Sussan Ley chips Nationals while urging Liberal unity

Deputy Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has chipped the Nationals and issued a call for unity among Liberal MPs.

Deputy Opposition Leader Sussan Ley. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Deputy Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has chipped the Nationals and issued a call for unity among Liberal MPs, pushing back against those who link Tony Abbott’s 2013 election victory with the Coalition being “supposedly brilliant compared to today”.

Following the recent Aston by-election and NSW election defeats, the highest-ranking female Liberal MP said “we won in 2013 because we were a strong and united team that spoke very clearly to all Australians about our immediate priorities and the policies we would enact”.

The 61-year-old, mooted as a future Liberal leadership candidate, has visited key marginal, teal and Labor seats in NSW, South Australia, Queensland, Victoria and Tasmania since April 12, including North Sydney, Bennelong, Warringah, Wentworth, Goldstein and Higgins.

In the past two months, she has blitzed target seats in all states and territories.

Writing for The Australian online, Ms Ley differentiated the Liberals from the Nationals, Labor, Greens and One Nation and declared her party was not “solely ­focused on people living in our capital cities”.

“But we are not a party that makes a virtue of ignoring people living in suburban Australia when making policy decisions. We are not a party for extreme left interests, totally divorced from the ­reality of normal Australians,” she wrote. “And we are not a party for single-issue culture wars, dominated by reactionary populists.”

Ms Ley, who represents the sprawling western NSW regional electorate of Farrer, said the Liberals must unite.

Amid internal pressure to focus more on the economy and splits over the party’s position on the voice to parliament referendum, Ms Ley said the first recommendation of the party’s election review focused on “discipline”.

In her message to Liberal colleagues ahead of the 10-year anniversary of Mr Abbott’s election win, Ms Ley said the “time to bloodlet after our defeat a year ago is over”.

“The time to sook and moan is done. Our party is locking in behind Peter Dutton because Australians are relying on us to get opposition right,” she wrote.

Ms Ley – who came under pressure from factional players ahead of last year’s federal election – said the 2013 election victory was built on “no sniping from inside the tent”.

“There were no factional chiefs threatening to bring the party down. Well ahead of time, we had candidates in place to contest seats – really good ones – some of whom still serve in parliament and are widely acknowledged as the best in the marginal seat business.

“We weren’t bogged down in culture wars. We weren’t beating our chests trying to out-right wing or out-left wing each other.

“Every single Liberal, with every fibre of their being, was just trying to defeat Labor so that we could get into government and help aspirational Australians get ahead. Discipline won the day.

“We are not an 8 per cent party. We don’t do narrow constituencies. By definition, we do big, broad constituencies.”

Ms Ley said the party must focus on “aspirational Australia” because electricity bills, interest rates and cost-of-living pressures would get worse under the Albanese government. “We need to demonstrate we are the strong alternative, ready for consideration by the Australian people. Because the longer this government is in office, the harder Australians will hurt,” she said.