Sussan Ley may have been in the job for just seven months, but the political fight over net zero has so badly damaged the opposition leader’s standing that colleagues are now openly discussing whether, or for how long, she can hang on to the top job.

Ley is tough, there is no doubt about that: fronting up to a series of interviews on Monday, the day after the revised net zero position was settled, she faced question after question about her political future. She stood her ground.

Sussan Ley departs the Marley Flow Control facility in Emu Plains on Monday.Credit: Wolter Peeters

But as parliament prepares for the final sitting week of the year, there is heightened speculation she could face a leadership challenge from either Angus Taylor or Andrew Hastie in the week that has long been known as the killing season.

Numerous leaders have been turfed out by their own party in the final weeks of the political year, including Bob Hawke in 1991, Kim Beazley in 2006 and Malcolm Turnbull in 2009.

Neither Hastie nor Taylor has put their hand up – though a fawning profile of Taylor over the weekend in the Daily Telegraph did not go........

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