Andrew Bolt: Give Ley a chance to show she can fix what’s been smashed

Sussan Ley is being treated like a here-today, gone-tomorrow lightweight, but let’s see then how she handles things. She may not succeed, but to bury her already is unfair.

The federal Liberals finally elected a woman as their leader on Tuesday, and women immediately started to pull her down.

Aren’t women cruel to their own?

Can we please give Sussan Ley a chance to show she can fix what’s been smashed?

I mean, more than a day?

But hours after Ley narrowly won the leadership against Treasury spokesman Angus Taylor, 29 to 25, even a fellow member of her Liberal Left faction, Fiona Scott, was treating her as a here-today-gone-tomorrow lightweight.

Scott, a vice-president of the federal Liberals, was asked: “How long do you give her?”

Her answer was astonishingly flip: “I don’t know. I mean, a day’s a long time in politics … well, you know, it could be a day – it won’t be a day, I’m being cheeky – but, I mean, look, you don’t know what the political tides will bring.”

Wow.

If that’s from a proclaimed Ley supporter who’s demanded the Liberals pick more women, what must Ley’s rivals be thinking?

No need to wonder.

Newly elect Opposition Leader, Sussan Ley, was torn down immediately by fellow member of her Liberal Left faction Fiona Scott. Picture: Martin Ollman

Hours after Ley’s win, another Liberal woman announced she herself was the people’s choice.

Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, a conservative who defected from the Nationals to the Liberals just last week, gave Ley only grudging support on Sky News on Tuesday.

Asked if the Liberal politicians would unite behind Ley, Price responded: “Well, that is the hope.”

True, she’d “be supporting the leadership”, but only “because that is what we have to do if we want to do a good job in opposition”.

Asked if she’d like to become Prime Minister, she didn’t defer to Ley: “I know there’s a lot of Australians who’d love to see that.”

Has any Liberal leader got the job with so little enthusiasm from the politicians they’re meant to lead?

I mean, apart from – ominously – Brendan Nelson, Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull?

Which is a pity, because Ley in her first press conference on Tuesday performed better than I’d expected.

True, I wasn’t expecting much.

It’s wild that Ley has been in parliament for 24 years, serving as health minister and deputy Liberal leader, yet has made such a faint impression that many colleagues and political commentators still don’t even know her name is pronounced “Lee”, not “Lay”.

She’s also of the Liberal Left, which tends to lose seats, not win them, by trying to be Labor lite. And she was the opposition’s shadow minister for women when it promised to ban public servants working from home – the biggest vote-losing disaster of the Liberals’ catastrophic campaign.

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price gave Ley only grudging support on Sky News. Picture: Gera Kazakov

Let’s also not forget she was a fierce defender of Palestinians before becoming just as passionately pro-Israel. She was against live sheep exports before she was for them.

She even added an extra “s” to Susan as a young fan of numerology, thinking the energy vibration of calling herself Sussan would make life more interesting.

More women – on Channel 10’s The Project, for instance – mocked her this week for that, though life may just have proved Ley right.

So why give her a break?

First, because a woman at 63 has probably learnt a bit along the way – and changed.

Second, because she’s a listener, as I found when she dropped by the other day. I know, listening is passive, but the Liberal leader must listen hard, if the party is to unite and recover.

Ley a Nigerian-born British immigrant worked in shearing sheds before learning to fly and muster from the air. Picture: Martin Ollman

Third, because Ley has seen more of Australia than some party drone.

A Nigerian-born British immigrant, she worked in shearing sheds as a roustabout and cook before learning to fly and muster from the air. As a mother, she studied for three degrees, including masters of accounting and taxation. She’s plainly not stupid. And in her press conference she proved it by refusing to fall for journalists’ fake claims that the Liberals were smashed by going too far right. (How? When?)

More importantly, she refused to say she’d dump the party’s support for nuclear power, or keep its promise to cut emissions to net zero by 2050.

Sure, she had little choice. Do either of those things and she’d risk an immediate split with the Nationals, who rightly say net zero is beggaring Australia and we’d need nuclear anyhow to get affordable emissions-free electricity without risking Spain-type blackouts.

Of course, not committing herself is easy. All hell will break out when Ley does finally decide what the Liberals stand for. Let’s see then how she handles things. She may not succeed, but to bury her already is unfair.

Originally published as Andrew Bolt: Give Ley a chance to show she can fix what’s been smashed