It could be a matter of when, not if Andrew Hastie becomes opposition leader

Federal Labor is now actively preparing for an election contest against Andrew Hastie as opposition leader, as it considers how to frame the next diabolical year.

Senior Labor sources have told this column that they believe it's not a matter of if, but when Hastie takes over from Angus Taylor as opposition leader, and they think he will be harder to defeat.

Some Liberals are considering the New South Wales election in March as the clearest trigger for change, if Taylor can't improve the party's dire standing.

If that were to occur, Labor would have to readjust its political strategy. It would also set up an almighty contest between the Liberals under Hastie and conservative juggernaut Pauline Hanson.

Things get messy

Last month, Hastie delivered a speech urging politicians to "do better" and avoid the personal attacks of the "MAGA" movement during parliament's tribute to Member for Indi, Helen Haines.

He was drawing a line against the style of politics he has accused One Nation of importing.

Donald Trump's political brand has taken a battering at the US midterms, and that gives Hastie a vantage of being able to reject its politics from the right. He has the opportunity to nail Hanson to the MAGA brand at a time when being synonymous with Trump is a liability.

"Let's play the ball, not the person, and leave the nasty personal politics of MAGA in the United States." 

They were Hastie's words just weeks ago.

The Greens have detected an opportunity, too. Leader David Shoebridge slammed Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for giving Trump a "bear hug" while reposting selfies of the two.

Shoebridge also attacked Labor's support for the war in Iran, describing it as illegal and linking Australia's involvement to domestic cost-of-living pressures.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers spent the week distancing the Albanese government from the war and sought to pin the blame for cost-of-living pressures on decisions made in DC. But Shoebridge wants voters to remember Albanese was straight out of the blocks supporting the strikes.

Labor clearly wants the war to end, but it can't escape the fact that it was one of the first governments in the world to publicly back the military action in February.

Speaking to the ABC on Sunday, Nationals leader Matt Canavan, said he had been "concerned from the get-go" that the reasoning for the action was "muddy and unclear".

"The lesson of our generation, of all generations, is when you have very unclear war aims it gets very, very messy," he said.

"So, I just think we need to, as a friend of the US, engage and ask to make sure these aims are clear."

Canavan questioning the war exposes a divide in a Coalition still struggling to agree on what it stands for.

It exposes Taylor's difficulty in delivering what he said when he rolled Sussan Ley for the leadership in February.

"It is clear we are running out of time. I won't mince words. The Liberal Party is in the worst position that it has been since it was founded in 1944," he said.

He blamed the party's predicament on choosing "the politics of convenience rather than focusing on the politics of conviction".

"Change or die," he said, "and I choose change".

Nine months later, the latest poll has the Coalition's primary vote at 21 per cent, seven points behind One Nation.

The Coalition's One Nation problem

Taylor promised change, but some of his colleagues have privately said he has spent much of his leadership reacting to One Nation's agenda, rather than setting his own.

When Hanson called for an end to multiculturalism, Taylor was asked five times whether he supported it, yet he couldn't give a straight answer.

The next day, he said he supported "a version of multiculturalism".

Under Hastie, there would be a forced reckoning for conservatives over whether they take Hanson on or keep chasing her shadow.

Hastie is a prominent conservative, with staunch views on immigration and social issues. He has been outspoken on the need for Australia to revive local manufacturing and build sovereign capability, rather than relying so heavily on the US.

He has also been more willing than Taylor to take Hanson head-on. And this hasn't just been a contest over the future of the political right.

Hanson has been going after Hastie, with a cartoon posted on her social media branding him a traitor over his evidence in the Ben Roberts-Smith defamation trial. Hastie has been clear he gave that evidence under subpoena.

In what looks like an effort to turn this issue into a referendum on patriotism, Hanson is also targeting Hastie's West Australian seat of Canning. 

In a by-election in August, One Nation beat Labor to claim the state seat of Secret Harbour, which sits largely within Canning.

A strong result for the Liberals in Victoria's election later this month could give Taylor a fillip; it would be the sort of brand bounce the party desperately needs. Watch Taylor try to get into every press conference and photo op if that happens.

But if the Coalition goes through summer without any uptick in its numbers after a potential Victorian win, followed by the possibility of a shocker in Taylor's home state of NSW, nerves and self-preservation will seize the party room. A challenge will start to feel inevitable.

But that's not the only problem NSW presents. Some NSW Liberal MPs privately expect they might need to form an alliance with One Nation if the Nationals are hammered and the Coalition falls short, despite their leader Kellie Sloane ruling out such a deal.

That would leave Hastie staring down Hanson, while parts of his own party are off to the side considering a deal with her.

A hard swing

Labor might think the Coalition destroying itself is entertaining, but the sideshow is no lifeline.

While Taylor might not be getting much cut-through, voters are still marking down Labor.

As a sea of Democratic blue flooded the US, the sharper ministers in the Albanese government didn't view it as a progressive fever dream, but as a warning shot of what visceral anger towards incumbents looks like when life costs too much.

The notion that Trumpism was a form of religion for Americans has taken a beating, and the biggest message it sends here is that voters are prepared to swing, and swing hard, if they believe their material interests are being ignored.

Even One Nation heard the midterm message, despite Hanson enthusiastically endorsing Trump, including arguing in June she shared the same policy positions as the US president.

As the dust settles on the American reckoning, One Nation coincidentally removed a section of its website that was headlined: "Want Trump's action and style, then it's One Nation you need."

Democrats won Senate seats in Texas, South Carolina and Kansas, states that have been reliably Republican for decades.

One senior Labor insider said that if deep red Republican states can swing that hard towards Democratic candidates, the opposite can occur here.

Deep red Labor heartland can just as easily swing hard. Just how hard depends on the solutions Labor provides over the next 12 months.

The year ahead could prove the hardest the Albanese government has faced in its two terms of government.

Patricia Karvelas is host of ABC News Afternoon Briefing at 4pm weekdays on ABC News Channel, co-host of the weekly Party Room podcast with Fran Kelly and host of politics and news podcast Politics Now.