Tony Abbott has formally challenged Malcolm Turnbull to a Liberal leadership spill.

The ABC understands Mr Abbott has today lodged a letter with the chief party whip for a spill to take place on Monday.

But there is no decision yet on when the meeting will be, with Tuesday also being an option.

Michael Johnson - who yesterday quit as Opposition whip - has also signed the letter and says it appears inevitable there will be a leadership spill on Monday.

"There are several of my colleagues who have written this letter and signed it and that will require for a ballot to take place if Mr Turnbull doesn't formally vacate the chair," he said.

Yesterday Mr Abbott led a swag of frontbench resignations in protest against Mr Turnbull's insistence on passing the emissions trading scheme.

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see toon above...

From Bob Ellis

I guess I can't call Malcolm a friend any more but I used to and I've known him all of his adult life and feel sorry for him now. He's a bigger man than all the fleas that are currently nibbling at him, but from a bunch that trusted and followed the mendacious midget Howard (twenty years as Deputy Leader, Leader and P.M.) it's what you might expect.

They resent the questions of latter-day adjustment and philosophical consistency and the oxygen he brings into the room, they hate (I guess) cradle Anglicans and the kind self-made rich man who takes risks, dares new horizons, sticks out his chest and pounds it and yodels, punches above his weight, chiacks her Majesty and mostly prevails.

He's a Liberal Democrat through and through and they are clenched-up Thatcherites, Royalist nostalgics and, to a great extent, fearful Catholics. He was at the orgy in the 1970s (I can vouch for this) while they were fingering rosaries or attending Wednesday prayers and dawn parades and now like their forebears the DLP they will pull the temple down yelling curses and hallelujahs rather than sing in his up-tempo choir and they're proud of themselves and jumping at shadows and so it goes.

It's not quite as simple as this, of course. Other factors in play this week, this month, this year, include Rudd and Wong's unending and cruel gamesmanship, tormenting and humiliating an Opposition they should have been gently wooing, preferring lordly sadistic onrushing deadlines to democratic discourse, jeering at their foes' understandable divisions rather than crafting honest policy, preferring the monkey-tricks of municipal politics to wise inclusive consensus on the most important problem since the Ice Age.

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read more of Bob at Unleashed

Do the Australian people finally believe that we are in a situation where our planet could be destroyed by industrial greed?

I believe that, reluctantly, most of us are convinced, or at least afraid of that possibility. We are afraid - not for the loss of profits for the foreign owned corporations of the world's most pollution industries (like Barnaby Joyce) but for the future of our country and the planet.

I believe that the Rudd government has tried to cobble together the beginning of action against the destruction of the planet.  His leadership, right or wrong must aggravate the conservatives.

IF his policies are intended as the conservatives suggest, that he is only making a name for himself then the effect of his policies will have no effect on the emissions of Australia which is, by the way, one of the highest per capita in the world.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.

Whether or not the Coal-ition honor the arrangement which the Coal-ition negotiator who tried so successfully to achieve – we are left with a Senate of State elected people who have the power to override the federally elected government.

 And is this situation because their State has been ignored? Fair dinkum.

I think it was Churchill who said something like “democracy is difficult but, it is better than all the rest?

But we don’t have democracy do we?

God Bless Australia.  NE OUBLIE.

Hang in there, Malcolm.

Over the years I did bag you for whatever and don't regret it, but on this issue you are as spot on as one can be, within the major parties. The Greens are too extreme in their political demands, to support an ETS, and I can't blame them for it, although they should support it, as Rudd's ETS is a start. Although my views on global warming may appear outrageous, they're actually very, very conservative... We are facing a monstruous problem...

Nick Minchin said something to the effect he has given 30 years of his life to the "great" Liberal Party, but he is not prepared to give one minute of his precious time to understand why we have to save the planet. And saving the planet from ourselves we need to do. Should Joe Hockey run against you on Tuesday, he would lose all credibility he ever had as a debonaire good bloke. ... For the game of grubby politics, he would joint the rank of the rabid Abbotts, Minchin, Tuckey rats who have never understood anything much, but the machination of survival in politics. Joe would never be PM, under such treason.

Without knowing, but with enraged intent to defend the indefensible, these ignoramus in your party are going to condemn more than 100 million people to a premature death, and in their high moral ground, rotten to the core, they will survive — as glorious politicians with stupid words passing their yapyapping jaws... They don't deserve to be servants of Australia, which they don't anyway serve... as they only serve their own petty interests...

Fight, Malcolm, fight...

G'day Gus,

Your article above removes any reason for me to comment. 

Spot on my friend.

God Bless Australia.  NE OUBLIE. 

What a shambles the Liberal party becomes when it is not in a situation where it can dictate the terms of the debate?  And when you consider that the Howard election in 1998 was because the Nationals won (from memory) some 15 seats – how times have changed.

The media - in democracies or dictatorships or autocratic regimes – actually do decide for the people who should rule their nation.

The picture painted by that media of Malcolm Turnbull was less than supportive.  I do not like his methods or his “do as I say” attitudes but, after this fiasco, he stands aloft as a man who believed in his principles.

Ian Macfarlane also proved himself as a competent negotiator and a man of similar principles.

It remains now to see what the extreme right wing conservative and noted woman hater Tony Abbott will do with the party he has inherited by stabbing his Leader in the back.  As indeed did some of the 42 other "Roman Senators" on whom Turnbull relied.

They stand condemned and as much pro-foreign Corporations as they were when Howard ruled the rabble.  Watch for Abbott’s belief in WorkChoices and the destruction of worker advocates.

For a party who claims to believe in smaller taxation - they forget that their take on that is for the Corporations and not for the people.  The GST is a firm example as the largest single tax in Australia’s history.

Will the media reveal and comment on the arrogant “I know what is best” attitudes of the real Tony Abbott?  Will he believe that he is chosen by fate or by God?

Obviously having watched his crass career and his cavalier attitude to the rights and wrongs of representing the dictates of his extreme party doctrine above the welfare of his constituents – I should expect that he will not have the dignity nor the polish to represent the still virulent Howard “New Order” remnants in the Party he has by “Et Tu Brutus” inherited.

God Bless Australia. NE OUBLIE.