Ousted Coalition leader Sussan Ley has made a heartfelt defence of multiculturalism as sections of the Australian political landscape call for its scrapping.

“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 said.

She was speaking after a visit to the US, which is seeing the fraying of social cohesion.

“I’m not a political commentator for the US, but I didn’t see communities melting together like I see here,” Ms ley told the ABC’s 7.70 Report. 

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

The first female leader of the Liberal-National Party Coalition, Ms Ley was axed as Opposition Leader after just 276 days.

She says the experience led to a life-changing re-evaluation and on her trip through the US she developed empathy for the downtrodden of middle America.

Travelling largely on Greyhound buses, Ms Ley saw as in US 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. 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,” Ms Ley said.

The US trip was first conceived of 20 years ago and along the way she says she saw the true America and met “a lot of sketchy and strange characters”.

“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,” she said.

Riding Greyhound buses has long been a rite of passage in the US and Ms Ley said her time spent travelling on them revealed much 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,” she 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,” Ms Ley said.

She said she developed a sense that “overlooked” Americans had developed a disconnect from the political class.

“The disconnection really was quite confronting. 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. 

“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.”

Ms Ley’s trip has coincided with the rise of One Nation, which has risen in the polls with leader Pauline Hanson receiving media coverage and attention, not least for meeting with far-right convicted criminal and anti-migration activist Tommy Robinson.

Ms Hanson has also drawn criticism over her comments that she wants to make Australia a ‘monocultural’ society.