Sussan Ley has been chosen to take the Liberal Party forward in the wake of its landslide loss to Labor at the recent federal election, beating Angus Taylor in the race for the leadership.
The deputy leader and shadow industry minister was elected the party’s first female leader at a party room meeting on Tuesday, narrowly defeating the assistant treasurer 29 votes to 25.
She replaces Peter Dutton, who lost his Queensland seat of Dickson to Labor’s Ali France at the election after leading the party over the last three years.
A moderate MP representing the electorate of Farrer in the far south-west of NSW, Ms Ley will lead the party with Queensland MP Ted O’Brien as the new deputy leader.
Mr O’Brien, another moderate, has served as shadow minister for climate change and shadow minister for energy affordability and reliability since 2022.
Speaking after the ballot on Tuesday, Ms Ley described her leadership win as an “an enormous privilege” and a chance for a “fresh approach” and a “new economic narrative going forward”.
Ms Ley has been frank about the challenges facing the party since the party’s “significant defeat” at the election, saying ahead of the vote that “it is clear that we got it wrong”.
On Tuesday, she said that it is her intention to “harness the talents of every single person in our party room going forward to develop the clear, articulate policy agenda”.
She also committed to “no captain’s calls from anywhere by me”, promising to engage with the party room on key issues, including on energy policy for which there remains “different views”.
“Now, we need to reduce emissions in this country, and Australia needs to play its part in reducing emissions. That, I absolutely sign up to,” Ms Ley said.
“We also know that, if we don’t do energy policy well, we can crash the energy grid. We can cripple Australian manufacturing.
“We can have a situation where sovereign manufacturing capability in this country is going out the door backwards, or going overseas — which is what I have seen under Mr Albanese’s government.
“So, we have to get energy policy as a whole right. But we have to recognise that we need a strong country that is committed to a manufacturing base that relies on cheap, reliable [energy].”
During the election campaign, Ms Ley was vocal about the challenges facing the manufacturing sector, which has continued to shrink during the Albanese government’s first term.
But much of the policy platform relied on plans to build nuclear reactors to bring down energy costs, while cutting key industry programs like the government’s National Reconstruction Fund.
Updated at 2:30pm
Do you know more? Contact James Riley via Email.