There was war-gaming, backgrounding and rampant speculation. But until Angus Taylor walked out to front the cameras yesterday, it was all just a warm-up.
Now, Parliament House has been plunged into its most primal state — the spill zone, where events move quickly, the dark arts are practised, and nothing can be taken for granted.
For voters watching from a distance, the spectacle may be unedifying — politicians tripping over one another to lead a party that is a shadow of its former self and has fallen behind One Nation in the opinion polls.
But even Liberals who are publicly complaining about how much time they are spending talking about themselves are positioning behind the scenes to bend the week their way.
And with many privately lukewarm about both Sussan Ley and Angus Taylor, some have even turned their minds to whether a surprise third candidate could win — just like Scott Morrison so famously did when he became prime minister back in 2018.
Here are the key players.
Sussan Ley — The leader
Sussan Ley will face a leadership challenge. (ABC News: Callum Flinn)
It is far from certain that Ley will be deposed. Her supporters are projecting confidence that she retains the support of a majority of her colleagues, at least in public. Her camp was yesterday confident enough to taunt Taylor’s bid as a “TACO spill”.
That’s short for “Taylor Always Chickens Out”, if you were wondering, a riff on a similar jibe that has circulated about Donald Trump on Wall Street.
While Ley’s acolytes hit the phones and run the numbers, she held one card up her sleeve — the ability to decide when a meeting would be held. She has now opted for Friday morning, giving her the rest of Thursday to maximise her support.
Angus Taylor — The rival
Angus Taylor is positioning for the leadership. (ABC News: Marcus Stimson)
There is a distinct reluctance about Taylor’s leadership bid. Not reluctance to lead — he put his hand up for that after the election and has harboured ambitions ever since — but over the timing.
Liberals say it was the impatience of Andrew Hastie that forced the issue. After an infamous breakfast meeting on the morning of their former colleague Katie Allen’s memorial, Hastie was convinced not to run, clearing the way for Taylor to be the sole conservative claimant.
But the Hastie camp, though backing Taylor’s bid, has pushed him to do it quickly, and moderates on the other side have also urged a swift resolution.
If he had his way, Taylor might have waited a little longer. But his supporters still project confidence he has the numbers, and tried to build momentum for him this morning with a spate of resignations.
Ted O’Brien — The loyal deputy
Ted O’Brien is trying to hang on to the deputy leadership. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)
Little-known until he became Peter Dutton’s energy spokesperson and nuclear champion, Sunshine Coast MP Ted O’Brien was catapulted into the deputy role after the election as something of a consensus candidate.
Not aligned with either of the party’s warring factions, O’Brien has found himself tethered to Ley as Taylor considers options for a woman to serve as his deputy.
But if there is no consensus for that position — and no clear candidate has yet emerged from the pack — O’Brien could hold on by default.
Could he present himself as a third option for leader instead? There were some suggestions he was sounding out colleagues about that, but a Liberal source said that was now all but ruled out, with his focus on remaining deputy.
Tim Wilson — The improbable victor?
Tim Wilson appeared to reference himself when asked who he wanted to see as leader. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)
Wilson is not short of ambition and not shy of trumpeting what he calls his unlikely and extremely narrow victory over teal independent Zoe Daniel in the seat of Goldstein in 2025, having lost that seat to Daniel as part of the “teal wave” of 2022.
So tongues were set wagging when Wilson told reporters this morning he wanted a leader with a “track record of turning impossible situations into improbable victories” — did he mean himself?
As the sole inner-city MP, the millennial Wilson could position himself as generational change and the best mouthpiece to reconnect with the urban voters who have so thoroughly deserted the Coalition.
Several Liberals said he was positioning himself as a third option for leader, with one moderate saying this would only happen if Ley “fell under the bus”, rather than Wilson running against Ley.
Whether he would have a better chance at beating Taylor is an open question, but if not the leadership, he may also seek the deputy role.
Andrew Hastie — The heir, apparently
Andrew Hastie harbours leadership ambitions. (ABC News: Ian Cutmore)
The zealous Hastie lives up to his name and is a man in a hurry. His withdrawal from the contest was in no way an abandonment of his desire to lead the party one day soon.
In his corner are a handful of younger and more recently elected conservative MPs including Phil Thompson, Henry Pike and Garth Hamilton, who has called the group the “New Liberals” on his Substack.
They are lukewarm about Taylor’s leadership bid, meaning that even if this is not Hastie’s week, his presence will remain a large one.
Conservatives say he is angling for an economic portfolio or some other domestic policy area to broaden his resume.
Jane Hume — The lone wolf
Jane Hume is positioning to be deputy leader. (ABC News: Ian Cutmore)
One consequence of the Liberals’ heavy election loss is that several of its best-known politicians are now in the Senate, where leadership contenders are not usually found.
Hume is one of those, although her stint as the party’s finance spokesperson under Peter Dutton earned her plenty of criticism, especially her ownership of the unpopular policy to make public servants work full-time in the office.
The senator has been on a journey through the party room. Though a moderate, colleagues believe she diverged from her factional colleagues to back conservative Taylor last time, and was then relegated to the backbench.
She is now positioning as a possible deputy to Taylor, but in a crowded field of candidates it’s difficult to tell whether she is the frontrunner.
James Paterson and Jonathon Duniam — The conservative brokers
James Paterson is a key supporter of Angus Taylor. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)
The two young senators have risen in stature in the smaller Liberal party room, holding down key frontbench positions — Paterson in finance after a turn in home affairs under Dutton, and Duniam in a variety of portfolios.
Regarded as more pragmatic than some of their conservative faction colleagues, the pair often play the role of envoys in disagreements with the moderates or with Ley.
Jonathon Duniam is a conservative backer of Andrew Hastie. (ABC News: Ian Cutmore)
Even as they remained in her leadership group, their involvement behind the scenes in conversations about Ley’s removal has been an open secret, and ceased to be a secret at all when they were photographed at that breakfast meeting with Taylor and Hastie.
Paterson backs Taylor and Duniam backs Hastie, so when the pair resigned from Ley’s frontbench together this morning, it carried weight. If Taylor wins with Hastie nursing continued ambitions, their relationship will be central to the party’s stability.
Anne Ruston — The moderate leader
Anne Ruston is a leading figure among moderates. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)
With factions not as formalised as the Labor Party’s, it is often difficult to say with certainty who “leads” any grouping and how much authority they command. But Ruston, another experienced senator, has been the de facto moderate spearhead.
Publicly, like the other moderates, she has been a fierce defender of Ley. But a widely reported meeting with Taylor earlier in the week hinted at more pragmatism.
While Ruston and fellow leading moderates Andrew Bragg and Maria Kovacic are in Ley’s camp, they could prove decisive if they shift behind a third candidate, or strike a power-sharing deal with Taylor if it becomes apparent he has the numbers.
Alex Hawke — The numbers man
Alex Hawke is Sussan Ley’s numbers man. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)
That question of raw numbers is the most important for any player in a leadership spill. Alex Hawke, once the lieutenant of Scott Morrison, has made his reputation on his ability to read those numbers and shape them to his advantage.
It was Hawke’s backing that helped Ley to land the job, and he is running her numbers again this week against Taylor, who is a bitter rival in New South Wales turf wars.
But colleagues say the man who executed Morrison’s third-rail challenge against Turnbull always has alternatives up his sleeve.
The Others
It is a well-worn political cliché that everyone who enters parliament wants to be leader. In a small party room, those who might otherwise have to wait years could climb the ranks quickly.
A swirl of other Liberals have had their names thrown into the ring as possible deputies, frontbenchers or even leaders, including Zoe McKenzie, Angie Bell and Melissa McIntosh, who declared her own aspirations some months ago.
Melissa McIntosh is one of a handful in the mix for deputy leader. (ABC News: Callum Flinn)
The fact that all three names are women is not a coincidence — Liberals are aware of the blowback they may face from deposing the first woman to lead the party in such a short space of time, and the Taylor camp hopes a female deputy could ease that.
The Taylor camp has been eager to emphasise that no formal joint ticket will be run this time, after its failure last time when he chose Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, who had only joined the party days earlier.
When he lost the leadership ballot, Price decided not to run for deputy, leaving Phil Thompson to step into the breach for the sake of having a contest.
It’s a reminder that the unexpected should always be expected.