Opposition Leader Sussan Ley faces a febrile party room during the final week of parliament for the year while the government races to pass major environment reforms.
Liberal insiders insist a leadership challenge against Ms Ley is unlikely until 2026, but fights over immigration and climate change are threatening to blow up internally.
There has also been speculation a poor result in the latest Newspoll could trigger a move against Ms Ley by leadership rivals Andrew Hastie or Angus Taylor.
The well-respected poll, conducted by The Australian, revealed a small deterioration in the coalition’s two-party preferred position to trail Labor 58 to 42 per cent.
Ms Ley’s net approval rating improved but remains toxic, up from minus 33 to minus 29.
The poll also asked respondents to list their preferred coalition leader.
The party’s first female leader was the top choice of 21 per cent of respondents, just ahead of Mr Hastie on 16 per cent, and Mr Taylor on nine per cent.
Mr Hastie edges Ms Ley for support among older voters and One Nation voters.
Speaking before the Newspoll, opposition finance spokesman and senior conservative James Paterson denied his colleagues were about to dump the 63-year-old.
“Politicians are reluctant to comment on polls at the best of times, but it would be particularly unwise to comment on a poll that hasn’t even yet been published,” he told Sky News on Sunday.
“Whatever the results are … I’m sure they will say that we’ve got more work to do,” Senator Paterson said.
Mr Hastie missed parliament’s last sitting bloc after surgery on his shoulder but the Perth-based MP is scheduled to attend this week.
As Labor mounts a last-ditch push to steer long-awaited environment reforms through parliament, Environment Minister Murray Watt said the coalition’s dysfunction had made talks tricky.
“It has been difficult to conduct negotiations with the coalition over the last couple of months when they’ve been completely distracted from these sorts of issues by their leadership struggles,” Senator Watt said.
Labor wants to pass a major overhaul of Australia’s environment regulations, arguing the changes will better protect natural sites and speed up approvals of key infrastructure, energy and housing projects.
But the government needs the support of either the coalition or the Greens to get the laws through.
After offering some concessions to win the minor party’s support, Senator Watt said he was still willing to strike a deal with either side.
“I’ve said all the way through this that no one’s going to get everything they want,” he told reporters in Brisbane on Sunday.
“We are prepared to make some changes, as long as they deliver to both the environment and to business.”
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