Newly appointed Leader of the Opposition, Sussan Ley has vowed she would continue to put the people of Farrer first.
The Member for Farrer since 2001 was elected Opposition Leader of the Liberal Party last week and is one of the longest-serving female MPs in Canberra.
Ms Ley is the first regionally based opposition leader since Alexander Downer in the 1990s.
“I don’t take my community for granted. I work hard, and I will continue to work hard for every single vote,” she told a press conference in Albury on Thursday.
“I have been putting in the work, I have been working incredibly hard over the last three years as Deputy Leader.
“And it has been a great privilege to represent the Australian community across a range of different areas, but always to fight for what we believe in. I always fight determinedly for what we believe in.
“But I do balance that with my presence here in my electorate, and on 30 of the 52 weeks of the year I am here.
“And as we go forward, I have very much in my mind that Anthony Albanese has neglected rural and regional Australia every single day that he has been Prime Minister.
“And there’s no better place for me to remind him of that than sitting at the front table in Parliament House, directly opposite him in the major policy debates that we will have.”
Ley’s promise to keep Farrer first
When asked by journalists what her agenda was as MP for Farrer, Ms Ley made a public commitment to represent her communities with passion, with determination and with conviction, as she has always done.
“I consult closely,” she said.
“Because that’s my approach.
“It’s the approach I always take when I travel from this part of western New South Wales to the capital.
“But I know the things that are really occupying the community’s minds at this point in time.
“Appalling regional telecommunications (and) a breaking-down agriculture water approach from a government that is ripping water away from the southern Murray Darling Basin in a water buyback that simply does not understand the powerful contribution that our farmers and our rural communities make to this nation as a whole and to the national income of this country.
“And as I glance around and I’m in touch with our farmers and rural communities every day, I’m worried about the season.
“It hasn’t rained.
“We haven’t had the really good rains in the autumn break, and I want to make sure that this government understands that if the drought is encroaching, they need to be ready with relief, with support, and recognition of what our farmers do for all of us.”
Ms Ley said she was delighted to have been returned for the eighth time as the Member for Farrer, and looked forward to connecting with the many different and diverse communities, with an understanding that every community is different and every community has different needs.
“And I always am ready to listen and ready to represent those needs,” she said.
“I had significant travel commitments as Deputy Leader, and of course, similarly, I will have travel commitments as the Leader.
“But if I’m in my electorate, I’m 100 per cent dedicated to my electorate.
“If I’m out of my electorate, I’m also 100 per cent dedicated to my electorate.
“The people I represent matter to me every minute of every day, 24/7, and I’m never far away.
“What that comes back to is that I don’t take a single vote for granted, and every election, I put up my hand, very conscious that the people of Farrer have a choice.
“They’ve had a choice in all of the nine elections in which they’ve chosen me, but I never take the next election, or any day for that matter, for granted when it comes to earning their trust and their respect.
“And I thank them for the faith they have placed in me, in electing me, and I will not take a single one of those expressions of faith for granted as we go forward.”
The Riverine Grazier extends sincere condolences to Ms Ley on the recent loss of her mother.
This article appeared in The Riverine Grazier, 21 May 2025.
