The most memorable line in the 1880 comic opera The Pirates of Penzance’s Policeman’s Song is “A policeman’s lot is not a happy one”. The same is true of the leader of the Liberal Party in the modern era – currently Sussan Ley.

Only four Liberal leaders have become prime minister after defeating the Labor Party at an election – Robert Menzies in 1949, Malcolm Fraser in 1975, John Howard in 1996 and Tony Abbott in 2013.

Sure, Fraser was appointed to the role of caretaker prime minister in November 1975 after the then governor-general John Kerr dismissed Gough Whitlam’s Labor government. But Fraser won the subsequent election on December 13, 1975 in a landslide, indicating that he would have prevailed at the scheduled end of Whitlam’s second term in office.

Quite a few Liberal Party leaders have never made it to the Lodge in Canberra: Billy Snedden, Andrew Peacock, John Hewson, Alexander Downer, Brendan Nelson and Peter Dutton.

It’s all too easy for outsiders to give advice to the leader of a party in opposition. However, it’s not gratuitous guidance to suggest that, in any contest – political or otherwise – it’s wise to have the best team on the field.

Shadow Attorney-General Andrew Wallace discusses the prospect of defectors within the Liberal Party. “It hasn’t worked well for others in the past and I don’t think it will work well for others … in the future,” Mr Wallace told Sky News host Danica De Giorgio. “I am absolutely fixed on ensuring that we toughen our laws in Australia. “I want to return safety and security to Australians.”

The fact is that right now some of the most able Liberal media and parliamentary performers are on the backbench. I may have missed a few. But here’s my list in alphabetical order in the House of Representatives – Garth Hamilton and Andrew Hastie. And, in the Senate, Sarah Henderson and Jane Hume.

Senator Dave Sharma is an assistant minister but he is not in the full ministry. Senator Jacinta Price was dumped from the shadow ministry for failing to support her leader. And Hastie, the member for the seat of Canning in Perth, resigned in order to speak out on topics about which he disagrees with the Opposition Leader.

It’s not clear how the talented outsiders can be brought back into the team or onto the field. After all, this would require sacking some underperformers.

But the Liberal Party’s numbers in the House of Representatives are so small that it cannot afford to have good performers on the bench or in the seconds.

In the Coalition, the Liberal leader chooses the Liberal players in the ministry or shadow ministry. And the Nationals leader, currently David Littleproud, chooses his team. There are also some good performers among the Nationals who are not on the frontbench. This was also the case before the last election when Keith Pitt was excluded.

What opposition has in common with prison is that parliamentarians have a pretty good idea of when their time in opposition may end. The next election is scheduled for around May 2028. The task is to settle in for the long haul.

This week it has been reported that some of the Liberal Party’s right-of-centre MPs are thinking about breaking away from the Liberal Party and forming a Reform party, following in the steps of Nigel Farage in Britain.

This would be a waste of time and resources. As I documented in my 1994 book, Menzies Child, in 1944 Menzies drew together some two score of right-of-centre political parties and organisations to form the Liberal Party of Australia. This was, and remains, a federation.

The Liberal Party exists in NSW, Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory. In Queensland, there is the Liberal National Party – it is part of the Liberal Party but LNP members and senators sit in either the Liberal of National partyroom in Parliament House in Canberra.

And then there is the Country Liberal Party in the Northern Territory. Its representative in Parliament House, currently Senator Jacinta Price, sits in the Liberal partyroom, having decided to vacate the Nationals room.

In view of this structure, the talk of some members and senators leaving the Liberals and setting up their own party would be a gigantic task that would likely fail.

It’s not easy to organise, let alone finance, a new political party in Australia.

Sky News host Andrew Bolt discusses James Patterson’s suggestions for the Liberal Party. “Trump has won an election, and Farage is so far ahead, he might have the biggest landslide in our lifetime, I think if you followed some of the things he’s saying, you might not be in this stook,” Mr Bolt told Sky News host James Macpherson. “I think his point is this: you can’t just lazily copy a policy that works overseas and neglect the local conditions over here. “You can’t just be poll chases.”

In recent times, only three minor parties have had a reasonable political life. They are the Democratic Labor Party, which split away from/was expelled by the Labor Party in the mid-1950s; the Democrats which, under Don Chipp’s leadership, broke away from the Liberal Party in the mid-1980s. And now there is the Greens political party.

None of the above have ever scored much more than 10 per cent of the political vote and the DLP and the Democrats lasted for only two decades.

The Australian system of preferential voting favours large parties. In the 2024 British election, Labour won 33.7 per cent of the total vote and 63.2 per cent of the seats in the House of Commons. The Conservatives won 23.7 per cent of the vote but only 18.6 per cent of the seats. The Tories’ problem is that the Farage-led Reform UK won 14.3 per cent of the vote but only 0.8 per cent of the seats.

It’s not impossible that Reform UK could prevail over the Conservatives in time. However, it’s unlikely that a Farage-lite party could succeed in Australia in a preferential voting system unless it had substantial support.

The task for those who want Labor out of office is to be patient. The Labor Party’s combined political success depends on the state of the economy in general and the standard of living – especially the cost of energy – in particular. To the extent the economy deteriorates and unemployment increases, the Liberal Party can recover.

In recent times, good advice had been provided by such Liberal Party identities as Angus Taylor, as well as senators James Paterson, Andrew Bragg and Sharma.

The task is to work hard and present well.

After Whitlam’s defeat in December 1975, the Bulletin magazine ran a cover story raising the question as to whether the Labor Party could survive. It was back in office under Bob Hawke’s leadership in early 1983. The same was said when the Coalition lost in 1993. It was back in office under John Howard’s leadership in 1996.

What the Hawke and Howard oppositions had in common turned on the fact that they had their most talented on the field. It made their lot easier.