From the PM Abbott:
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.
“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 partyroom 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 partyroom 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.
“We have a strong plan. It’s the strong plan that I enunciated at the Press Club this week and we are determined to get on with it, and we will.”
It appears Julie has sucker-punched the rebels. Except she hasn’t:
Oh dear.