Spill Motion Defeated …

ABC Radio National is reporting that the Spill Motion has been defeated …

• The Age: No Go … Chief Government Whip Philip Ruddock reports the result of the vote was 61 against the motion, 39 were in favour. There was one informal vote and one person was away (the aforementioned Ross Vasta).

• Guardian Live: Total shocker … The government whip Phillip Ruddock says there was one informal vote. A run against the prime minister with no declared alternative candidate. Total shocker …

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• Will Hodgman: Federal Liberal Leadership I welcome today’s resolution of the Federal Liberal Party’s leadership. Now that his matter has been resolved it will allow the Federal Government to get back to the important business of governing. I look forward to continuing to work cooperatively with Prime Minister Abbott and his team to deliver positive outcomes for the Tasmanian people.

• Urban Wronski, in Comments: The poor, wounded creature shuffled out of ‘The Party Room’ this morning, a prisoner whose relief at his lesser sentence was tempered with a greater foreboding. It wasn’t just the Botox, his features were frozen in a forced grin, his face clouded with resignation and a great weariness as it dawned on him that he was merely foolishly buying time; time to suffer a more prolonged, more agonising execution at a time of his enemies’ choosing, later. For even given the constraints the LNP provides with its rules for Cabinet and its quite public, secret ballot, 39 of his own had been prepared to declare no confidence in him, not caring who may be looking over their shoulders, and the world knew it.

• Gray Connolly, The Age: Tony Abbott’s government is not conservative at heart Poor Tony Abbott. He holds on, bloodied if unbowed, to the Liberal leadership. But make no mistake: Abbott’s wounds are self-inflicted. Forget Prince Philip, forget Peta Credlin, forget Wentworth’s First Citizen, and forget non-entities like Mal Brough … All empires, nations and prime ministerships die by suicide, not murder. The primary cause of Abbott’s predicament is the disastrous budget. First, of all the welfare cuts that could have been made, a Coalition government attacked the very family tax arrangements that conservatives support: one parent working and another parent looking after young children.