The preselection challenge against Deputy Liberal Leader Sussan Ley in her NSW seat of Farrer presents Opposition Leader Peter Dutton with a delicate conundrum: does he intervene to save her, or does he take advantage of the situation and allow a powerful factional rival to be taken out?
Ley says she has Dutton’s support, and Crikey understands she is right about that. It appears most Liberals are happy with the deal hammered out after the election that put the conservative Queenslander Dutton in the opposition leader’s job; Ley, a centre-right-winger from NSW, as his deputy; and Simon Birmingham, a moderate South Australian, as Senate leader. The set-up ensures a certain factional and geographical balance.
But the challenge in Farrer throws uncertainty into the mix, and some Liberals who’ve spoken to Crikey see both opportunities and risks for Dutton.
Should the challenge by conservative ex-NSW Liberal executive member and schoolteacher Jean Haynes be successful — and it appears she has gathered impressive numbers among local Liberals voting in the preselection — Dutton could go down the same route as former PM Scott Morrison did and intervene to save Ley.
Morrison faced criticism that his intervention to stop rank-and-file Liberal members from voting out Ley in 2022 was undemocratic, but he defended the move as protecting his female team members from factional shenanigans.
Dutton could do the same, a move that Liberals hope would earn him credit among the public. Many in the party are acutely aware there’s a perception the Liberals have a “woman problem”, and agree it wouldn’t look good if its most senior woman was allowed to be taken out.
On the other hand, allowing party members to vote Ley out could allow Dutton to effectively eliminate a factional rival under the cover of a party-democratic process. Ley is closely allied with Alex Hawke, who is seen as the leader of the centre-right faction, and he, too, is facing a credible preselection challenge in his NSW electorate of Mitchell. Their faction is seen as somewhat rudderless after Morrison lost last year’s federal election.
Some other Liberals Crikey spoke to said the Farrer situation has little to do with Dutton and wider party politics, and everything to do with internal rivalries in the NSW division. News Corp’s Samantha Maiden has chronicled the intense and complicated factors at play in Farrer, including allegations a “nun from a silent order” was signed up to vote in a local Liberal branch, and claims a party powerbroker had been “hiding in a forest in a ski mask”.
One Liberal insider described the preselection situation, with the political consequences that would cascade from each possibility, as a “Game of Thrones” moment for the party.
Dutton, who Crikey understands is a Game of Thrones fan for the show’s depiction of politics, will surely weigh his options carefully.
In the HBO fantasy drama series, political decisions often led to actual beheadings — or worse. In Australian politics, fortunately, the worst that could happen is that some people will have to look for new jobs.
Fascinating to see that in all the reasons and motives for trying to oust Ley from her seat there is nothing said about her total lack of any discernable talent or ability; she has been a dead loss for all her time in parliament, an embarrassment whenever she speaks. Presumably those qualities are unimportant in the great game of Liberal factional infighting.
I absolutely agree.
Many in the party are acutely aware there’s a perception the Liberals have a “woman problem”, and agree it wouldn’t look good if its most senior woman was allowed to be taken out.
I would have said that Susan Ley was a part of the Libs’ “woman problem”. I cannot remember any occasion when I agreed with a comment Ley made.
On the other hand – I was an EEO officer back in the day and I remember we used to say that we would know when equal opportunity had been achieved as there would be as many stupid and incompetent women as men in senior positions. I guess I just did not think that the Lib party would get there first.
So bereft of decency in that party.
Pond life
A talent pool desperately in need of chlorine.
Perhaps it would be easier to just drain the swamp.
Lets not forget Ms Cash and Ms Payne both, I feel, would be hard to justify their generous salary and perks. “We hear a let me be very clear about this”, I then switch off , nothing to hear here. But never a cheap from the esteemed Ms Payne. hope her electorate is in touch with her.
She’s a senator. She has no electorate. ‘Unrepresentative swill’ was, as I recall, Keating’s descriptor.
Thank you I stand corrected
or so quickly.
Well said. It would also appear that a prerequisite for female Libs is the blonde bob. I counted them one day during question time.
I have no idea what she’s sporting, but ‘bob’ is kinder than her coiffure merits.
All their “decent” female members left the party ages ago. Who wouldn’t with Scott and Peter at the helm
Agree
Nailed it. Anyway, what’s wrong with a good beheading? It stops Ley from joining a consultancy firm, or a Right-Wing lobby group, or being promoted sideways to a Liberal-stacked government venture.
Yep. She’s a real treat at question time. I’m a woman and it won’t bother me if she gets the boot. Can think of several others who could join her.
Having an ‘X’ chromosome doesn’t protect you against developing a personality disorder. It’s just that it happens so much more rarely than amongst those wearing the ‘Y’ fronts.
Egad!!! Ousting members based on a lack of ability?! That’s a slippery slope to go down. It could lead to selecting candidates on such flimsy grounds, rather than their ability to be born into an Important Family. Where would the Liberal Party end up if the blue-bloods had to compete with people who were actually competent?
Best keep the plum jobs for the inbred twits and knuckle-draggers that currently hold them.
“Best keep the plum jobs for the inbred twits and knuckle-draggers that currently hold them.”
Ahem – that’s the Nationals! ; )
To be fair, those qualities (or lack of them) seem to be pretty normal for the current LNP front bench and backbenchers.
Yes, but isn’t the same lack of discernible talent and ability apparent in most Coalition MPs? And they’re mostly men.
Whatever the circumstances, Sussan Ley should quit politics. She is not across the Voice. She has not bothered to read and learn about it despite the readily available information. And she tells Australians if they don’t know about the Voice they should vote against it. As a deputy leader of a major political party, you would expect her to be informed – after all she has an army of advisers – and to pass on the information so that voters can make an informed decision. Ley’s attitude reflects the ignorance, laziness and extremism of the permanently crippled Liberal Party. Its loss of the youth vote will become permanent for generations if the Voice fails to get up. The Liberals need smart leadership if it is ever to win another election.
But if she quits politics she will have to pay for her own trips to inspect her Gold Coast investment properties.
You’re too generous, Mr D. She’s opposed to the Voice, like the rest of them, because she knows what it is, and can’t bear the thought of it achieving its aims. Constitutional changes should only be made to benefit white people.
I see Peter Dutton is presently in the US “on leave”. I reckon he’s probably doing a crash refresher course in “How to Trash Democracy” at the “Gingrich-Bannon-Stone” College of the Dark Arts, in Florida.
With a stopover in the Cayman Islands to survey his secret wealth….
Funny how things change/stay the same. Last century it was all “ALP socialists going to Moscow to be indoctrinated”. Now the finger of suspicion (i.e. where to go to learn all about sabotaging democracy) points firmly at the USA.
Based on what I’ve seen, Dutton’s political leadership is based most closely on the old TV series Teletubbies. There are four coloured factions with oddly-shaped heads living in a Tubbytronic Superdome (“bubble”). Mischief is occasionally caused by the Noo-Noo (or “Hanson”). There are occasional hints that as many as 25 million people may live nearby and be affected by the Tubbies’ decisions, but these hints are generally discredited as “woke”, an all-purpose insult, or simply ignored.
Ley is the most awful media tout for the LNP – just the same as Dutton – always NO, with nothing constructive. And a constant sour look on her face – as though embarrassed not being among the ‘rulers’