Dutton planning a second challenge to Australian prime minister
CANBERRA — A second challenge to Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership loomed on Wednesday, a day after Turnbull rejected the resignations of seven Cabinet members who had backed a rival who is openly preparing a new bid.
Former home affairs minister Peter Dutton said he was again canvassing colleagues in the Liberal Party, the senior partner in the government coalition, just a day after Turnbull survived his initial challenge for the leadership in a party-room vote.
Expectations that Turnbull would soon face another challenge, possibly within days, were stoked when eight Cabinet ministers backed Dutton in Tuesday’s challenge.
Dutton soon confirmed those expectations and declared on Wednesday he was working to secure the seven party votes he needs to become Australia’s sixth prime minister since 2009.
“I’m speaking to colleagues,” Dutton told 3AW Radio.
“If I believe the majority of colleagues support me then I will consider my position,” he said.
Dutton also used various media interviews on Wednesday to suggest new policy directions, including reduced tax on electricity bills and reduced immigration.
Turnbull’s tenure as prime minister was in crisis on Wednesday morning after nine ministers offered their resignation to him on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning in a show of support for Dutton.
“A number of people who voted for Peter Dutton have in fact offered their resignations to the prime minister, they’ve done the right thing, but the prime minister has said that he wants them to remain in the ministry,” Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio.
Bishop said the resignations of Dutton and Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, the former minister for international development and the Pacific, were accepted.
Turnbull suggested he still had the support of a majority of his party.
“The iron laws of arithmetic confirmed my leadership of the Liberal Party,” he told reporters on Wednesday at a joint news conference with Treasurer Scott Morrison and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann.
Both ministers also declared their support for Turnbull.
Further political instability is now all but guaranteed in the final two days of parliament’s sitting before it breaks until September, upsetting Australia’s financial markets.
Australia’s stock market was done more than 0.5 percent on Wednesday, with the index hitting a nine-day low.
Market sentiment was further soured when the upper house Senate rejected the government’s planned corporate tax cuts on Wednesday.