The squall in the great teacup of the Liberal and National Parties, and the (almost certainly temporary) suspension of the Coalition has been very diverting but will probably not matter much as the political year, or term of parliament progresses. A scrap between a badly beaten pair of parties may seem damaging in the short term, but is unlikely to change any immediate outcomes.

That’s probably a good reason for extending the argument rather than confining it. Having it all out may be the only way of resolving some fundamental conflicts rather than smoothing over the cracks and being barely polite to each other. Some of the conflicts go back decades, with players of strong convictions having been required to shut up in the interests of an overall harmony. The dogmatic tone of some conflicts, particularly over climate change and renewable power, saps energy from both sides.

Within the Liberals are basic differences about the role of government, market intervention and the role of welfare. Others care less about the principles of government action, provided power and money is going in the direction they want. Many, agnostic about ideology, are simply furious with others (sometimes within their own party) whose undisciplined words and actions have sabotaged the Coalition’s prospects. Not all the positions can be reconciled. Nor can a consensus settle matters, because many of those defeated will white-ant and undermine the resolutions and those who have, temporarily they hope, won the argument. Defeats are but unfortunate events along the road.

For those closely involved, it is hard to be detached and purely professional. It is personal. One can see it in the open contempt some of the players, particularly the women, show for each other. It is not edifying, and, for all the difference a formal adjudication might make, even by show of hands, it might be more entertaining as a boxing match or as mixed sex nude jelly wrestling.

Sussan Ley, leader of the Liberals, and David Littleproud, of the Nationals, come from different political philosophies, and despise each other somewhat. Enemies of Ley call her Malcolm Turnbull lite, of Littleproud, Dutton without the rigour, instincts or intellect. Others in both parties share their feelings and often are disloyal to their own leadership as much as the other party’s. The poor campaign has aggravated personal tensions and caused fresh chips on the shoulder between in and out crowds. Is each party a broad church seeking the support of people in the centre of politics, or is the true aim of the party, in theory or practice, to be as purists on the right-wing seeking the applause of rusted-on constituencies and party donors? Ley and Littleproud do not have the margin of numbers, moral authority or intellectual eminence to bully dissidents or followers. Most likely neither will be in positions of power at times when the solidarity of the two parties is being tested. It is yet to be shown that either will figure in the history books, even for their deeds during the Scott Morrison era.

Ley must look to her back as much as to her front

Ley may hope both to project some fresh image for herself and her party and mark a party which has learned from defeat by bringing the Liberal Party into the middle on climate change, the environment and broader social policies. There is ample opportunity to move into the 21st century while maintaining a generally conservative economic policy. Campaign experiences with dud policies about sacking legions of Canberra-based public servants or restricting home-from-home policies might restrict some of the showier, but punitive, social policies masquerading as hard economic decisions. As the campaign discovered, voters investigate such policies for what they say about the party’s attitude to workers and their working conditions. Punitive and stereotypical proposals are read as indicating a general hostility, including towards workers not actually included in what has been announced. Workers are voters, and if there is a modern general insecurity, who can blame them? No doubt Ley wants to strike a more personable, inclusive and friendly tone, abandoning much of the polarising anti-immigration talk, racist dog-whistling, and policeman law and order talk that came so naturally from Dutton. If Liberal strategists and tacticians do not know by now that this tough stuff frightens and alienates voters, including groups the Liberals want to woo, including women, young voters and members of ethnic groups, it will never learn.

Ley may not have the numbers to make her party and the Nationals, if in her Coalition, more virtuous. But she must be seen to try and not be daunted by regular defeats

Ley has to be uncomfortably aware that she will be opposed on many such approaches by the right-wingers in her own party, as well as a considerable number of Nationals. Some are ideologues, many with trained experience in the science of making politics by inciting fear about social change, strangers and allegedly bossy government officials. More is involved than the rhetoric of Trumpism, now being recognised as political poison in Australia, because it mixed up with players mesmerised by conspiracy theories, unscientific nonsense, including about vaccines, and Christian fundamentalist ideas bearing little relationship to conventional Christianity.

Some in the Liberal and National caucuses feel permissioned and empowered to attack Indigenous Australians, still by any standard the most disadvantaged citizens in the land. Others, in her own party as much as in the Nationals, are effectively agents of powerful lobbies. Some, particularly but not exclusively the National Party, have ingested corrupted and shameful ideas about their right to use public money for partisan purposes, not least in the mining industry. With many of these, the arguments are not about how the party is positioned or evidence-based policies. They are about personal advantage, and intention to rort the system, to turn grants into profits and to squeeze the delivery of services. Ley may not have the numbers to be able to strangle such inclinations. But she must show herself unequivocally on the side of the angels in such arguments. She must dispel any impression that she regards the business of government as something ripe for exploitation.

Whether by herself or in coalition with the Nationals, the task is ahead of her, and her place in history depends more on her success than on anything else she has done to date. It is a task where Littleproud has little in the way of record to offer. It would be hard even to find words he has used which would suggest that he disapproves of the Nationals way. He has little to be proud about. On the other hand, he has active critics within his party. He could flank some of them by being a more honest broker of rural and regional interests. The National Party could be a proud and more effective representative of rural and regional interests, active in pursuing social and economic policies and programs that will help disadvantaged Australians outside the cities. It is quite unclear why the pursuit of such policies must involve hard-right economic theories.

It is no part of Labor’s duty to pick up beaten and demoralised Liberals and Nationals. Nor to cheer them up or give them megaphones

Great arguments, great speeches, or great policies coming from either of these two parties, or the two combined, are not to trouble the Albanese Government for some years to come. In due course, each party, or both together, may revive. For the moment they are a battered, rejected and forlorn rabble, more in need of patch-up and convalescence than returning to battle. Objects of derision rather than pity. They will be kicked, almost to death, as often as possible. There are no rules, and very little fairness in the process. What will keep the more bitter victims going will be the hope that they can sometimes return the battering. If they live that long, revenge may be the distraction that brings them down.

Students of state politics may point out that parties can win power in landslides and lose it within a single term. Campbell Newman may be a good example. But the drubbing makes a one-term resurrection virtually impossible. That generally occurs after clear abuse of power. Or the springing of great surprises going against public expectations or imagined extensions of the mandate voters thought they were giving. Where the government, in short, was taking voter indulgence much too far. That includes sacking public servants, or significant cuts to spending programs after explicit promises that these were not on the agenda. Voters are indulgent and often forgiving, but they are not stupid.

But Albanese is not by instinct bold, and he has shown themselves pragmatic – indeed, perhaps a stranger to compelling conviction. He moves slowly, and generally incrementally. He now has a big majority, but has so far not lapsed into triumphalism or given any sign of acquiring a new personality or ambitions he has previously shown. Even his lapses into tribalism and self-indulgence are on a small and cautious scale. He may not listen to voters, but he knows what the polls say, and has long experience of seeing friends and enemies brought down by their own behaviour.

The prime minister is not obliged by the numbers in the House of Representatives to pay much attention to what is said. Or by whom, including Teals or community independents. Though personnel changed slightly, they were not defeated at the election, let alone by Labor. Their votes still do not count, but he would be wise to at least pretend to listen, and to accord them some respect.

If he follows his form and practice during his first term, he will not give them a single break. Nor recognise that they have shown a singular idealism, rather than sheer self-interest or ambition, in being in politics, at some contrast to most Labor, Liberal or National representatives. People admire them, and wounds gratuitously inflicted on them offend other voters.

Labor has very little chance of ever winning their seats: they are ones which have been captured (and in one case, now recaptured) from the Liberals and the Nationals. These are professional women of moderate views, inclined to support Labor on key issues such as climate change and the environment. That Labor does not at this stage need their vote is neither here nor there. More cynically, they are a stick with which to beat moderate liberals as they strive to move their party back to the centre.

With the Greens, Albanese is in a different position. He can say he has had a personal victory against three of the Greens who annoyed him most, and who served in the lower house. That has produced a Greens leadership change – likely less confrontational and rather more focused on the environment and climate change than broader social issues, including housing policy. Albanese may have won this war. It would be harder to insist that they decisively won the argument. Or, indeed, that they will be further down the track of doing so by 2028, even with the benefit of lower interest rates, and some action on land and labour supply.

By Albanese’s judgment, he must make perpetual ideological war against the Greens. Otherwise, they will always pretend to be the pure ones, with Labor contaminated by dirty hands and compromises. But as he attacks them, he must depend upon them in the Senate. Labor and the Greens hold a clear majority over the Liberals, the Nationals and other independents, including ones Labor has, in the past, relied on, such as David Pocock and Jacqui Lambie.

No doubt Albanese will now want to restrict their power to grandstand and hold matters up. He will also want to limit the Greens from any tendency to rewrite trademark Labor proposals. The fight with the Greens and Independents may substitute as news, rather than the brawls of impotent coalition members. Though sooner or later the mainstream media will install new Coalition leaders. They will claim them to be more relevant, vital and essential. Sooner or later— I’m betting on sooner.