Australian PM Faces Leadership Challenge

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Friday he will fight a potential leadership challenge next week, first proposed by a junior politician from his conservative Liberal Party. Earlier in the day, parliament member Luke Simpkins emailed fellow lawmakers about plans to present a motion against the prime minister at a party meeting on Tuesday. The embattled Abbott asked his deputy leader, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop—who had been mentioned as a possible successor—to stand with him and urged lawmakers to reject the ballot. “We are not the Labor Party, and we are not going to repeat the chaos and the instability of the Labor years,” he said, referring to the party his conservative coalition ousted in September 2013.