Despite knowing what a complete hash the Coalition have made of government, this past year and a half, the ever unpopular Abbott and his cronies have been canvassing the idea of a double dissolution election. Publicly the Abbott line is “the government intends to serve a full term”, but with the Senate more than once rejecting legislation Abbott has grounds to run to the GG and request a double dissolution election more than a year early, and with that comes a full Senate election.
Given the government’s unpopularity, and the low personal rating of the PM himself, you would think most of the Tories would be opposed to the idea, but it seems a fair number of Abbott supporters are in favor. Abbott calls the Senate “feral”, and as a concession to some backbenchers, to head off the recent spill, Abbott asked to be given until June to improve, something he has yet clearly failed to achieve. An early election would do little for the government, there would be no chance of them obtaining outright control of the Senate, and at best would limp back into government with a reduced majority. Personally however it could be enough for Abbott to retain the leadership in the longer term, and head off any Turnbull challenge for some time. One government backbencher put it this way “We would need to be on crack” to go for this, and another “I don’t know if Tony would be crazy-brave enough to call a ‘double D’, but it would be a chance to present our policies and ask for a (another) mandate.”
All I can say is ‘Desperate men do desperate things, and Abbott is desperate!”

The Greens are constantly demanding an election.

But NOT if it affects that unrepresentative swill in the Senate though.

Heaven forbid that those fat Green behinds polishing seats in the Senate might(would) be tipped out.

So Paul1405, that means that the NSW 'Watermelon' Greens who have just entered into preference deals with Labor in NSW, would have to renegotiate new deals with Labor federally and with the Greens nationally as well?

The proliferation of factions in the Greens should produce much clucking and pecking in the hen coop. Backs to the wall!

Dear Paul,

I think the PM's clock is ticking.
He may have survived his party room's spill
61 votes to 39, with 20 of these votes locked
in through cabinet solidarity - but all this
has done is sentence him to a kamikaze mission.

We have a leader whose history shows us he won't
change hurling towards a budget he can't fix.

I think electorally he's doomed.

Beach, you know little about politics and even less about The Greens.

<<The Greens are constantly demanding an election.>> Are they really, your opinion no less.

<<The proliferation of factions in the Greens>> Wrong again, there are no factions in The Greens, other than the ones manufactured in the minds eye of a member of the extreme right. I would no dare accuse your party of having factions, because you have to have members before you can have factions, or do you consider yourself, and Jim to be separate factions?

Paul1405, "there are no factions in The Greens"

Keep saying that and you might believe it, but no-one else would!

Foxy surely those figures make Abbotts leadership a more secure & more democratic than the Labor leadership.

After all shorten was rejected by the majority of the members of the Labor party, & only became leader due to the control of the party by the unions. You could not say he was democratically elected, or the preferred leader.

All this querying of Abbott's election is rather an example of glass house stone throwing isn't it?