Newly appointed Liberal Party leader Sussan Ley faces a gender reckoning
Sussan Ley will be the Liberal Party of Australia’s (LPA) first ever woman leader, replacing Peter Dutton who lost his own seat of Dickson on election night on 3 May.
Narrowly beating conservative shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor 29-25, the more moderate Ley vows to “rebuild trust with all sections of Australian society” and argues that her election as leader will “send a very strong signal that we understand that things must be done differently”.
A party divided
Ley will not have an easy task ahead of her as she steers a deeply divided party through the greatest crisis it has faced since its inception. The LPA’s resounding defeat seems to be largely due to their “woman problem” as well as their disconnection from younger voters, those with university degrees, migrants and inner-city dwellers. Post-election, the party must not only mend its organisational and structural issues but recover its ideological soul.
Paralleling the “Wets versus Dries” infighting that kept it in opposition in the 1980s, the moderates and conservatives in the party are again fighting over ideological direction.
The moderates are urging the party to drop the culture wars, return to the Menzies-era centre, and broaden its appeal to reconnect with women and younger voters.
However, some conservatives are pushing against this narrative by insisting a need to accelerate a move to the right. This would only further alienate the voters the party desperately needs to attract.
By choosing Ley as leader, it seems that the moderates have won this battle, but it looks to be an issue that will plague Ley’s leadership for the foreseeable future.
Finally a female leader of the Liberals despite the continuing resistance to women in the party. And Sussan Ley is the best person to lead the Liberals right now.
— Bernard Keane (@BernardKeane) May 13, 2025
But I expect she'll be relentlessly attacked by the angry losers of the right.https://t.co/Pzdyy425IP
The LPA’s “woman problem”
Given the significance of gender equality for many of their constituents, the party must reflect on why women are losing interest, both as voters, members and political candidates, before they can begin to remedy the problem.
The LPA was once the party for women throughout most of the twentieth century. Women’s organisational groups played a crucial role in the founding of the party, which went on to achieve almost all the women’s “firsts” in Australian politics.
A stark shift occurred in the 1980s as the LPA adopted more socially conservative and free-market beliefs—what is known as the “markets and motherhood push”—leading to its transformation into a party that women increasingly shunned.
Read more: The long road to gender equality: Overcoming institutional resistance to change
The LPA’s “woman problem” worsened under the Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison governments. From Abbott only having one woman in cabinet and Turnbull having to implement a “bonk ban” to prohibit ministers engaging in sexual relations with their staff, to the bullying, sexism and sexual assault rampant under Morrison’s leadership.
It is clear that the LPA has a problem with both attaining women candidates and attracting women voters.
The party’s refusal to implement gender quotas, persistence in preselecting men in safe seats, and adoption of a neoliberal, socially conservative stance on gender equality policy, alongside a toxic blokey “Big Swinging Dick” culture as well as a recent veer towards the reactionary right under Dutton, contributed to a crisis affecting women within and outside the party.
For years, the LPA has dismissed its woman problem as a “special interest” of “elite” tertiary-educated women—the very same demographic that voted in droves for the so-called “Teal” independents at the 2022 federal election. Yet, under Dutton, the party continued to ignore the very existence of this problem—one that is fundamentally damaging not only the party but Australian political culture in general.
Ley as leader
The LPA’s own review of its 2022 election defeat acknowledged that “the party’s standing with women was an important factor”. It seems to have learned this lesson three years too late. Choosing Ley as leader shows that the LPA might finally be listening.
After driving into ‘an electoral dead end’, where to now for the Liberal Party? https://t.co/AqPe1Y44ES
— The Age (@theage) May 10, 2025
Not only is Ley a moderate, but she also identifies as a feminist and has previously pushed for candidate gender quotas.
She is an experienced politician who served as shadow minister for women in 2007-8 and again from 2022-25.
Ley joined Julie Bishop to be the second woman in Abbott’s infamous cabinet, so she can be seen as a seasoned warrior long accustomed to being one of the only women in the room.
After the 2022 election loss, as deputy leader Ley was tasked with the job of reconnecting with women voters. However, she failed to understand that the LPA’s embrace of neoliberal ideology, which prioritises individual freedom and privatisation of public services, ignores the social conditions and structural origins that create inequalities, ultimately worsening conditions for many women and minority groups.
Can she learn from these mistakes that have driven women away from the party both as members and voters?
A return to the more socially liberal values that once defined the party, through which the state is viewed as playing a key role in ensuring equality of opportunity, would likely win back voters who have fled to more centrist options, like the “Teal” independents.
Poisoned chalices and glass cliffs
While it is about time for the LPA to have a woman at the helm, it is concerning that it has taken so long. It missed the opportunity in 2018 when the experienced and electorally-popular Julie Bishop put her hat into the ring, only to lose to Dutton and ultimately Scott Morrison.
Teal independent and Liberal heir Kate Chaney described this as a “sliding doors moment … And a lot of women looked at that point and thought, 'this does not look like a party that represents me’”.
That it (narrowly) chose a woman leader to rebuild a party after its worst electoral defeat in history is essentially giving Ley a poisoned chalice.
Whoever replaced Dutton as leader would inevitably have faced a difficult path, and would have been unlikely to remain in the position at the next election. After Howard lost government and his seat in 2007, the party spent the next two years churning through a series of leaders before sticking with Abbott.
Ley is also facing what has been termed a “glass cliff” scenario. This refers to the tendency for women to have a better chance of finally breaking through the glass ceiling during times of crisis, because it is often the only chance they have, while men bide their time, waiting for calmer waters. It is then up to the woman to fix the problems, with a higher chance of failure and a greater risk of reputational damage.
This places Ley in the traditionally feminine position of “cleaning up” the mess of her male colleagues.
In my doctoral dissertation, I argued that women are often assigned to this role in times of political instability due to the persistent assumption that they are less power-hungry, more trustworthy, and more honest than men, although it also reflects their status as outsiders, in contrast to the dominant male elite. However, this opens them up to greater risk as, if they fail to live up to high expectations, they face greater levels of outrage.
The LPA’s election of a moderate woman as leader signals a shift back toward the centre-right. This change will not heal the party overnight, nor should we expect Ley to miraculously clean up the mess left by her male colleagues and forebears over many decades. Nonetheless, it sends a message to voters that the party is beginning to confront its longstanding “woman problem”.
Ultimately, however, this is a problem created and sustained by the men in the party, and it is they who must pick up the brooms and take responsibility.
