ANDREW GREENE: Sussan Ley’s defeat reshapes Liberal leadership and raises the stakes for Angus Taylor

In the end, the defeat for the Liberal party’s first female leader was emphatic, and even her closest supporters had realised she was on borrowed time.

“I am sad that we’ve lost our first female leader so quickly and in this fashion, but that’s politics”, one of her strongest backers told The Nightly as they emerged from the party room meeting just after 10 o’clock.

After nine turbulent months in the toughest job in politics, Sussan Ley has been brought down by the rival she originally beat to become Liberal leader after last May’s election.

Angus Taylor and his supporters have argued that the continuing dire polling for the opposition is unsustainable as it bleeds significant numbers of votes to One Nation, and they are right.

However, in highlighting poor opinion poll results as a reason to dump their leader, they have set themselves the same trap as Malcolm Turnbull did when he toppled Tony Abbott to become Opposition leader.

“We have lost 30 Newspolls in a row. It is clear that the people have made up their mind about Mr Abbott’s leadership,” Turnbull infamously declared in 2018.

Now the dreaded Newspoll test is one for Angus Taylor to carry, as he seeks to improve the fractious coalition’s standing after two comprehensive election defeats.

There will be initial goodwill for the new leader, but Taylor will now battle the same obstacles his predecessor faced: policy in-fighting, National party frictions and questions about his past mistakes in government.

And if he fails to lift the opposition’s electoral standing, you can be sure fellow leadership aspirant Andrew Hastie will be waiting in the wings, ready to pounce.