To survive, Angus Taylor's Liberals must now get over their self-obsession

The people inside Parliament House have a tendency to obsess over themselves.

They fight fiercely over ideas and proposals that have significant consequences for the country — but politicians, staffers and the media also turn the knives inwards.

And for several elections (remember, time in parliament house is counted not in years, but in election cycles), the public has grown weary.

In particular, it has grown weary of the Coalition, which does not look all that different to when it was turfed four years ago and has made little progress on internal differences in the election cycles since.

And Liberal attention has been on itself, despite a result so terrible that there are fears the 80-year-old party might not exist by the next election cycle.

The party says it's a necessary fight over its soul — in order to guarantee its future, the Liberals first must sort out where they are heading.

But by this week there were no MPs suggesting the messy coup, begun by Andrew Hastie and finished by Angus Taylor, had done anything to help the party, address the problems of ordinary people, or resolve tensions laid bare in May's election defeat.

Taylor, standing at the opposition partyroom lectern where Ley had stood nine months ago, admitted the party had stopped listening to the public in favour of itself.

Now that it's over with, there is a genuine appetite to pull together along whatever path Taylor and his deputy Jane Hume lead the Coalition.

Ted O'Brien, who was deposed as deputy Liberal leader today, was keen to set the tone for those who lost in the 34-17 spill, saying they should not harbour ill will against the new leadership.

"You have got to genuinely trust the collective wisdom of the room, and I do," O'Brien said.

The party hopes it can pull out of its nosedive by dumping Ley, but Taylor and Hume now have to build the plane mid-term, while it is flying.

The pure frustration among MPs over the party's plummeting popularity is the pair's best tool for uniting the Liberal Party and putting it back on course.

'Change or die'

But Taylor also inherits some of the same problems as Ley — including an agitated right, which has swung behind him even though it was expressing loyalties to Andrew Hastie only weeks ago.

There are MPs who suspect they will be returning to the partyroom sometime before the election to deal with a new leadership challenge.

If they cannot get it together, then as Taylor has warned, they will "die".

The party has already been fighting on two fronts — against independents who have picked off urban seats over several elections, and One Nation, which has not yet taken seats, but is polling above the Coalition.

The insurgency within its own ranks, stirred up by those threats from independents and One Nation, has ironically meant that the Liberals have not been able to deal with either.

Stepping down in order to give Taylor "clear air", Ley's retirement could also set up a difficult contest for the Liberals emblematic of their predicament — the seat is being eyed by independents, One Nation and the Liberals' junior Coalition partner, the Nationals.

The leader for this moment

It puts the Liberal Party on a short timeline to offer a compelling case to voters that it has answers for their concerns on the cost of living, housing, migration and energy — and to show it can agree with itself for long enough to do something about them.

When Ley took on the leadership, she wrote that "in politics, just like flying, you need focus, discipline and nerve".

"I am the leader for this moment. I am here to listen, to rebuild and to modernise the Liberal Party," Ley wrote.

"I intend on steering my party skyward, into smooth air and sunlight."

Looking up from the dark of rock bottom, the Liberal Party has decided that Ley is not the leader for this moment.

Taylor said today that "what fits the times" is a return to the familiar — restoring home ownership, standards of living and traditional values.

The question will be whether the Liberals have listened to Australians, or if they have just been listening to themselves.