Sussan Ley has beaten Angus Taylor to be the new leader of the Liberal party securing 29 votes to 25.
Ted O’Brien has been elected as the Deputy Leader of the party. The other candidate was Phil Thompson who reportedly stood on a whim. O’Brien was elected 38 votes to 16.
Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, who last week defected from the Country Liberal Party, and the Nationals party room, to join the Liberals and had announced she’s run for the party’s deputy leader position on a joint ticket with Taylor, is understood to not have been a candidate.
Ley become the first female leader of the party in its 81 year history, and now faces the enormous task of rebuilding the party after it had a crushing defeat the federal election.
Ley heads into the new parliament facing a returned Labor who hold a majority of around 50 seats over the Liberal party.
The leadership competition was not only just over who would lead the party, but has been seen as a ideological battle between the party’s moderate and conservative wings.
Sussan ley has been in the parliament for 24 years
Ley, who is 63, joined the parliament in 2001 and represents the rural NSW electorate of Farrer.
She was a junior minister in the Howard government, serving as parliamentary secretary for Children and Youth Affairs and later Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. In opposition under a succession of leaders she held the shadow portfolios of Housing, Women, Justice and Customs, Assistant Treasury, Employment Participation, and Childcare.
In the Abbott government she was Assistant Minister for Education and later promoted to Minister for Health and Sport, and later Aged Care.
She resigned from the ministry in 2017 after it was revealed she had taken many taxpayer funded trips to Queensland, where he partner was based. Also, on one trip she bought a $795,000 apartment. Ley denied allegations of improper use of taxpayer funds claiming the trips were all required for government business, and the apartment was bought on a whim.
She was promoted under PM Scott Morrison serving as Assistant Minister for Regional Development the Territories, and after the 2019 election win returned to the front bench as Minister for the Environment. In opposition she has served as deputy leader.
Ley has described herself as a feminist, is seen as a moderate within the party. Aside from her apartment scandal she is remembered for appearing in the chamber dressed up as Tina Turner to raise money for charity and raised eyebrows earlier this year when she compared the British settlement of Australia to Elon Musk’s plans to colonise Mars.
Ley was born in Nigeria and grew up in the United Arab Emirates and England before emigrating to Australia as a teenager. Prior to entering politics, she worked as a commercial pilot, farmer and civil servant.
Ley added an additional S to her name in her youth because she followed the belief of numerology, and the additional letter made her name more powerful.
