Deery: Why shock poll could trigger the next Lib spill

The Coalition’s polling boost should reinvigorate the Liberals after years in the political wilderness. But will they credit Pesutto, or look for his replacement?

The latest polling data should be a shot in the arm for John Pesutto and his Liberal Party, but politics is never that simple. Picture: David Crosling

This latest polling should be a shot in the arm for John Pesutto and his Liberal Party.

It should reinvigorate a team who, after a decade in the political wilderness, appear to be unable to see the light at the end of a very long tunnel.

And it should be able to unite the team behind a single, common purpose, with the solitary goal of forming government come the next state election on November 28, 2026.

While it should do all of those things, what it will most likely do is test the party to its limits.

Will they rally behind Pesutto and give him the freedom to lead unhindered, or will moves to oust him as leader gain pace?

There will be wildly differing views among Pesutto’s party room.

Some will take the view that the Coalition’s rising primary vote is testament to Pesutto’s strategy and that his plan is working.

His detractors will form the view that as good as the polling is, it should be even better, and would have been with a better vision and clearer strategy.

That theory also puts the onus on Labor for haemorrhaging voters rather than to Pesutto for attracting them.

It means the prospect of a leadership spill could now actually be higher, with some desperate to force Pesutto aside before he’s cemented in ahead of 2026.

Pesutto’s supporters will see the polls as a testament to his strategy, while his detractors will argue they could have been better. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

Any moves to act would use the shadow of his upcoming Federal Court defamation case with Moira Deeming as cover.

Many Federal and state Liberals are adamant that Pesutto can’t survive the public legal spat.

That being forced to testify in a case that will also pit members of his shadow cabinet at war with each other is untenable.

At the same time Pesutto can justifiably argue that he has built some incredible momentum of late.

He would point to moderates he is aligned with winning critical party positions at last month’s state council, an effective week at parliament last week and now this polling.

And he could argue he has managed to capitalise on the CFMEU scandal that has plagued Labor for weeks now.

It may or may not be enough.

The last leadership spill came in 2021, just months after then leader Michael O’Brien polled a primary vote of 41, a feat which has not been matched more than three years on.

On the other side of the aisle there is less likely to be leadership speculation about Jacinta Allan.

Premier Jacinta Allan and Deputy Premier Ben Carroll are less likely to be the subject of leadership speculation. Picture: David Crosling

But to think deputy Ben Carroll isn’t beginning to eye an early shot at the top job would be naive.

There is no one across the country who thinks Carroll would plot a coup, he’s not built that way.

But Labor apparatchiks will now be asking themselves whether Allan has what it takes to reverse the trend of a drastic drop in support for her government.

They will also be asking themselves how bad it might have been if the government had been facing a truly effective opposition, not one too often caught up in endless infighting.

Of course the only poll that matters is the one on election day, 846 days away.

The last time the Coalition polled this well on a two-party-preferred basis was December 2017.

Less than a year later they were pummeled at the ballot box.