Monash University Media Release
Member for Farrer Sussan Ley has today been named new Liberal leader, after former leader Peter Dutton lost his seat of Dickson in last weekend’s federal election.
Dr Blair Williams, Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Monash School of Social Sciences says:
“Ley will not have an easy task ahead of her as she steers a deeply divided party through its greatest crisis since its inception. The Liberal Party’s resounding defeat seems to be largely due to their ‘woman problem’ as well as their disconnection from younger voters, those with university degrees, migrants and inner-city dwellers. Post-election, the party must not only mend its organisational and structural issues but recover its ideological soul.
“The Liberal Party’s own review of its 2022 election defeat acknowledged that ‘the Party’s standing with women was an important factor in the Party’s defeat’. It seems to have learned this lesson three years too late. Choosing Ley as leader shows that the party might finally be listening.
“While it is about time for the Liberal Party to have a woman at the helm, it is concerning that it has taken so long. Narrowly choosing a woman leader to rebuild a party after its worst electoral defeat in history is essentially giving Ley a poisoned chalice.
“Ley is also facing a ‘glass cliff’ scenario. This is when women have a better chance of finally breaking through the glass ceiling during times of crisis, because it is often the only chance they have, while men wait their turn for when the waters are calmer. It is then up to the woman to fix the problems, but there is a higher chance of failure and a greater risk of reputational damage. It also places Ley in the traditionally feminine position of ‘cleaning’ up the mess of her male colleagues.
“The Liberal Party’s election of a moderate woman as leader signals a shift back toward the centre-right. This change will not heal the party overnight, nor should we expect Ley to miraculously clean up the mess left by men over decades. Nonetheless, it sends a message to voters that the party is beginning to confront its longstanding ‘woman problem’. Ultimately, however, this is a problem created and sustained by the men in the party, and it is they who must pick up the brooms and take responsibility for it.”
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The fact that a pack of chest-beating misogynists in the LNP elevated a woman to lead their alpha-male, paternalistic party is a last ditch attempt to capture the attention, and votes, from a proportion of the 52% female population in this nation! Sadly, the LNP’s sad, rusted-on misogynistic history doesn’t fool anyone and the overwhelming number of well-educated, intelligent and compassionate women in this nation remain unconvinced. The LNP are going to have to do a HELLUVA lot more to grab any credibility insofar as gender equality is concerned considering that there is still only a tiny minority of women in the LNP cabinet and Australian women, to this day, are still justifiably furious over the condescending sexist comments made by the Mother and Father of ALL misogynists, Tony Alpha-male Abbott when he began one of his speeches with the appalling statement: “As the women of Australia are doing the ironing ….” – WOW! It will take decades for the LNP to recover from THAT antiquated, misogynistic statement especially as the overwhelming majority of women in this country are successfully juggling high performing careers with home duties!
Elevating Sussan Ley to the position as leader of the most misogynistic party in living memory is a rather clever move by the LNP to provide a distraction against their long history of male “superiority” within their party, but educated Australians are not falling for it! The fact that the Labor Party have a long history of gender equality and the willingness to listen to and instigate policies that have a positive impact on women and families – and issues that affect them – has played an INTEGRAL part in the ALP’s total defeat of the LNP at the last election.
The LNP are going to HAVE to make REAL changes in regard to their long-held, condescending views of women otherwise they will languish in Opposition indefinitely. The current, transparent and devious attempt by the LNP to elect Ley as a leader is nothing more than a desperate attemp to apply a temporary “band aid” on the ingrained, toxic level of inherent misogyny that has been so inherent within the LNP going back decades!
Well said, Kathryn.
Tony Abbott was the leader of the most vile and vicious assault on a great PM, Julia Gillard. Any idea that electing a woman as their leader will be seen as window dressing – tokenism at its worst. With only 11 MPs out of 40 in the lower house demonstrating the party’s failure to achieve any kind of equality she’ll have a high hill to climb. Beating the far right of the party might be a help. The fact that she has runs on the board in cabinet will mean very little. Looks like a few successive Labor governments are on the cards.