Tony Abbott's leadership has suffered a series of devastating body blows, with a former cabinet minister colleague weighing a leadership tilt, Queensland state government counterparts suffering an electoral bloodbath and a disastrous new poll showing he trails 57-43 in the two-party-preferred vote.
As counting began on Saturday evening in the Queensland poll it quickly became apparent that Liberal National Party Premier Campbell Newman would be booted out of his inner-Brisbane seat of Ashgrove.
In addition, the LNP's hold on power rested on a knife edge after less than three years, with a hung parliament in prospect.
Fairfax Media revealed on Saturday that former Howard government cabinet minister Mal Brough was being urged to challenge Mr Abbott for the prime ministership.
Such a challenge would effectively see Mr Brough act as a stalking horse for an alternative leader such as Julie Bishop or Malcolm Turnbull.
Mr Brough did not deny approaches had been made to him when contacted by Fairfax Media. He said only that: "Clearly people are talking to each other because we are all interested in doing what's best for the nation."
A tilt would act as a leadership circuit-breaker for government backbenchers, who are furious with Mr Abbott for a series of recent missteps and misjudgments, culminating in the decision to knight Prince Philip last Monday.
The 2009 leadership contest that saw Mr Abbott replace Mr Turnbull was precipitated by Victorian Liberal MP Kevin Andrews mounting a similar surprise challenge.
Several sources told Fairfax Media, before polling booths closed on Saturday afternoon, that Mr Brough's next move would depend, in part, on the result in the Queensland election.
News of Mr Brough's surprise leadership aspirations came just a day after Fairfax Media revealed that Ms Bishop and Mr Turnbull had been approached to take the leadership from Mr Abbott but had refused to do so.
In a devastating national poll conducted by Galaxy for News Corp papers that will further embolden the Prime Minister's internal critics, the Coalition trailed Labor 43-57 in the two-party-preferred vote.
The ALP led the Coalition 43-36 in the primary vote, while Opposition Leader Bill Shorten enjoyed a 44-27 lead of Mr Abbott as preferred prime minister.
Late on Saturday night Mr Newman thanked voters in his seat, congratulated his opponent Kate Jones and declared "my political career is over".
"The times that we are living in are uncertain... Over the last three years we've had to make some very important decisions for this state. They were necessary and I do truly believe that they have put Queensland in a far better place," he said.
He also offered commiserations to the raft of LNP MPs who lost seats and urged those who had hung on to "keep on with the important work at hand".Such a result, if repeated at the next election, would mean electoral armageddon for the federal government and the fall of more than three dozen Coalition-held seats.
Three MPs are in the frame to replace Mr Newman – former leaders and current ministers John-Paul Langbroek, Lawrence Springborg and Treasurer Tim Nicholls.
In worse news for the LNP, which came to power in 2012 in an unprecedented electoral landslide, victory for Labor leader Annastacia Palaszczuk was a distinct possibility.
Before the election, the LNP government held 73 seats in the 89-member Parliament and Labor held just nine.
With 61.4 per cent of the vote counted at 9pm, ABC election analyst said Labor had definitely won 43 seats and the LNP 39 seats.
At that point, the projection was 41 seats for the LNP and 45 for Labor – giving the ALP the barest majority – but the ABC's election analyst Antony Green cautioned that minority LNP and Labor governments were also a distinct possibility.
Even as counting continued, debate raged about the impact of the unpopular federal government – and in particular Mr Abbott – on the Queensland result.
Aside from federal issues, the Newman government's proposed asset sales to pay off debt, cuts to the public service, health, education and the former Premier's all-action personality all played a part in Queenslander's wholesale rejection of the LNP government.
Mr Abbott did not join the campaign once – in contrast, Mr Shorten appeared 11 times in just 25 days.
Federal Attorney-General George Brandis conceded on Sky News that Mr Abbott's announcement of a knighthood for Prince Philip at the start of the campaign's final week was a distraction for the Newman government and cost the Premier.
Federal and state Liberal MPs also told Fairfax Media that debate about possible changes to the GST, industrial-relations reforms and a $20 cut to the rebate paid to doctors had also damaged the LNP's campaign.
One in five voters told a Sky News exit poll that federal political issues were very important in influencing their vote in the state poll.
Queensland Treasurer Tim Nicholls went further, stating: "There were certainly federal factors and there were less-than-helpful things. Raising discussion about the GST was something that certainly didn't help the campaign. The Medicare co-payment was again something that we didn't support as we didn't support raising the GST.
"Those factors I think did play a role in what we have seen and part of what we are seeing here tonight.
"We felt that the knighthood was a decision out of left field for everyone. It was certainly not something that we saw coming and that we would have thought of. Those have certainly played into what we have seen here tonight."
