If Foreign Minister Julie Bishop thought she could escape Liberal leadership speculation while in New Zealand, she was soon put right.
From the first question, the matter of who leads the Liberals - and Australia - dominated a joint press conference Ms Bishop held with New Zealand's Foreign Minister Murray McCully in Auckland on Friday.
Kiwi reporters were just as interested in the spills, rumours and possibility of prime minister Julie Bishop as those who had travelled from the Canberra press gallery.
"Minister Bishop, would you like to be the next prime minister of Australia?" one asked bluntly.
"The role of prime minister of Australia is occupied by Prime Minister Abbott," Ms Bishop replied, looking for the next topic.
But the questions stuck on the theme.
Would she run against Malcolm Turnbull in the event of a successful spill? Should Tony Abbott be given more time? Would she ask him to resign?
"These are hypothetical questions and this is all based on speculation and rumour," the characteristically feisty Ms Bishop said.
"I don't intend to add to it."
The speculation wasn't helpful, it was self-evident Liberal Party MPs were the ones to choose the leader and everyone should just be getting on with the job of governing for Australia, she said.
Ms Bishop drew laughs at one point by saying she'd answer the "easy" leadership part of a double-barrelled query before tackling the more diplomatically difficult topic of whether Australia would back former NZ prime minister Helen Clark for United Nations secretary-general if there was an Australian candidate.
The unspoken addendum was, what if that candidate were Kevin Rudd.
But when yet another Auckland reporter asked one more "easy one" about leadership, Ms Bishop fired back: "That's your idea of an easy question?"
Mr McCully stood alongside, somewhat bemused, saying he wasn't concerned about what's happening in Australian politics.
That was entirely a matter for the elected parliamentarians of Australia, he said.
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