the biggest short to mid term difficulties the federal Liberal Party will have is the lack of grass root support, as evidencved by the lack of political success at the state level and now at the federal level. Flowing from that weakness will be the drying up of credible candidates who are prepared to stand for the party and do the hard ground work to gain the trust of the wider community again. Labor went thru that same period at the federal level but at least it had the support of successive state Labor governments.
Costello may become the new opposition leader. The big question to be asked of him though is: does he have the stamina to last the distance on the opposition bench ? The lack of support from the vast resources that are generally available to government ministers will very soon show him up if he is a worthy candidate for future prime ministership, as he wil have to depend on his own resources to come up with ideas to put forward to the electorate at large. Two terms at least on the opposition bench can be quite daunting.
