Sussan Ley has always been searching for a narrative.

One of the first things she will tell you in any social situation is that she used to be a punk.

She rolls it out the way your eccentric aunt might drop in she once dated Robert Mugabe over family lunch.

“Well you know I used to be a punk,” Ley will start before telling you about her spiky purple hair, dog collar and nose piercing, hoping someone will say they don’t believe it.

But of course it is easy to picture Ley, born in Nigeria, moved to the UAE by her British intelligence father before being sent to boarding school and then landing in Canberra by way of Toowoomba as a teenager, finding solace in the misfits.

Ley, it seems, fit in no where.  

“I hated high school, every single day I hated it, but looked for those little bright lights and put the best face on it,” she told the NSW Migration Heritage Centre.

“People laughed at me when I spoke, particularly in Queensland. I tried as hard as possible to remove my English accent. School was hell. It was like I was waiting to leave school to be the person I always was.”

It’s not certain she ever found it.  

Ley has had several stories. She’s been a farm hand, an air traffic controller. A public servant. A member of parliament. 

She added the second ‘s’ to her name in her 20s to get a better numerology reading. She will tell you that she always felt that she was meant for something bigger.

But for someone who entered the parliament in the same year as Peter Dutton, Ley’s ‘something bigger’ never seemed to reveal itself.  

Before twisting herself into the role she believed Dutton’s deputy should fulfil, Ley was best known for resigning from the Turnbull ministry following claims she misused her travel allowance when finalising the purchase of a Gold Coast unit, something she has always denied. 

Ley entered Parliament in the same year as Dutton. Photo: ABC News

But beyond that, Ley has always appeared at pains to convince people she’s not the person they see on the parliament floor.  

That she’s more than that person who once felt so passionately about ending live sheep exporting she introduced her own private members’ bill on it, against her party’s wishes – only to abandon the cause the moment a leadership position beckoned.

But then Ley has often seemed to pretzel herself into meeting the political circumstances, even as she insists she’s not like other politicians.

In her first press conference as leader, Ley said her story “is a migrant story”, seemingly forgetting that she’s been happy to dogwhistle against migrants when it politically suits her, as it did in February last year.

“If you live in Frankston and you’ve got a problem with Victorian women being assaulted by foreign criminals, vote against Labor,” she posted last year on X.

Ley paints herself as a champion of the underdog, who is fearless in the face of bullies, calling a press conference to declare “enough is enough” after LNP colleague Michelle Landry left the house of representative chamber in tears in October 2022, after seemingly mistaking Anthony Albanese’s mocking criticism of Peter Dutton as being directed at her.

But complaints of bullying from Coalition MPs from the crossbench was defended as “passion”.

Ley was once a champion for Palestine, confounding the Parliamentary Friends of Palestine. The moment it mattered, she couldn’t back away from it fast enough. Because the only think Ley has ever proved in politics is that she believes in nothing. And maybe that makes her the perfect leader of this leftovers Liberal party

And despite doing everything she could to be what she believed the Liberal party wanted, she still needed to be saved from losing preselection battles within her own branch.

Given little choice, the Liberal party room swung towards Ley, but in the barest of majorities. 

Three of the four votes she won by will disappear in June when the Senate term expires and at least one of the incoming senators is aligned to Angus Taylor. 

More than that, grabbing onto the only functioning life raft doesn’t guarantee you survival. 

Ley has not been able to make her mark in 24 years in politics.  Being the better option compared to Angus Taylor is little more than a participation prize.  

A longtime political watcher once told me that the worse thing the Liberal party deputy leadership did was when it stopped Sussan from being Sussan. But it’s not sure that Ley has ever really known who Sussan Ley, MP is. It’s even less certain if she knows who Sussan Ley, Liberal Party leader is.

Particularly given the Liberal Party has no idea, either.

There is a lot being said about the need for unity within the Liberal Party, but to what end? 

Peter Dutton used to say that keeping the party room united was one of his greatest achievements as leader, but it did nothing to win over voters and just kept the party marching towards the cliff.

Now, the party remains locked in its culture war house of mirrors, but this time half the party room wants a different leader and the other half have backed in someone they hope will be better but is yet to decide who she is.

It’s not a glass cliff, it’s a free fall.

Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth once said that she believed women to be natural anarchists, “because you’re always operating in a male framework”.  

Ley knows all about that. But Ley the punk is now just a social tidbit. Ley the politician has mostly conformed, seemingly content with crumbs and now she’s holding the plate.

Maybe Ley the punk would have smashed it. But Ley the politician has already shown she’ll offer up whatever helps her own survival.  And that’s one way to ensure she’s not holding it for long.