Do we like Sussan Ley?
Our score: 5 out of 10. A yes vote on marriage equality and an apology to Indian Australians sit next to
Ley's backstory is a good yarn. Born in Nigeria to English parents, she grew up in the UAE where her father was posted as an intelligence officer, went to boarding school in England, then migrated to Australia as a teenager. She worked three jobs to get a commercial pilot's licence, mustered stock from the air, cooked for shearers, then became a farmer's wife and did three finance degrees in her thirties.
After six years as a director at the Tax Office in Albury she won Farrer in 2001 and stayed for 25 years. She became the first woman to lead the Liberals in May 2025, then was dumped 34 to 17 by Angus Taylor nine months later. She quit parliament without a farewell speech, saying she was looking forward to “stepping away completely and comprehensively from public life”.
Her big stumble came in 2017, when she was health minister. Reports of taxpayer-funded Gold Coast trips, including one where she bought an apartment, had Malcolm Turnbull telling her she hadn't met his standards. She apologised for an error of judgment, repaid the claims, and resigned from the ministry. No court was involved, and the repaid-and-resign ending reads more as a sloppy mistake than a rort.
On the harm test it's mixed. In 2017 she told parliament that a yes vote on same-sex marriage was “the only possibility”, tying it to the loneliness LGBTI people felt in rural Australia. But They Vote For You records her consistently voting against increasing legal protections for LGBTI people and against transgender rights and protections. We found no statement from her on trans issues, so that's her votes talking, not her words.
On the planet, her party dumped net zero by 2050 under her leadership in November 2025. She said emissions goals would “never come at the expense of Australian families”, while keeping Australia in the Paris Agreement. They Vote For You has her voting against renewable energy investment and net zero by 2035. On migration, she apologised to Indian Australians for a colleague's remarks and sacked that colleague from her frontbench. In 2024 she also defended a post about “foreign criminals” after Victoria Police dropped charges in a case they called “one of mistaken identity”.
The ugliest moment came after the Bondi attack in December 2025, when she said she hadn't seen Penny Wong “shed a single tear”. Energy Minister Chris Bowen called it “pretty disgusting”. Ley didn't apologise, saying she was driven by her passion for Jewish Australians and was angry at the terrorism. It reads as a cheap shot at a moment that called for something better.