Almost a year after her abrupt ousting as leader of Australia’s Liberal-National Coalition, former opposition leader Sussan Ley has opened up for the first time about the fallout of the February leadership spill that ended her top political role, and the unplanned cross-country American road trip that helped her rebuild her sense of purpose.
The long-serving Member for Farrer stepped into the Liberal leadership role in 2023, but her tenure collapsed in just months amid two turbulent, public splits between the Liberal Party and its coalition partner, the Nationals. In a candid opinion piece published in *The Australian Financial Review* on Saturday, Ley described the leadership spill that removed her from office as the most catastrophic turning point of her life.
In the immediate aftermath of the spill, Ley withdrew from public life entirely: she switched off her phone, retreated from the political sphere, and spent days in reflection. Drawing on two unexpected sources of guidance, she turned to Buddhist teachings — which reminded her that “you only lose what you cling to” — and the uncompromising ethos of The Clash’s frontman Joe Strummer, who long championed radical honesty in public life.
Recalling the emotional toll of the moment, Ley compared her burnt-out state to a windscreen cracked by a falling rock: all the structural pieces remain in place, but the driver can no longer see clearly through the damage. “Recognising the symptoms of burnout does little to blunt their impact,” she wrote.
Rather than lingering on the political defeat, Ley soon acted on a long-held dream of exploring Middle America. She booked a one-way plane ticket to Los Angeles, traveled north to North Dakota, and embarked on a rambling, unscripted journey by Greyhound bus all the way to the southern tip of Texas. Traveling light, she brought just one backpack, a single pair of sturdy boots, and a playlist packed with punk music.
Along the route, she stayed in budget, modest hotels and rode alongside ordinary passengers she described as “people in transition and disarray”. Crossing through South Dakota, she noted the omnipresence of small-town convenience stores; as she moved further south into the border regions, Spanish became the primary language heard along highways, and the landscape took on the rough, unregulated energy of the historic Wild West. On her rides, she encountered people moving through the region carrying everything from cash to narcotics to undocumented migrants, she said.
During her trip, Ley made a stop to search for the controversial border wall built under former U.S. President Donald Trump, and spoke with a U.S. Border Patrol officer who declined to have his photo taken. What struck Ley most about the country was not the deep political divisions that have long defined American public life — “America has always argued with itself,” she noted — but a widespread, underlying weariness that cut across all regions and groups. While it remains a cultural truism that hard work brings success, Ley observed that many ordinary Americans now feel that working hard is no longer enough to get ahead.
By the end of her journey, Ley reached a stark conclusion about the current state of the U.S.: the country does not feel like a single unified nation, but rather a collection of separate societies that barely communicate with one another. Despite that sober observation, the trip left Ley with a renewed sense of connection to marginalized people, and she wrote that she felt “harmony with the downtrodden” while riding the public bus network across the country.
Ley contracted influenza A during her travels and returned to Australia physically unwell, but the numb, defeated feeling that had lingered since the leadership spill had completely lifted. Following her departure, Angus Taylor was selected to replace her as Liberal leader. For Ley, the weeks of traveling alongside ordinary people carrying far heavier burdens than her own helped her accept the end of her career in national leadership, and restored a clear, balanced perspective on her place in the world.