Mr Garrett said the party would move on from the fallout following Thursday's attempted spill, adding that the focus should be shifted to the opposition's shortcomings.

Mr Garrett escaped the turmoil at Parliament House and was out in Canberra on Friday joining in a National Ride2School Day at North Ainslie Primary School with Member for Fraser Andrew Leigh.

Mr Leigh also joined him to launch the US-Australia Virtual Environmental Partnership with US ambassador Jeffrey Bleich at Lyneham High School.

"Tony Abbott is the captain of negativity on a ship where when you go into the hold, you can't find a single policy that's been developed," he said. "He's got his ship sailing along there, blowing in the winds of negativity."

Mr Garrett dismissed the possibility of another leadership spill attempt before the election in September.

"It is the time to draw an absolute, unbroken line under these events and to get on with the tasks in front of us," he said.

Mr Garrett also weighed in on comments from the BBC that Australia has one of the most brutal political cultures in the democratic world, dismissing the coverage as hyperbole.

"I think the British probably do their politics much the same as we do, but maybe there's just a bit of the stiff upper lip that goes with it," he said.

"We're just a bit more open about it."

The US-Australia Virtual Environmental Partnership, launched on World Water Day, will link eight teams of secondary school students in Australia and the US, with the Canberran school working with Brunswick County Early College High School in North Carolina.

Administered by the Charles Darwin University and the University of Maryland Centre for Environmental Science, the program is designed to promote science education and raise awareness of environmental issues.

"Whichever way I look at it, this is the learning of the future," Mr Garrett said.