Any lingering doubts about whether the Liberal Party’s attempt to settle on a new climate change policy has leadership implications were erased on Wednesday when Sussan Ley’s enemies and detractors arrived en masse to the party room meeting.

Arrivals at special event party room meetings are always stage-managed to show who’s up who, and while the moderates arrived in dribs and drabs, and Ley walked in with just Tasmanian senator Richard Colbeck, the right-wingers, who wanted net zero banished from the policy lexicon, made a show of force.