View from The Hill: Could the return of Josh Frydenberg help the Liberals’ fortunes?

No matter how many times you see a leader being torn apart, the brutality of it is always shocking.

In the latest assault on Sussan Ley, Victorian senator Sarah Henderson, a rightwinger and strong opponent of net zero, declared on Friday, “I do have to say, really honestly, I do think Sussan is losing support. But I do believe in miracles, we can turn things around.

"But things are not good. I don’t support things they way they are at the moment.”

It can be said pretty confidently that Henderson doesn’t believe in miracles. She wants Ley replaced. But she didn’t take the next obvious step, which would be to call for a spill of the leadership when there’s a meeting of the Liberal Parliamentary Party.

Most observers believe Ley will be forced out by her party – the issue is how long it will take. Removing her, the party’s first female leader, this year would be seen as indecent, and (as of now) that is not expected. Anyway, the ducks are not yet in a row.

Henderson’s attack drew the predictable response, with colleagues supporting Ley and Angus Taylor, her main rival, saying he wasn’t challenging.

It was noted that Jane Hume, who has sniped at Ley after being passed over for her front bench, was supportive.

“I think Sussan has been really consistent in her messaging since she was elected. She has wanted to lower emissions, but not at any cost,” Hume said. Hume voted for Taylor. But she is a moderate – and a strong supporter of net zero, the issue of the moment.

The coming week will be hell for Ley and the opposition. If she can’t navigate it successfully, those ducks will be lining up sooner rather than later. If she does, her precarious position will be strengthened, although not permanently.

With a precision that eludes them when it comes to policy substance, the Liberals have set out a timeline for deciding their position on net zero.

On Wednesday there will be a meeting of the Liberal party room, for a general discussion.

On Thursday Liberal shadow ministers will meet. Opposition energy spokesman Dan Tehan will put a submission for the party’s policy on energy and emissions reductions.

Liberals have been told they must attend these meetings in person – they can only dial in if they are sick or overseas on parliamentary business. Some are muttering about the inconvenience.

After the Liberal shadow ministry meeting three senior Liberals and three senior Nationals will discuss “the respective party positions”. This committee will be asked to come up with a “joint Coalition position”.

That will go on Sunday to a meeting of the joint parties, held virtually, for endorsement “subject to the agreement of both parties”.

That’s the plan. If the two parties can’t get a combined policy, what happens is anyone’s guess. They could agree to disagree. The Coalition could blow up.

Last Sunday, the Nationals announced they had ditched net zero.

As of Friday, it was unclear where the Liberals will land. Certainly their present commitment to net zero by 2050 is dead. The choice is between no mention of net zero at all, or referring to it in some aspirational, long distance form. Things are fluid. The manoeuvring will continue over the next few days.

Standing back from the present imbroglio around net zero and Ley, it’s clear the Liberals have a longer term crisis over leadership.

They can replace Ley with Taylor, or even Andrew Hastie (long shot) but you wouldn’t find many observers who’d think any of them – Ley, Taylor, Hastie – could take the Liberals back to power. Nor is there anyone else in the parliamentary party who stands out.

Given the Liberals are looking at two terms in opposition at a minimum, one interesting question is whether a return to parliament by former treasurer Josh Frydenberg could help.

Frydenberg was defeated in Kooyong in 2022 by the teal Monique Ryan. He now has a senior role in the banking world. But it is well known the former treasurer still yearns for politics. He’s made sure his supporters control the Liberal party in Kooyong.

His autobiography comes out next year, which he has worked on with respected author Gideon Haigh. If Frydenberg hasn’t clarified by then whether he’ll have another crack at Kooying, the speculation will be intense.

At this year’s election, Ryan beat Liberal candidate Amelia Hamer with a two-candidate vote of 50.67-49.33%. Hamer is now running for preselection for the state Liberal seat of Malvern, which may remove the issue of Frydenberg pushing aside a woman who came close.

Kooyong has become a hard electorate for a Liberal candidate, with a high proportion of renters; on the other hand, the redistribution before the last election put some Liberal territory in. Ryan would be hard to dislodge but Frydenberg would have name recognition, having won the seat four times.

From his point of view, if he ran he would be taking a series of gambles. Kos Samaras, from RedBridge political consultancy, says he’d face three challenges in trying to reach the leadership and then make the Liberals electorally competitive. One: winning the seat. Two: winning the support of a party that’s been taken over by regional conservatives. Three: convincing that party to embrace a moderate conservative platform that would be saleable in the big cities.

For the Liberal Party, having Frydenberg in parliament would widen their leadership options, and could encourage the recruitment of some other high-profile candidates, as well as attracting more business support.

Would Frydenberg, if he were leader, be a likely vote winner? Ideologically, he’s centrist. He should be able to carry the economic debate competently. The risk would be that he was seen as a return to the past. But everything is relative and potentially he stands up well against the present Liberal top echelon.

Realistically, the next election would be the last opportunity for Frydenberg, now 54, to try for a return to politics. There will be a lot of polling in Kooyong as he weighs up his future.