What comes next for Liberal leader Sussan Ley after the party walked away from committing to net zero?_

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The most poignant aspect of the Liberal Party’s climate change suicide is the humiliation they have so gleefully heaped upon the thin, vulnerable form of their ‘leader’ Sussan Ley.

The picture of a thundering herd of ‘no net zero’ extremists – including several women – heading down a Parliament House corridor for the meeting that would strip her leadership of any meaning was heart-rending.

That she submitted to it and continued the charade until a date to be fixed by her tormentors is a political horror show, a disgraceful ending to the latest chapter in our climate change saga. Indeed, it is so absurd that it cries out for some motive beyond mere masochism to explain it.

Does she truly believe that she’s acting in the best interests of the Liberal Party? Is she hoping that her bravery in the face of such cruelty, will somehow turn the tide? Will martyrdom at last shame the Nero’s and Caligula’s in our Italianate House of Parliament to turn thumbs up?

Honestly?

Perhaps she might consult a predecessor whose middle name foretold the rolling mutiny he endured before those same extremists ended his rule publicly and pathetically. And today? Poor Malcolm is reduced to fishy similes of piranhas and goldfish in his cry from the lonely sidelines.

But if not a Damascene conversion, what else would motivate this 54-year-old female pioneer of the Liberal Party leadership?

In classic form, she rose without a trace.

Born in Nigeria to English parents, her mother carried the surname of ‘Weston’ into the marriage, an honoured Canberra moniker from the city’s earliest days. But after a childhood in the United Arab Emirates, she arrived in Australia as a teenager, moved to Canberra where her father worked for the AFP while she attended Campbell High and Dickson College.

After marrying and settling on her husband’s family farm in north-east Victoria, she had three children, studied economics part-time at La Trobe University then joined the ATO at Albury as director of technical training from 1995 to 2001.

Alas, the marriage would end in divorce in 2004, but she rallied with a master’s degree in tax law, and, a master of accountancy at Charles Sturt Uni. She became a commercial pilot, a shearer’s cook, farmer and finally public servant based in Albury. There she quietly put some National Party noses out of joint when elected to their former leader Tim Fisher’s Farrer seat in 2001.

In the Abbott and Turnbull governments, she held various ministerial portfolios including Health, Sport, and Aged Care. She resigned from the ministry in January 2017 following a controversy over her travel expense claims, but returned in August 2018 when Scott Morrison succeeded Malcolm Turnbull as prime minister.

Continuing her glide path, she served as Assistant Minister for Regional Development and Territories and Minister for the Environment prior to the government’s defeat at the 2022 federal election.

After the 2025 poll as Deputy she became the Acting Leader and won the subsequent vote against Angus Taylor, her principal tormentor.

And the next tick on the altimeter? Up or down?

I would just cast a warning note: I have met a few shearer’s cooks in my time. They are never to be underestimated…to say nothing of that powerful ‘Weston’ bloodline.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.