Editor's note

It should be quite a day in Canberra. First, we await the Solicitor-General’s advice on whether Peter Dutton is eligible to sit in parliament, due to section 44-related questions. Then, we will likely have a Liberal party room meeting to elect a new leader and prime minister - a three-way tussle between Dutton, Scott Morrison and Julie Bishop. How on earth did we get here?

It started with Turnbull making a hash of his prime ministership, writes Michelle Grattan, opening the way for the conservatives to destabilise and topple him. And as Frank Bongiorno points out, it has been the ugliest, messiest leadership spill in Australian political history, tearing the party apart.

Historically, writes Judith Brett, the Liberals have benefitted from Labor’s divisions. Now Labor is the beneficiary as ideological warriors split the Liberals, and looks set to become Australia’s natural party of government.

Amanda Dunn

Section Editor: Politics + Society

Top story

Wes Mountain/The Conversation

Moment after moment of madness: Liberals manage the ugliest, messiest leadership challenge in history

Frank Bongiorno, Australian National University

Whether we end up with Prime Minister Turnbull, Dutton, Morrison or Bishop – it will not be sweetness and light among those who find themselves at the "out-group" when the dust begins to settle.

Health + Medicine

Arts + Culture

  • Friday essay: the meaning of food in crime fiction

    M. Jean Anderson, Victoria University of Wellington; Barbara Pezzotti, Monash University; Carolina Miranda, Victoria University of Wellington

    Food is an increasingly popular ingredient in crime fiction, serving up insights into the character of the detective hero and adding spice to the mystery.

Science + Technology

Business + Economy

Cities

  • Why queues for women’s toilets are longer than men’s

    Lisel O'Dwyer, Flinders University

    Men spend, on average, around 60 seconds in a toilet, while women spend 90. This is for many reasons, including biology. This leads to a bottleneck that keeps women waiting around to use the loo.

Politics + Society

 

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