When the Apollo 13 NASA mission to the moon famously suffered a catastrophic oxygen tank explosion, astronaut commander Jim Lovell‘s radio call to Mission Control exclaimed: ‘Houston, we have a problem.’
Through a mixture of teamwork, hard yakka and outside-the-box thinking, the NASA collective managed to safely steer the mission home. They never made it to the moon, but the team’s ability to ‘work the problem’ and successfully re-enter Earth’s atmosphere turned the failed mission into NASA’s finest hour.
Fifty-five years on, in Australia, the Liberal Party has a problem – a big problem. Having suffered a catastrophic defeat at the federal election earlier this year, what’s left of its parliamentary party is a hollowed-out rump.
There are only 43 Coalition seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives, but that total includes 15 Nationals. The Liberal Party only holds a paltry 28 lower house seats.
The tensions within the Coalition are its own problem. There are no guarantees the coalition will hold, or that new right-of-centre parties won’t rise up. It’s a mess.
The electoral carnage in May has also left the remaining Liberals in a state of disarray as the major party tries to understand its purpose going forward, and who can play the lead roles in wrestling back government from Labor.
For decades, the Liberal Party was seen as the natural party of government at the federal level, dominating elections and time in office since the post-WWII period. That dominance might well be over now.
At the very least, the Liberals look set to be consigned to opposition for at least the next two terms, meaning that future leaders and senior members when it next returns to power are likely to be next-generation candidates.
Three key figures in the Liberals, including Andrew Hastie, must put their differences aside if they want to be serious contenders to lead the party back into government
By definition, with so few lower house MPs to choose from right now, future leadership options are thin on the ground. It may well be that the next Liberal prime minister isn’t even in parliament yet. Or they will need to recycle someone who lost their seat but is willing to return to Canberra to try again.
It’s a dire state of affairs, and that’s before even discussing the policy disagreements within what’s left of the team – on the net zero emissions target, on immigration levels, and what to do on the economic front.
Put simply, Liberals are all over the place, and their disagreements might not be reconciled without things getting worse before they get better.
If we assume that time in opposition will burn through some of the older MPs who previously held senior positions in Liberal governments led by the likes of Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison, there aren’t many names to choose from in the search for the next Liberal messiah.
The major party of the right has never been great at courting women or younger voters, which is reflected in its ageing, male-dominated ranks.
Working out who are the ones to watch for the rebuild is a limiting exercise. Working within such confines, the triumvirate of names who need to put their differences aside and find common ground to help return the Coalition to power are Tim Wilson, Andrew Hastie and Melissa McIntosh. They are all in their 40s and have spent time in government before the wipeout, albeit in junior roles.
Whether they have what it takes to lead the rebuild remains questionable. But right now, they represent the side’s best hope for generational change.
An important fourth name in the mix is Senator James Paterson. He is just 37, but already a wise head playing a calming role. Unlike the lower house contenders of the future who might flame out quickly if they don’t succeed, Paterson will be in it for the long haul.
Shadow Minister for Industrial Relations Tim Wilson is a Liberal moderate, openly gay and, like Hastie, also driven by ideological convictions. He defines himself by his economic goals
The Victorian senator is articulate, policy driven and a realist capable of playing a team game in the name of returning to power. He has the potential to become what Robert Hill and then Nick Minchin were for John Howard in the Senate in a forthcoming Coalition government.
Even if that moment is still a long way off.
Hastie, 43, has made headlines recently, butting heads with party leader Sussan Ley on matters of immigration and the net zero target. Hastie has moved to the backbench with plans to develop a manifesto for the future – his pitch for how the Liberal Party can remake itself and, no doubt, why he’s the man for the job.
The former SAS officer has already been in parliament for a decade, a gruelling slog for an MP based in Western Australia.
But Hastie is an ideologue and a religious conservative. While he may be a natural leader of the party’s conservative right, there are real questions over whether Hastie can work with colleagues who don’t share his worldview. His rigidity could become a barrier to the sort of teamwork needed to lead a major political party in a preferential system with compulsory voting that must capture the middle ground to succeed.
We’ll know more when we see his manifesto in the months – or years – ahead.
Wilson, 45, is a Liberal moderate, openly gay and also driven by ideological convictions. He defines himself by his economic goals and won’t be afraid to spell out an alternative agenda that includes remodelling the broken tax-and-spend system.
That kind of policy platform isn’t typically considered ‘retail politics’ – the kind of easily digestible, vote-winning promises oppositions usually rely on – but Wilson has proven himself capable of winning tough fights: he was the only Liberal to reclaim a seat from a teal independent, returning to parliament after losing under Morrison’s leadership in 2022.
The challenge for Wilson will be to find a way to help his party reclaim city seats. One of the most telling features of the 2025 election defeat was the loss of urban electorates. That trend was already well-established before the last election, but a bad situation got even worse. Appealing to voters who reside in these all-important electorates is a key element of a Coalition comeback – assuming that it’s achievable without losing regional and outer metro seats in the process.
Shadow Communications Minister Melissa McIntosh is seen as an exemplar of how Liberals can avoid the out-of-touch tag they are so often labelled with
McIntosh, 48, is an endangered species inside the parliamentary Liberal Party: a woman holding a once-Labor marginal seat in western Sydney. Yet she’s done so since 2019, and she is seen as an exemplar of how Liberals can avoid the out-of-touch tag they are so often labelled with.
While some of her colleagues say she’s got enormous potential, others see her limitations – a familiar dynamic in a party that has long struggled to attract and retain women. She isn’t defined by her gender, but in a party with a poor record of attracting female voters and candidates, her presence is optically important.
As shadow communications minister, McIntosh showed this week she can land blows in parliament, taking Labor to task over its failures in the Optus scandal. More importantly, she’s positioned to drive the Liberal pitch in crucial outer metro seats, where her focus on local infrastructure hits the kind of bread-and-butter issues that resonate with voters – when done properly.
In time, as the current crop of older hangers-on from past Coalition glories falls or moves on, these emerging names could become the Liberal Party’s best shot at returning to government.
But only if they find a way to work together, with a long-term plan to reshape the party’s future. That will involve compromises to maintain the big-tent credentials of the Liberal brand – without appearing compromised in the process.
It’s a tough ask.
An important fourth name in the mix is Senator James Paterson (centre). He is just 37, but already a wise head playing a calming role – he will be in it for the long haul
We’ll get a much better picture of what the future for the Liberals looks like after the next election, which is still more than two years off. But that election is already lost – make no mistake. Turning this year’s defeat into victory next time is near-impossible.
How the next election is lost will matter – and the groundwork laid between now and then will shape whether the Coalition can rebuild a core base of seats and credibility. Only then can it mount a serious challenge for power in the election after next.
The long haul of opposition must be a depressing thought for Liberals used to occupying the government benches – but it’s also an opportunity to do what the party failed to do after Howard’s defeat in 2007.
Things looked dire back then too, but Labor stumbled in government, and the scale of Howard’s defeat was overstated. That allowed the Coalition to fight its way back into power – not by selling a compelling alternative, but by relentlessly attacking the government of the day.
This time around, it will need to do both. Oppositions are always negative – it’s part of their job. But when the voting public decides you’re a joke to the point where they would rather stick with a government they don’t particularly rate, more is needed.
Liberals need to convince mainstream Australia that they offer an alternative vision worth voting for. But they first have to settle on what that actually is for themselves.
