Isra-Mart srl : Smoke gets in coalition's eyes

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When coalition MPs gathered for their regular party room meeting on Tuesday, Tony Abbott and Warren Truss delivered a warning.

The Liberals and Nationals might hold an election-winning lead now, but it could all easily become unstuck with the first signs of disunity.

Abbott described voter support as "fleeting and ephemeral" and urged his MPs to stick to his simple litany: axe the carbon tax, stop the boats, end the waste.

The Nationals leader was more blunt, saying supporters were telling him the greatest thing they feared about the coalition were "self-inflicted wounds" and the possibility they could "stuff things up".

The next day coalition whips - the senior MPs charged with rounding up their colleagues for votes in parliament - witnessed some ill-discipline in the ranks.

But rather than phoning the five wayward MPs - who embarrassed the opposition by failing to turn up for a vote and thus missing an opportunity to beat the government - the whips sent out an email to all coalition MPs.

In it, they said former Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull, Queensland frontbencher Ian Macfarlane and three others had shown behaviour which was "totally unacceptable and shows great disrespect to their colleagues and the coalition as a whole".

The whips underlined the fact that the five MPs in question all held safe seats.

While Abbott had no role in writing the email, he was shown it just as it was being sent out - as a "courtesy", according to chief opposition whip Warren Entsch - and presumably could have stopped it if he felt it was inappropriate, but instead said "let the cards fall where they fall". .

The email leaked and Truss's fears of "self-inflicted wounds" were realised.

Turnbull, already causing angst within his own party by pouring cold water on their climate change policy and last week flagging his interest in heading the party again in the future, was furious.

He likened the email to a "press release", saying its leaking to the media was inevitable and the whips would have known this.

But Turnbull, who was dumped in 2009 over his support for an emissions trading scheme, declined to say whether he thought it was payback for his recent outspokenness and reiterated his support for the current Liberal leader.

But relations between the pair appeared tense at a Cancer Council fundraiser in Parliament House on Thursday.

They exchanged less than a dozen words and quickly shook hands in front of the media before Abbott made a speedy departure.

Abbott on Friday said he had no problem with the email, nor did he think it was targeted at any individual, saying it was about "the principle that every one of the coalition MPs has got to be there for every division".

But the damage had been done.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard, whose personal standing and party stocks have been poor since the election, seized on it in parliament.

She also accused Abbott of lacking leadership by allowing his party to accept tobacco lobby donations - something the Greens are pushing to make illegal.

With half a dozen coalition MPs querying the science behind climate change and signalling they'll cross the floor to back plain packaging for cigarettes, Gillard told parliament: "Maybe the smoke they care about is the smoke that shows there's a fire of division over there in the opposition."

While Liberal insiders say there is no support for a leadership change, Turnbull - who lost the leadership by one vote in late 2009 - has maintained a consistent lead over Abbott in opinion polls when voters are given the option.

He also keeps a high profile through the media, his website, his personal iPad application and Twitter account, which has almost 54,000 followers - 20,000 more than Abbott.

And much to the ire of colleagues he frequently speaks across portfolios, while the coalition's attack on the national broadband network is waning.

Turnbull's strongest critics lie in the Nationals - who reject the need for an emissions trading scheme and will always have suspicions of someone who believes in an Australian republic.

With parliament returning for another sitting next week, Abbott's message about fleeting support could have greater weight.