Mr Turnbull has just told the media at Parliament House that he would consider his future over the summer, but in the short term he would be moving to the Coalition's back bench.

Mr Turnbull was defeated by one vote at a partyroom leadership ballot this morning, which was won by Tony Abbott who ran on an anti-emissions trading scheme platform.

"[My wife] Lucy and I will have a think about that over the holidays and discuss it with our family," he said.

"I just want to say thank you to my colleagues in the party room who stood with me in the spill and the leadership ballott.

"I also want to thank the thousands of Australians who have shown their support for the principled stand I have taken."

Mr Abbott's first move as leader was to hold a partyroom vote on how to handle the ETS legislation currently before the Senate.

If the Coalition is unsuccessful in having the legislation deferred to a committee for examination, which is likely, it will vote against the ETS legislation and potentially trigger a double dissolution election.

Mr Turnbull said this would put at risk the thousands of jobs protected by the amendments to the ETS legislation he had fought for, but which ultimately cost him his position in the party.

"I'm disappointed by the result, naturally," he said. "But I'm disappointed that there is not only a change of leadership but also a pretty dramatic change in policy.

"There is no question that the amendments that we achieved would have saved 10s of thousands of jobs and protected Australian farmers ... and would have provided them tremendous opportunities."