Sussan Ley and the joy of division

There are concerns in the opposition and the government that Sussan Ley’s “weird” attack on the T-shirt Anthony Albanese wore when he returned from the United States says more about her lack of authority in a divided party room than her ability to deliver reforms she once championed.

The concerns spring from the fact that important negotiations are under way for Environment Minister Murray Watt to get the numbers in the Senate to renovate the 25-year-old laws hindering environmental protection and industrial expansion. They are made more urgent by a housing crisis needing expeditious development approvals.

Labor believes disgruntled Liberal backbenchers, who are more inclined to the combative views being urged on them by the right-wing media, may win the day. Ironically, if they do, they will likely stymie any chance of getting more business-friendly laws through the parliament, forcing the government to reach a compromise with the Greens.

Ley was the environment minister who commissioned businessman Graeme Samuel to review the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act in 2020. Samuel said Ley welcomed his recommendations at the time and flagged her willingness to implement them.

Since assuming the leadership by the narrowest of margins, however, Ley appears to have gone out of her way to shore up her credentials with her more conservative colleagues.

Why else, one incredulous minister asks, would she take her cue from a Sky News report and right-wing social media influencers with huge followings to launch an “unhinged” attack on the prime minister for wearing a Joy Division T-shirt as he got off the plane last week?

Albanese wore the shirt as he alighted his VIP jet after the 29-hour flight from the US. The prime minister had an agreement with the camera operators on the flight that he would not be videoed, so he didn’t bother with a suit. Channel Nine’s Sydney newsroom had other ideas.

Ley explained to parliament that the band’s name was taken from a wing of a Nazi concentration camp where “Jewish women were forced into sexual slavery”. She said Albanese was told of the origins of the band’s name in a 2022 podcast and admitted “that is very dark”, but in a “profound failure of judgement” he still wore it.

There is no doubt the name is steeped in the anti-Semitism of the murderous Nazi regime, but there is no suggestion the band or its fans celebrated these atrocities. The name is of a piece with the irony and alienation of the time.

It is Ley’s own judgement that is open to question. This latest attempt to generate outrage follows her kneejerk call for Australia’s ambassador to the US, Kevin Rudd, to be recalled after President Donald Trump stated his dislike of him. That call ignored Rudd’s role in the successful Albanese visit to the White House. Her colleagues failed to publicly back her then, as was the case with this week’s effort.

Ley’s comments come as the government tries to pass its long-promised environmental reforms. A senior moderate says that while the opposition has some problems with the legislation as it has been presented, the shadow minister Angie Bell is working through it and “is happy to do a deal if it can be done”.

Greens leader Larissa Waters adopts a similar attitude, saying her party is willing to work with the government and negotiate on the legislation. She says the Greens want to see environment laws that work for nature and “actually don’t see coal and gas and logging fast-tracked unabated”.

Similar concerns were raised at Labor’s partyroom meeting on Tuesday. In what was a first since the election, further assurances were sought about the proposed reforms despite work done by a caucus committee.

It is clear the caucus, with its influx of new members, many from the left, gives high priority to the environment. One member asked Murray Watt about the national interest provision, which would allow the minister to override environmental standards.

Watt emphasised it would be applied only rarely and cited defence and security implications, which he said would be formally and extensively explained.

Watt was told there was a need to also provide detailed explanations for not including a climate trigger in the legislation, in view of widespread community expectations of the Labor government on the environment. The rise of community-based climate-sensitive independents, seen in electorates such as Bean in the ACT and Fremantle in Western Australia, is clearly exercising MPs.

Since assuming the leadership by the narrowest of margins, Ley appears to have gone out of her way to shore up her credentials with her more conservative colleagues. Why else, one incredulous minister asks, would she … launch an “unhinged” attack on the prime minister..?

According to the official briefing, Watt received applause after his responses, something he is now looking for more broadly in the parliament. For that to happen, he may well need the intervention of the prime minister in negotiations when Albanese returns from a week of summiteering in Asia.

While the Greens believe Albanese would rather deal with the opposition, one cabinet minister says the Greens will be more reasonable in the end because “they are a functioning operation, unlike the Coalition”. The minister says it is critical that both pathways to passing the bill are kept open, however, because “it is too important to lose the chance”.

The release of the September quarter consumer price index on Wednesday put cost of living firmly back in the frame. The hotter than expected 1.3 per cent rise in inflation for the September quarter made an annual rate of 3.2 per cent. Underlying inflation at 3 per cent was at the top of the Reserve Bank’s range and, as the RBA governor, Michele Bullock, flagged earlier in the week, was a “material miss” for any interest rate cuts this year.

The news for the government was challenging to say the least, with electricity prices contributing in a huge way to the surge, but Treasurer Jim Chalmers seemed to be sending a none-too-subtle message to the RBA that the underlying rate remains within the target even if it is at the top of it.

Economist Brendan Rynne says that with unemployment rising, the bank should take note of its charter obligations to safeguard jobs. Rynne told ABC TV that in light of broader economic concerns, interest rates at 3.6 per cent are too high.

Rynne said the latest GDP figure showed the private side of the economy is “very weak” and “further cuts to interest rates were needed to help consumers spend and businesses grow”.

Economist Stephen Koukoulas is supportive of this view, saying “it is clear the RBA is aiming for the unemployment rate to rise further in stark breach of its mandate”.

There was more evidence this week of the shambles the Liberals have become as they tear themselves apart over reaffirming a commitment to net zero emissions by 2050.

It will be almost impossible for Ley’s leadership to survive unless she can land a credible path to achieving the Paris Agreement’s target, while at the same time keeping all her Liberal MPs in the tent. The challenge of preserving the Coalition is even more daunting with Barnaby Joyce and his “great mate” Senator Matt Canavan running rampant in their campaign against the target.

Canavan had a trainwreck interview on the ABC’s Insiders last weekend, in which he ended up supporting koalas and renewables while at the same time admitting huge government investment would be needed for his solutions of nuclear energy and new coal-fired power stations. The spectacle was no help to Ley.

Joyce’s private member’s bill on abandoning net zero, which the government keeps on the notice paper for debate, is proving a potent political tool for exposing the fissures in the opposition.

South Australian Liberal conservative Tony Pasin joined the debate on Monday, echoing Joyce’s more extreme and incredible lines: “In practice net zero is a costly illusion, a political slogan masquerading as science, imposed without honesty and absent realism.” That was just for starters.

Another South Australian Liberal, from the opposing moderate faction, Senator Andrew McLachlan, crossed the floor midweek to support a climate action private senator’s bill proposed by independent David Pocock.

The bill would require development projects to consider their future environmental impacts. It was swiftly defeated but not before McLachlan told the Senate he didn’t profess to speak on behalf of his party but it was more conservative to care for the environment.

Echoing the sentiments of the Climate Change Authority chairman, former New South Wales Liberal treasurer Matt Kean, McLachlan posted on social media, “You cannot call yourself a true conservative if you do not commit to leaving to the next generation a healthier world.”

There was more mayhem when rather than vote against a One Nation amendment to block supply until net zero measures are removed, Liberal and Nationals senators walked out of the chamber. Only two Liberals remained; the other 24 Coalition senators abstained. The stunt was defeated 38-4.

Ley seems to realise she has to put a stop to the rot, and told her party room that the consultation phase over the policy was “coming to an end”. Friday’s Liberal Party canvassing of views and options was probably the last get-together in what originally was intended as a time-buying and air-clearing exercise.

The deniers and coal champions in the Coalition are waging such a fierce campaign that Ley and moderates such as Senator McLachlan could well be forced to commit what they reasonably believe is electoral suicide.

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on
October 31, 2025 as “Sussan Ley and the joy of division”.

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