June 26, 2025 • 22 mins
She is a former shearer, a pilot and a mother of three children. She has a dark past as a punk in Canberra. She has been one of the only women in the room in successive Liberal cabinets. She was the deputy to former opposition leader Peter Dutton, and following the last election, she took his job.
She is, of course, Opposition Leader Sussan Ley.
Today, chief political commentator James Massola and host Jacqueline Maley speak to Ley about the Coalition’s woman problem, how she plans on stopping a split within the Coalition over energy policy, and most importantly, we ask who she really is, as a person
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Episode Transcript
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S1 (00:01):
From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
This is inside politics. I'm Jacqueline Maley. Today we have
a very special guest for our podcast. She's a former shearer.
She's a pilot and a mother of three. She has
a dark past as a punk in Canberra. She has
been one of the only women in the room in
successive Liberal cabinets. She was the deputy to former opposition
leader Peter Dutton and following the last election she, of
(00:23):
course took his job. She is, of course, opposition leader
Sussan Ley. Welcome to the podcast, miss Lee. Thank you
so much for joining.
S2 (00:29):
Nice to join you, Jacqueline.
S1 (00:30):
We also have our chief political commentator, James Massola. We're
going to talk about the coalition's so-called women problem. We're
going to talk about how you plan on stopping a
split within the coalition over energy policy. And most importantly,
we just want to get to know you as a
person and find out who you are for the benefit
of our listeners. Um, so listen, I just want to
give you an opportunity to introduce yourself because a lot
(00:52):
of our listeners won't know a lot about you. Do
you want to just give us a brief personal bio?
S2 (00:56):
My story is a very Australian story, a migrant to
Australia in my mid teens with a passion for flying aeroplanes,
landed in Canberra eventually and went to school at two
great Canberra public schools and was determined that I would
fly aeroplanes. Worked three jobs to do that, struggled along
the way, failed along the way, had a bit of heartbreak,
(01:19):
ended up working in air traffic control and then as
an aerial mustering pilot in western Queensland. While in the
shearing sheds, I met my then husband and came home
onto the family farm in north east Victoria and I
described myself as a farmer's wife. Life on the land
was tough as it is for so many who live
on the land today. I've walked many miles in their
shoes and so while raising my three children, I went
(01:43):
to university at age 30 and gained qualifications in economics,
tax law and accounting and worked for the Australian Tax Office.
And that pathway led me to a fascination with politics,
but more importantly, the economic policy debate. I saw the
way it linked with the lives of my family and
the small rural community in which I lived. So when
(02:05):
I say my story is an Australian story, I love
it when I tell my story. And then I meet
people around the country who give me their versions, who
remember as I do, what it was like to walk
into a university campus and feel totally out of place
as a mum looking, you know, a bit like the
(02:26):
battered farm ute that I just stepped out of and
holding a crying baby and having another woman who is
in charge there come out and say welcome. And, you know,
we want to help you in your journey in education.
So I hope you can tell Jacqueline, it's not a
short introduction. So, um, I'll end there, that the way
(02:46):
I see my story and my journey in Australia is
through the prism of our liberal values and aspiration, backing
someone who wants to have a crack and get ahead
and work hard.
S3 (02:57):
Just to pick up something you said then, Susan, about,
if I may, ending up in Canberra. You've skipped over
a little bit there in that. And I find this fascinating.
You were born in Nigeria to English parents. As a toddler,
you moved to the UAE, to the United Arab Emirates.
You went to boarding school in England and then you
ended up in Canberra. Tell us about that. Is there
a legacy, I guess, from that moving around for you?
(03:20):
Did it teach you something? Did it leave a lasting effect?
S2 (03:24):
I love the Emirates. As a child, I loved the
wide open spaces of the desert. But I'll be honest,
it was really tough to be sent to boarding school
on the other side of the world, age ten. And
we didn't have FaceTime and we didn't have phones. And
so I didn't speak to my parents for months on end,
and my mother would write to me on a little
blue aerogram some people will know what they are. And
(03:45):
after breakfast, we'd all walk into the room and look
to see if we had a letter. And I often
didn't have a letter, and I didn't know what was
happening in the rest of my family. And I remember
it was tough and it developed in me that sense
of self-reliance that you've got to depend on you because
there's no one else. And in all of that, there
(04:05):
was this sort of magic of my father having said
to me since I was small, one day we're going
to move to Australia and we're going to have this
incredibly different life, and the family is going to be together.
So I hung on to that, and I actually studied
the Murray and Murrumbidgee rivers in geography as a child
in an English boarding school and Drew Griffith, Leeton and
(04:26):
Narrandera on the map. And now I represent those communities
as a local MP.
S1 (04:31):
You were manifesting your future.
S2 (04:33):
But what I. But but the magic of Australia was
something that when I landed in Brisbane, we lived there
briefly on a small farm for a while. I just
saw this incredible country, this bright blue sky, and I've
obviously loved it every single day since. But it is
such a privilege to share that migrant story, but to
listen to everyone's migrant story as well.
S1 (04:54):
Yeah. Okay. So you come to Canberra as a teenager, famously,
you became a punk in the Canberra scene. What in
the 80s.
S2 (05:01):
Late 70s.
S1 (05:01):
Early 80s 70s, early 80s, being a punk with its
anarchical sort of philosophy is not something that we generally
associate with people on the conservative side of politics. Were
you drawn to the punk aesthetic or the music or
the philosophy?
S2 (05:14):
The way I saw punk then, as someone who didn't,
I didn't fit in at school. My British accent singled
me out. Um. Ah, I didn't make friends easily. And look,
it was it wasn't great. Um. It's funny, you know,
I walk into any classroom today and I can see
the kids who are like me, and I can identify
(05:36):
with them, and I know what it's like. But I
found myself in Dixon College. Yeah. And Dixon College was
the sort of educational institution where you could be who
you wanted to be. You didn't have to wear clothes. Sorry.
You didn't have to wear uniforms. You could wear what
you like.
S3 (05:53):
It was liberal.
S2 (05:54):
But I remember walking, walking to school, up the bike
path from the Dixon shops with bare feet and, you know,
crazy outfits and piercings and the rest of it. Uh,
purple hair. No one blinked an eyelid, and this was
part of expressing myself. But the punk ethos is a fearless,
honest belief in yourself. And that's what I drew on,
(06:17):
and that's what gave me the confidence to go forward
and do the things that I knew I wanted to do.
S1 (06:22):
But then you go on and you join, you join
the Liberal Party, which is obviously conforming to an institution.
You talk about liberal values. Do you think Australians know
what liberal values are, particularly after the last election?
S2 (06:33):
I think we need to remind them that liberal values are,
in the main, their values. But no, I don't think
they heard from us as to what our what our
agenda was. And I've said many times we've got to
meet modern Australia where they are. We've got to better reflect,
respect and then represent modern Australia.
S1 (06:54):
So how do you sum up those values? You talked
about aspiration just now, but what else is there apart
from that opportunity?
S2 (07:01):
Reward for effort, hard work that if you commit and
you have a crack, we're there to support you get
getting ahead and that we're all about a government that
is better, not bigger. But I don't want to see
an equality of outcome in anyone's life story. But I
do want to see an equality of opportunity. And I
want I want an economy that is strong enough to
(07:24):
work well for the people who get left behind.
S3 (07:27):
Do you think, Susan, that people, when they look at
the modern Liberal Party today, when they judged, you know,
when they cast their vote, I should say, at the
last election, the one before that, I don't think they
saw that party. I think they saw a party that's
drifted to the right too much, and that has left
a lot of Australians behind or just just moved away
from them. The exact opposite of what you're talking about.
I mean, do you agree with that? Do you have
(07:47):
a different theory? How do you fix it? More importantly.
S2 (07:50):
By explaining that aspiration is the thread that connects every
single part of Australian society. So whether you characterize it
the way you just have, James, It's not the way
I would look at it. I would say that those,
you know, center left right descriptions aren't particularly helpful. We've
got a broad membership, broad party room, and they reflect
lots of different views in the Australian public today. But
(08:12):
the thing that connects them all is that aspiration. And
we're there for individuals who want to get ahead, who
want to have a crack, who aspire in their lives.
And we're there to make sure that we have the
right safety net for those who fall behind. I want
to balance it up with that because, you know, I'm
grateful for the opportunities I've had in my life. But
(08:32):
I know that I meet people every day who've got
more courage than me or any of my colleagues have
ever had, just to get out of bed in the
morning and and manage their lives and deal with the
issues that they're facing. So we've always got to be
there for them. And to do that, you do have
to have a strong economy, and you do have to
have it working well for every single Australian.
S1 (08:53):
I mean, you say that the modern Liberal Party needs
to represent all Australians and it's, you know, that you
have a diversity there, but very famously hasn't really represented
women to the extent that it could have, which is
why you're liberal. The liberals with female voters have been
declining so precipitously over the last few decades. Um, just
first of all, before we get into that, would you
call yourself a feminist?
S2 (09:14):
Well, yes, I would. And it's interesting because the word
feminist isn't used much. It was used a lot when
I was trying to get into the time. I'm very happy. And, um,
you know, and I'll tell you what I mean by feminist,
because I used it in the era when, you know,
the people who own corporate jets didn't want me flying them,
who said to me quietly, we don't have a job
(09:35):
for you because it's not us, Susan. It's just that
the traveling public doesn't really want to see a woman
up the front and, uh, you know, come back next year. Sure. Um,
you know that that was something that, you know, burned
in me. How? I was completely singled out. Never mind
my qualifications, my license, all of the things I'd done,
(09:56):
it was, oh, it was simply because of my gender.
So we didn't do well with women. I just want
to confront that. I want to acknowledge that. I want
to say that since in 2001, when I came into Parliament,
more women in Australia voted for us than they did
anyone else. And that number has been declining ever since.
Which is why I am so determined and so insistent
(10:20):
that we fix this women's problem.
S1 (10:23):
You talked. You gave an address to the National Press
Club this week, which was really strong, and we both
were really interested in it. You talked in that address
about coercive control and domestic violence, and you said that
you knew what coercive control felt like. Do you want
to elaborate on that at all? Have you had personal
experience with it?
S2 (10:39):
Look, I have had personal experiences, and I don't choose
to share them publicly, but I want the women of
Australia to know that I know and that I'm with them,
and that I understand how it feels and what it's
like and how sometimes, only looking back can you really
understand what went on. And when you look at the
(11:00):
statistics that I quoted yesterday, in terms of the number
of women in this country who have been affected by
sexual harassment, coercive control, violence, workplace harassment, you know, even
though on some indicators we're improving. You know, I wonder
when you look at those statistics, are we improving? Are
(11:20):
we doing the best we can do? So the very
strong message I wanted to deliver yesterday about this was
that this is above politics. This is something that I
want to work with the Prime Minister on. And we
just have to do better. We can't have years like
last year. You know, I remember reading out the names
of women who'd lost their lives to intimate partner violence.
(11:42):
And in the time it took us to construct the
media communication, that number had increased. And that really brought
it home to me. It's not good enough.
S1 (11:50):
After 2022. The election result was bad. It was bad,
particularly in your female vote. You actually said, we hear you,
we hear women of Australia, and you were tasked with
doing a listening tour. This was back in 2022. What
policies did you come up with and were they just
not implemented? Were you shouted down in cabinet? What happened?
S2 (12:08):
Well, we had a lot of discussion about policies, and
I think it's clear that they didn't land in the
right way where they needed to. And there's lots of
evidence for that.
S1 (12:15):
I'm sorry to interrupt you, but what do you mean? When?
That's a kind of a vague construction. Do you mean
that they weren't taken up by your male colleagues or
your colleagues within shadow cabinet?
S2 (12:22):
No, I don't mean that. I mean, we supported the
government continuing our record women's safety spending. So remember, when
we left government, there was a spending trajectory in place,
included record spending for women's safety. We supported a $500
million policy for women's health. We came up with individual
women's health initiatives around support for ovarian cancer about further
(12:45):
support for endometriosis. So I was part of quite a
lot of of of the policies that people saw. Now,
in the end, I think this is an important point, Jacqueline.
People saw and heard herd policies, whether it be in
women's health or housing or other areas. They weren't even
sure which party was proposing them. That comes back to
one of the things we have to do. We have
to communicate well to Australians about the things we support,
(13:08):
the things we come up for.
S1 (13:09):
Do you really think that's all it was? That the
Australian voter wasn't able to distinguish between liberal policy and
labor policy, or not at all? Something more along the
lines of the cultural. Um, the cultural environment of the
liberals or what? What women think that that represents?
S3 (13:24):
Well, just I mean, it's the perception that it's a
really blokey party. Yeah.
S2 (13:28):
Uh, yes. And and and and I understand why that
perception is there. Because that's what you see. And the
picture tells the story. Uh, look, it was many of
those different things. And the feedback I got, the anecdotes
that I've heard have, uh, fed into my thinking. And
obviously our review by Pru Goward and Nick Minchin will
(13:51):
articulate more. Look what actually happened. And and give some, uh,
further meat on the bone, so to speak.
S1 (13:58):
That's the review of the election campaign, that is.
S2 (14:01):
But it will be. It will include it will include
our policies. It will include our connection with women, with
young people, with migrant Australia, Australians, multicultural communities. It will
include all of that. And I just want to say again,
it will be frank and fearless, honest and made public. Okay.
S3 (14:18):
Yeah. Look, something I wanted to pick up on. Um,
it was a recurring, uh, thing, a recurring theme with
Peter Dutton that. I mean, you may disagree, but I
think he paid lip service to the need to win
back those teal seats that were lost in 2022. Why
do you think the liberals lost those seats in 2022?
Why do you think they failed to pick them up? Well,
(14:40):
other than Tim Wilson in 2025.
S2 (14:42):
Big shout out to Tim Wilson for winning back the
seat of Goldstein. And he will have a lot of
really important data to present to us as a party room.
We're meeting in the next couple of days, as you
may know, um, about where we went wrong. And the
beginnings of that review process are already underway. So again,
without getting ahead of the review, I can give you
(15:04):
my thoughts at this point in time. And they are
that we didn't meet women where they expected us to be.
We certainly didn't meet younger Australians, and in some instances
they didn't consider us at all. So when you talk
about a view they may have had of the Liberal Party,
some of the feedback was they didn't think about the
Liberal Party. So, you know, there are obviously serious issues
(15:26):
to address there as far as how we communicate our message,
which is very important because no matter how well we
might do in building a policy platform, politics is about
communicating and connecting with the voter. Um, well, I spoke
to a lot of women in the teal seats. Can
I say, um, particularly those busy mornings when everyone's lined
up to go in to vote and they're taking a
(15:47):
how to vote card or they're not? And I was
quite upfront and, you know, many people knew who I was.
And I said, can I tell you can I ask
you why you're refusing to take our heart of gold
or what's what are you thinking? And in many cases,
they said, we don't know that the modern Liberal Party
understands our busy lives as mums with children, worrying about childcare,
worrying about our mortgages, worrying about the cost of living,
(16:09):
worrying about our elderly parents. This is the life I've lived. Personally,
I remember those years. You know, you're piling the children
in the car, you're rushing off, you're trying to finish
your university assignments. You've got your employer, even if it's
a generous employer. Um, but, you know, you need to
get there. You've run out of leave, and then you've
got the home front and you don't feel you're doing
anything properly, and you've just got this sort of, um,
(16:32):
feelings of, ah, you know, that working, working mum. Guilt,
if I can call it that. And then there are
women who talk to me, and this is at polling booths, too,
about the challenge of having children and stepping away from
a career. How do you time it? How do you
not miss out on all of the work that you've
done to put into your career.
S1 (16:50):
And how do you ensure your own financial security in
the future? How do you on that question, do you
support quotas or not? Yes or no?
S2 (16:57):
Well, I support anything that brings more women into our party.
S1 (17:00):
That is quotas, isn't it? Based on historical evidence.
S2 (17:02):
If a state.
S1 (17:02):
Division, historical evidence.
S2 (17:03):
If a state division comes up with quotas to achieve
the outcome, then I'm all for it.
S1 (17:07):
Are you.
S2 (17:07):
Agnostic?
S1 (17:08):
Are you?
S2 (17:09):
Yes. If they come up with another method to achieve
the outcome, I'm supportive too. Because remember the Federated Liberal Party?
S1 (17:16):
I know, I know what you're trying to say, and
I don't mean to interrupt you, but people do get
very frustrated with this because quotas work. We know that
it's the only thing that works historically if we're looking
at the evidence. Right. Um, what other methods could there be?
And why doesn't the Liberal Party just pull the trigger
and do it? You're the you're the head of the
Liberal Party now, you could surely.
S2 (17:36):
One of the one of the things that I value
in the Liberal Party is the autonomy of our state divisions.
That's the party we are. That's where we've come from.
It's not a.
S1 (17:44):
It's not a view.
S2 (17:45):
It's not a top down, hierarchical approach. The only view
I have is that we must get more women in
our parliamentary party. I'm not going to tell divisions or
individuals how to get there. I've got women who are,
you know, standing up right now.
S1 (17:58):
Your influence though.
S2 (17:59):
Absolutely, absolutely. I am I think I've started that already. Well,
I'm arguing for the results because you're talking about a process.
I'm talking about an outcome. And that outcome has to
be more women. It's not, by the way, everyone talks
about the women in, in, in the Parliament. That's vital
to get those women in the parliament. We have to
have those women putting their hand up, joining the party,
(18:20):
standing up, which.
S1 (18:21):
Takes a long time.
S2 (18:22):
So it can take time. But one of the things
I do, by the way, is meet women one on
one and say, yeah, have you thought that what you're
doing is pretty amazing and I reckon you align with
our values? We'd love you to join us. So we're
starting to have those conversations.
S3 (18:36):
So in your view, being the first Liberal Party leader
to say quotas, I'm open to them. Is is that enough?
And then as an addendum to that, you know, Margaret
Guilfoyle Network was set up after the last election to
solve the women problem in inverted commas. It's never been
heard of again. Then you've got Charlotte Mortlock and Hilma's network,
which is actually out there doing things. Will you engage
(18:58):
with them? What specific things will you do to get
more women in? Like one specific thing.
S2 (19:03):
Talking about it is not enough. You're absolutely right. Engaging
with people who are working hard to make it happen
is high on my priority list. Talking one on one
with women is high on my priority list, too. Um,
can I just come back to the remark I made before, um,
somebody years ago said to me, why don't you join
your local Liberal Party? And I did. Um, others have
(19:25):
said to me, why don't you put your hand up
for this in terms of our party and I have
and I, I love seeing women do well. I love
being part of mentoring officially or unofficially for younger women.
And I'm not the only one in our party that
is well equipped to do that. So we will all
(19:46):
be involved, all of my team, in making sure this happens,
and I'm very happy to be judged by the outcome,
by the way.
S1 (19:52):
All right. Well, we'll come back to you. We'll get you.
S2 (19:54):
So come back to me.
S1 (19:55):
We just need to ask you very quickly about net zero.
Obviously you had you famously negotiated a brief but rather
bitter split with the coalition with your coalition partner. Um,
at the beginning of your tenure. Uh, net zero is
going to be probably the most divisive issue within the coalition.
What is your personal view on net zero? Obviously, you've
backed it in the past.
S2 (20:16):
We got smashed at the last election, and all of
our policies are up for review. So I need to
say that because every policy, including energy policy. So you've
talked about net zero. It's one part of energy policy.
I've set up a working group led by Dan Tehan,
who's the shadow minister for energy. I'm not going to
get ahead of what this working group will do, but
(20:36):
it will include everyone who wants to have a say
on what will be an iterative and continuous policy development process.
So whatever the government brings forward, that group and our
wider party room will be able to consider it. But
our energy policy will be underpinned by two fundamental things
Our responsibility in the face of the global challenge of
(20:57):
climate change to reduce emissions, and that we must have
a stable, reliable energy grid so that households and businesses
can have affordable electricity. As I mentioned, those two things
because they're they're key to the energy policy going forward,
and they're also key to how we will hold the
government to account.
S3 (21:17):
These are all eminently sensible things that you're talking about.
But meanwhile, has anyone told the Nats that, um.
S1 (21:22):
Are they Matt Canavan sort of, um, doing his own
review about net zero, isn't he. And he already we
already know what he thinks about net zero.
S3 (21:28):
And when that party room meets, that nationals party room
meets for the first time post-election. I mean, I would
not be hugely surprised if the first thing they do
is dump net zero.
S2 (21:38):
Well, I'm not inside the nationals party room, and I've
always said they will do policy for the nationals. Inside
the nationals party room, we'll do policy for the liberals
inside the liberals party room when we come together as
a shadow cabinet and then step out with a policy
decision that's made, then that unifies us all. So it's
important that we do get the process right leading up
to that. And I acknowledge there are different views.
S1 (22:00):
We're going to extract a promise from you now that
you'll come back after, and you'll talk to us about
net zero and all of the other things. We hope
this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
S2 (22:08):
Look forward to.
S1 (22:08):
It. So much for having, having making the time to
come on. We've really enjoyed having you.
S3 (22:12):
Yeah.
S1 (22:13):
And unfortunately, we have to let you go.
S2 (22:15):
Thank you. Thank you both.
S1 (22:19):
Today's episode was produced by Tammy Mills. Tom McKendrick is
our head of Audio. To listen to our episodes as
soon as they drop, follow Inside Politics on Apple, Spotify
or anywhere else you listen to your podcasts to stay
up to date with all of our political coverage and exclusives,
visit The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald websites to
support our journalism. Subscribe to us by visiting the page
(22:41):
or smh.com.au. Subscribe. I'm Jacqueline Maley, thanks for listening.
From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
This is inside politics. I'm Jacqueline Maley. Today we have
a very special guest for our podcast. She's a former shearer.
She's a pilot and a mother of three. She has
a dark past as a punk in Canberra. She has
been one of the only women in the room in
successive Liberal cabinets. She was the deputy to former opposition
leader Peter Dutton and following the last election she, of
(00:23):
course took his job. She is, of course, opposition leader
Sussan Ley. Welcome to the podcast, miss Lee. Thank you
so much for joining.
S2 (00:29):
Nice to join you, Jacqueline.
S1 (00:30):
We also have our chief political commentator, James Massola. We're
going to talk about the coalition's so-called women problem. We're
going to talk about how you plan on stopping a
split within the coalition over energy policy. And most importantly,
we just want to get to know you as a
person and find out who you are for the benefit
of our listeners. Um, so listen, I just want to
give you an opportunity to introduce yourself because a lot
(00:52):
of our listeners won't know a lot about you. Do
you want to just give us a brief personal bio?
S2 (00:56):
My story is a very Australian story, a migrant to
Australia in my mid teens with a passion for flying aeroplanes,
landed in Canberra eventually and went to school at two
great Canberra public schools and was determined that I would
fly aeroplanes. Worked three jobs to do that, struggled along
the way, failed along the way, had a bit of heartbreak,
(01:19):
ended up working in air traffic control and then as
an aerial mustering pilot in western Queensland. While in the
shearing sheds, I met my then husband and came home
onto the family farm in north east Victoria and I
described myself as a farmer's wife. Life on the land
was tough as it is for so many who live
on the land today. I've walked many miles in their
shoes and so while raising my three children, I went
(01:43):
to university at age 30 and gained qualifications in economics,
tax law and accounting and worked for the Australian Tax Office.
And that pathway led me to a fascination with politics,
but more importantly, the economic policy debate. I saw the
way it linked with the lives of my family and
the small rural community in which I lived. So when
(02:05):
I say my story is an Australian story, I love
it when I tell my story. And then I meet
people around the country who give me their versions, who
remember as I do, what it was like to walk
into a university campus and feel totally out of place
as a mum looking, you know, a bit like the
(02:26):
battered farm ute that I just stepped out of and
holding a crying baby and having another woman who is
in charge there come out and say welcome. And, you know,
we want to help you in your journey in education.
So I hope you can tell Jacqueline, it's not a
short introduction. So, um, I'll end there, that the way
(02:46):
I see my story and my journey in Australia is
through the prism of our liberal values and aspiration, backing
someone who wants to have a crack and get ahead
and work hard.
S3 (02:57):
Just to pick up something you said then, Susan, about,
if I may, ending up in Canberra. You've skipped over
a little bit there in that. And I find this fascinating.
You were born in Nigeria to English parents. As a toddler,
you moved to the UAE, to the United Arab Emirates.
You went to boarding school in England and then you
ended up in Canberra. Tell us about that. Is there
a legacy, I guess, from that moving around for you?
(03:20):
Did it teach you something? Did it leave a lasting effect?
S2 (03:24):
I love the Emirates. As a child, I loved the
wide open spaces of the desert. But I'll be honest,
it was really tough to be sent to boarding school
on the other side of the world, age ten. And
we didn't have FaceTime and we didn't have phones. And
so I didn't speak to my parents for months on end,
and my mother would write to me on a little
blue aerogram some people will know what they are. And
(03:45):
after breakfast, we'd all walk into the room and look
to see if we had a letter. And I often
didn't have a letter, and I didn't know what was
happening in the rest of my family. And I remember
it was tough and it developed in me that sense
of self-reliance that you've got to depend on you because
there's no one else. And in all of that, there
(04:05):
was this sort of magic of my father having said
to me since I was small, one day we're going
to move to Australia and we're going to have this
incredibly different life, and the family is going to be together.
So I hung on to that, and I actually studied
the Murray and Murrumbidgee rivers in geography as a child
in an English boarding school and Drew Griffith, Leeton and
(04:26):
Narrandera on the map. And now I represent those communities
as a local MP.
S1 (04:31):
You were manifesting your future.
S2 (04:33):
But what I. But but the magic of Australia was
something that when I landed in Brisbane, we lived there
briefly on a small farm for a while. I just
saw this incredible country, this bright blue sky, and I've
obviously loved it every single day since. But it is
such a privilege to share that migrant story, but to
listen to everyone's migrant story as well.
S1 (04:54):
Yeah. Okay. So you come to Canberra as a teenager, famously,
you became a punk in the Canberra scene. What in
the 80s.
S2 (05:01):
Late 70s.
S1 (05:01):
Early 80s 70s, early 80s, being a punk with its
anarchical sort of philosophy is not something that we generally
associate with people on the conservative side of politics. Were
you drawn to the punk aesthetic or the music or
the philosophy?
S2 (05:14):
The way I saw punk then, as someone who didn't,
I didn't fit in at school. My British accent singled
me out. Um. Ah, I didn't make friends easily. And look,
it was it wasn't great. Um. It's funny, you know,
I walk into any classroom today and I can see
the kids who are like me, and I can identify
(05:36):
with them, and I know what it's like. But I
found myself in Dixon College. Yeah. And Dixon College was
the sort of educational institution where you could be who
you wanted to be. You didn't have to wear clothes. Sorry.
You didn't have to wear uniforms. You could wear what
you like.
S3 (05:53):
It was liberal.
S2 (05:54):
But I remember walking, walking to school, up the bike
path from the Dixon shops with bare feet and, you know,
crazy outfits and piercings and the rest of it. Uh,
purple hair. No one blinked an eyelid, and this was
part of expressing myself. But the punk ethos is a fearless,
honest belief in yourself. And that's what I drew on,
(06:17):
and that's what gave me the confidence to go forward
and do the things that I knew I wanted to do.
S1 (06:22):
But then you go on and you join, you join
the Liberal Party, which is obviously conforming to an institution.
You talk about liberal values. Do you think Australians know
what liberal values are, particularly after the last election?
S2 (06:33):
I think we need to remind them that liberal values are,
in the main, their values. But no, I don't think
they heard from us as to what our what our
agenda was. And I've said many times we've got to
meet modern Australia where they are. We've got to better reflect,
respect and then represent modern Australia.
S1 (06:54):
So how do you sum up those values? You talked
about aspiration just now, but what else is there apart
from that opportunity?
S2 (07:01):
Reward for effort, hard work that if you commit and
you have a crack, we're there to support you get
getting ahead and that we're all about a government that
is better, not bigger. But I don't want to see
an equality of outcome in anyone's life story. But I
do want to see an equality of opportunity. And I
want I want an economy that is strong enough to
(07:24):
work well for the people who get left behind.
S3 (07:27):
Do you think, Susan, that people, when they look at
the modern Liberal Party today, when they judged, you know,
when they cast their vote, I should say, at the
last election, the one before that, I don't think they
saw that party. I think they saw a party that's
drifted to the right too much, and that has left
a lot of Australians behind or just just moved away
from them. The exact opposite of what you're talking about.
I mean, do you agree with that? Do you have
(07:47):
a different theory? How do you fix it? More importantly.
S2 (07:50):
By explaining that aspiration is the thread that connects every
single part of Australian society. So whether you characterize it
the way you just have, James, It's not the way
I would look at it. I would say that those,
you know, center left right descriptions aren't particularly helpful. We've
got a broad membership, broad party room, and they reflect
lots of different views in the Australian public today. But
(08:12):
the thing that connects them all is that aspiration. And
we're there for individuals who want to get ahead, who
want to have a crack, who aspire in their lives.
And we're there to make sure that we have the
right safety net for those who fall behind. I want
to balance it up with that because, you know, I'm
grateful for the opportunities I've had in my life. But
(08:32):
I know that I meet people every day who've got
more courage than me or any of my colleagues have
ever had, just to get out of bed in the
morning and and manage their lives and deal with the
issues that they're facing. So we've always got to be
there for them. And to do that, you do have
to have a strong economy, and you do have to
have it working well for every single Australian.
S1 (08:53):
I mean, you say that the modern Liberal Party needs
to represent all Australians and it's, you know, that you
have a diversity there, but very famously hasn't really represented
women to the extent that it could have, which is
why you're liberal. The liberals with female voters have been
declining so precipitously over the last few decades. Um, just
first of all, before we get into that, would you
call yourself a feminist?
S2 (09:14):
Well, yes, I would. And it's interesting because the word
feminist isn't used much. It was used a lot when
I was trying to get into the time. I'm very happy. And, um,
you know, and I'll tell you what I mean by feminist,
because I used it in the era when, you know,
the people who own corporate jets didn't want me flying them,
who said to me quietly, we don't have a job
(09:35):
for you because it's not us, Susan. It's just that
the traveling public doesn't really want to see a woman
up the front and, uh, you know, come back next year. Sure. Um,
you know that that was something that, you know, burned
in me. How? I was completely singled out. Never mind
my qualifications, my license, all of the things I'd done,
(09:56):
it was, oh, it was simply because of my gender.
So we didn't do well with women. I just want
to confront that. I want to acknowledge that. I want
to say that since in 2001, when I came into Parliament,
more women in Australia voted for us than they did
anyone else. And that number has been declining ever since.
Which is why I am so determined and so insistent
(10:20):
that we fix this women's problem.
S1 (10:23):
You talked. You gave an address to the National Press
Club this week, which was really strong, and we both
were really interested in it. You talked in that address
about coercive control and domestic violence, and you said that
you knew what coercive control felt like. Do you want
to elaborate on that at all? Have you had personal
experience with it?
S2 (10:39):
Look, I have had personal experiences, and I don't choose
to share them publicly, but I want the women of
Australia to know that I know and that I'm with them,
and that I understand how it feels and what it's
like and how sometimes, only looking back can you really
understand what went on. And when you look at the
(11:00):
statistics that I quoted yesterday, in terms of the number
of women in this country who have been affected by
sexual harassment, coercive control, violence, workplace harassment, you know, even
though on some indicators we're improving. You know, I wonder
when you look at those statistics, are we improving? Are
(11:20):
we doing the best we can do? So the very
strong message I wanted to deliver yesterday about this was
that this is above politics. This is something that I
want to work with the Prime Minister on. And we
just have to do better. We can't have years like
last year. You know, I remember reading out the names
of women who'd lost their lives to intimate partner violence.
(11:42):
And in the time it took us to construct the
media communication, that number had increased. And that really brought
it home to me. It's not good enough.
S1 (11:50):
After 2022. The election result was bad. It was bad,
particularly in your female vote. You actually said, we hear you,
we hear women of Australia, and you were tasked with
doing a listening tour. This was back in 2022. What
policies did you come up with and were they just
not implemented? Were you shouted down in cabinet? What happened?
S2 (12:08):
Well, we had a lot of discussion about policies, and
I think it's clear that they didn't land in the
right way where they needed to. And there's lots of
evidence for that.
S1 (12:15):
I'm sorry to interrupt you, but what do you mean? When?
That's a kind of a vague construction. Do you mean
that they weren't taken up by your male colleagues or
your colleagues within shadow cabinet?
S2 (12:22):
No, I don't mean that. I mean, we supported the
government continuing our record women's safety spending. So remember, when
we left government, there was a spending trajectory in place,
included record spending for women's safety. We supported a $500
million policy for women's health. We came up with individual
women's health initiatives around support for ovarian cancer about further
(12:45):
support for endometriosis. So I was part of quite a
lot of of of the policies that people saw. Now,
in the end, I think this is an important point, Jacqueline.
People saw and heard herd policies, whether it be in
women's health or housing or other areas. They weren't even
sure which party was proposing them. That comes back to
one of the things we have to do. We have
to communicate well to Australians about the things we support,
(13:08):
the things we come up for.
S1 (13:09):
Do you really think that's all it was? That the
Australian voter wasn't able to distinguish between liberal policy and
labor policy, or not at all? Something more along the
lines of the cultural. Um, the cultural environment of the
liberals or what? What women think that that represents?
S3 (13:24):
Well, just I mean, it's the perception that it's a
really blokey party. Yeah.
S2 (13:28):
Uh, yes. And and and and I understand why that
perception is there. Because that's what you see. And the
picture tells the story. Uh, look, it was many of
those different things. And the feedback I got, the anecdotes
that I've heard have, uh, fed into my thinking. And
obviously our review by Pru Goward and Nick Minchin will
(13:51):
articulate more. Look what actually happened. And and give some, uh,
further meat on the bone, so to speak.
S1 (13:58):
That's the review of the election campaign, that is.
S2 (14:01):
But it will be. It will include it will include
our policies. It will include our connection with women, with
young people, with migrant Australia, Australians, multicultural communities. It will
include all of that. And I just want to say again,
it will be frank and fearless, honest and made public. Okay.
S3 (14:18):
Yeah. Look, something I wanted to pick up on. Um,
it was a recurring, uh, thing, a recurring theme with
Peter Dutton that. I mean, you may disagree, but I
think he paid lip service to the need to win
back those teal seats that were lost in 2022. Why
do you think the liberals lost those seats in 2022?
Why do you think they failed to pick them up? Well,
(14:40):
other than Tim Wilson in 2025.
S2 (14:42):
Big shout out to Tim Wilson for winning back the
seat of Goldstein. And he will have a lot of
really important data to present to us as a party room.
We're meeting in the next couple of days, as you
may know, um, about where we went wrong. And the
beginnings of that review process are already underway. So again,
without getting ahead of the review, I can give you
(15:04):
my thoughts at this point in time. And they are
that we didn't meet women where they expected us to be.
We certainly didn't meet younger Australians, and in some instances
they didn't consider us at all. So when you talk
about a view they may have had of the Liberal Party,
some of the feedback was they didn't think about the
Liberal Party. So, you know, there are obviously serious issues
(15:26):
to address there as far as how we communicate our message,
which is very important because no matter how well we
might do in building a policy platform, politics is about
communicating and connecting with the voter. Um, well, I spoke
to a lot of women in the teal seats. Can
I say, um, particularly those busy mornings when everyone's lined
up to go in to vote and they're taking a
(15:47):
how to vote card or they're not? And I was
quite upfront and, you know, many people knew who I was.
And I said, can I tell you can I ask
you why you're refusing to take our heart of gold
or what's what are you thinking? And in many cases,
they said, we don't know that the modern Liberal Party
understands our busy lives as mums with children, worrying about childcare,
worrying about our mortgages, worrying about the cost of living,
(16:09):
worrying about our elderly parents. This is the life I've lived. Personally,
I remember those years. You know, you're piling the children
in the car, you're rushing off, you're trying to finish
your university assignments. You've got your employer, even if it's
a generous employer. Um, but, you know, you need to
get there. You've run out of leave, and then you've
got the home front and you don't feel you're doing
anything properly, and you've just got this sort of, um,
(16:32):
feelings of, ah, you know, that working, working mum. Guilt,
if I can call it that. And then there are
women who talk to me, and this is at polling booths, too,
about the challenge of having children and stepping away from
a career. How do you time it? How do you
not miss out on all of the work that you've
done to put into your career.
S1 (16:50):
And how do you ensure your own financial security in
the future? How do you on that question, do you
support quotas or not? Yes or no?
S2 (16:57):
Well, I support anything that brings more women into our party.
S1 (17:00):
That is quotas, isn't it? Based on historical evidence.
S2 (17:02):
If a state.
S1 (17:02):
Division, historical evidence.
S2 (17:03):
If a state division comes up with quotas to achieve
the outcome, then I'm all for it.
S1 (17:07):
Are you.
S2 (17:07):
Agnostic?
S1 (17:08):
Are you?
S2 (17:09):
Yes. If they come up with another method to achieve
the outcome, I'm supportive too. Because remember the Federated Liberal Party?
S1 (17:16):
I know, I know what you're trying to say, and
I don't mean to interrupt you, but people do get
very frustrated with this because quotas work. We know that
it's the only thing that works historically if we're looking
at the evidence. Right. Um, what other methods could there be?
And why doesn't the Liberal Party just pull the trigger
and do it? You're the you're the head of the
Liberal Party now, you could surely.
S2 (17:36):
One of the one of the things that I value
in the Liberal Party is the autonomy of our state divisions.
That's the party we are. That's where we've come from.
It's not a.
S1 (17:44):
It's not a view.
S2 (17:45):
It's not a top down, hierarchical approach. The only view
I have is that we must get more women in
our parliamentary party. I'm not going to tell divisions or
individuals how to get there. I've got women who are,
you know, standing up right now.
S1 (17:58):
Your influence though.
S2 (17:59):
Absolutely, absolutely. I am I think I've started that already. Well,
I'm arguing for the results because you're talking about a process.
I'm talking about an outcome. And that outcome has to
be more women. It's not, by the way, everyone talks
about the women in, in, in the Parliament. That's vital
to get those women in the parliament. We have to
have those women putting their hand up, joining the party,
(18:20):
standing up, which.
S1 (18:21):
Takes a long time.
S2 (18:22):
So it can take time. But one of the things
I do, by the way, is meet women one on
one and say, yeah, have you thought that what you're
doing is pretty amazing and I reckon you align with
our values? We'd love you to join us. So we're
starting to have those conversations.
S3 (18:36):
So in your view, being the first Liberal Party leader
to say quotas, I'm open to them. Is is that enough?
And then as an addendum to that, you know, Margaret
Guilfoyle Network was set up after the last election to
solve the women problem in inverted commas. It's never been
heard of again. Then you've got Charlotte Mortlock and Hilma's network,
which is actually out there doing things. Will you engage
(18:58):
with them? What specific things will you do to get
more women in? Like one specific thing.
S2 (19:03):
Talking about it is not enough. You're absolutely right. Engaging
with people who are working hard to make it happen
is high on my priority list. Talking one on one
with women is high on my priority list, too. Um,
can I just come back to the remark I made before, um,
somebody years ago said to me, why don't you join
your local Liberal Party? And I did. Um, others have
(19:25):
said to me, why don't you put your hand up
for this in terms of our party and I have
and I, I love seeing women do well. I love
being part of mentoring officially or unofficially for younger women.
And I'm not the only one in our party that
is well equipped to do that. So we will all
(19:46):
be involved, all of my team, in making sure this happens,
and I'm very happy to be judged by the outcome,
by the way.
S1 (19:52):
All right. Well, we'll come back to you. We'll get you.
S2 (19:54):
So come back to me.
S1 (19:55):
We just need to ask you very quickly about net zero.
Obviously you had you famously negotiated a brief but rather
bitter split with the coalition with your coalition partner. Um,
at the beginning of your tenure. Uh, net zero is
going to be probably the most divisive issue within the coalition.
What is your personal view on net zero? Obviously, you've
backed it in the past.
S2 (20:16):
We got smashed at the last election, and all of
our policies are up for review. So I need to
say that because every policy, including energy policy. So you've
talked about net zero. It's one part of energy policy.
I've set up a working group led by Dan Tehan,
who's the shadow minister for energy. I'm not going to
get ahead of what this working group will do, but
(20:36):
it will include everyone who wants to have a say
on what will be an iterative and continuous policy development process.
So whatever the government brings forward, that group and our
wider party room will be able to consider it. But
our energy policy will be underpinned by two fundamental things
Our responsibility in the face of the global challenge of
(20:57):
climate change to reduce emissions, and that we must have
a stable, reliable energy grid so that households and businesses
can have affordable electricity. As I mentioned, those two things
because they're they're key to the energy policy going forward,
and they're also key to how we will hold the
government to account.
S3 (21:17):
These are all eminently sensible things that you're talking about.
But meanwhile, has anyone told the Nats that, um.
S1 (21:22):
Are they Matt Canavan sort of, um, doing his own
review about net zero, isn't he. And he already we
already know what he thinks about net zero.
S3 (21:28):
And when that party room meets, that nationals party room
meets for the first time post-election. I mean, I would
not be hugely surprised if the first thing they do
is dump net zero.
S2 (21:38):
Well, I'm not inside the nationals party room, and I've
always said they will do policy for the nationals. Inside
the nationals party room, we'll do policy for the liberals
inside the liberals party room when we come together as
a shadow cabinet and then step out with a policy
decision that's made, then that unifies us all. So it's
important that we do get the process right leading up
to that. And I acknowledge there are different views.
S1 (22:00):
We're going to extract a promise from you now that
you'll come back after, and you'll talk to us about
net zero and all of the other things. We hope
this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
S2 (22:08):
Look forward to.
S1 (22:08):
It. So much for having, having making the time to
come on. We've really enjoyed having you.
S3 (22:12):
Yeah.
S1 (22:13):
And unfortunately, we have to let you go.
S2 (22:15):
Thank you. Thank you both.
S1 (22:19):
Today's episode was produced by Tammy Mills. Tom McKendrick is
our head of Audio. To listen to our episodes as
soon as they drop, follow Inside Politics on Apple, Spotify
or anywhere else you listen to your podcasts to stay
up to date with all of our political coverage and exclusives,
visit The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald websites to
support our journalism. Subscribe to us by visiting the page
(22:41):
or smh.com.au. Subscribe. I'm Jacqueline Maley, thanks for listening.
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