Audio excerpt – Karen Barlow:

“Okay, we're recording here, if you're recording there? Sussan, how do you see the task ahead to unify, to rebuild, reach out? I guess the size and timing of it. And do you have a message for anyone who might underestimate you?”

Audio excerpt – Sussan Ley:

“Karen, it's important that when we look ahead, we respect modern Australia, we reflect modern Australia and we represent modern Australia.”

DANIEL:

Karen Barlow is The Saturday Paper’s chief political correspondent.

She sat down with the new opposition leader, Sussan Ley, to talk about how she plans to stitch the Coalition back together after its record May 3 defeat — and why, from rouseabout to pilot to parliament, she’s spent a lifetime proving doubters wrong.

Audio excerpt – Sussan Ley:

“I don't mind what people think of me. My mum always used to say, what people think of you is none of your business. Just get on and do your job.”

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DANIEL:

From Schwartz Media. I’m Daniel James, this is 7am.

Today, Karen Barlow on the story behind the Liberal Party’s first female leader, her plans in opposition, and whether she can turn a shattered party into a credible alternative.

It’s Monday, June 2.

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Audio excerpt – Karen Barlow:

“Appreciating that you're here now, will you as leader, unlike your predecessor, continue to put yourself regularly before the Canberra Press Gallery.”

DANIEL:

Karen, when Sussan Ley first became leader a couple of weeks ago, you asked her if she would commit to putting herself in front of a broad section of the media. This is one of the first questions she actually got as leader. Why do you think that was an important question to ask her?

KAREN:

It's just important to get that on the record.

Audio excerpt – Karen Barlow:

“Accountability, and to air ideas?”

Audio excerpt – Sussan Ley:

“Yes, I will.”

KAREN:

And it was an important factor, not the entire factor, but an important factor in what went wrong for Peter Dutton. And, you know, he didn't really put himself before the Canberra Press Gallery. When it finally came to the election campaign, he was not match fit. And Albanese absolutely was. And it really showed. So on this, absolutely, she said she is going to put herself before a broad section of the media. As I asked the question, it was for transparency, accountability and just airing ideas. You have to look at the absolute debacle of the work from home idea for Peter Dutton and Jane Hume. It was not aired and when it finally sort of landed in the middle of the election campaign it was a stinker and they could have known beforehand that it was going to be a stinker.

DANIEL:

Now you've had a chance to speak one-on-one with Sussan Ley and you started by asking her whether she had a message for anyone who might underestimate her.

Her answer was really interesting, can you tell me about it?

KAREN:

So I mean this is Sussan Ley still introducing herself. It has been an atypical path to politics for Sussan Ley and in talking about this question of whether she's been underestimated she brings up not just a parliamentary career but the career before that.

Audio excerpt – Sussan Ley:

“Well, I've been underestimated a lot in my career, as a rouseabout picking up fleeces in a shearing shed in western Queensland. I was told I wouldn't be strong enough to pick up 800 fleeces a day and run up and down a board of about eight shearers. And I did in 40 degree heat and it was a good lesson in life and I was probably underestimated as a female flying aeroplanes. No one thought I'd be able to get a job as a pilot and I ended up mustering, which was flying very small aeroplanes. Very close to the ground. And I think people underestimated me there too. So I don't mind what people think of me.”

KAREN:

After being the rouseabout and the pilot helping with mustering, she's a 30-year-old on the farm and she tells us that she's studying economics to get extra income. There's drought periods, there's difficulties on the farm, and this is something that she had to do for the family. Ultimately, she did pursue a path to Canberra, but it wasn't planned, she said.

Audio excerpt – Sussan Ley:

“When I hooked up the caravan and headed off down the river, it was a funny experience because I expected that people would want to, you know, acknowledge my economics degree and I had a master's in tax law and accounting qualifications. But in fact, they didn't want any of that. They just wanted to know that I was a person who understood what their lives were like and who was prepared to listen to them.”

DANIEL:

What did she have to say about the state of politics when she arrived in Canberra in the state in the Liberal Party?

KAREN:

When she arrived, she arrived in the John Howard years, it's 2001, actually the same year that Peter Dutton came into Parliament. But she's someone who had a background on the farm, with a family, and she arrives, and it is blokey.

Audio excerpt – Sussan Ley:

“Everyone stood up and they had, you know, they had a lot to say. And I enjoyed the spirited debate between different ideas and different thoughts within our party room. In terms of being a woman in that building, look, I had had previous life experience as a woman, in careers that were dominated by men. So it wasn't altogether unfamiliar.”

KAREN:

She quickly got an assistant minister's position. She moved through the ranks. She has been the minister for health. She has been the minister for the environment. She's had her ups and downs. And, you know, this has made her the tough woman politician that she now is as leader of the Liberal Party.

DANIEL:

If we talk a little bit about the ups and downs, in 2017 she had to resign as health minister after she used a taxpayer funded trip to buy an apartment on the Gold Coast. You asked her about the highs and lows of her career, talk to me about how she's framing that now.

KAREN:

Yeah, I asked her about that in particular because it came up in the press conference where she was asked about the demotion of Jane Hume. She was the finance spokesperson and she's gone back to the backbench.

Audio excerpt – Sussan Ley:

“These are tough days and having been through many days like this myself in my parliamentary career, I recognise that.”

KAREN:

So yes, I ask her about that and she’s pointing out that she is a survivor.

Audio excerpt – Sussan Ley:

“I've become stronger and wiser for the tough times. And having been sent to the back bench in the past, I do know what it feels like. I want to say that one of the things I believe in, having been in that parliament for 25 years, is that no matter where you sit, whatever seat you sit in in the House of Representatives or the Senate, no seat is better or worse than another and you’ve got an opportunity to contribute to advocate.”

KAREN:

The challenge from Angus Taylor with the leadership ballot was very, very close and may become closer still with a change over the Senate at the end of June. And so there's a question of whether she's got breathing space. Most observers would say she has breathing space at the moment, but that may whittle down. And so this is the moment where she's being tested as the Liberal leader. She's just got through this enormous rift with the National Party and survived that and stood up for the Liberal Party. And now she has to face down Parliament returning at the end of July.

DANIEL:

After the break - the challenge ahead for Sussan Ley.

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DANIEL:

Karen, Sussan Ley has a huge task ahead of her to rebuild the Liberal Party. That starts with facing up to the wipeout they just suffered. How is she talking about their loss?

KAREN:

I did ask her whether she could pinpoint anything about the loss to explain it and she said well you know that if I did so that would get ahead of the review that is coming but she did say absolutely that there was a problem with women.

Audio excerpt – Sussan Ley:

“I always want to see more women join our party. I always want more women seeing us as the party that they would naturally choose to support.”

KAREN:

It is widely seen that Peter Dutton did have an issue with women voters. Sussan Ley did have the portfolio of women, it's now being given to Melissa McIntosh, the member for Lindsay in Outer Sydney, she's got that alongside communications. So, you know, she's really sort of putting her mark on her front bench, really highlighting this return to doing something about women.

Audio excerpt – Sussan Ley:

“At every policy discussion where the big calls are made, I'll be sitting at that table and I'll be seeing the decisions that we make through the lens of women, so many of the women that I met during the campaign, that I stood on those polling booths and chatted to, and that I heard what they wanted to see from their political representatives.”

KAREN:

And she is really pointing out that there's a new portfolio in the field of urban infrastructure and cities that's been given to James McGrath. That's seen as addressing the problem that the Liberal Party has had in urban areas. There is a new recasting going on, but we don't really know about the policies going forward because that's under review.

DANIEL:

So Karen, Sussan Ley has well and truly proved her credentials as an MP for a large rural electorate. One of the things that the Liberal Party failed to do at the last election was really retake any of the Teal seats in any sort of large way. What are her challenges in terms of being able to connect with urban electorates?

KAREN:

Yeah, I asked her about whether it's a stretch for her to understand voters in urban centres and she absolutely insisted that it's not.

Audio excerpt – Sussan Ley:

“I lived in Melbourne and, you know, I lived in Canberra as a young person. So I've lived and experienced life in the cities. And sometimes I think the city country divide is overrated. And we're Australians and we have the connections between ourselves, between city and country.”

KAREN:

Living in Canberra myself, Canberra is not a big city, but it is an enormous task, and it's not just for her. It's for her entire party room. These members have to reach out now from their outer suburban seats, or even regional seats, and understand the cities. She insists that the party absolutely fought for the Teal seats again. You just have to look at Tim Wilson returned in Goldstein, perhaps it's still in doubt at this stage. Gisele Kapterian, in Bradfield, they did fight for those, and they have to work harder at getting more back if they want any chance of returning to government.

DANIEL:

What type of Coalition leader do you think Sussan Ley is going to be?

KAREN:

Well, she certainly made much about being more consultative. She has spoken to former Liberal leaders.

Audio excerpt – Karen Barlow:

“Do you consult with former Liberal leaders, Howard, Nelson, Abbott, Turnbull, Morrison? Would you nominate any that you might reach out to? I know you've mentioned John Howard a few times in the space that you were in when you arrived.”

Audio excerpt – Sussan Ley:

“I've been in touch with all of them, important former leaders of our party and always, they have wisdom to add. Not just the previous leaders, but the future leaders can I say, Karen.”

KAREN:

But she also shifted pretty quickly to future leaders. And she is someone that says that she's always on the lookout for young women who might have a part to play, whether it's local politics or federal politics. And she sees in opposition, it's not really a top-down exercise. She sees it as an opportunity to listen from the grassroots up. And she likes to say that it's very flat in terms of structure. So we'll see how that goes. Certainly it's early days in her leadership. She's certainly doing things differently at the start from Peter Dutton.

DANIEL:

And what did she tell you about her role as opposition leader in terms of holding the government to account?

KAREN:

This is an interesting question because, you know, we're all looking at Anthony Albanese and how confident he is with this supermajority now of 94 Labor members in the House of Representatives. Certainly there's an opportunity for Labor there, but now for the Liberal Party, what is going to be the approach? And certainly you can't discount the issue of gender here and how is he going to take on Sussan Ley as a female leader of the Liberal Party. It will be interesting in parliament to see how that will play out. But I asked about how she's gonna square up with Albanese and she says she's ready.

Audio excerpt – Sussan Ley:

“I'm going to approach the prime minister respectfully. He's been elected. He's got a strong majority. And I respect the wishes of the Australian people that he is the prime minster. So that's the first thing. And that's what every Australian would expect of me.”

KAREN:

She highlights the areas of foreign policy and national security, usually areas where the Coalition and Labor are in lockstep. But it's going to be then interesting where there'll be points of disagreement and how Sussan Ley and Anthony Albanese will actually be able to do deals or not, or change, change each other's forward thinking. But she says that she's up for the fight.

DANIEL:

And finally, Karen, she's taken over the leadership at the Liberal Party's darkest ebb. She's managed to hold the Coalition together during some fractured times in her early weeks in that leadership. So what are the next big tests for Sussan Ley?

KAREN:

Well, I would say she's turning attention now to Parliament returning at the end of July. There will be the process for starting the review of policies and she'll be needing to appoint with other elements of her party who is going to lead the review of this devastating election loss.

There's question marks over whether the pollster for the Liberal Party that failed them so miserably will continue. Certainly that's not for Sussan Ley to decide but that's in her space.

And there is the question mark about the future of some of the people in the federal division, the leaders there, people like Andrew Hirst, whether they're going to continue in their jobs because honestly it's been such a thumping loss for the Liberal Party and something has to change.

DANIEL:

I don't envy her task. Karen, thank you so much for your time.

KAREN:

Thank you so much.

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DANIEL:

Also in the news today…

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has pushed back against a US call to drastically boost defence spending, saying Australia will “determine our own defence policy” and has already committed an extra $10 billion in defence spending over the next four years. The comments came as Donald Trump announced a doubling of tariffs on steel and aluminium — a move Albanese called “an act of economic self-harm”.

And

Russia has launched a new wave of air assaults on Kyiv, with drone and missile attacks killing at least two people, including a nine year old girl. Evacuations have been ordered in more than 200 settlements in Ukraine’s Sumy region, as officials warn of a potential new Russian offensive.

You’ve been listening to 7am, we’ll be back tomorrow.

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