Page 1. If Malcolm Turnbull faced a party room meeting this morning, go to page 2.

If Malcolm Turnbull did not face a party room meeting this morning, go to page 11.

 

Page 2. Malcolm Turnbull faced a party room meeting this morning, having threatened to resign both leadership and seat, if there was a spill motion.

If there was a spill motion, go to page 3.

If there was no spill motion go to page 12.

 

Page 3. Despite his desperate bluff, there was indeed a spill, proposed and seconded by [insert names here].

If Malcolm did indeed resign due to the spill motion go to page 4.

If Malcolm did not resign due to the spill motion, and survived, go to page 13.

 

Page 4. So the accidental leader pulled the pin as he said he would/contested and lost.

If Malcolm resigned both leadership and seat go to page 5.

If Malcolm resigned only the leadership go to page 14.

 

Page 5. Leaving the Coalition with no current majority and a looming by-election. The newly elected leader was

If Scott Morrison go to page 6.

If Peter Dutton go to page 7.

If Julie Bishop go to page 8.

If someone else go to page 9.

 

Page 6. Scott Morrison: a choice heartening for Liberals in that he may have sufficient conservative claims to hold the party together, while not earning the opprobrium directed at Peter Dutton.

 

Page 7. Peter Dutton: a choice which has now thrown the nation into uproar, and set the party on a course for deep internal conflict.

 

Page 8. Julie Bishop: this will gain some dividend in the gender-split of the vote, if the right can bring themselves to get behind her.

 

Page 9. Well [insert name here], what a wild card! No-one picked that except your correspondent in this passage [find something I said about new leader somewhere, that looks prescient] in [year].

If the new prime minister immediately went to the governor-general, go to page 10.

If the new prime minister did not immediately go to the governor-general, go to page 15.

 

Page 10. Now we’re heading to an election, which the new government appears to have no chance of winning, with close to 15 seats on a knife-edge, ready to tumble to Labor out of sheer disgust at the Coalition. Will other Coalition MPs sit on the cross-bench? Will the party adopt a loss minimization strategy? Or will they go crazy brave and see if they can use News Corp, Big Fear and other magic to eke out a victory or a draw? Go to page 15.

 

Page 11. Well the Archduke has survived this one. But the assassins are waiting in the café, ready for him to take one more turn round the city.

 

Page 12. Well that was all a bit of a bust wasn’t it? Hate to join in the know-it-all press gallery, but really these are a bunch of total incompetents.

 

Page 13. And in a stunning rebuke to his critics, Turnbull survived another attempt at his head. Surely, surely they will not try again. Surely?

 

Page 14. What? He’s staying in parliament? How sad. How pathetic. Not even living up to his last bluff. Everything we thought about the man has been proved correct. Go to page 15.

 

Page 15. Whatever happens, thank God there’s a bunch of us experts in the major media corporations to interpret it for you, not just try to call it randomly like a bunch of addled greyhound announcers. How surprising that fewer and fewer of you are willing to pay for our stunning expertise.