Sussan Ley vows to take ‘fight up to’ Labor as parliament sits

Sussan Ley has vowed the Coalition will not ‘get out of the way’ of Anthony Albanese, as Coalition frontbenchers dismissed the significance of a collapse in opposition support in the latest poll.

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley addresses the joint Coalition party room on Monday. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

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Sussan Ley has vowed that the ­Coalition will not “get out of the way” of Anthony Albanese and will “take the fight up” to Labor, as Coalition frontbenchers dismissed the significance of a collapse in the opposition’s support in the latest Newspoll.

In her first sitting-week partyroom address since the election, the Opposition Leader told her colleagues the Coalition would not be judged on the day’s headlines but on what it could “offer the Australian people at the next election”.

Ms Ley said voters deserved the “strongest possible opposition” and pledged to defend the interests of aspirational Australians, declaring that while the Coalition’s policies were up for review, its “values are not”.

“Now Mr Albanese is giving interviews, and he’s suggesting that we should just get out of the way,” Ms Ley said. “Well, we won’t be getting out of the way.

“Our job is to represent the millions of Australians who voted for us, but also the millions who maybe didn’t but still expect us to be the strongest, best opposition that we can be. And we will be.”

Ms Ley’s rallying cry comes as the latest Newspoll revealed support for the Coalition had collapsed to the lowest point in 40 years following Labor’s decisive May 3 election victory.

The exclusive political poll, conducted for The Australian, showed that the Coalition’s primary vote had fallen to 29 per cent, below its lowest ever election primary vote of 31.8 per cent.

Coalition senator Jane Hume – who was relegated to the backbench in Ms Ley’s shadow cabinet reshuffle – said the poll held little significance because many Australians had not turned their attention to politics after the election.

“This is a poll that I think starts every parliamentary term – it’s ­actually not that unusual for an opposition, a new opposition, to be well behind in the polls,” Senator Hume told Sky News Australia.

“And let’s face it, Australians really haven’t switched on to their politics again while Canberra has been hibernating up here.”

Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce conceded the poll presented ­“brutal numbers” that should worry any Coalition MP in a marginal seat. “Any person in a lower house seat, in a House of Representatives seat, wherever it is – Watson, Farrer, New England – if you had a 3 in front of your primary vote, you would be very, very worried,” he told Channel 7.

In a veiled reference to the troubling reports, Ms Ley told ­Coalition MPs they would not be “judged by the headlines of the day” and to focus on the next election. She said she was prepared to work collaboratively with Labor to pass necessary reforms but vowed to fiercely oppose legislation that did not serve the ­“national interest … I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: if the Prime Minister and his team bring forward constructive policies in the national interest, we’ll support them, work with them. A good example of that is the childcare legislation that we want to see implemented for the safety of children in childcare centres across this country.

“But if they don’t do that – if they bring forward legislation that is not in the national interest, and it is not in the interests of Australians – then we will fight them every step of the way.”

Ahead of the first sitting day of the Albanese government’s second term on Tuesday, Ms Ley said the Coalition would stand by its values by supporting aspiration and lower taxes. She seized on accidentally released Treasury advice warning taxes would need to be raised to repair the budget.

“We’re here for the values we’ve always stood for as the Liberal Party – for hard work, for reward for effort, for a government that just gets out of the way.

“That’s what people expect. They want a parliament that understands their lives and a government that gets out of the way.

“They also want people in Canberra who get that, they want to have a crack and get ahead.

“Because it’s aspiration that connects every thread of Australian society. And it’s for aspirational Australians that we will fight for every day in this place.

“Yes, our policies are up for review. But our values are not.”