It all caught up with Julie Bishop in New Zealand on Friday.

After a tense few weeks in federal politics, the Foreign Minister left Canberra late on Thursday night for Auckland, and was awake early on Friday morning for her customary run.

Then, during a speech from Prime Minister Tony Abbott at the Australia New Zealand leadership forum, Ms Bishop suddenly got very, very sleepy.

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She took several extended blinks and at one stage it appeared she may drop off completely.

Mr Abbott made light of his Foreign Minister’s faux pas when quizzed by the press pack later in the day.

“I’ve dozed off from time to time at conferences, all of us have from time to time dozed off at conferences,” Mr Abbott said.

“I’ve missed some very great speeches because occasionally I’ve been contemplating, as it were, contemplating the inside of my eyeball.

“Given the pace at which we all work, it’s absolutely understandable.”

However, the Foreign Minister was on message when fielding questions about the Liberal leadership.

Although on foreign soil, the New Zealand journalists were still interested in the potential of a second leadership spill against Mr Abbott.

“Minister Bishop, would you like to be the next prime minister of Australia?” one reporter 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.

– AAP