Julie Bishop denounces tactics used by colleagues to boot her from party’s leadership race

Julie Bishop has described the past week as “personally devastating” and denounced the tactics used by colleagues.

Ex Foreign Minister Julie Bishop. Picture: Coin Murty

Julie Bishop has described the past week as “personally devastating” for many people and denounced the tactics used by colleagues to bump her from her party’s leadership race.

Ms Bishop was responding to claims that a smartphone messaging group had been set up by some MPs to direct her supporters to vote for Scott Morrison in the first round of Friday’s leadership ballot.

The member for the Perth seat of Curtin told The West Australian that Australians are “looking for answers” in the aftermath of last week’s chaos, and said that she was aware of the reported WhatsApp Messenger group, named “Friends for Stability”.

“You would have to ask the individuals involved but it appeared to be a tactic to promote Peter Dutton into the prime ministership, whatever the cost,” Ms Bishop said.

Screenshots of the WhatsApp group were shown on ABC’s Insiders yesterday. The leaked screenshots indicated that the group was administered by Paul Fletcher, with Christopher Pyne, Kelly O’Dwyer and Simon Birmingham among the Liberal politicians added to the conversation.

One message warns that Mathias Cormann was organising votes for Julie Bishop in the first round of the vote — when it was a three way competition between her, Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton — in an attempt to eliminate Morrison in the first round and push votes for him behind Dutton.

“Despite our hearts tugging us to Julie we need to vote with our heads for Scott in round one” part of the message read, followed by another message of “Someone should tell Julie”.

The Whatsapp tactic is reported to have influenced the voting, with one WA MP telling The West Australian they felt they had been tricked out of voting for Bishop in the first round.

“We were forced to vote for Scott in round one,” one MP said. “There was a lot of people on that list who would have voted for Julie.”

Bishop was eliminated after receiving the fewest amount of votes in the first round of the ballot. She received just 11 votes, with none of her colleagues who voted for her being from Western Australia.

She resigned as Minister for Foreign Affairs after her failed push for Liberal party leader, but has not yet indicated whether she would be quitting politics.