Aussie PM may quit parliament soon

CanBERRa: Australia’s beleaguered prime minister was resisting pressure to quit as opponents from within his party struggled to show that he had lost the government’s support.

Yesterday, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull demanded the names of lawmakers in the conservative Liberal Party who wanted him to go before he would allow them to choose a new prime minister at a meeting at Parliament House today.

The names would provide proof that a majority of his government had abandoned him.

Turnbull would then become the fourth prime minister to be dumped by his or her own party before serving a full three-year term in an extraordinary era of political insta- bility that began in 2010. The trend is universally hated by Australians.

Turnbull’s main rival in his government, former Cabinet minister Peter Dutton, has told the prime minister that a majority of Liberal Party lawmakers – at least 43 – do not support his leadership.

But Dutton’s supporters yesterday could not find 43 lawmakers prepared to sign their names to a petition demanding a leadership ballot.

An explanation could be that some lawmakers feared they would be punished by voters if they put their names to dumping Turnbull.

The ballot to choose a prime minister is secret, so lawmakers do not have to declare which candidate they voted for. Many later lie that they backed the winner. Support for ousting Turnbull might also have waned because he warned yesterday that he would quit politics rather than ask his party again for its support in a ballot.

His resignation would force a by-election that could cost the government its single-seat majority and push his successor into immediately calling general elections.

Zed Seselja, a Dutton supporter who has resigned as a Turnbull government minister, estimated that 40 had signed the petition yesterday.

Turnbull insisted that the names of those who wanted him gone needed to be made public.

“These are momentous times and it’s important that people are accountable for what they’re doing,” he told reporters.

— AP Numbered days: Turnbull addressing the media during a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra.