Abbott vs Turnbull: PM faces fight for survival as rebels strike

The Coalition will subject Australia to a repeat of the Labor chaos under Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard when it votes on Tuesday on a motion to turf Tony Abbott out of the leader’s office

THE Coalition will subject Australia to a repeat of the Labor chaos under Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard when it votes on Tuesday on a motion to turf Tony Abbott out of the leader’s office.

But the Liberal Party has taken political crisis to a new level by forcing a leadership spill despite so far having no candidate other than the Prime Minister himself.

Sources close to communications minister Malcolm Turnbull say the man Mr Abbott rolled as Liberal leader five years ago while in opposition would be a contender if the spill motion was successful. Significantly while several potential candidates, including foreign minister Julie Bishop, bowed out of the race, the Wentworth MP was noticeably quiet yesterday.

The fight is on: ...But who will win?

The party has eclipsed Labor’s record by bringing on a challenge within just 16 months of being elected with a thumping majority.

In an extraordinary repeat of the leadership chaos the country was subjected to under Labor, two rogue backbenchers from Western Australia, Luke Simpkins and Don Randall, wrote to the whip Philip Ruddock yesterday submitting a spill motion for next week.

“I think that we must bring this to a head, and test the support of the leadership in the party room,” Mr Simpkins said.

Round 1... Fight!

The spill of both the leader and deputy leader of the Liberal Party, which will occur on Tuesday at 9am in a secret ballot, will be the first challenge to a Coalition prime minister in a first-term government.

Mr Turnbull, who lost the leadership while in opposition to Mr Abbott in a 2009 spill by one vote, now remains the only option for the party to elect other than re-electing Mr Abbott, with two other potential rivals knocked out.

Sources close to Mr Turnbull expected him to put his hand up should a spill be successful, despite having not given any confirmation to the architects of the spill that he would be a contender if a spill was successful.

“I think we have made history having called a spill with no candidate. But I would be very surprised if he didn’t.”

“Yes, that is true,” a source close to Mr Turnbull said.

“I think we have made history having called a spill with no candidate. But I would be very surprised if he didn’t.”

But Mr Abbott’s supporters were confident he had the numbers.

After a week of speculation about Julie Bishop being a potential candidate, the foreign minister was forced to stand with the PM against the spill out of loyalty as his deputy.

A third potential rival, Scott Morrison, has ruled himself out of any race for the leadership.

An angry Mr Abbott yesterday called a press conference to stare down his backbench, before sending out cabinet ministers to back his leadership publicly.

“As you know, two of my colleagues have called for a leadership spill of the two senior positions in our party. They’ve called for a spill of my position as leader and they’ve called for a spill of Julie Bishop’s position as deputy,” he said.

The Prime Minister with his wife Margie. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop. Picture: Kym Smith

“The first point to make is that they are perfectly entitled to call for this, but the next point to make is that they are asking the party room to vote out the people that the electorate voted in, in September 2013.

“I want to make this very simple point. We are not the Labor Party. We are not the Labor Party and we are not going to repeat the chaos and the instability of the Labor years, so I have spoken to deputy leader Julie Bishop and we will stand together in urging the party room to defeat this particular motion and in so doing, and in defeating this motion, to vote in favour of the stability and the team that the people voted for at the election.”

But sources in the rebel camp have acted angrily to the “bullying”, claiming that Mr Abbott didn’t understand the backbench was no longer listening to the front bench.

However, NSW Nationals MP and agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce took aim at the rebel backbenchers engineering the spill, as he claimed the move threatened to split the Coalition.

“What I say to my colleagues in the Liberal Party is this: we didn’t want this. We gave you fair warning,” he told his local paper.

“Do not consider that the National Party support is without question.

“If all of a sudden a different person is walking down the aisle towards us, don’t necessarily think the wedding is still on.”