Sources close to Malcolm Turnbull believe he will stand as leader of the Liberal party if a spill motion is successful, while the communications minister himself has kept a low profile following the news of the spill.
Turnbull has not spoken publicly since two Western Australian backbenchers announced they would bring on a party room vote with a motion to vacate the positions party leader and deputy leader.
But Guardian Australia has learned that some Turnbull supporters believe that he will stand if the positions become vacant.
Reporters have camped outside Turnbull’s house in Sydney, prompting his wife, Lucy, to come out and say: “Malcolm is not going to come out and speak to you so can I just suggest you go and get on with your Saturdays and have a lovely weekend.”
Turnbull is expected at a fundraiser in his Sydney electorate on Sunday. The other possible leadership contender, the foreign minister, Julie Bishop, will also attend.
The deputy prime minister, Warren Truss, has thrown his support behind Tony Abbott.
“I don’t think that any disruption is helpful to the government,” Truss said. “We need to get behind the leadership team.”
He admits the Coalition needs to up its game. “This is a turning point for the government in that it needs to deal with the way it looks at issues,” Truss said. “There’s no point having a reformist agenda that may achieve worthy goals, if it can’t pass the parliament.”
Former chief of staff to John Howard, Grahame Morris, told Sky News that Abbott needed more time to go about implementing his agenda, adding that the Coalition could look at the leadership issue again “about Christmas time”.
“That seems to me fair to everyone. It gives the prime minister time to overcome the problems that have beset him,” Morris said.
The treasurer, Joe Hockey, who is expected to lose his portfolio if Abbott loses the prime ministership, told reporters Abbott had his “unqualified support”.
“He is a good man, he is a genuinely good human being. It is a very difficult period to govern all across the world,” Hockey said. “You’ve got to stay firm, you’ve got to stay on course. You’ve got to be stable.”
On Sunday morning, Bishop appeared alongside Abbott for a press conference in Townsville.
“The last thing any of us should want to do is to reproduce the chaos and instability of the Labor years. We are not Labor,” Abbott said. “This Game of Thrones circus which the Labor Party gave us is never going to be reproduced by this Liberal-National Coalition.”
Bishop has consistently said she will vote against the leadership spill.
“I was elected the deputy of this party in 2007 and again in 2013, and I understand from my colleagues that they look to me for stability and certainty as deputy,” Bishop told reporters. “My role as deputy is to support the leader, not to change the leader, and I don’t support a spill motion.”
“I support the prime minister, I support the leader.”
