Ley says she wants to run a constructive Opposition, so how constructive will it be in the tax debate Treasurer Jim Chalmers launched this week? Ley might have a chat with Howard about the 1980s, when the Liberals had internal arguments about whether to support or oppose some of the Hawke government's reform measures. Obviously, no total buy-in should be expected but to oppose reforms for the sake of it would discredit a party trying to sell its economic credentials.
More generally, how constructive or obstructive will the Opposition be in the Senate? This raises matters of principle, not just political opportunism. In the new Senate the Government will have to negotiate with either the Opposition or the Greens. If the Opposition constantly forces Labor into the arms of the Greens, that could produce legislation that (from the Liberals' point of view) is worse than if the Liberals were Labor's partner. How does that sit with them philosophically?
Five: Finally, how active will Ley be in trying to drive improvements in the appalling Liberal State organisations, especially in NSW (her home State) and Victoria?
The Liberals' Federal executive extended Federal intervention in the NSW division this week, with a new oversight committee, headed by onetime premier Nick Greiner. But the announcement spurred immediate factional backbiting. Ley is well across the NSW factions: her numbers man is Alex Hawke — whom she elevated to the shadow cabinet — from Scott Morrison's old centre-right faction.
In Victoria, the factional infighting has been beyond parody, with former leader John Pesutto scratching around for funds to avoid bankruptcy after losing a defamation case brought by colleague Moira Deeming. That's just the start of the questions for Ley.
Meanwhile, the party this week has set up an inquiry into the election disaster, to be conducted by former Federal minister Nick Minchin and former NSW minister Pru Goward. Identifying what went wrong won't be hard for them — mostly, it was blindingly obvious. Recommending solutions that the party can and will implement — that will be the difficult bit.
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Sky News AU
3 hours ago
- Sky News AU
ABC journalist Patricia Karvelas pushes Liberal Party to adopt gender quotas as public broadcaster pledges impartiality
Star ABC journalist Patricia Karvelas has called on the Liberal Party to impose controversial gender quotas or face electoral backlash despite the public broadcaster's renewed promise to uphold editorial impartiality. Ms Karvelas called for gender quotas in a fiery opinion piece on Monday, claiming voters would 'turn their backs' on the Liberal Party if it refused. ABC journalists are bound by strict impartiality policies which 'requires news and information to be gathered and presented with due impartiality'. They are also forbidden from 'unduly' favouring 'one perspective over another'. However, these rules didn't stop the ABC's star reporter from attacking the Liberal Party's refusal to establish gender quotas. 'Vibes don't get women elected, and if women are not at the table in large numbers Australian voters will continue to turn their backs on the Liberal Party,' she wrote, in a scathing opinion piece, published by the ABC on Monday. She compared the Liberal Party's failure to implement gender quotas to an inability to climb a 'cultural mountain'. 'The issue of gender quotas is the one philosophical and cultural mountain that the Liberal Party has never been prepared to climb. And even by the party's own reckoning, it is failing,' she said. 'Beyond the hard arithmetic of imposing quotas, every other strategy is little more than vibes and positive thinking.' Ms Karvelas also attacked former Liberal Leader Peter Dutton for refusing to appear before the National Press Club. 'Opposition Leader Sussan Ley is approaching it as if there's a giant sign above her head that screams, 'I'm not Peter Dutton',' she wrote. 'Her speech at the National Press Club this week was loaded with hints that fit this thesis 'Even the decision to address the National Press Club itself — a forum Dutton viewed as a space of the Canberra journalistic elite and snubbed consistently — was a signal.' Ms Karvelas also took aim at Australians on social media who deemed gender quotas and regular Welcome to Country speeches 'woke', dismissing the critics as 'right wing'. 'If you swim in right wing algorithms — especially on X — you'll see that all of these choices by Ley are being mocked as symbols of 'Labor Party-light',' she wrote. 'In the subterranean online world Ley's leadership is being painted as too 'woke'.' She even warned Ley's leadership could be under threat by those in the Liberal Party who agreed with the criticism. 'Ley's job over the next year is fraught with danger,' Ms Karvelas wrote. 'She might be given a period of brief peace but most Liberals you speak to privately concede that it will be difficult to keep that peace for the entire term.' Ms Ley suggested she was open to gender quotas at her National Press Club address, quickly before shadow defence minister and former leadership rival Angus Taylor rejected the proposition. "If some state divisions choose to implement quotas, that is fine. If others don't, that is also fine," she said. It comes after revealed the extraordinary lengths ABC journalists were forced to go through in order to achieve radical race, gender and disability targets. The quotas — which included specific targets for women, disabled people and culturally diverse individuals — prompted criticism of the ABC. Following the public broadcaster's high-profile court loss to Antoinette Lattouf, the ABC managing director doubled down on the ABC's commitment to impartiality. 'I wish to stress the particular and fundamental obligations the ABC and its employees have to be independent and impartial in our work,' he said in a statement. Ms Ley has suggested that gender quotas could be a good idea if state divisions of the party wanted to pursue them. However, Mr Taylor has publicly rejected quotas, arguing they would 'subvert democracy'. 'I've never been a believer in quotas to achieve that, but it's clear we have to take proactive action to achieve (female representation),' he told Sky News on Sunday.
The Advertiser
3 hours ago
- The Advertiser
Sussan Ley can be a circuit-breaker ... if the Libs allow her to be
Long the overlooked understudy, Sussan Ley remains cautiously Delphic about her plans to rebuild the Liberal Party. But don't let that fool you. For years, she's been watching and learning from the "big beasts" of conservative certainty: Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton - men "destined to rule". These chaps are now all gone from politics - each, in the end, having made more opponents than supporters. Categorically, Ley is not "of" this phenotype. Which is why her plans to resuscitate the flatlining party begin with what not to say when communicating internally with MPs and externally with voters. Self-evidently, Ley can be a circuit-breaker ... if they allow her to be. Already, her vanquished rival, Angus Taylor is publicly opposing the suggestion of rule changes to select women for winnable seats. He calls affirmative action "undemocratic" knowing full well how that cruels her pitch. Some people might make the same observation about Liberal factions. Or the enforcement of shadow cabinet solidarity. Some might even say that opposing quotas is a strange mound to die on for "liberals" after ascending the mountainous debt of government-funded-and-operated nuclear power. In any event, it is hard to recall an instance when Dutton was so publicly countermanded. Despite a margin of just four votes over Taylor in last month's leadership ballot, what Ley envisions simply must be bold - closer to a rebuild than a renovation - albeit, while keeping the heritage-listed facade - let's call it "mid-century Menzies"? For all that, Ley knows she must hasten slowly. Reading between the lines, she wants to get back to basics, steer back to the mainstream. This would involve concentrating political contest around the traditional differences with Labor over managerial competence, budget and economic discipline, defence and national security, business deregulation and aspiration. Her "sealed section" might also include an end to the climate wars and the formal adoption of quotas to get women in Parliament - about which she is "agnostic". She describes all this as "meeting Australians where they are", which sounds as harmless as it does overdue. But for a punchy party addicted to the sugar-hit gratifications of culture wars, it is a correction likely to adduce plenty of Trumpian malcontents. On the plus side, Ley has a bona fide crisis to fix. The Coalition she has inherited needs a 75 per cent increase in seats to reach a majority in 2028. And virtually all of those gains must come in the cities, where the anti-woke, anti-renewables and anti-metro vibes from Dutton and the Nationals have basically killed the brand. "We didn't just lose, we got smashed, totally smashed," Ley told the National Press Club on Wednesday. "Over two elections, the Coalition has lost 33 seats in the House of Representatives. We've lost eight seats in the Senate. "Our primary vote has fallen by more than 9 per cent in the House. Our two-party-preferred vote is down more than 6 per cent, and we now hold just two of 43 inner-metro seats and seven of 45 outer-metro seats." Take that! Simply by acknowledging the scale of her party's descent, Ley showed more grit and empiricism than Dutton ever did. The "hardman" drafted unopposed after Morrison surrendered six Liberal jewels to female community candidates in 2022, had preferred to revile rather than resolve the "gender-quake" that had just levelled his party's blue-ribbon heartlands. Morrison had scoffed at the "cafes, dinner parties and wine bars of the inner-cities," but instead of disowning such bone-headed insults, Dutton doubled down, never hiding his contempt for the teals and for their voters. It was a declaration of war, with women generally and with the affluent Australians on whom the Liberal Party was built. Yet nobody in the party room (Ley included) spoke up at the time. MORE MARK KENNY: In her first month as leader, however, Ley has already done more soul-searching and more listening than her predecessors undertook in eight years. In the aftermath of a thrashing, she prefers John Howard's folksy wisdom that the Australian voters got it right. Thus, she says openly that a Liberal majority requires some or all of the teal seats. That Ley's was the first Press Club address by a Liberal leader in three years simply underscored what an odd, divisive unit Dutton had been. That it was the first address to the club by a female opposition leader (from either side) also made it historic. Of course, this was also smart internal politics. It cemented on the record that the 2025 rout belonged as much to the abrasive rhetoric and policies Dutton espoused as to his poor standing. Ley needs her MPs to accept that future success begins with recognising how far the Coalition has drifted from the mainstream voter. Modernisation is not a choice but a necessity. The scale of this task will be rendered visually next month when Ley faces Anthony Albanese across the dispatch boxes in Parliament. With 94 seats, Labor MPs will extend well around the horseshoe while, behind Ley, will sit a rump comprising less than half of Labor's holding and just five Liberal women. Dutton made the basic error of moving further rightward because Albanese had colonised the centre-ground. It is not a mistake Ley plans on repeating. Long the overlooked understudy, Sussan Ley remains cautiously Delphic about her plans to rebuild the Liberal Party. But don't let that fool you. For years, she's been watching and learning from the "big beasts" of conservative certainty: Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton - men "destined to rule". These chaps are now all gone from politics - each, in the end, having made more opponents than supporters. Categorically, Ley is not "of" this phenotype. Which is why her plans to resuscitate the flatlining party begin with what not to say when communicating internally with MPs and externally with voters. Self-evidently, Ley can be a circuit-breaker ... if they allow her to be. Already, her vanquished rival, Angus Taylor is publicly opposing the suggestion of rule changes to select women for winnable seats. He calls affirmative action "undemocratic" knowing full well how that cruels her pitch. Some people might make the same observation about Liberal factions. Or the enforcement of shadow cabinet solidarity. Some might even say that opposing quotas is a strange mound to die on for "liberals" after ascending the mountainous debt of government-funded-and-operated nuclear power. In any event, it is hard to recall an instance when Dutton was so publicly countermanded. Despite a margin of just four votes over Taylor in last month's leadership ballot, what Ley envisions simply must be bold - closer to a rebuild than a renovation - albeit, while keeping the heritage-listed facade - let's call it "mid-century Menzies"? For all that, Ley knows she must hasten slowly. Reading between the lines, she wants to get back to basics, steer back to the mainstream. This would involve concentrating political contest around the traditional differences with Labor over managerial competence, budget and economic discipline, defence and national security, business deregulation and aspiration. Her "sealed section" might also include an end to the climate wars and the formal adoption of quotas to get women in Parliament - about which she is "agnostic". She describes all this as "meeting Australians where they are", which sounds as harmless as it does overdue. But for a punchy party addicted to the sugar-hit gratifications of culture wars, it is a correction likely to adduce plenty of Trumpian malcontents. On the plus side, Ley has a bona fide crisis to fix. The Coalition she has inherited needs a 75 per cent increase in seats to reach a majority in 2028. And virtually all of those gains must come in the cities, where the anti-woke, anti-renewables and anti-metro vibes from Dutton and the Nationals have basically killed the brand. "We didn't just lose, we got smashed, totally smashed," Ley told the National Press Club on Wednesday. "Over two elections, the Coalition has lost 33 seats in the House of Representatives. We've lost eight seats in the Senate. "Our primary vote has fallen by more than 9 per cent in the House. Our two-party-preferred vote is down more than 6 per cent, and we now hold just two of 43 inner-metro seats and seven of 45 outer-metro seats." Take that! Simply by acknowledging the scale of her party's descent, Ley showed more grit and empiricism than Dutton ever did. The "hardman" drafted unopposed after Morrison surrendered six Liberal jewels to female community candidates in 2022, had preferred to revile rather than resolve the "gender-quake" that had just levelled his party's blue-ribbon heartlands. Morrison had scoffed at the "cafes, dinner parties and wine bars of the inner-cities," but instead of disowning such bone-headed insults, Dutton doubled down, never hiding his contempt for the teals and for their voters. It was a declaration of war, with women generally and with the affluent Australians on whom the Liberal Party was built. Yet nobody in the party room (Ley included) spoke up at the time. MORE MARK KENNY: In her first month as leader, however, Ley has already done more soul-searching and more listening than her predecessors undertook in eight years. In the aftermath of a thrashing, she prefers John Howard's folksy wisdom that the Australian voters got it right. Thus, she says openly that a Liberal majority requires some or all of the teal seats. That Ley's was the first Press Club address by a Liberal leader in three years simply underscored what an odd, divisive unit Dutton had been. That it was the first address to the club by a female opposition leader (from either side) also made it historic. Of course, this was also smart internal politics. It cemented on the record that the 2025 rout belonged as much to the abrasive rhetoric and policies Dutton espoused as to his poor standing. Ley needs her MPs to accept that future success begins with recognising how far the Coalition has drifted from the mainstream voter. Modernisation is not a choice but a necessity. The scale of this task will be rendered visually next month when Ley faces Anthony Albanese across the dispatch boxes in Parliament. With 94 seats, Labor MPs will extend well around the horseshoe while, behind Ley, will sit a rump comprising less than half of Labor's holding and just five Liberal women. Dutton made the basic error of moving further rightward because Albanese had colonised the centre-ground. It is not a mistake Ley plans on repeating. Long the overlooked understudy, Sussan Ley remains cautiously Delphic about her plans to rebuild the Liberal Party. But don't let that fool you. For years, she's been watching and learning from the "big beasts" of conservative certainty: Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton - men "destined to rule". These chaps are now all gone from politics - each, in the end, having made more opponents than supporters. Categorically, Ley is not "of" this phenotype. Which is why her plans to resuscitate the flatlining party begin with what not to say when communicating internally with MPs and externally with voters. Self-evidently, Ley can be a circuit-breaker ... if they allow her to be. Already, her vanquished rival, Angus Taylor is publicly opposing the suggestion of rule changes to select women for winnable seats. He calls affirmative action "undemocratic" knowing full well how that cruels her pitch. Some people might make the same observation about Liberal factions. Or the enforcement of shadow cabinet solidarity. Some might even say that opposing quotas is a strange mound to die on for "liberals" after ascending the mountainous debt of government-funded-and-operated nuclear power. In any event, it is hard to recall an instance when Dutton was so publicly countermanded. Despite a margin of just four votes over Taylor in last month's leadership ballot, what Ley envisions simply must be bold - closer to a rebuild than a renovation - albeit, while keeping the heritage-listed facade - let's call it "mid-century Menzies"? For all that, Ley knows she must hasten slowly. Reading between the lines, she wants to get back to basics, steer back to the mainstream. This would involve concentrating political contest around the traditional differences with Labor over managerial competence, budget and economic discipline, defence and national security, business deregulation and aspiration. Her "sealed section" might also include an end to the climate wars and the formal adoption of quotas to get women in Parliament - about which she is "agnostic". She describes all this as "meeting Australians where they are", which sounds as harmless as it does overdue. But for a punchy party addicted to the sugar-hit gratifications of culture wars, it is a correction likely to adduce plenty of Trumpian malcontents. On the plus side, Ley has a bona fide crisis to fix. The Coalition she has inherited needs a 75 per cent increase in seats to reach a majority in 2028. And virtually all of those gains must come in the cities, where the anti-woke, anti-renewables and anti-metro vibes from Dutton and the Nationals have basically killed the brand. "We didn't just lose, we got smashed, totally smashed," Ley told the National Press Club on Wednesday. "Over two elections, the Coalition has lost 33 seats in the House of Representatives. We've lost eight seats in the Senate. "Our primary vote has fallen by more than 9 per cent in the House. Our two-party-preferred vote is down more than 6 per cent, and we now hold just two of 43 inner-metro seats and seven of 45 outer-metro seats." Take that! Simply by acknowledging the scale of her party's descent, Ley showed more grit and empiricism than Dutton ever did. The "hardman" drafted unopposed after Morrison surrendered six Liberal jewels to female community candidates in 2022, had preferred to revile rather than resolve the "gender-quake" that had just levelled his party's blue-ribbon heartlands. Morrison had scoffed at the "cafes, dinner parties and wine bars of the inner-cities," but instead of disowning such bone-headed insults, Dutton doubled down, never hiding his contempt for the teals and for their voters. It was a declaration of war, with women generally and with the affluent Australians on whom the Liberal Party was built. Yet nobody in the party room (Ley included) spoke up at the time. MORE MARK KENNY: In her first month as leader, however, Ley has already done more soul-searching and more listening than her predecessors undertook in eight years. In the aftermath of a thrashing, she prefers John Howard's folksy wisdom that the Australian voters got it right. Thus, she says openly that a Liberal majority requires some or all of the teal seats. That Ley's was the first Press Club address by a Liberal leader in three years simply underscored what an odd, divisive unit Dutton had been. That it was the first address to the club by a female opposition leader (from either side) also made it historic. Of course, this was also smart internal politics. It cemented on the record that the 2025 rout belonged as much to the abrasive rhetoric and policies Dutton espoused as to his poor standing. Ley needs her MPs to accept that future success begins with recognising how far the Coalition has drifted from the mainstream voter. Modernisation is not a choice but a necessity. The scale of this task will be rendered visually next month when Ley faces Anthony Albanese across the dispatch boxes in Parliament. With 94 seats, Labor MPs will extend well around the horseshoe while, behind Ley, will sit a rump comprising less than half of Labor's holding and just five Liberal women. Dutton made the basic error of moving further rightward because Albanese had colonised the centre-ground. It is not a mistake Ley plans on repeating. Long the overlooked understudy, Sussan Ley remains cautiously Delphic about her plans to rebuild the Liberal Party. But don't let that fool you. For years, she's been watching and learning from the "big beasts" of conservative certainty: Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton - men "destined to rule". These chaps are now all gone from politics - each, in the end, having made more opponents than supporters. Categorically, Ley is not "of" this phenotype. Which is why her plans to resuscitate the flatlining party begin with what not to say when communicating internally with MPs and externally with voters. Self-evidently, Ley can be a circuit-breaker ... if they allow her to be. Already, her vanquished rival, Angus Taylor is publicly opposing the suggestion of rule changes to select women for winnable seats. He calls affirmative action "undemocratic" knowing full well how that cruels her pitch. Some people might make the same observation about Liberal factions. Or the enforcement of shadow cabinet solidarity. Some might even say that opposing quotas is a strange mound to die on for "liberals" after ascending the mountainous debt of government-funded-and-operated nuclear power. In any event, it is hard to recall an instance when Dutton was so publicly countermanded. Despite a margin of just four votes over Taylor in last month's leadership ballot, what Ley envisions simply must be bold - closer to a rebuild than a renovation - albeit, while keeping the heritage-listed facade - let's call it "mid-century Menzies"? For all that, Ley knows she must hasten slowly. Reading between the lines, she wants to get back to basics, steer back to the mainstream. This would involve concentrating political contest around the traditional differences with Labor over managerial competence, budget and economic discipline, defence and national security, business deregulation and aspiration. Her "sealed section" might also include an end to the climate wars and the formal adoption of quotas to get women in Parliament - about which she is "agnostic". She describes all this as "meeting Australians where they are", which sounds as harmless as it does overdue. But for a punchy party addicted to the sugar-hit gratifications of culture wars, it is a correction likely to adduce plenty of Trumpian malcontents. On the plus side, Ley has a bona fide crisis to fix. The Coalition she has inherited needs a 75 per cent increase in seats to reach a majority in 2028. And virtually all of those gains must come in the cities, where the anti-woke, anti-renewables and anti-metro vibes from Dutton and the Nationals have basically killed the brand. "We didn't just lose, we got smashed, totally smashed," Ley told the National Press Club on Wednesday. "Over two elections, the Coalition has lost 33 seats in the House of Representatives. We've lost eight seats in the Senate. "Our primary vote has fallen by more than 9 per cent in the House. Our two-party-preferred vote is down more than 6 per cent, and we now hold just two of 43 inner-metro seats and seven of 45 outer-metro seats." Take that! Simply by acknowledging the scale of her party's descent, Ley showed more grit and empiricism than Dutton ever did. The "hardman" drafted unopposed after Morrison surrendered six Liberal jewels to female community candidates in 2022, had preferred to revile rather than resolve the "gender-quake" that had just levelled his party's blue-ribbon heartlands. Morrison had scoffed at the "cafes, dinner parties and wine bars of the inner-cities," but instead of disowning such bone-headed insults, Dutton doubled down, never hiding his contempt for the teals and for their voters. It was a declaration of war, with women generally and with the affluent Australians on whom the Liberal Party was built. Yet nobody in the party room (Ley included) spoke up at the time. MORE MARK KENNY: In her first month as leader, however, Ley has already done more soul-searching and more listening than her predecessors undertook in eight years. In the aftermath of a thrashing, she prefers John Howard's folksy wisdom that the Australian voters got it right. Thus, she says openly that a Liberal majority requires some or all of the teal seats. That Ley's was the first Press Club address by a Liberal leader in three years simply underscored what an odd, divisive unit Dutton had been. That it was the first address to the club by a female opposition leader (from either side) also made it historic. Of course, this was also smart internal politics. It cemented on the record that the 2025 rout belonged as much to the abrasive rhetoric and policies Dutton espoused as to his poor standing. Ley needs her MPs to accept that future success begins with recognising how far the Coalition has drifted from the mainstream voter. Modernisation is not a choice but a necessity. The scale of this task will be rendered visually next month when Ley faces Anthony Albanese across the dispatch boxes in Parliament. With 94 seats, Labor MPs will extend well around the horseshoe while, behind Ley, will sit a rump comprising less than half of Labor's holding and just five Liberal women. Dutton made the basic error of moving further rightward because Albanese had colonised the centre-ground. It is not a mistake Ley plans on repeating.
Sky News AU
7 hours ago
- Sky News AU
Senator Pauline Hanson criticises Liberal leader Sussan Ley for Acknowledgment of Country before National Press Club speech
Senator Pauline Hanson has said she was left "disgusted" with Opposition Leader Sussan Ley after her Acknowledgment to Country during a major speech last week. The Liberal leader spoke at the National Press Club on Wednesday, but before she kicked off her address she acknowledged the traditional owners of the land. The party's former leader Peter Dutton had a hard stance on First Nations ceremonies, including the Welcome to Country, saying they had been "overdone" after a number of people booed at a Melbourne Anzac Day dawn service in April. Senator Hanson did not hold back in her assessment of Ms Ley's act. "I was disgusted. Absolutely disgusted with it," she told Sky News' Danica and James. "Because the Liberals, they were the ones that actually opposed the Voice to Parliament. It wasn't just the Liberals that opposed it. It was a lot of people like myself, like Gary Johns, and then you had Barnaby Joyce and you had Jacinta Price." "Because once the public were informed about what it meant and changed in the Constitution, people were better informed and made their decisions about it." The firebrand politician also believes Ms Ley is not the right person to be leading the party as she was a moderate and that a "true conservative" had to replace her. "It's going to be very interesting what happens the next three years under Sussan Ley. I think she will be overthrown before the next election," Senator Hanson added. Earlier, the One Nation leader was asked about a poll from the Institute of Public Affairs which had found 56 per cent of people say Welcome to Country ceremonies are divisive. According to the survey conducted by research firm Dynata, 27 per cent of others questioned said they were unsure and 17 per cent disagreed on the remark. "Every Australian out there that's got a backbone about them and say, 'we're not going to deal with this anymore', turn your back on it as I do every time I'm in parliament and they do a Welcome to Country. I turn my back," Senator Hanon said. She also claimed to have turned her back on the ceremony during her grandson's school's anniversary, saying she is not "going to put up with this rubbish". "It's ridiculous where we're going. It's divisive. More than 56 per cent of the public out there are so over this but they are in fear of being called a bigot or racist," she said. Senator Hanson also praised the Melbourne council worker for standing up against his employer after an Acknowledgment to Country during a toolbox meeting. It was revealed on Thursday Melbourne street sweeper Shaun Turner had won his unfair dismissal case after he was dismissed by Darebin City Council in June. Mr Turner said the use of the Acknowledgment to Country is "getting out of hand". "That council worker, good on him for actually fighting back over it and questioning it. And yet he's lost his job. He's won it in the courts and I hope that they actually apologise to him and offer his job back," Senator Hanson told Sky News.
