Liberal leader Sussan Ley has been heavily criticised by Australians after holding a “listening exercise” with members of the Chinese community in Sydney, with many saying she was sounding like a Labor politician.
Ms Ley was accompanied by left-wing Liberal MP Julian Leeser and her pro-multiculturalism immigration spokesman, LNP Senator Paul Scarr, at Monday’s meeting in the migrant-majority suburb of Epping, where Australian residents have largely been replaced by Chinese immigrants.
The Opposition leader said her party needed to “course-correct” after being shunned by Chinese voters during the federal election, echoing comments made about Indians by Victorian Liberal leader Brad Battin in a special press conference for multicultural media last month.
JUST IN – Liberal Party Leader Sussan Ley has held a “listening session” with Chinese-Australian community members as part of efforts to build stronger ties with multicultural communities.
She will be touring the country to engage with other groups, with a session scheduled… pic.twitter.com/pikVGHhmJN
— Australians vs. The Agenda (@ausvstheagenda) July 7, 2025
“I freely admitted that we did not get it right, that our tone wasn’t right, and the messaging wasn’t right, and that we needed to change course, course-correct for the future,” she said afterwards,
“I think that message was well received, but I also know that the Chinese-Australian community expects ongoing dialogue from this point forward.”
Me Let added that her party was dedicated to “protecting [the Chinese community] from hate”, and said that “when we heard examples, as we did, of racism and hatred, it made us very angry and very distressed”.
She also announced that she and Mr Leeser, who is Jewish and supported the Voice to Parliament referendum, would travel to Melbourne to visit a synagogue that was left with a charred door after an alleged arson attack on Friday night.
Ms Ley proudly shared photos of the Epping roundtable on social media, but was hit with an overwhelmingly negative response, with most comments on Facebook accusing her of acting like Labor, and failing to represent Australians.
Top comments included “this is Australia”, “listening to who, the Labor party?” and “sounding more like the Labor party already”.
“You may as well run as a Labor candidate at the next election,” read the most liked response.
“Anything but Anglo Australians huh?” wrote another person.
The meeting provoked a similar response on X, including by former Liberal Party executive Matthew Camenzuli.
“Sussan Ley is talking, finally. Not about her vision for Australia or Australians. Not about unifying the nation under common purpose… toward common-sense. No,” he wrote.
“Sussan is listening, not learning. Leybor, Labor – same, same.”
The Libertarian Party NSW also weighed in, writing: “Sussan Ley and the Liberal Party have no vision. That’s why they’re embarking on a campaign of ‘listening’ to disparate interest groups about what their policies should be. Real leaders don’t follow polls, they change them. The Liberal Party has failed.”
There were huge swings to Labor from Chinese immigrant voters in last week’s federal election, following polls that showed 60% of those from non-English speaking backgrounds were likely to support Labor.
In Victoria Labor gained votes in the marginal seats of Menzies, Aston and Chisholm which all have large proportions of Chinese residents, and in Menzies the polling booths with the largest swings all had high Chinese ancestry populations.
In Box Hill, where 46% have Chinese ancestry, and both Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and then-Opposition leader Peter Dutton campaigned and promised to fund the local Lunar New Year festival, Labor won 71% of all votes.
And in Chatswood and Eastwood in the Sydney seat of Bennelong, polling booths showed swings of between 15% and 26% to Labor. Both suburbs are more than 40% Chinese.
Header image: Left, Julian Leeser, Sussan Ley and Paul Scarr after the meeting. Right, Chinese community representatives (Sussan Ley – Facebook).