'Incredible disconnection': What Sussan Ley saw in the US shocked her

After 276 days as the first female leader of the Coalition, Sussan Ley was axed as Opposition leader. It led to a life-changing and eye-opening experience as she found solitude, her voice and an empathy for the downtrodden of middle America while on its ‘road to nowhere’.

Here, on a series of Greyhound buses, Ms Ley saw the United States. She saw a dispassionate and divided nation but one that cannot be compared to Australia.

“I think we make a mistake if we try to draw parallels,” Ms Ley told 7.30 in her first interview since exiting politics.

“And if you go to the US and feel that there are immediate parallels, well, the first thing that hits you is that there actually are not.”

While Ms Ley was away and out of the spotlight, the rise of One Nation has continued.

David Farley becoming the member for her former seat of Farrer was just the beginning.

The party has soared in opinion polls and its leader Pauline Hanson has captured plenty of attention and coverage.

Senator Hanson’s meeting with convicted criminal and far-right activist Tommy Robinson courted controversy but it has been her comments about wanting to make Australia a monocultural society that have drawn much discussion.

Ms Ley said her visit to the US only strengthened her view of the success of multiculturalism in Australia.

“I am a huge supporter of the Australian multicultural project for the simple reason that we have been able to achieve multicultural Australia not by erasing people’s differences but by giving them space to belong,” Ms Ley told 7.30.

“I’m not a political commentator for the US, but I didn’t see communities melting together like I see here. 

“In fact, I saw different communities from different backgrounds sitting very uncomfortably alongside each other.”

Prisoners, nuns and homeless travel companions

Asked if that meant that One Nation had got it wrong Ms Ley was noncommittal but said what she also saw in the US was a clear disconnect between the elite political class and those she travelled with.

As she travelled on those Greyhound buses — with  “a lot of sketchy and strange characters” — on a journey she had dreamt up more than two decades ago, Ms Ley said she found the true US.

It was a surprising reckoning.

“I always felt that to the views of America that tourists had, that the media had, that we hear so much in the Zeitgeist, the view from Disneyland, the Statue of Liberty, Yosemite, Vegas, were just not the real America. 

While the trip Ms Ley undertook was hardly the glitz and glamour of driving Pacific Coast Highway or Route 66 it removed some of the romanticism that usually surrounds the notion of the great American road trip.

The Greyhound bus has long been a cheaper option for the masses but what Ms Ley saw and heard revealed more about modern day USA.

“In some states, you get a ticket to get on the Greyhound if you’re homeless and the state wants you to leave,” Ms Ley said.

“There were some returning prisoners, there were some nuns, there were veterans, there were many assistance dogs. 

“I saw very, very few children. 

“There’s several buses to get from the top of North Dakota to the bottom of Texas but it’s hard to describe the expression on someone’s face that comes from a lifetime of being overlooked.

“When I sat next to people and saw them in their most unguarded moments, the gap between what they hopefully looked into a future with and the reality that gradually settled on them was apparent. 

“And what I mean by that is that I was often in awe of the dignity and the humanity of so many people that I travelled with.”

America’s ‘incredible disconnection’

Asked what she learned about those “overlooked” Americans, Ms Ley said it was their disconnect from the political class that confronted her.

“The disconnection really was quite confronting,” she told 7.30.

“I expected as I travelled to still see that clenched fist sense of pride in the US, in the flag, in the identity of the country. 

“I’ve got to be honest, I didn’t see that.

“I saw disconnection as a human condition rather than a political constituency. And people were simply not interested in the institutions and the organisations that ostensibly are there to represent them, to look after them and to be there for them. 

“If you look back over history, you see the public in America and obviously around the world engaged, active, angry. What I saw was just an incredible stepping back and disinterest.”

Asked to reconcile her understanding of the downtrodden, Ms Ley said it had been a constant.

“It was always there,” she said.

Ms Ley said now that she has returned she will not be back in politics. That chapter is closed and she has no regrets.

“If I think about my time in politics, I’m proud of what I achieved,” she said.

“I don’t dwell on it because I’m very much focused on the next chapter of my life.”

What that is Ms Ley says she is still unsure of but hopes it leads to a better Australia.

“I want to contribute to public life for the benefit of my grandchildren and their future in this country and to make it a better place,” she said.

“How that happens, I’m not yet sure, but I am committed to that mission.”

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