MARK RILEY: Ley passed a key leadership test, but Jacinta Price saga still exposes division in Liberal party

Sussan Ley has passed the first big test of her leadership.

Tougher ones are ahead.

Most will be about policy.

But Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s defiance this week signals that the Liberal Party’s right wing will also make it personal.

There are some on the conservative side of the party’s aisle who still have not accepted Ley’s election as a moderate leader.

A few never will.

Tearing away at her authority so soon after the most disastrous election defeat since Menzies formed the party will only ensure its support in urban seats sinks even further.

But that doesn’t seem to matter.

Nor does it appear to trouble the arch conservatives that the party’s shift to the right under Peter Dutton on cultural, climate and migration issues was a major contributor to near wipe-out in metropolitan and outer-suburban seats across the country.

Like the infamous US major in the Vietnam War, some in the right appear to believe they have to burn down the village in order to save the villagers.

Price’s public challenge to Ley’s authority this week wasn’t just a display of individual wilfulness and disrespect. It exposed a more deep-seated ideological divide within the Liberals that will continue to put Ley’s command of the party under attack until the right seizes back control.

The climate debate now looms as Ley’s most dangerous challenge

Ley has made a good start as leader. She has been measured and reasonable in her approach. She says she has heard the messages from voters. More importantly, she promises to heed them.

And she has just registered her first big policy win in the Parliament, forcing a Government backflip on fast-tracking additional aged care home packages.

Some of her arch-conservative colleagues weren’t too thrilled, though.

The last thing they want is for Ley to chalk up victories.

They would rather she failed, irrespective of the policy consequences.

It’s much easier to knock off a loser than it is a winner.

Liberal insiders say it would be unfair, though, to characterise this as a simple ideological split.

There is actually a split within the split.

Centre-right conservatives don’t share the zeal of their more extreme colleagues.

The centre right’s chief powerbroker, Alex Hawke, demonstrated that when he apparently took it upon himself to call Price and suggest she apologise for claiming that Indian migrants were being brought into the country by the Government to vote Labor.

That conversation, though, only made things worse.

Price publicly criticised Hawke, accusing him of berating the staff member who answered the phone call and acting in a “cowardly and inappropriate” manner. Hawke denies all that.

But the public spat was what escalated the Price affair to crisis level this week.

It compelled Ley to intervene. She called Price on Monday and asked her to publicly apologise for her migration comments.

Price said she would think about it. By Wednesday she was openly declining to issue that apology and flat out refusing to back Ley’s leadership.

She was effectively daring Ley to sack her from the frontbench. And she did.

Ley offered the Indian community her own apology on Thursday.

Now, Price will sit on the backbench totally unencumbered by shadow cabinet solidarity and even freer to speak out.

And she’s warning that she will. Particularly on migration.

On that, she will find plenty of support among the Liberal Party base.

Although they might not agree with her comments about Indian migration, many do support her view that the Government’s mismanagement of the overall program is making the cost of living and the housing crisis worse.

But the climate debate now looms as Ley’s most dangerous challenge.

The climate wars have claimed several political leaders over the past 20 years.

The hard right is planning to claim one more as Ley tries to steer the Coalition towards a compromise on emission targets that won’t back in the Government but also won’t leave the Liberals looking like climate change deniers.

That will be the biggest test of Sussan Ley’s leadership. It is one she must pass to survive.