{"id":891421,"date":"2026-09-14T07:24:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T07:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/891421\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T07:24:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T07:24:16","slug":"albanese-government-appoints-former-opposition-leader-sussan-ley-to-snowy-hydro-board","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/891421\/","title":{"rendered":"Albanese government appoints former opposition leader Sussan Ley to Snowy Hydro board"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Energy Minister Chris Bowen has handed Sussan Ley a shock role on the board of Snowy Hydro, months after she was dumped as opposition leader.<\/p>\n<p>The Albanese government confirmed the surprise appointment on Monday, citing Ms Ley\u2019s extensive experience in government and environmental regulation.<\/p>\n<p>Ms Ley, a former environment and water minister under Scott Morrison, will now oversee the troubled Snowy 2.0 project as it battles enormous cost blowouts.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI congratulate Sussan Ley and Merryn York on their appointments to the Snowy Hydro Board,\u201d Mr Bowen said in a statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSussan brings extensive experience in government and regional Australia, as well as a strong understanding of Snowy 2.0.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTheir combined knowledge and skill will help Snowy Hydro deliver reliable power, stronger regional economies and more Australian jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"poster-img\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/778f1810dba823b5ae6b14812f8ee283.jpeg\" data-sctrack=\"op-poster-img\" alt=\"\u2018Ridiculous contract\u2019: Snowy Hydro 2.0 could cost up to $40 billion\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The appointment marks an extraordinary comeback for Ms Ley, who only months ago declared she was walking away from public life.<\/p>\n<p>Ms Ley suffered a brutal end to her 25-year political career when Opposition Leader Angus Taylor deposed her after nine months as first female leader of the Liberal Party.<\/p>\n<p>Her downfall followed a disastrous period for the Coalition, which struggled to rebuild following its 2025 election defeat.<\/p>\n<p>Ms Ley subsequently announced she would leave politics and, in an emotional press conference after being deposed.<\/p>\n<p>But several months later, she re-emerged for her first interview since losing the leadership and revealed she had undergone a \u201cpolitical self-reckoning\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I lost the leadership &#8230; the inevitable ending of 25 years in public life, I knew that I needed to find my own voice,\u201d Ms Ley said in August.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere was a political self-reckoning for me, and I went through that process&#8230; It was about finding clarity. And I did find clarity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Snowy 2.0 was originally sold by former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull in 2017 as a roughly $2 billion project.<\/p>\n<p>However, the total cost associated with Snowy Hydro and the project has since been estimated at about $42 billion \u2013 more than 20 times the initial forecast.<\/p>\n<p>The pumped-hydro project has also been plagued by construction delays, technical problems and repeated revisions to its timetable.<\/p>\n<p>Read related topics:<a class=\"topic_tag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.news24.com.au\/topics\/angus-taylor\" data-tgev-container=\"story-topic-links\" data-tgev-label=\"Angus Taylor\" data-tgev-order=\"1\" data-tgev-metric=\"npv\" data-tgev=\"event10\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Angus Taylor<\/a><a class=\"topic_tag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.news24.com.au\/topics\/chris-bowen\" data-tgev-container=\"story-topic-links\" data-tgev-label=\"Chris Bowen\" data-tgev-order=\"2\" data-tgev-metric=\"npv\" data-tgev=\"event10\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Chris Bowen<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Energy Minister Chris Bowen has handed Sussan Ley a shock role on the board of Snowy Hydro, months&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":891422,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[16169,155074,64,8931,63,99,28486,461207,2325],"class_list":["post-891421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-albanese-government","tag-angus-taylor","tag-au","tag-auspol","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-chris-bowen","tag-snow-hydro","tag-sussan-ley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=891421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/891422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=891421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=891421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=891421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}