‘I was completely singled out’: Sussan Ley’s past fuels her determination to fix party’s future

A former shearer, a pilot and a mother of three children with a dark past as a punk in Canberra. For 10 years, Sussan Ley has been one of the few women in the room in successive Liberal cabinets. Now, she’s the federal opposition leader, and one of her first acts has been peeling back the existential scabs of the party itself. But who is Ley, really?

Speaking with host Jacqueline Maley and chief political commentator James Massola in a new Inside Politics podcast episode, Ley opens up about the personal experiences fuelling her to fix the Liberal Party’s infamous “woman problem” from the top, to ultimately tackle the gender-based problems her constituents face with legislation.

Click the player below to listen to the full episode, or read on for an edited extract of the conversation.

Maley: 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, it hasn’t really represented women to the extent that it could have, which is why the Liberals’ female vote has been declining so precipitously over the last few decades. Just first of all, before we get into that, would you call yourself a feminist?

Ley: 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… 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 for you because… it’s not us, Sussan, it’s just that the travelling public doesn’t really want to see a woman up the front,” and, you know, “Come back next year.”

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Sure, that was something that, you know, burned in me, how I was completely singled out. Never mind my qualifications, my licence, all of the things I’d done… 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 that we fix this women’s problem.

Maley: 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?

Ley: 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.