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By MAX AITCHISON, POLITICAL REPORTER FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA
Published: 06:54 BST, 25 June 2025 | Updated: 06:59 BST, 25 June 2025
Sussan Ley has hinted she has experienced domestic violence during a landmark speech in which she admitted her party was ‘smashed’ in the federal election.
But she stopped short of giving any more specific details, sparking intense speculation about what she has actually endured in the past.
The first female leader in the Liberal Party’s 80-year history outlined her plan to reshape the Opposition after its historic humbling – but stopped short of unveiling any actual policies at the National Press Club on Wednesday afternoon.
‘Let’s be honest and up front about last month’s election,’ she said.
‘We didn’t just lose. We got smashed. Totally smashed.’
But it was a section of her speech addressing the ‘women of Australia’ that raised most eyebrows in the room.
‘I understand the fear you feel when you go for a walk alone. Because I have felt that fear too,’ she said.
‘I understand the pain that comes with coercion and control. Because I have felt that pain too.
Sussan Ley, the first female leader in the Liberal Party’s 80-year history, outlined her desire at the National Press Club on Wednesday afternoon to reshape the Opposition after its historic humbling – but stopped short of unveiling any actual policies
‘I understand what it is like when you blame yourself for the actions of others. Because I have blamed myself too.’
The suggestion that she had suffered domestic violence prompted questions from the media afterwards as they sought more clarity on her comments.
Phil Coorey, political editor of the Australian Financial Review, asked her: ‘You alluded towards the end of your speech that you’d had firsthand experience with domestic violence, is that correct?’
Ley, however, gave a slightly cryptic and guarded answer.
‘Many women in our communities and the rooms that we walk in have told me their personal stories and I’ve identified with them,’ she responded, declining to elaborate.
When approached for further comment, a spokesperson for Ley said: ‘She has shared what she is comfortable sharing at this point.’
Ley’s speech was her first major attempt to refashion the party in her own image.
She began it with an acknowledgement to country – a practice her former leader Peter Dutton claimed was ‘overdone’ in the last desperate week of the campaign.
Ley, 63, also discussed two separate reviews into the Liberal party’s collapse: one conducting a ‘root and branch’ review of the election result and another having a ‘deeper look at the existential issues we face’
Ley’s mother, Angela Braybrooks, died just days after Ley was elected leader of the Liberal Party (pictured: Ley delvers the eulogy at her mother’s funeral last month)
Dutton also failed to front the National Press Club once during the three years he led the Coalition.
By contrast, Anthony Albanese has addressed the club on 11 occasions since becoming Labor leader.
Ley, who began her speech by insisting she would make herself available to the Press Club during her leadership, spoke about her childhood – the quiet and bookish daughter of a British intelligence officer father and a mental health nurse mother.
Her mother, Angela Braybrooks, died just days after Ley was elected leader of the Liberal Party, with Ley reading a eulogy at her funeral last month.
Ley, a divorced mother of three and grandmother of six, certainly has had a colourful life.
‘Between graduating from school and becoming, as I described myself, a farmer’s wife, I worked my share of tough jobs: cleaner, waitress, short-order cook, roustabout – and outback pilot,’ she said.
‘I was not taken seriously in pilot training. I was nearly always the only woman in the group. The privileged boys, whose parents bankrolled their lessons, attracted more street cred than me.
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‘I lived in a bedsit under the bridge in Queanbeyan and my clothes were from Vinnies because every dollar I made went towards flying lessons.’
She said she was ‘yelled at, hit on, and then ignored’ during her bid to become a pilot.
Later, she gained three finance degrees while raising three children before entering politics.
She also sought to distinguish herself from Dutton by highlighting her ‘deep and abiding respect for the public service’.
Dutton, infamously, had to abandon his plans to force all public servants back into the office because of its deep unpopularity.
Ley, 63, also discussed two separate reviews into the Liberal Party’s collapse: one conducting a ‘root and branch’ review of the election result and another having a ‘deeper look at the existential issues we face’.
She also insisted she was a ‘zealot’ about increasing the number of Liberal women in parliament, backing quotas for female candidates.
‘As the first woman leader of our Federal Party, let me send the clearest possible message: we need to do better, recruit better, retain better and support better,’ she said.
‘That is why I will work with every Division, as will my Parliamentary team, to ensure we preselect more women for the 2028 Election.’
Only a third of Liberal Party MPs are women compared to over half of Labor MPs.
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The question that everyone is asking after new Liberal leader Sussan Ley hinted at VERY dark incidents from her past in her first major landmark speech
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