Former senator Hollie Hughes has gone on a verbal rampage to defend Opposition leader Sussan Ley, accusing “the boys” who want her job of using prominent female colleagues in their efforts to undermine her. Hughes this week resigned from the Liberal Party, saying as she no longer had the ability to support Ley in the party room, she believed she could best support her from outside the party. She lashed out at Ley’s critics. “To be honest, I threw up in my mouth a little bit when I saw that big right-wing conservative group walking into the net zero meeting together [on Wednesday last week]. "And they shove [forward] three women, one who no one’s ever heard of, and two who are being used, quite frankly, by the boys who want a challenge but don’t have the gumption to go out and say anything themselves."So [they] are pushing Sarah and Jacinta out there to make these undermining comments to Sussan and I just, I think it’s disgusting.”The three women who headed the conservative group going into the meeting were Sarah Henderson, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Jessica Collins. Angus Taylor and Andrew Hastie, who both aspire to the leadership, were directly behind them. Hughes is a long time friend of Ley. She is also a fierce opponent of Taylor, who successfully promoted Collins in a NSW preselection battle before the last election. Hughes was relegated to an unwinnable position on the Liberal Senate ticket. Price hit back at the suggestion she was being used, “It’s always been the argument by raging lefties […] that I can’t think for myself, that I have to be used by others,” she said. “Just because we were walking down the hallway, in front of our colleagues, somehow we’re being used”. It was a “ridiculous notion,” she said, adding that Hughes was “clearly bitter”. Ley described Hughes as “a dear friend” but sought to avoid being drawn further into the controversy. Meanwhile Ley, while on a round of selling the opposition’s energy policy, is continuing to try to get ahead of her critics by flagging positions on other issues. She has said she will soon release an immigration policy. On Thursday she will deliver an address on defence.In the speech, released ahead of delivery, Ley says there needs to be immediate investment in defence capabilities in three areas. These are an integrated air and missile defence systema greater ability to rapidly build, deploy and resupply unmanned and autonomous weapons systems – whether aerial drones or undersea weapons systems, or systems to defend against them a greater sovereign capability for satellite connectivity. Ley warns that Australia’s fuel security “is so poor that we don’t even need to be directly involved in a regional crisis or conflict to be dangerously impacted. "All that needs to occur is for regular shipping to be disrupted from reliably flowing to Australia, and the normal functioning of our society will grind to a halt,” Ley says.“What a responsible government needs to do is make sure we have sufficient access to essential fuels to get us through the initial shock to ‘normal’ supply chains so that society continues to function. "This is why the previous Coalition government passed the Fuel Security Act in 2021 to begin introducing minimum stockholding obligations that will eventually bring us closer to our 90-day supply obligations.”She accuses the Albanese government of letting momentum fall away on this. “Most importantly, we need the government to send positive demand and regulatory signals to stimulate more investment in the domestic production of fuel here in Australia. "This should include biofuels and efuels which can help diversify our liquid fuel supply whilst also being low emissions.”Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.