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May 2025

Greg Sheridan on Su'SS'an Ley's Shocker of a Shadow Cabinet - a bad position made even worse

Reader Bonio and others have asked why I called SuSSan Ley's shadow cabinet a shocker.

Here's the heart of the problem - brilliantly expressed by The Australian's Greg Sheridan:

Unresolved net-zero carbon emissions.

It's bound to explode and it festers across the whole Coalition

By far the most policy competent and intellectually substantial National is Queensland senator Matt Canavan. He can’t be on the frontbench because he won’t support net zero.

A Nationals partyroom with the party’s two most effective politicians, Canavan and Barnaby Joyce, on the backbench is bound for trouble.

The one benefit of a Coalition split is we would have got a serious debate on net zero.

The Canavan position is probably shared by most Liberals.

Hastie, the hope of the Liberal side, declared he was breaking free of net zero

The question?  Why can't Australians use coal and uranium if it’s morally and politically OK to export these overseas.

Screenshot 2025-05-29 at 07.19.39

This is a weird selection of a shadow ministry and one that stores up bountiful troubles for the future.

Granted that short of complete self-immolation, which in fairness the opposition tried last week, nothing that Sussan Ley’s tribe does just now will make any difference to voters who aren’t paying attention.

There’s a noble illogicality, a determined refusal to use relevant expertise in relevant areas, and overall a studied commitment to incompetence about this shadow ministry.

Angus Taylor gets defence? Taylor as opposition Treasury spokesman in the previous term of parliament was the Coalition frontbencher most unsympathetic to making a serious financial commitment to defence.

He’s been the most sceptical of any senior Liberal about the ability of defence to make meaningful use of extra money.

Similarly, in government he did little about resilience or supply chain security.

He was surely as discredited as Peter Dutton by the election campaign and has now probably been leapfrogged in the leadership stakes by Andrew Hastie.

Michaelia Cash gets foreign affairs? This portfolio, like Treasury, is a huge opportunity in opposition because it’s always in the news.

Kevin Rudd used it brilliantly in opposition.

The Liberals have, in Dave Sharma, a superbly qualified professional diplomat, smart politically, embodies core Liberal values and knows foreign affairs intimately.

So naturally Sharma gets the smallest possible frontbench role.

All Liberal leaders seem to be instinctively hostile to colleagues who build independent media and professional profiles, which is why the great Jim Molan was never given defence.

A lot of these weird decisions store up certain future trouble.

Demoting and humiliating Jacinta Nampijinpa Price is surely the stupidest single thing Ley has done in her career.

Price made a mistake jumping from the Nationals to the Liberals. She put way too much faith in Taylor as a potential leader to replace Dutton.

Nonetheless, in a virtual cricket team that would struggle to field a suburban grade side, she is one of the only Coalition politicians to have scored a test century, so to speak.

Effective leadership means harnessing the talents of colleagues you might not necessarily like.

Keeping Price in Indigenous affairs would have been a kind of demotion, in that it wouldn’t have been a promotion.

But it would have ensured one of the Coalition’s only strong media and community performers remained an important national voice.

Ley has effectively chosen to leave Steve Waugh in the dressing room. This is monumentally stupid, morally ungenerous and will surely end in tears.

Tim Wilson is a good promotion. Dan Tehan in energy is a good choice.

And James Paterson was one of the better performers during the last term.

But the unresolved conflict over a target for net-zero carbon emissions remains in the Liberal Party. It is bound to explode in time, and it festers across the whole Coalition, as evident in the almost equally sub-optimal National Party frontbench choices.

By far the most policy competent and intellectually substantial National is Queensland senator Matt Canavan. He can’t be on the frontbench because he won’t support net zero.

A Nationals partyroom with the party’s two most effective politicians, Canavan and Barnaby Joyce, on the backbench is bound for trouble.

The one benefit of a Coalition split is we would have got a serious debate on net zero.

The Canavan position is probably shared by most Liberals.

On ABC’s Four Corners, Hastie, the hope of the Liberal side, declared he was breaking free of net zero, and the question was why Australians couldn’t use coal and uranium if it’s morally and politically OK to export these overseas.

No doubt Hastie will toe a shadow cabinet line. But the Liberal Party is bitterly divided over this as centre right parties, like the Nationals in New Zealand, and indeed whole nations like the US, are abandoning the inherently fraudulent concept of net zero.

The problem is the Liberals lack the courage of their convictions – to mount a serious critique not of climate change but of the net zero target and to campaign for an alternative passionately.

But they also lack the courage of their lack of convictions – to pretend convincingly they believe in net zero.

The new shadow cabinet is proof of the old adage: nothing is so bad that it can’t get worse.


Sussan Ley's shocker of a shadow cabinet.

Sussan Ley
Sussan Ley

Leader of the Opposition, Member for Farrer

Ted O’Brien
Ted O’Brien

Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Shadow Treasurer, Member for Fairfax

Michaelia Cash
Michaelia Cash

Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator for Western Australia

Anne Ruston
Anne Ruston

Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care, Shadow Minister for Disability and the National Disability Insurance Scheme, Shadow Minister for Sport, Senator for South Australia

Angie Bell
Angie Bell

Shadow Minister for the Environment, Shadow Minister for Youth, Member for Moncrieff

Leah Blyth
Leah Blyth

Shadow Assistant Minister for Stronger Families and Stronger Communities, Senator for South Australia

Andrew Bragg
Andrew Bragg

Shadow Minister for Housing and Homelessness, Shadow Minister for Productivity and Deregulation, Senator for New South Wales

Scott Buchholz
Scott Buchholz

Shadow Minister for Skills and Training, Member for Wright

Ross Cadell
Ross Cadell

Shadow Minister for Water, Shadow Minister for Emergency Management, Nationals Senator for New South Wales

Darren Chester
Darren Chester

Shadow Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, Member for Gippsland

Jonathon Duniam
Jonathon Duniam

Shadow Minister for Education and Early Learning, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate, Senator for Tasmania

Andrew Hastie
Andrew Hastie

Shadow Minister for Home Affairs, Member for Canning

Alex Hawke
Alex Hawke

Manager of Opposition Business in the House, Shadow Minister for Industry and Innovation, Member for Mitchell

Kevin Hogan
Kevin Hogan

Deputy Leader of the National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House, Shadow Minister for Trade, Investment and Tourism, Nationals Member for Page

Maria Kovacic
Maria Kovacic

Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition, Shadow Assistant Minister for Women, Shadow Assistant Minister for Child Protection and the Prevention of Family Violence, Senator for NSW

Julian Leeser
Julian Leeser

Shadow Attorney-General, Shadow Minister for the Arts, Member for Berowra

Kerrynne Liddle
Kerrynne Liddle

Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians, Shadow Minister for Social Services, Senator for South Australia

David Littleproud
David Littleproud

Leader of the Nationals, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Member for Maranoa

Susan McDonald
Susan McDonald

Shadow Minister for Resources and Northern Australia, Senator for Queensland

James McGrath
James McGrath

Shadow Special Minister of State, Shadow Minister for Urban Infrastructure and Cities, Shadow Minister for Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Senator for Queensland

Melissa McIntosh
Melissa McIntosh

Shadow Minister for Women, Shadow Minister for Communications, Member for Lindsay

Zoe McKenzie
Zoe McKenzie

Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education and Early Learning, Member for Flinders

Bridget McKenzie
Bridget McKenzie

Leader of the Nationals in the Senate, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development, Nationals Senator for Victoria

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price
Jacinta Nampijinpa Price

Shadow Minister for Defence Industry, and Shadow Minister for Defence Personnel, CLP Senator for NT

Matt O’Sullivan
Matt O’Sullivan

Shadow Assistant Minister for Fisheries and Forestry, Shadow Assistant Minister for Infrastructure, Senator for Western Australia

James Paterson
James Paterson

Shadow Minister for the Public Service, Shadow Minister for Finance, Shadow Minister for Government Services, Senator for Victoria

Melissa Price
Melissa Price

Shadow Minister for Science, Shadow Minister for Cyber Security, Member for Durack

Paul Scarr
Paul Scarr

Shadow Minister for Immigration, Shadow Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate, Senator for Queensland