How Sussan Ley’s leadership unravelled
Sussan Ley promised a new style when she took command of the Liberal Party. She has exited her post as the most unpopular political leader in Australian history.
Sussan Ley was the Liberal Party’s first female leader for exactly nine months before being ousted by conservative factionalist Angus Taylor.
She entered the job promising to deliver an opposition that “reflected modern Australia”.
But that mission was overshadowed by a near-constant stream of controversies that derailed her leadership.
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2025 election
Ms Ley took up the reins after a horrendous defeat for the Coalition at the 2025 federal election.
The Liberal Party bore the brunt of the 15 Coalition seats lost.
Among the casualties was her predecessor Peter Dutton.
Meanwhile, Labor won 17 extra seats, pushing its Lower House holdings up to 94 and handing it the third-largest majority by percentage in Australian history.
After defeating Mr Taylor by just four votes, Ms Ley was tasked with unifying a party that was itself divided over why it lost.
The moderates and centre right who backed Ms Ley in her bid felt the party was shifting too far to the right.
But many in the National Right felt the party was not going far enough.
The Nationals were also both disgruntled and emboldened – they retained all of their Lower House seats but still ended up in a weaker opposition, which they blamed on the Liberal losses.
Nationals leader David Littleproud made clear in the days following the election that he would seek a more equal partnership.
“As we move forward, we’ll be sensible, we’ll be rational and we’ll continue to make sure we understand we can’t govern without the Liberal Party and they can’t govern without us,” he said at the time.
“But we will make sure that we continue to influence policy into the future that’s good for regional Australia, that’s good for Australia.”
And influence they did.
First Coalition split
Tension between the Liberals and Nationals grew in the days and weeks that followed the 2025 election as both parties tried to make sense of the results.
A flashpoint was the unseating of then-Nationals deputy leader Perin Davey.
Senator Davey ran on a joint ticket and put behind Liberals Hollie Hughes and Andrew Bragg.
She lost her NSW Senate seat because of the swing against the Liberals.
Another flashpoint was Mr Littleproud admitting he was not kept in the loop on all Coalition policies before senior Liberals announced them, including the controversial work-from-home policy.
On that policy, he said it “was talked about broadly, but the extent and how far it went was another matter”.
But the friction came to a head on May 20 when Mr Littleproud withdrew his party from the Coalition after post-election policy negotiations with Ms Ley broke down.
Ms Ley wanted a wholesale policy review in which nothing was left off the table.
The Nationals broadly agreed but demanded carve outs for four key policies, including nuclear energy, supermarket divestiture, a regional Australia future fund and better phone and internet services for rural and regional Australians.
The split was the first in 38 years and many conservative Coalition heavyweights, both past and present, were quick to hang blame on Ms Ley.
However, it lasted just eight days and ended in the Liberals giving “in-principle” support for the policies and Ms Ley granting the Nationals an extra two shadow ministry spots.
This the moment things really started going wrong for Ms Ley.
Promotions and demotions
With Ms Ley conceding, she and Mr Littleproud did their utmost to put the split behind them and jointly develop a new pitch for the country.
Part of that was establishing a joint shadow ministry.
“I want to thank you, David, for the respectful and productive way that you and I have engaged throughout this process,” Ms Ley told a joint press conference with Mr Littleproud.
“I know that we will be a great partnership going forward.
“I promised my leadership would be done differently and it will be.
“I have communicated with every single member of my party room about this shadow ministry.
“Those who are in the shadow ministry and those who are not.
“That style might be unconventional, but it is important because I always said that I would harness the talents of my party room.”
On the Liberal side, she demoted Senator Claire Chandler while booting senators Jane Hume and Sarah Henderson to the backbench.
All three would vote against her in this week’s spill.
On the Nationals side, Mr Littleproud dumped former party leaders Barnaby Joyce and Michael McCormack in a move he said was about “generational change”.
That phrase rubbed Mr Joyce up the wrong way and his treatment ultimately led to his defection to One Nation.
Net zero revolt
Mr Joyce proved more of a nuisance to Ms Ley than to his own party’s leader.
From the backbench, he launched a net zero rebellion that quickly recruited followers renewable energy sceptics in the Liberal Party.
In the first sitting fortnight of the new parliament in July, Mr Joyce introduced his Repeal Net Zero Bill after spruiking it in a theatrical press conference outside Parliament House.
“Are you prepared to hurt the poor?” he rhetorically asked the “affluent suburbs” allegedly pushing renewables on the nation.
“I don’t think if you really explain the issue that people do want to hurt them.
“You don’t feel virtuous if you’re hurting people.”
A notable presence at that press conference was Liberal MP Garth Hamilton.
Energy was still an area under post-election review and in the absence of a policy more and more Liberals and Nationals came out calling for the leadership to scrap net zero.
The Nationals abandoned it four months later, forcing Ms Ley to follow suit or risk another Coalition split.
Shadow cabinet shake-ups
Energy was just one of several hot-button policy areas the Coalition was trying to settle.
Without a unified position, frontbenchers started airing their own ideas publicly.
The two most outspoken were Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Western Australian MP Andrew Hastie.
Both took strong public positions in calling for net zero to be axed and for much stronger immigration laws.
Senator Price lost her shadow cabinet spot after claiming Labor was prioritising immigration from India to bolster its vote.
The comment were condemned but she refused to apologise despite internal pressure on her to do so.
She then publicly refused to back Ms Ley as leader, which led to Ms Ley sacking her.
Mr Hastie, who was opposition home affairs spokesman, quit after Ms Ley said he could not set the Coalition’s immigration policy.
Second Coalition split and poll-plunging chaos
The Coalition split for a second time last month over hate speech laws hastily drafted and passed in the wake of the Bondi terror attack.
The Nationals argued the reforms could have unintended consequences and curtail free speech.
But the Liberals, for the most part, wanted the laws passed after Ms Ley made a deal with Anthony Albanese.
Shadow cabinet agreed to push the laws through the Senate but when it came to the vote, three senior Nationals broke the cabinet solidarity convention and voted against them.
The legislation passed regardless, but the three senators lost their shadow cabinet positions, prompting the remaining Nationals, including Mr Littleproud, to resign.
The next day, Mr Littleproud declared “that remaining in a Coalition with the Liberal Party under the leadership of Sussan Ley has become untenable and cannot continue”.
Ms Ley drew fresh scorn from her party’s right – scorn that only grew when the first polls of the year consistently showed the Coalition’s primary support was hitting new record lows.
Meanwhile, public support for her leadership also plummeted to new lows.
Amid the chaos, conservative forces decided it was time for a new leader.
The spill
It did not take long for whiffs of a challenge to waft through the Press Gallery, with loose-lipped Liberal backbenchers ratting out Mr Taylor and Mr Hastie.
NewsWire understands it was Mr Hastie who started rumblings of a conservative coup and that Mr Taylor, as a fellow member of the party’s National Right faction, was compelled to jump in.
With the National Right divided over which leadership aspirant to back, Mr Hastie publicly withdrew from a race neither had publicly acknowledged, pinning the hopes of disgruntled factionalists on Mr Taylor.
Mr Taylor then waited almost two weeks before quitting Ms Ley’s shadow cabinet and declaring his intention to oust her.
Fronting reporters after losing to Mr Taylor 34-17, Ms Ley said she was grateful “to the Liberal Party that I have belonged to and loved for more than half of my adult life, to the party room that elected me as their leader nine months ago, and to the parliament of Australia that has been the most extraordinary workplace for 25 years”.
“The leadership of our party is a gift of the party room, and I respect the decision that they have made,” she said.
“For those who supported me today, I thank you. I thank you. Your loyalty, your unflinching loyalty, I will always appreciate.
“For those who did not, I genuinely have no hard feelings. I wish Angus Taylor well. I know he has experience, energy and drive.
“I know the whole team will have what it takes to fight this awful Labor government. I will be cheering them on.”
Reflecting on her time as Liberal leader, she said she would “leave it for others to judge this period of my leadership, now and with the passing of time”.
“While I’m sure plenty of people will have plenty to say, I’ve never sought to influence what other people think of me,” Ms Ley said.
She also announced she was “stepping away completely and comprehensively from public life, to spend time with my family, to reconnect with my enduring passion, aviation”.
She said that aviation “taught me if I had an ego, I’d be dead”.
“It’s been quite useful in politics,” Ms Ley said.
Originally published as How Sussan Ley’s leadership unravelled
