Australia’s liberal opposition chooses the first female leader

The Liberal Center-Right Party of Australia has elected Sussan Ley as the new leader, the first woman to lead the party since its founding in 1944, taking on the task of leading the opposition to the government after a devastating election loss 10 days ago.

Ley is also the first woman to lead the opposition of Australia in the history of the country. The First Female Prime Minister of the Nation, Julia Gillard, became leader of the Labor Party in 2010 while in charge.

A former Shearers chefs and aerial traffic controller, Ley, has served as Minister of Health and Minister of the Environment in the Coalition Government, which has maintained power since 2013 until he was defeated by Prime Minister Anthony Albananese in 2022. For the past three years he has been the party’s Deputy Director.

Ley is considered a moderate that his opponent Angus Taylor, who defeated in a leadership voting for 29 votes to 25, who can foresee a game’s play to the central ground after his defeat.

“We need to have a liberal party that respects modern Australia, which reflects modern Australia and represents modern Australia,” Ley said in his first press conference in Canberra after taking the role. “I want to do things differently and we have to have a fresh approach.”

Ley largely avoided the governing policies inside or outside after elevation to party leadership. While he said he supported the reduction of carbon emissions, he did not pledge to maintain a zero clean emission policy by 2050.

The new liberal leader is also the first to represent an important city seat in more than four decades, his Farrer electorate is in the country of New South Wales, emphasizing the growing erosion of support for liberal-national coalition in urban centers in Australia. He will have to win the city voters again for the next three years.

Ley will face an upward battle to return to government in the next election, from 2028, after the coalition suffered its worst defeat since its inception in the vote of May 3.

As a last count, the labor government leads in 94 of the 150 seats in the lower house of Parliament, according to the Australian election commission, with the coalition with only 43. In comparison, before the 2022 election, it occupied 77 seats.

Both the liberal senators and the representatives of the lower house voted for leadership voting.

The news occurred after the Albanians swore to their new cabinet on Tuesday morning, with a large extent unchanged ministers, including treasurer Jim Chalmers and Foreign Minister Penny Wong. However, the factor power plays in the shadow of the new team, both with the Attorney General and the Minister of Industry of the Albananese first term, who launched their portfolios.

The Albanians will travel to Indonesia on Wednesday to meet with President Prabowo Subianto, a first symbolic journey since his re-election to highlight the importance of the vast archipelago in northern Australia.

This story originally presented to Fortune.com

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