Liberal leader shares moment of vulnerability, speaks of the pain of coercive control

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley says she knows the pain of coercive control and will fight domestic violence as the first woman to lead her party.

Ley told Canberra’s National Press Club on Wednesday that no one would get in the way of her resolve for the party to achieve gender equity and declared her openness to quotas, despite previous leaders making similar pledges that resulted in little change.

Liberal Leader Sussan Ley has broken with her predecessors to approve the principle of quotas.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

She used the speech to connect her life story to her policy priorities as Liberal leader, including on stopping domestic violence.

“I understand the pain that comes with coercion and control because I have felt that pain too,” Ley said, in a moment of vulnerability. “I understand what it’s like when you blame yourself for the actions of others. Because I have blamed myself too.”

She did not provide details of the coercion she described.

Ley described her life before politics, including becoming a pilot, completing a master’s degree with a newborn, working for the Australian Tax Office and repeatedly facing down barriers confronting women and mothers.

She said the Liberal Party must fix its entrenched gender imbalance. Only one-third of Liberal MPs are women, compared to Labor’s 56 per cent.

“Now, I’m agnostic on specific methods to make it happen, but I am a zealot that it does actually happen,” Ley said. “Current approaches have clearly not worked, so I am open to any approach that will.”

She said she was open to quotas, but did not use the speech to advocate for them. “If some state divisions choose to implement quotas, that is fine,” Ley said. “If others don’t, that is also fine. But what is not fine is not having enough women.”

Ley’s open mind on quotas is a major break from the party’s position under former leaders such as Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull. But former prime minister Scott Morrison said he was “very open” to quotas in 2021, which did not lead them to being implemented.

Ley argued her leadership would result in more women being pre-selected despite others making similar pledges in the past.

“I’m the first woman in my position, and I don’t think anyone in my position had the resolve I have right here, right now. Watch this space,” she said.

Since the Morrison government, the party has lost 33 lower house seats and eight Senate seats. Currently, the party holds just two of the nation’s 43 inner-city seats and seven of the 45 outer metropolitan seats.

Ley acknowledged the Coalition had been “smashed” at the recent election, but denied that her ambition to win government, which would require gaining more than 30 seats, was unrealistic.

Credit: Matt Golding

“I answer to the people, if you didn’t vote for the Liberal Party, you still want us to be a strong opposition. You want the best possible opposition to deliver the best possible government. We need to be serious and credible,” she said.

“All of these things matter. In holding the government to account, which I want to do, and we’ll do every single day, we want to build that alternative agenda as well.”

Former Liberal leader Peter Dutton’s policies on issues such as working from home failed to win over female voters at the election.

Shortly after the election defeat, Alan Stockdale, one of the men administering the NSW Liberals, complained about “assertive” women. Stockdale later said the remark was intended to be light-hearted and regretted if anyone felt disrespected.

As prime minister, Abbott endorsed a target to increase the number of women in the Liberal Party, but argued against quotas. Abbott appeared on ABC after Ley’s speech and maintained his stance.

“I am very much opposed to quotas,” he said. “I think they are fundamentally ... contrary to the merit and what should be at the heart of our Liberal conservative philosophy.”

In 2018, Turnbull said quotas did not fit with a democratic system of selecting candidates. “I don’t think a quota system can work in a grassroots political system,” Turnbull said. He later said the party should have gender balance on candidate selection panels.

Despite the Liberals’ 50 per cent target for women in parliament, recommended through a review in 2015, the proportion of women in its ranks has barely changed.

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