Changing to a more moderate leader of the ACT Liberals just under a year out from the next election would require the full support of a local Liberal party room which backs Alistair Coe's strongly conservative position.
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It was reported in Sunday Canberra Times that some local Liberal MLAs had been involved in conversations about changing Mr Coe as leader, given any change in the immediate future would allow a new leader to become established and recognised in the role well ahead of next October's ACT elections.
Senior ACT Liberal figures confirmed discussions were taking place to canvas the option of a different leadership team, with Elizabeth Lee as leader and Giulia Jones mooted as a possible candidate for deputy.
Mr Coe denied the speculation, saying he has a "stable and professional" team.
However, he admitted that "leadership speculation is a perennial feature of political parties everywhere".
"We know that under the Hare Clark system it is especially easy for voters to punish individual members who are seen to cause instability."
Mr Coe became party leader when moderate Jeremy Hanson was ousted following the Canberra Liberals' loss at the 2016 territory election.
Elizabeth Lee, a former lecturer in law at the Australian National University, was elected in the then-new seat of Kurrajong that same year. She holds shadow ministries in disability, education and the environment, and provides strong representation of Canberra's growing multi-cultural community .
ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr has described the ACT Liberals as "the most right wing of any party room in Australia".
"Alistair Coe is the most conservative leader the Liberals have ever had," he said.
"So they [the Liberals] are positioning themselves on the hard right, conservative end of the spectrum.
"Their sponsors and supporters are the Tony Abbotts, Peter Duttons, and Zed Seseljas of the Liberal Party.
"There's barely a moderate in sight."
Former chief minister and ACT Liberal leader Gary Humphries, who was deposed as the ACT LIberal senator in 2013 by party powerbroker Zed Seselja, has long held the view that the policies of the ACT hard right is not one which resonates with the local electorate.
Four years ago Mr Humphries wrote to the moderate "Menzies Group", saying parties seeking government must "hold values and pursue policies which resonate with local people, which keep the party anchored in the community it serves", and urged reform.
"ACT voters spurn us [the Liberals] because they sense that we march to a different drumbeat to the one they hear," he said.
His assessment was dismissed by the party at the time but proved correct, with the Liberals recording their fifth successive electoral defeat.
