Sussan Ley’s decision to remove Jacinta Nampijinpa Price from the shadow ministry may have seemed unavoidable – yet it was delayed, chaotic, and politically expensive. It’s a move that could ultimately threaten Ley’s leadership position.

Price’s explosive accusation that Labor panders to Indian-Australian voters via migration – and more importantly, her unwillingness to support Ley’s leadership – forced the Opposition Leader’s hand to remove her from the role.

But the way it unfolded guarantees that this story will echo on for weeks. It has already been a week-long distraction.

Make no mistake, Price will not quietly accept her removal – quite the contrary. She has pledged to continue advocating on migration issues, unhindered by shadow cabinet protocols, which, truthfully, she rarely adhered to in the first place.

Just imagine how outspoken she’s going to become now that she doesn’t even have to pretend to play a team game?

From the backbench, Price turns into a constant news generator with her own media platform, becoming a symbol for conservatives who believe the party has weakened. There are plenty of conservative media figures eager to amplify her views, particularly when they challenge her party leader’s stances.

Expect pointed speeches, even more pointed and strategically deployed leaks, and the kind of white-anting that slowly corrodes a leader’s authority.

And it won’t just be Price undermining Ley’s credibility – there is a network of internal party opponents willing to do the same.

Price’s comments post-dismissal – reiterating ‘mass migration’ as her main focus – serve as a mere glimpse of what’s to follow. She’ll also willingly challenge emissions targets, an issue she’s ready to champion.

As an aside, voters are concerned about high levels of immigration. But it’s important to note that, while they were higher than usual in recent years, they are now back down to levels they have been at for decades under both sides of politics.

But that doesn’t matter because more and more Australians are starting to question whether levels of immigration once accepted as necessary are still appropriate.

The context, of course, is the housing crisis.

And according to RedBridge polling, Price may even have a point when she targets Indian migrants as Labor-voting. The research apparently suggests they vote 85 per cent Labor’s way. That said, the last election was a boil-over, and migrant communities have traditionally been conservative and therefore capable of favouring the Liberal Party.

Which is why many of Price’s colleagues worry that she’s losing votes when she muses publicly – even if she appeals to some voters worried about the overall migrant intake. Either way, it’s entirely understandable that the Indian community reacted badly – and it’s also a stretch to suggest an Albo conspiracy to import Labor voters from India based on some data points indicating they might favour Labor politically.

Besides these particulars, the immediate leadership implications from this mess are obvious for the Liberals.

Ley’s victory over Angus Taylor in May was close – too close, in fact, for Ley to start losing friends now. Some of those who voted for her have already retired from Parliament when the Senate changed over on July 1.

Taylor’s camp believes it already has the numbers to successfully challenge Ley. The very mention of this fact undermines the leader, whether it’s true or not.

If the next published opinion poll shows Ley’s support sliding, the speculation around a change of leadership could shift from hypothetical to imminent. The killing season in Canberra traditionally happens in the final sitting fortnight of the year.

That now looms large.

Taylor was touted by colleagues and commentators as the standard bearer for a harder-edged form of Liberalism after the election rout, but he narrowly lost out. The fact that he is the only viable alternative to Ley right now underlines that there isn’t a great deal of talent on the Liberal Party’s frontbench.

Internal lists circulating now show Taylor marginally ahead on the counting going on behind the scenes. If Price becomes a permanent headache for Ley, the Taylor proposition will be reframed as stability rather than risk: unite the conservatives, neutralise Price by proximity, and dare the moderates to try to do the same in the aftermath of a leadership change.

It would be a case of rewarding bad behaviour, but that’s hardly an uncommon practice in the world of politics.

One problem with the Liberal Party bending to the conservative way of thinking is that Price’s rhetoric is toxic to younger voters, who Liberals already struggle to win over. Climate change action is another issue the Indigenous senator is pledging to rail against now that she’s on the backbench. For younger voters, that casts Liberals as political dinosaurs, whether that’s fair or not.

The simple fact is that the conservative side of politics is deeply divided, and the spoils of defeat make it near impossible to paper over those divisions. Finding things that moderates and conservatives within the Liberal Party agree on is getting harder.

Being so far behind Labor on the seats count after the 2025 election loss almost certainly locks defeat in at the next election, which makes it all the more difficult for any leader to maintain discipline during the interim.

Ley is struggling right now, but Taylor probably would too if he takes over. Which, of course, explains why he’s happy to wait. It’s a death spiral for the Coalition right now, and we haven’t even discussed all the divisions within the Nationals as well as between the Coalition parties.

Labor must be grinning from ear to ear – but voters shouldn’t be. Without a viable opposition, the government isn’t being held to account in the way the Westminster system requires. That’s bad for policy outcomes, and worse still for democracy.

The structural context is even worse for Ley, by the way. The moderates she is aligned with are numerically weaker after two election cycles of teal incursions and inner-city losses. The party is now anchored in outer suburban and regional seats, and the Nationals are more assertive. The merged party in Queensland makes it even tougher for moderates to compete.

That leaves Ley trying to lead a Coalition with a shrinking metropolitan footprint while defending policies meant to win those very places back. It’s a wicked problem made worse by the fact that Ley’s moderate tendencies don’t align with the views of a great many of her parliamentary colleagues.