The media would be popping champagne corks - Australian sparkling wine, anyway (cutbacks) - knowing that though Abbott may have survived, his leadership is now mortally wounded, and almost certain to face another spill in months to come, guaranteeing plenty more copy that just about writes itself; "new PM Turnbull guides Australia to stability" does not for scintillating news make. Julie Bishop can rub her hands together with a glee not felt since she was screwing dying asbestosis victims, knowing that the party and electorate have been softened up for her to take a tilt next time - that is, if the Liberals could quite handle a female leader.
The few remaining Liberal voters are head since they can point to yesterday's result and say "see? Abbott defeated the motion! We didn't change prime ministers. We're not as chaotic as the other lot." And the rest of Australia are winners, since keeping Abbott in office as long as possible is the best chance we have of turfing the Coalition out at the next election and trying to repair the damage done. No post war Australian Prime Minister has survived a party room challenge and gone on to win the next election:
Abbott of course is putting a brave face on things, claiming that "good government starts today", as opposed to the Coalition continuing to fight the third year of the 2013 election campaign (a pity; after some sophomoric stumbles in '14, they seemed to be really hitting their stride on the "chaos, deficit, pink batts" thing).
Really this is the best outcome we could have hoped for. We knew an Abbott government would be a horror show of epic proportions; but just think how much worse it would be if they were evil and competent. If we are forced to have an ideological Murdoch puppet run the country for the next 18 months, let it be this brain damaged buffoon staggering about desperately trying to string a sentence together and constantly watching his back; the last thing we need is Abbott looking ahead to a right wing future.
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