In the event, Abbott got seven. He learnt that his time was up when his deputy, Julie Bishop, came to see him as soon as he arrived in his office at 11.55am on Monday. Illustration: Rocco Fazzari "As your deputy, this is a conversation I never wanted to have," she began. "But I have to tell you you've lost the backing of the majority of the party room and the majority of the cabinet." Turnbull was planning to challenge, she said, and Abbott had three options. One, do nothing and see if Turnbull is bluffing. Two, do nothing and wait for Turnbull to declare his hand. Three, bring it to a head, call a spill and defend your leadership. What about the Canning byelection in Western Australia, Abbott wanted to know, due in just five days. Bishop answered that she'd asked the rebels not to challenge the week before. As the senior WA member of the government, she'd taken responsibility for the campaign.

Do you think they'll listen to your advice, the prime minister asked? No, I think they will take advantage while they have the numbers, replied Bishop. Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop on Monday. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Abbott delivered a frank character assessment of Turnbull, but didn't ask Bishop for her support or convey his intentions. The pair agreed to keep the five-minute conversation confidential. Illustration: Ron Tandberg

The fact of the meeting was soon leaked, but with the content misreported. It was reported that Bishop had told Abbott to resign. She did not. Each blamed the other for leaking. But Bishop's visit was the breakthrough that the coup plotters needed. It set events in motion. "Turnbull had probably had the numbers for some weeks," said one of the small core of coup makers, "but if you talk about make or break, it was the deputy telling the leader he had lost the support of his party." "He's burning the house down," Turnbull told supporters. The move was given urgency from an unexpected quarter. Rupert Murdoch. Abbott hastened to convene his war council. It was too late. The war was already lost, but the leader was about to try an extreme manoeuvre in a forlorn effort to save himself. It was the worst kept secret in Australian politics that Turnbull, who had the Liberal leadership wrested from him by Abbott five years and nine months earlier, was determined to take it back.

"Anyone who knows Malcolm, anyone who's had a conversation with him, anyone who's seen him in cabinet, knows that he will challenge Tony as soon as he has the numbers," remarked one of his ministerial colleagues shortly before he acted. "The whole Abbott office is geared to prevent a Turnbull challenge." The challenger was not absolutely certain before last week that he did have the numbers, and he didn't have any active plan to round them up. But he was confident that he didn't need to. Abbott would do the job for him. "He's burning the house down," Turnbull told supporters. He was confident that when the heat became unbearable the remaining Abbott loyalists would run from the house and seek refuge in his camp before their hair caught alight.

The move was given urgency from an unexpected quarter. Rupert Murdoch. Turnbull had his own timetable. With about a year to the next election, he wanted time to shape his government. But now the executive chairman of News Corporation inadvertently accelerated the process: "Only hope is new poll" the executive chairman of News Corporation tweeted on September 3, three weeks after Abbott's gay marriage gambit. Murdoch endorsed Abbott as "far the best candidate". Says one of the inner group of conspirators: "That panicked a few marginal seat holders. They could see that an early election was not viable. They would lose their seats. But now Rupert Murdoch was calling for a snap election, and he's seen as being close to Abbott." They feared that Abbott would call an early election to pre-empt a challenge.

The Turnbull urgers fretted: "He's bonkers enough to do it," one worried. It was a fear that Turnbull shared: "He will basically do anything to avoid a challenge," the pretender said of the leader. The agitation churned quietly, energy seeking the outlet of sudden political violence. There were meetings, mutterings and attempts at muster. On Wednesday night last week, for instance, two of the plotters, Mitch Fifield and Scott Ryan, both junior members of the Abbott executive, decided to appeal for Julie Bishop's help. Together with a third junior, Michaelia Cash, they met Bishop last Thursday in Parliament House to see if she could be enlisted to help bring down Abbott. She would not agree to back any move against Abbott or to stand in her own right. There was a challenger, willing to challenge, and he appeared to have the numbers. But there was no obvious mechanism, no catalyst. The house was burning but the conspirators, whose ranks also included James McGrath, Simon Birmingham, Arthur Sinodinos, Mal Brough, Wyatt Roy and Peter Hendy, needed something dramatic to bring on collapse.

Abbott had warnings aplenty. The most glaring was the February spill. More recently, his loyalists had been reporting to him and to his chief of staff, Peta Credlin, every suspicious move. For instance, when one known Turnbull plotter, junior minister Simon Birmingham, was observed walking into the office of a backbench plotter, Arthur Sinodinos, some weeks ago. "Ministers never visit backbenchers in their offices!" exclaimed an Abbott acolyte with conspiratorial relish. Cory Bernardi was suspicious when Malcolm Turnbull invited him to his office for tea. A key cabinet minister, Scott Morrison, told Abbott's staff last week to be on alert. Environment Minister Greg Hunt told Abbott last week that he thought Turnbull was coming for him, and soon. "What do you think I should do?" Abbott responded. "Don't provoke," came Hunt's advice. It was good advice, and Abbott had been trying to do just that.

Some of his more rabid supporters had been pleading with him for months for permission to attack Turnbull in an effort to discredit him. "We wanted to set the dogs loose," said one such Abbott hardliner. They urged Abbott to allow them access to internal government documents to leak against the communications minister. They sought inner details of the National Broadband Network, for instance, one of Turnbull's responsibilities. But Abbott refused. It was one of the hallmarks of the Liberal leadership struggle that, unlike the Labor forerunner, there was restraint exercised on both sides. Abbott and Turnbull each had options for being far more aggressive towards the other. Both refrained. But the provocation came regardless. Fortune delivered it in the form of an article in The Daily Telegraph on Friday last week: "Abbott Planning Purge of Cabinet" read the page three headline. The prime minister was about to axe up to six ministers to get rid of dead wood, said the story, and it named the six.

The story cited an unnamed "senior source" and Malcolm Turnbull, like most of the government, immediately put a name to it: "It's a Credlin special!" he announced to MPs who rang him about the article. The author, Simon Benson, was reputed to be a favoured Credlin outlet. It was highly destabilising at a sensitive moment. Bishop, alarmed, phoned Abbott. "What on earth are you doing, this is explosive," she told the prime minister. He denied that it had come from Credlin or anyone acting on his behalf. An MP explains why it was so incendiary: "It ticked all the boxes, all the things he'd promised to address, nothing had changed. One, the prime minister's office is an island, it doesn't consult the party. Two, if you step out of line, Credlin will attack you through the media. Three, it showed the utter lack of any political judgment. Four, it was just the latest in a long line of endless f--- ups." It was the day that it became clear to Turnbull and his group that the burning house was finally, unmistakably, collapsing. They had their catalyst.

"The numbers are coming to me, I've got the numbers," he announced to Bishop on Friday by phone. More warnings flashed for Abbott, including one from one of his core conservative diehards who texted his leader on Sunday: "You've got to take action" to pre-empt a challenge. Abbott replied: "It's all about timing." Supporter: "You haven't got any left." Bishop was not fully convinced that Turnbull had a majority until she received visits from MPs on Monday morning showing her lists of names. She told the Turnbull forces that she was obliged to tell the leader, and she did. Turnbull called on Abbott to declare his intentions just after 3pm, then went public at 4pm. Abbott could see the prime ministership slipping away. He called Scott Morrison to his office about 5pm and offered him the post of deputy, Bishop's job. "Thank you," Morrison said, "but I don't understand. Why are you dumping Joe? You are a loyal person and this is a sharp contradiction. You are going to throw Joe under a bus," the Social Services Minister told Abbott.

Abbott tried to assuage him. If you are deputy, you can choose your portfolio. It doesn't have to be Joe's job, in other words. "No," came the Morrison reply, "you know that being deputy would mean I'd want to choose the Treasury. Have you asked Joe? Why are you asking me? This is confusing." Abbott told him that Turnbull and Bishop were on a ticket together running against him: "I need a deputy and you're a strong performer." The bells rang, summoning MPs to a vote in the House, and they broke with Morrison promising to think about it. In the corridor he ran into colleagues who told him they'd heard he was standing as Abbott's deputy. Morrison was annoyed that word had leaked even before he had given his leader an answer.

He pulled Bishop aside. No, she told him, she hadn't called on Abbott to resign and no, she was not on a ticket with Turnbull. Morrison returned to Abbott's office: "I don't understand. Julie is not running on a ticket with Malcolm, and I've got a good relationship with her, she's doing a good job, and I've got a good relationship with Joe." But Morrison did understand, and he made it plain: "This is not about the deputy leadership. This is about the leadership," he told Abbott. "This is about you and Malcolm." Morrison had always been clear, in public and in private, that he would support Abbott in any challenge. But Abbott wanted more. He wanted Morrison to influence as many MPs as possible to rally around the prime minister, to throw his full political support behind him in the hope of turning the tide. Morrison hadn't finished rebuking Abbott: "I think there's a big problem throwing Joe under a bus at the eleventh hour. If you want a deputy, ask Joe. The answer is a polite 'no'."

Abbott wanted to know what he planned. Morrison assured him he'd be voting for Abbott. What about the people with you? "I'll tell them what I'm doing, but I won't tell them who to vote for. Good luck mate." It was only later, after the spill, that the victorious Turnbull offered Morrison the post of Treasurer. He accepted. Abbott went public about 6pm and announced that he would be calling a spill of the leader's job and also the deputy's. Till then, Bishop had been voting for Abbott. But at that moment, she considered herself to have been sacked. Like many of the people who had worked with him, offered him help, been willing to support him, including some of the most respected professionals in politics like Arthur Sinodinos and pollster Mark Textor, Abbott had now shut out his deputy too. Ultimately Abbott showed undyingly loyalty to one person only, his chief of staff.

Turnbull got his wish, and well before Christmas.