Sussan Ley's mission, should she choose to accept it: Rebuild the Liberal centre

Fr Gerald O’Collins SJ AC was a giant and a gentleman. He was a significant figure in the Catholic Church both in Australia and globally. For 32 years he taught theology at the Gregorian University in Rome, where he was Dean for six years. Fr Gerry was a prolific writer, publishing about 80 books and countless articles. He was gregarious and engaging, warm and ever charming.  

Sussan Ley has a real opportunity to reengage her party’s tradition and remake the Liberal Party for the current moment, even as she leads a defeated, coalition-less opposition. Part of taking that opportunity depends on understanding what happened. Journalists, pundits, and politicians turn electoral results into stories. In a way, the narratives they create help us reflect on who we are as a political community. They help provide a basis for representative government. Through such political reflection, governments can consider how the public broadly expects them to govern. Oppositions can consider what went wrong, and how they might better represent constituents while holding the government accountable.

There is always a risk that these narratives overread the electoral results. They are abstractions, after all. Nevertheless, the uniformity of the swing against the Coalition, and the consequent loss of 13 seats, means the new leader must draw some conclusions to lead effectively. Provisional conclusions have no doubt been on the minds of the remnant Liberal MPs and Senators as they gathered to elect a new leader. No doubt, too, they played a role in Sussan Ley’s negotiations with the Nationals.

Ley will be more effective as a leader if, instead of making quick and cosmetic changes, she considers what the longer electoral trends suggest. Taken together, the past three elections — along with the Voice referendum and the marriage equality survey — point to an electorate wary of sweeping policy schemes, seeking stable governance with compassionate approaches that are not needlessly divisive.

This most recent election tends to reinforce the conservative, pragmatic nature of the Australian electorate. That cautious yet open character suggests a path forward for Ley.

This caution explains the defeat of Bill Shorten’s ambitious reform agenda in 2019, and the failure of the Voice referendum in 2023, even after the election of a progressive majority with red, green, and teal stripes. It also makes sense of the way those perceived as left-leaning Teals — Zoe Daniel in Goldstein and Monique Ryan in Kooyong — had a harder time against moderate Liberal candidates in this election than Teals who projected continuity with their electorate’s liberal roots.

The electorate’s openness can be seen in the rejection of a Coalition perceived as leaning into divisive policies, both in 2022 and 2025, as well as the 2017 marriage equality survey result, which suggested an openness to change understood as a necessary evolution of social policy. Big reforms of any type are suspect. Incremental change that allows for greater inclusion and shared prosperity tends to be welcomed.

'The Liberals will perform a critical democratic function in upholding representative and responsible government if it seeks to ensure that policies are pragmatic, incremental and with clear capacity to deliver. Australia will be better served by an opposition that is able to bring principled, constructive responses with broad appeal across the diverse communities that make up the nation.'

That conservative, pragmatic disposition does not diminish the broad awareness — and frustration — with significant policy failures across multiple governments. Australians know changes are needed. We need innovative thinking to fix problems, especially in relation to housing, labour, and the distorting distribution of tax benefits.

The Labor government will be right to seek changes in pursuit of justice and a more stable economic structure, especially across generations. It will also need to respond, amidst global instability, to situations not conceived prior to the last election.

Ley should respond confidently to any Albanese overreach, should he make the mistake of assuming too big a mandate. But she cannot simply obstruct. She needs to support sensible policy and develop her own platform. The failed negotiations with the Nationals may prove a blessing for this endeavour, at least in the short term. The Nationals are stubbornly clinging to policies as cultural identifiers, not least nuclear power, before any systematic reflection on the election result has been undertaken. Ley needs the space to reconsider policies based on underlying principles, not identity markers popular in some demographics but incapable of commanding broad consensus.

Compulsory voting means our political parties have always had an incentive to hold broad coalitions of voters together. This has saved us from the worst of political populism, where parties chase votes by appealing to the narrow interests of the loudest voices. Our politicians know that if they want to win, they must be attentive and accountable to a broader cross-section of the Australian community.

Sussan Ley being the first woman to lead the federal Liberal Party adds possibility to the party’s task. The ‘firsts’ for female leadership in Australia have often occurred when things have gone wrong for their political parties — think Joan Kirner, Kristina Keneally, Julia Gillard. What’s different in this case is that Ley’s assumption of the leadership could be understood as an inflection point in her party’s engagement with women, both internally and in terms of policies directly affecting women. There’s a wider opportunity, too, to recast the party around a broader set of liberal and conservative values that respect tradition but also grapple seriously with today’s Australia.

Eventually, Ley will need to draw the Nationals back in. The challenge for a centre-right party is to hold together a way of governing that respects the current political settlement voters have endorsed, while offering incremental change to socially conservative and economically liberal voters, while projecting the value of voting for a party that is capable of governing.

John Howard’s acceptance of universal healthcare in the late 1990s is the classic example of this kind of Liberal pragmatic acceptance of what many voters have come to expect from government. His deft handling of the Coalition with the Nationals, and his eventual opposition to One Nation, reflected a commitment to a ‘broad church’ centre-right alliance that was cohesive and sought the centre ground while keeping hold of voters inclined toward right-wing populism.

‘Conservative’ need not mean stuck in the past, and ‘liberal’ need not suggest extraneous forces unfettered by government. Howard’s pragmatism was inspired by Robert Menzies, whose conception of liberalism was always balanced by his conservatism, and vice versa. Menzies called the Liberal Party a ‘progressive’ party but only to the extent that it should be responsive to the times and to the emerging sensibilities and expectations of Australians.

As a Liberal from the moderate wing of the party, Ley might be buoyed by an electorate that, over successive elections, has voted for the party that appears most focused on problem-solving, pragmatic delivery, and a limited agenda to change the distribution of government assistance both in the form of welfare and tax benefits. Drawing on this insight, Ley must understand that she cannot simply be obstructive or wait for Albanese to overreach. Her opposition will play a vital role in our political system if it tests the policies the government brings forward.

The Liberals will perform a critical democratic function in upholding representative and responsible government if it seeks to ensure that policies are pragmatic, incremental and with clear capacity to deliver. Australia will be better served by an opposition that is able to bring principled, constructive responses with broad appeal across the diverse communities that make up the nation. Ley and her team must grapple with the country’s policy failures in a way that generates real alternatives, grounded in consistent principles rather than divisive opportunism.

Julian Butler SJ is a Jesuit undertaking formation for Catholic priesthood. He previously practiced law, and has degrees in commerce and philosophy.