Okay, we're recording here, if you're recording there, Susan, 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, Karen, It's important that when we look ahead, we respect modern Australia, we reflect modern Australia, and we represent modern Australia.
Karen Barlow is the Saturday Paper's chief political correspondent. She sat down with a new opposition leader, Susan Lee, to talk about how she plans to stitch the coalition back together after its record May three defeat. A wife from roused about the pilot the Parliament, she's spent a lifetime proving doubt is wrong.
I don't mind what people think is me.
My mum always used to say what people think of you as none of your business.
Just get on and do your job.
From Schwartz Media, I'm Daniel James. This is seven AM today. Karen Barlow will the story the Liberal Party's first female leader, who plans in opposition and whether she can turn a shadded party into a credible alternative. It's Monday, June two.
Appreciating that you're here now, Will you, as leader, unlike your predecessor, continue to put yourself regularly before the Canberra Press Gallery and before a broad section.
Karen, when Susan Lee you 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. What do you think? That was an important question to ask her.
It's just important to get that on the record, accountability and to air ideas. Yes, I will, Sarah, 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 and when it finally came to the election campaign, he was not match fit and alban Easy 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 debarcle of the work from Home idea for Peter Dutton and Jane Hume. It was not aired and when it finally got sort of it 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.
And now you've had a chance to speak one on one with Susan Lee, 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?
So, I mean, this is Susan Lee still introducing as it has been an atypical path to politics for Susan Lee. 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.
Well, I've been underestimated a lot in my career. As a rouse about picking up fleeces in sharing shed in western Queensland, I was told I wouldn't be strong enough to pick up eight hundred fleeces a day and run up and down aboard of about eight sharers, and I did in forty degree heat.
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.
After being the rout about and the pilot helping with mustering. She's a thirty year old on the farm and she tells us that she study 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.
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 acknowledge my economics degree and I had a master's in tax law and accounting qualifications, and 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.
What did she have to say about the state of politics when she arrived in Canberra in the state of the Liberal Party.
When she arrived, she arrived in the John Howard years. She's two thousand and one, 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 writes and it is loki.
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 previous life experience as a woman in careers that were dominated by men, so it wasn't altogether unfamiliar.
She quickly got an assistant minister's position, She moved through the rank. 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.
Yeah, if we talk a little bit about the ups and downs. In twenty seventeen, 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 layers of her career. Talk to me about how she's framing that now.
Yeah, I asked her about that in particular because it came up in the press conference when she was asked about the demotion of Jane Hume. She was the Finance spokesperson and she's gone back to the back bench.
These are tough days, and having been through many days like this myself in my parliamentary career, I recognize that.
But what I do want to say, so, yes, I asked her about that, and she's pointing out that she is a survivor.
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. And I want to say that one of the things I believe in having been in that Parliament for twenty five years, is it no matter where you sit, whatever seat you sit in in the House of Representatives or the Senate, my seat is better or worse than another, and you've got an opportunity to contribute, to advocate.
The challenge from Angus Taylor with the leadership ballot was very very close and may become closer still with the change over the Senate at the end of June, and so there's a question of whether she's got reading space. Most observers would say she has breathing space at the moment, but that may whittle down. And so you know, this is the moment where she's been tested as the Liberal leader.
She's just got through this enormous rift with the National Party and to survive that and stood up for the Liberal Party. And now she has to face down Parliament returning at the end of July.
After the break. The challenge ahead for Susan Lee, Karen. Susan Lee 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?
Well, 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.
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.
But it's widely seeing that Peter Dutton did have an issue with women voters. Susan Lee did have the portfolio of women. It's now been given to Melissa Macintosh, the Member for lindsay In out of 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.
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.
And she is really pointing out that there is a new portfolio in the field of urban Infrastructure and City 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.
So Caro seasonally 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 till seats into any sort of large way. What are her challenges in terms of being able to connect with urban electorates. Yeah.
I asked her about whether it's a stretch for her to understand voters in urban centers, and she absolutely insisted that it's not.
Lived in Melbourne and I lived in Camera as a young person, so I've lived an experienced life in the cities and sometimes I think the city country divide is overrated. And you know, we're Australians and we have the connections between ourselves, between city and country.
Living in Canberra and 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 there, now 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 endowed at this stage, Giselle Capterian 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.
What type of coalition leader do you think Susan Lee is going to be?
Well, she certainly made much about being more consultative. She has spoken to former Liberal leaders. 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're in when you arrived, 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 that I might idea?
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 grass roots up. And she likes to say that this is a 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. And Peter Dutton and.
Why didn't she tell you about her role as opposition leader in terms of holding the government to account.
This is an interesting question because you know we're all looking at Anthony Alberesi and how confident he is with this supermajority now of ninety four Labor members in the House of Representatives. Certainly, you know 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 Susan Lee 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 going to square up with Alberzi, and she says she's ready.
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 minister. So that's the first thing, and that's what every Australian would expect of me.
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 Susan Lee and Anthony Albanezi will actually be able to do deals or not or change change each others forward thinking. But she says that she's up for the fight.
And finally, Karen, she's taken over the leadership at the Liberal Party's darkest dep 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 seasonally?
Well, I would say she's turning attention now to Parliament returning at the end of July. There'll be the process for starting the review of policies and she'll be needing to appoint with other elements of a party who is going to lead the review of this devastating election loss. There's question marks over whether the polster for the Liberal Party that failed them so miserably will continue. Certainly that's not for Susan Lee to decide, but that's in her space.
And there is the question mark about, you know, the future of some of the people in the Federal division. The leaders there, people like Andrew Hurst, 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.
I don't interviewer to ask Karen, thank you so much for your time, Thank you so much. Also in the news today, Prime Minister Anthony Alberizi has pushed back against the US call to drastically boost defense spending, saying Asustralia will determine our own defense policy and has already committed an extra ten billion in defense spending over the next four years. The comments come as Donald Trump announced a doubling of tariffs and steel and aluminum I move Albanez
he calls an act of economic self harm. And Russia has launched a new wave of air assaults on Kiev, with drone and missile attacks killing at least two people, including a nine year old girl. Evacuations have been ordered in more than two hundred settlements in Ukraine's Sumi region as officials warn of potential new Russian offensive. You've been listening to seven am. We'll be back tomorrow.