Photo by Fatima Shahid on Unsplash
By Mark Kenny
A version of this article was originally published by The Canberra Times.
He is not even a Liberal, but Nationals leader David Littleproud has pulled the pin on Sussan Ley, making her removal inevitable.
The Liberals return to Canberra within a fortnight. Expect fireworks.
Already scarred by one chaotic break-up, the Ley-Littleproud relationship has now broken down irreparably. Any reunion of the two conservative parties will require revised terms and a different Liberal leader.
Yet Littleproud concedes Ley only put Nationals' frontbenchers in an impossible position because she was manoeuvred there herself by Anthony Albanese.
It was the PM's dirty pool tactics of calling Parliament back early and fixing to rush through tough laws that forced her hand, he argues, leaving her authority and indeed the whole coalition arrangement, "untenable".
It is a nice story.
In fact, it was the Opposition Leader herself who, quite opportunistically, opted to put Albanese in a bind by demanding that he recall Parliament, embrace dangerous anti-hate-speech recommendations, and call a royal commission forthwith into anti-Semitism and Islamic extremism.
Within 24 hours of the Bondi tragedy, her message to voters progressively hardened as she and others linked Labor's heel-dragging on the Jillian Segal anti-Semitism report to an atmosphere that had allowed the terrorist attack to occur.
It was only when Ley got what she so loudly insisted on, that it became clear she could not hold her own shadow cabinet together, much less the broader party rooms.
Some crossed the floor, others abstained. Who knew? Well, frankly, Ley should have.
There may be few constants in politics but one is that Liberals detest fetters on free expression and regard its protection as among their most defining values.
Just as predictably, Nats hate restrictions on gun ownership, particularly while they are under extreme pressure on their own regional turf from an ascendant One Nation.
From her severely weakened position, Ley's judgement faltered. Her swift political capitalisation of the Bondi massacre was always too easy.
It is natural for victims' families and their communities to cast about for someone to blame and to want immediate answers. Governments are an obvious target. This is understandable.
In hindsight, there was a reason Labor had proceeded slowly on Segal's report - it contained recommendations many might consider unnervingly illiberal.
Albanese was wrong-footed by the shrill political storm after the massacre and made mistakes in tone and content. But it was Ley's leadership that has been mortally damaged.
Mark Kenny is the Director of the ANU Australian Studies Institute and host of the Democracy Sausage podcast.