Liberal Party of Australia leadership spill motion, September 2015
Tony Abbott
Malcolm Turnbull
Julie Bishop
Julie Bishop
A motion seeking a leadership spill of the federal parliamentary leader of the Liberal Party of Australia and Prime Minister was proposed by Malcolm Turnbull, who requested the ballot on 14 September 2015. The incumbent Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, announced that a meeting of Liberal members of the House and Senate would take place at 9:15 pm AEST on 14 September 2015 for the purpose of a spill motion. During the meeting a vote was held for the leadership and deputy leadership. Turnbull defeated Abbott, 54 votes to 44, becoming the leader of the Liberal Party of Australia and Prime Minister-nominee. Julie Bishop retained her position of deputy leader defeating Kevin Andrews 70 votes to 30.
With no contender, a February 2015 leadership spill motion had seen Abbott defeat a motion to spill the leadership 61 votes to 39.
Rumours of a leadership spill had continuously followed the Liberal Party for two years due to their poor performance in polls across all major news companies, with a motion for a spill being requested but ultimately defeated in February 2015. Following the February spill vote, Abbott delivered a speech to the members calling for their support and promised to consult more with backbench MPs. In this speech, as a follow-up to the poorly-received 2014 budget, Abbott made a new commitment to further cut tax rates for small businesses, promised that the 2015 budget would leave families better off and agreed to reduce the role his chief of staff Peta Credlin played in the government. After the Liberal Party meeting concluded, Abbott made a televised statement in which he said that "The Liberal Party has dealt with the spill motion and now this matter is behind us".Michelle Grattan, writing in The Conversation, argued that the "narrow margin" of the vote left Abbott "deeply vulnerable to later destabilisation".News Limited journalist Malcolm Farr wrote that Abbott had been "given, at best, a stay of execution". In May, information was leaked about citizenship changes. In August, daily talking points for ministers were leaked to Fairfax Media, which included that 'cabinet was functioning well'.
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