She’s survived the killing season with her leadership intact; now she’s planning her next battle

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley will release new policies to woo back women voters and reverse years of reluctance to fight Labor on industrial relations as she tries to reset her faltering leadership over summer.

In an interview with this masthead’s Inside Politics podcast, Ley pledged to outline an agenda to boost the paltry 28 per cent vote the Coalition received among women at the election, flagging a promise to overhaul the childcare system to give families more choice.

“I will be looking at [policies for women] very early next year,” Ley said.

“I feel a particular affinity with working mums because when I was in those years of my life, it was chaos, and you went to bed exhausted and you thought, no one’s happy.

“The prime minister talks about universal childcare as if everyone wants something that looks like this. Well, everyone doesn’t. Some people might. Some people might vary what they want depending on their own personal circumstances … We’re the party of freedom and choice.”

After a series of Liberal leaders avoided fights with Labor on workers’ rights following the WorkChoices backlash in John Howard’s final term, Ley said she “absolutely” wanted to start a new battle with the government after it passed a suite of pro-union policies last term.

Industrial relations spokesman Tim Wilson is developing an agenda on workplace flexibility and small businesses.

Ley insisted she was optimistic about her future as leader after weeks of turmoil over energy policy and speculation the party would switch to right-wingers Andrew Hastie or Angus Taylor in the early months of next year.

Even Ley’s close allies admit she will struggle to keep her spot beyond the budget reply next May if the Coalition’s primary vote remained in the mid-20s in this masthead’s Resolve Political Monitor and other polls.

Ley claimed it was natural that polling numbers would be so low after a record election loss and time spent on infighting over policy and personality. But she suggested she had turned a corner after a parliamentary week in which Ley’s backbenchers were more enthusiastic than normal as she attacked Energy and Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen for his presidency of the COP climate summit.

Ley said her two recent keynote speeches on economic policy, in which she pledged tax cuts that former Coalition leader Peter Dutton contentiously did not offer, had been under-reported and overlooked.

“We had the worst ever result in May, and I knew that the first six months, there would be a lot going on in order to set our party up with the policy settings that we need,” she said.

“I wasn’t going to come out of that election and say, ‘Okay, these are our policies; I’ve got it all worked out, here we go’. Because of that result, it’s been important to take the time to get it right, and I’m pleased that I have.”

Ley was heavily criticised by her own colleagues, particularly Moderates who installed her in the job, for failing to make clear her own view in the policy debate over the 2050 net zero target when she was pushed by conservatives to dump the pledge.

Colleagues differed on what they thought she wanted and even in the final party room meeting, she did not declare her hand.

“I accept that when the people see any political party talking about themselves, they mark us down,” Ley said.

“So I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing because it matters to the Australian people that we have the strongest possible opposition fighting a pretty awful government.”

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