If we needed any more evidence that the Coalition’s political stocks were tanking, the prospect of three leadership changes in two weeks might be it.

The federal opposition leader, Sussan Ley, is under extreme pressure ahead of the last parliamentary sitting week of the year, while Victoria’s Liberal leader, Brad Battin, was rolled in his party room on Tuesday. In New South Wales, Mark Speakman appears to be on borrowed time.

Battin, the first of the group to fall, has been replaced by first-term MP Jess Wilson, a year out from a state election where the Labor premier, Jacinta Allan, faces her first major test with voters.

While Liberals in Canberra stress a challenge against Ley is not imminent, her ability to survive beyond the summer break is in no way assured. Speakman could also be challenged on Thursday. And it is less than 10 days since the ACT Liberal opposition imploded and a former talk radio host was installed as leader.

How can this outbreak of rock-bottom political performances be explained?

Ley and Speakman have had to pick up the pieces for their parties after Labor victories. Anthony Albanese defied predictions and won a huge majority against Peter Dutton, while Chris Minns easily ousted the former Perrottet government in NSW in March 2023.

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Battin struggled to unite his deeply divided party over the past year, offering a nearly unrelenting focus on Victoria’s crime problem that failed to cut through with voters. Despite replacing John Pesutto just before Christmas, the former police officer was unable to heal the wounds of the Moira Deeming fiasco or land lasting blows on the 11-year-old state government. When Daniel Andrews handed the leadership to Allan two years ago, some saw it as a hospital pass. Instead, Labor has growing confidence it can win a fourth term.

Nationally – and in Victoria and NSW – the Liberal brand is on the nose with voters.

On climate, gender and culture wars, the party appears as if it’s from another era. A poll in the Australian Financial Review this week had the Coalition’s primary vote at a record low 24%. Next Monday’s Newspoll in the Australian could seal Ley’s fate.

‘At 35, she offers a fresh face against an increasingly tired Labor government’ … Victoria’s new Liberal leader Jess Wilson. Photograph: Joel Carrett/AAP

Like in South Australia – where the Liberal leader, Vincent Tarzia, is badly behind in the polls – Labor administrations federally and in NSW and Victoria have been rewarded for delivering on their political promises and focusing on voters’ most pressing concerns, including the cost of living.

Like Albanese, Minns and the South Australian premier, Peter Malinauskas, are working to capture and hold the centre of politics, appealing to broad constituencies of voters, offering outreach to business and other usually Coalition-friendly groups – all in a bid to marginalise the opposition as much as possible.

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‘Ley and Speakman have had to pick up the pieces for their parties after Labor victories’ … the NSW opposition leader with his deputy Natalie Ward (left) and MP Kellie Sloane. Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAP

Wilson won praise for immediately signalling a change of approach to focus on issues, including housing, Victoria’s massive public debt and cost of living. At 35, she offers a fresh face against an increasingly tired Labor government and has pledged to bring the fight up to Allan more effectively than the blokes.

But the foundational problems are likely to remain for the Liberals, and the Coalition more broadly. Their traditional voter base is ageing, or abandoning them for teal independents and even Labor, in part due to policy divides, dysfunction and dinosaur thinking on issues such as climate change.

Equally, the party’s administrative organisations and branches appear cooked and in bad need of reform. To this end, Ley has tasked the experienced party strategist and Queensland senator James McGrath with a root and branch review of the divisions and membership processes.

It’s often said political parties unable to govern themselves can’t govern anyone else, something Ley and her potentially endangered Liberal colleagues would do well to remember.

Tom McIlroy is Guardian Australia’s political editor