THE Liberal Party - after days of rancour and rumour - will settle its leadership in a three-way party room showdown between Malcolm Turnbull, Joe Hockey and Tony Abbott this morning.
This will give Liberal MPs choices not only on their preferred leader but also on their stance on emissions trading.
A vote for Mr Turnbull will be a vote to stick with the emissions trading deal the Liberals negotiated with the Government last week.
A vote for Mr Abbott will be a vote for the party to reverse this stance and instead oppose the Government's emissions trading legislation as a bloc in the Parliament.
And a vote for Mr Hockey will allow all Liberal MPs to be given a conscience vote in Parliament on emissions trading.
The Liberal meeting will start at 9am in the Opposition party room in Parliament House.
It will be attended by 84 Liberal MHRs and senators (one Victorian MP, Fran Bailey, has leave of absence from Parliament this week). The first order of business will be a spill motion. This is a motion declaring the leadership to be vacant. It is the first step in a leadership challenge.
Even though Mr Hockey is a contender, he does not want to move the spill motion because he has promised not to challenge Mr Turnbull.
But Mr Hockey has the view that if someone else successfully moved a spill he could then stand for the vacant leadership without breaking his no-challenge promise.
The spill is likely to be moved by the third man, Tony Abbott, or one of his allies. Mr Abbott triggered the crisis last week when he quit his frontbench position in protest at Mr Turnbull's deal on emissions trading.
A simple majority of 43 of the 84 MPs expected to attend would carry the spill motion. If it fails, Mr Turnbull has won.
If it passes, then nominations for a new leader will be sought. If more than two people nominate, the decision will be made by an exhaustive ballot. This means that in the first round of voting, every MP casts a vote for one of the candidates.
Their votes are counted and the candidate with the least support is eliminated. A fresh round of voting is held with the remaining candidates. The process continues until one candidate ends up with an absolute majority.
Today's vote
■ Malcolm Turnbull will read out the motion on notice from 10 MPs (led by Tony Abbott) to declare the position of leader vacant.
■ By tradition, no debate is held.
■ Motion will be put straight away by secret ballot.
■ If the motion is carried, the Deputy Leader (Julie Bishop) typically takes the chair and calls for nominations for leader.
■ The lowest-polling candidate in each voting round is eliminated until one candidate secures more than 50 per cent of the vote.
■ Of the 85 Liberal MPs, all except Fran Bailey (who is ill) are expected to be there for the vote.
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