How Sussan Ley’s career crashed, burned and was revived

The woman tasked with rebuilding the Liberal Party was forced to resign from the frontbench almost a decade ago after a “dirt unit” produced a scandalous dossier.

When Sussan Ley resigned from the frontbench amid an ongoing expenses scandal nearly a decade ago, many thought her career was over.

Insisting she had not broken the rules, the Liberal MP resigned in January, 2017.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull admitted her conduct did not meet the pub test.

She stepped aside amid two investigations into her travel expenses, including her decision to purchase a $795,000 luxury apartment on the Gold Coast.

She had used a taxpayer-funded COMCAR to scoot around the corner to check it out.

She was on the nose and her career was going nowhere.

After waiting 13 long years to be admitted to cabinet in the Abbott-Turnbull years some people would have given up.

But her hopes would be revived by Scott Morrison who succeeded Malcolm Turnbull as prime minister.

After she was forced to resign in 2017, it would be three long years until it was revealed in the book Party Animals that Bill Shorten’s ‘dirt unit’ secretly orchestrated her downfall by leaking a dossier of travel records to newspaper outlets to engineer a political crisis.

Sussan Ley was forced to resign in 2017 over a travel rort scandal. She is pictured fronting the press amid widespread outrage. Picture: Simon Dallinger

Ley bought a $795,000 Gold Coast apartment (building above) during a taxpayer-funded trip in 2015. Picture: AAP/Scott Bailey

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Regardless of the genesis of the story, the community outrage was real as it followed a scandal over Brownwyn Bishop’s use of a helicopter to fly to Geelong.

Leaked emails laid bare the political research unit’s success in triggering two of the biggest scandals to rock the Abbott and Turnbull government, which weakened Tony Abbott’s leadership and also sparked a major review of travel rules.

The book revealed that for six years, Mr Shorten’s office was running one of the most methodical, relentless and successful investigative journalism units in Australia.

But rather than journalists, it was political staffers who prepared the material and leaked it to the press.

After a freedom of information request revealed Ms Ley had spent $12,000 to charter a VIP jet to the Gold Coast for an afternoon meeting at the Pharmacy Guild conference, the Labor Party again swung into action.

Mr Shorten’s office had a paid subscription to RP Data, a property data firm that provides access to ownership data across Australia.

Sussan Ley has bounced back to become the leader of the party.

The office had requested an RP Data subscription after the debacle involving former Victorian Labor frontbencher David Feeney failing to disclose a $2 million investment property in Northcote, which he claimed he’d forgotten he owned.

Ms Ley’s resignation came in the wake of Bronwyn Bishop’s helicopter scandal. Picture: Adam Taylor

Taxpayers were slugged $5,227 for Mrs Bishop to travel 80km in a chartered helicopter from Melbourne to a Geelong golf course for a Liberal function

ALP secretary George Wright had signed off on the subscription, which cost several thousand dollars, to ensure the Labor Party knew what houses its MPs owned.

Simply by punching ‘Sussan Penelope Ley’ into the database, the fact she had bought a property on the Gold Coast immediately came up, including the sale date.

The Labor Party then examined her travel records to discover if she was on any taxpayer-funded flights on the day she bought the property.

Labor’s dossier on Ms Ley ran to 27 pages.

It would later emerge that the sole breach was using a COMCAR to take her from her hotel to the $800,000 apartment she bought, a five-minute journey.

Claims she broke the rules by visiting the Gold Coast on New Year’s Eve and piloting a plane were dismissed on the grounds she could prove official business on those days.

“I simply table the outcome of the investigation, as I said I would, and in doing so allow people to draw their own conclusions,” Ms Ley told Parliament. ‘Regardless of these facts, the public impression was cast.”

Ms Ley (with her deputy Ted O’Brien) faces an uphill battle as leader of the Opposition. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Ms Ley later said it was a shock to learn the truth, but after returning to the ministry she was “happy focusing on policy rather than smears”.

‘‘I’ve had to accept that politics is a pretty rough game,’’ Ms Ley said.

‘‘I shouldn’t be surprised by Labor activating their dirt unit to protect Bill Shorten – and that didn’t work.

“I’ve moved on and Labor can live with where they are sitting at the moment.’’

After her election as the Liberal Party’s first female leader she now faces much bigger challenges.

A divided party. A bitter leadership brawl. Claims and counterclaims of dirty tricks.

Conservatives are already lining up to take potshots at her.

“Malcolm Turnbull in a skirt,’’ Sky News host Rita Panahi observed on social media.

There’s no guarantee that her tenure will be long.

But as she grapples with the Nationals over the fate of net zero targets, there is every chance it will be eventful.