Ex-Liberal leader Sussan Ley says multicultural Australia is a success compared to the 'disconnect' she saw on Greyhound bus trip across the US

By ASHLEY NICKEL, NEWS REPORTER, AUSTRALIA Published: 15:31, 12 August 2026 | Updated: 15:37, 12 August 2026 After calling it quits on her 25-year political career, Sussan Ley hopped on a plane to the United States and then road-tripped by Greyhound bus down its dead centre. Foregoing the glamour of the east and west coasts, the ousted Liberal leader travelled the so-called 'Road to Nowhere' with a backpack and a playlist of punk rock songs from her youth, something she had daydreamed of doing for two decades. She's now returned and in recent days broken her silence for the first time since she was knifed by Angus Taylor, but it's what she saw on her trip; a weary 'disconnect' between US people and the institutions running the country, that's on her mind. Travelling incognito allowed Ley to blend in and talk with fellow passengers whom she said included vagrants, ranchers, nuns and ex-prisoners. 'The disconnection really was quite confronting,' she told the ABC's 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 (and) 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.' Former Opposition leader Sussan Ley travelled the US by Greyhound bus after she was ousted from Australian politics She was asked about the continued rise of One Nation back home since she left politics – her own seat of Farrer is now held by the party – and its founder Pauline Hanson's calls for Australian multiculturalism to be replaced with a 'monoculture'. '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,' Ley said. '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.' That being said, Ley also added comparisons between the two countries were like apples and oranges. 'I think we make a mistake if we try to draw parallels. 'If you go to the US and feel that there are immediate parallels, the first thing that hits you is that there actually are not.' Starting her trip in snowy North Dakota near the Canadian border, she finished it in the scorching heat of Texas.  She spoke to the ABC's Sarah Ferguson in her first interview since she was knifed as Liberal leader amid poor polling Ley said Australian multiculturalism was successful when asked about Pauline Hanson's push for a monoculture She navigated muddy convenience store coffee and the onslaught of fast-food choices along the way – a favoured route for undocumented immigrants to travel. In Amarillo, Texas, when lining up for hours in the terminal for a bus, she said it felt like she was in immigration detention herself and remembered her last trip there had been as health minister. Finally, she made it to Trump's wall at the bottom of Texas, where she spoke to an army officer sat in a border control van who told her, in a somewhat disappointing finale, there wasn't much to see and that photos weren't permitted anyway. Reflecting on her trip, she said despite the disconnection to authority, the camaraderie she witnessed between passengers would stay with her. What she saw among the forgotten and downtrodden was a quiet respect for each other, their backgrounds and their beliefs. This, she said, was all too often missing from the halls of power.