Can Sussan Ley rebuild the Coalition?

Three years ago this month, Susan Lee stood beside Peter Dutton as his deputy, the newly installed pair, appearing confident of the contest ahead.

I'm really proud of the fact that Susan Lee as my deputy will not only be the Deputy leader, but the Shadow Minister for Industry, for Skills and Training and Shadow Minister for Women.

Lee backed Dutton enthusiastically.

Can I thank you Peter for your leadership to date and say that you are absolutely the best person for this job.

But now it's twenty twenty five and she faces the public as the coalition's new leader after voters rejected the Dutton Lee project and inflicted the party's worst defeat on record. The task ahead for Lee is threefold. Hold the coalition together, reset the policy platform, and win back the city women and younger voters who have abandoned them. From Schwartz Media,

Task, well, in short, Susan Lee says she is up for the job. So big statement, big job absolutely with her stepping into it. There's a number of firsts. She's a first female opposition leader, first female leader of the Liberal Party, and first regional MP as leader since Malcolm Fraser.

It is an enormous privilege to have been elected the leader of the parliamentary Liberal Party.

I am humbled, I am honored, and I am up.

For the job.

She says. This thumping election lost to Labor was a significant defeat and it's not lost on anyone in the Liberal Party. She says that the Liberals respect the result. I guess they have to, and they're going to reflect with humility.

We have to have a Liberal Party that respects modern Australia, that reflects modern Australia, and that represents modern Australia.

Susan Lee says, it's time to listen. It's time to develop robust policy processes.

And we have to have a fresh approach.

I want to harness the talents of every single person in our party room going forward.

Flex this criticism within the party that the leadership under Peter Dutton did not talk to the back bench, didn't really talk to anyone outside the leadership office. So that's something that they're going to go forward on. Susan Lee also saying that there'll be no more captain picks, so that's also reflecting on this call for unity and to be collegiate. So it's time for a different approach, she says, and time to be more consultative.

Preaching the need to do things differently seems pretty wise at this point. She spoke quite a bit in the press conference about her upbringing and her career, So tell us a bit about that and about how that shaped how she's going to approach doing things differently.

Yeah, look, it was really interesting the way she presented herself. We immediately got a reintroduction to Susan Lee. Certainly for many Actually it's an introduction. This is about not just her as a politician, but her as a person. She told us sis story about her as a migrant someone who came to Australia as a teenager.

I stepped out of the airplane at Brisbane Airport and I looked at this brilliant blue sky. I knew that I'd come to the best country on Earth, and I knew that Australia was a place where I could dream my biggest dreams.

And she was actually born in Nigeria. Her dad was a British intelligence officer and she also spent time in the United Arab Emirates, so she's done a lot. She became an aerial stock muster pilot. She still flies to this day. She flies all around her electorate, which is very large. Pharah is a very large regional electorate. She was also a shearer's cook. Sometime in the nineteen eighties. She had a brief punk rock phase, which is very interesting.

One of the things that I always remember about Susan Lee, fairly or unfairly, is around the irregular spelling of her first name, And I was wondering if you could talk us through that, because that's something that has stuck in the mind.

Yeah, I think this aspect of Susan Lee is getting a lot of attention at the moment. I think it's one of the big Google hits. Certainly there's a lot of memes going around at the moment. In short, Susan with two essays came from a dabble in numerology. Lee gave an interview in twenty fifteen where she said that she was advised that if you add the numbers which matched the letters in your name, it could lead to her having an incredibly exciting and interesting life and that

She was, of course Peter Dutton's deputy, so some of it must stem from that. How different is she ideologically to Dutton and what does she need to do now to distance herself from him?

I mean, immediately, the first job after such a devastating loss is to unify, unify what's left of the Liberal Party and the coalition, remembering that the federal Liberal leader is the leader of the coalition and it's something that has to be united as a first responsibility, and that will be a mammoth job. Lee is a moderate, unlike Peter Dutton, who is of the hard right. Moderates are on the decline. They have been for a while, especially after the twenty twenty two Teal wave, and the party

After the break, is Susan Lee breaking the glass ceiling or being pushed off the glass cliff? Karen, The first question in Susan Lee's presser as leader was about the nuclear policy. What sense do you have about whether the Liberal Party is willing to walk away from what Peter Dutton was so enthusiastically prosecuting.

Yeah, there's having interest in this and at this point we don't know.

We'll just hearing this party Ramoni.

A couple of hours ago, I committed to my colleagues that there would be no captain's calls from anywhere by me, and I also.

The Nationals still appear keen and they didn't lose any seats in the twenty twenty five election. Lee has not committed either way. She did say that energy policy is part of the review that will be done after the election loss.

There is going to be sound, sensible consultation and I undertake one hundred percent to do that.

She did say, however, that there is not going to be any climate wars going forward. The big task for the Labor Party at the moment in the field of climate is to present a twenty thirty five net zero target, So we're waiting on that on the Labor side.

Karen, I'd love to touch on the gender question for a moment. You know, there is a real temptation to see Lee's appointment as the first woman to lead the Liberal Party as being an example of that phenomenon of the glass cliff. Only when things are pretty dire does a woman finally get elevated to the top job. But as you've outlined, she's hugely experienced and appealing to women is a key priority to the Liberal Party at this

Well, look, this will be a huge part of the review going forward. There were lots of messages in the twenty twenty two election review done by frontbencher Jane Hume and former Director of the Federal Party Brian Lockney. They had lots of ideas about getting back women and they were pretty much ignored. Lee was the shadow spokesperson for women. She is aware of the problems.

And I said in my statement for candidacy for this position that we did let women down.

There is no doubt about that. And it is true that the.

Numbers of women who are supporting us is declining, and I want to rule a line under that. I don't want to see that decline for one more day.

This new agenda to bring back women inside and outside the party is something that she says that she will personally drive. There is inside the party strong support from the women that are left inside the party for Susan Lee. I understand a lot of them voted for her in the leadership ballot. And you know, when we talk about this being an existential crisis for the Liberal Party, this issue of women will be absolutely front and center.

In many ways. Susan Lee will been an interesting opponent for Anthony ALBERNIZI. He's been used to sparring at times in fairly aggressive terms with Peter Dutton. So how would you describe her parliamentary approach? What kind of performer is she in the room.

It's going to be really interesting seeing Lee in Parliament and whether she's going to change. Lee, so far as we've seen her in Parliament is not afraid to get in there for a scrap. She does things to unsettle people in Parliament, particularly Tanya Plitisk.

A point of order in relevance, Mister Speaker, and I respectfully submit that the Minister was going nowhere near the question, which was quite straightforward and quite simple. Does she still support the introduction of a federal EPA.

They've been sparring all over the past term. The deputy leader of the Opposition Order, there's.

A difference between Strong and Agro.

The Agros constantly order. I would say that there will be some sort of change and we have to see who she assembles on her front bench and how she operates with them. She's already indicated that Angus Taylor will have an integral role and Justinta nampajinpur Price really did want to get the deputy position so much so she had to move from the National Party Room to the Liberal Party room and upset people on both sides to do so. Then there's a question of Ted O'Brien as

Karen, what's your sense? Obviously day one, Susan Lee couldn't be more determined, more eye on the task, knows what to be done. But the litany of jobs ahead of her that you've just described seems pretty daunting. Party cohesion, bringing women back, the policy staff, thinking about uniting the center and the right of the party, all of these things, not to mention getting to a position where they might be able to pick up another thirty four seats before

She says that she is not being presented just as the female leader to be set up to fail or set up to clean up the men's mess. But the party is certainly united by being winded by this loss. Certainly they see this as a wake up call. They just have to do something differently, because they've had these warnings at least since twenty sixteen and look at them now. But I see very much division about the direction of the party, about what it needs to do, and I

Karen, thanks so much for your time.

Thank you.

Also in the news today and your wage growth has hit three point four percent over the past year, the first time wage growth has ticked up since the June quarter of twenty twenty four. The data from the ABS shows wage growth is outpacing inflation, with consumer prices rising just two point four percent over the same period, meaning the gap between Australians living costs and pay packets is gradually narrowing. And a Queensland man is feared to have