CAMERON MILNER: The Liberal Party needs to dump Sussan Ley as leader and bring in Josh Frydenberg

Having made the call to dump net zero, the Liberals now need to do the same with Sussan Ley.

All options for the next leader need to be on the table. Having broken conventional wisdom on climate it is also time to shake up political convention with their next leader.

Ley is so bad she’ll almost certainly stuff up the party’s focus on “cheaper, better, fairer” energy and if allowed, will trip, stumble and bumble her way to trashing the biggest political advantage the Coalition has over Labor.

She’s a dead woman walking. The electorate hasn’t warmed to her and they won’t. While some Liberals will be concerned the sky will fall in if a woman is deposed as leader, the reality is gender is no excuse for being hopeless at the job.

Some Liberals will be concerned about Labor’s joy in further division, but Ley will tear them apart if the move on net zero doesn’t result in a massive bounce in the polls.

Having got the message right on the climate of cost of living, the Liberals need to finish the job and change the messenger now too.

The task is to find an articulate challenger to the insipid Anthony Albanese.

Labor’s do-nothing agenda is vulnerable. Albanese runs from making any decision. His kneecapping of his Treasurer Jim Chalmers on superannuation changes — one of the few new ideas his Government has entertained — shows just how sensitive Albanese is to criticism.

Albanese is the archetypal hollow man. Between the idea and the action falls the Albo.

His Government won’t ever be remembered like that of Whitlam or other Labor greats, because after three and half years in office, there’s not one Labor signature policy implemented.

There’s lots of wheel spinning and slip sliding, but very little of anything to show other than time in office which is a pretty pathetic end in itself, especially for Labor people who want to use government to effect lasting change.

By dumping net zero, the Liberals and the National’s finally have a retail proposition for voters.

Tellingly, Albanese didn’t rush to some beach and claim that the ocean would rise uncontrollably this weekend. Instead he did a tour of the new Melbourne Metro and backed in Premier Jacinta Allan’s “adult crime, adult time laws”. Even he knows how much a problem Labor now has on climate.

The Prime Minister’s attack dog Penny Wong was sent out on Sunday to bully the Coalition about climate denialism.

Perhaps it is dawning on Labor that people really did want their promised $275 a year off their power bills.

Cost of living is worsening every week and even the relief of three interest rate cuts are now factored in and largely forgotten as the RBA warns inflation is rising.

Having been a close observer of UK politics, especially since the Brexit referendum eight years ago, it’s worth noting just how quickly politics changes.

Sir Keir Starmer won a landslide victory just 16 months ago with a small target strategy. Yet now there is open speculation of a leadership change and condemnation of his chief of staff and the lack of political co-ordination coming from 10 Downing Street.

Starmer’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney has made himself the issue, much like Alister Jordan did when he was ringing around for Kevin Rudd, bagging out Julia Gillard in 2010.

The point is that what passes for considered political wisdom from the Canberra commentariat is so often behind where the electoral mood has already shifted.

The reality is that drinking the Canberra climate action Kool Aid has missed the lived experience of millions of voters doing it genuinely tough.

Power bills and their constant rise are felt by all voters. From failing manufacturers to businesses struggling to keep the lights on, electricity and its cost is a foundational issue.

The Liberals have got the politics on climate right. Now they just need the right leader to prosecute the argument.

Angus Taylor was a failure as shadow treasurer, taking a policy of higher taxes and bigger deficits to the last election. He wins the Alan Bond prize for politics. For Jim Chalmers, Taylor just the gift that kept on giving.

Andrew Hastie looks the part, but remains largely untested. He clearly got the mood right on net zero, but that didn’t take electoral genius. The question is whether he’s a genuine protagonist or just a pretender.

Tim Wilson has the ambition and can clearly cut through. His seat margin will be raised by naysayers, but the reality is anyone concerned about the Liberals’ policy on climate is already voting teal, Green or Labor anyway.

The most sensible approach would be to draft the most talented Liberal future leader to the cause: Josh Frydenberg.

His clear-eyed leadership on anti-Semitism isn’t just driven by personal belief, but what’s actually best for Australia. He provided a voice of leadership so clearly missing from both Labor and Ley.

There are the electoral mechanics to work through, but the LNP did it with Campbell Newman and crushed Labor in Queensland.

It’s also worth noting a recent utterance from the ALP national president Wayne Swan. He’s kept a low profile after calling for an election with a cyclone bearing down on Brisbane.

His observation that even with 94 seats, Labor’s electoral support was a mile wide and an inch deep was deeply unpopular among the Albanistas.

It probably cost him any last chance of a diplomatic sinecure, with Wong instead giving the UK High Commissioner gig to her former boyfriend, Jay Weatherill.

But for once, Swan was actually right. Albanese’s Labor is a pale imitation of the real thing. Its primary is at historic lows and the last election was about the Liberals losing, not Labor winning.

The Liberals have finally found the chutzpah to dump net zero. Starmer shows how a do-nothing government can have its very own emperor has no clothes moment with voters.

The Liberals have the cost-of-living policy contrast, have picked the electoral politics, and now they need to pick a new leader. Having broken convention on climate, maybe it is also time to break convention again and back in Frydenberg as their very best and brightest.