Great Scott!
Australia has new PM
Australia government lawmakers yesterday elected Treasurer Scott Morrison as the next prime minister in a ballot that continues an era of extraordinary political instability.
Morrison defeated the key challenger Peter Dutton, a former Cabinet minister, by a vote 45-40.
Dutton’s supporters had forced incumbent Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to hold the leadership ballot. Turnbull did not contest the ballot and said he would quit politics before the next federal election.
It would mean Morrison would be tested at a by-election in his Sydney seat of Wentworth.
‘‘I’ll be leaving the Parliament in – not – not before too long. As I have always said,’’ he told reporters at his farewell press conference.
‘‘I’ve been very clear about that. It’s not a secret.’’
Dutton’s failure prevents the Australian policy shifting to the hard right.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop had been among the favourites and could have become Australia’s second female prime minister. She was rejected on the first round of voting.
A beleaguered 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 yesterday. The names would prove a majority of his government had abandoned him.
The bare minimum majority of 43 signatures were provided shortly before the meeting started. They included more than one Turnbull supporter who signed to break the impasse.
Turnbull has become the fourth prime minister to be dumped by his or her own party before serving a full threeyear term since the revolving door to the prime minister’s office started in 2010.
The trend is universally hated by Australians.
Dutton’s and Turnbull’s camps waged the most chaotic, frenetic and at times farcical leadership struggle that Australian politics has seen in years, closing down Parliament on Thursday and damaging the Liberal Party’s credibility.
Public anger became apparent overnight with windows broken at the Brisbane office of Dutton, Turnbull’s main rival in his government.
But the extent of disquiet about Turnbull’s leadership proved to be exaggerated by many Dutton supporters. Of the 85 lawmakers at yesterday’s meeting, 40 opted for no change.
As the hard-nosed enforcer behind some of the federal government’s toughest policies, Morrison has always liked to talk about dolling out tough love.
Now, as Australia’s next prime minister, he may need to dish it out in spades.
Morrison was painted as a Father Christmas figure before this year’s budget, with the treasurer promising sweeping tax cuts and sweeteners for older Australians.
But it wasn’t always beer and skittles the self-confessed ‘‘happy clapper’’ and Cronulla Sharks NRL fan was dispensing.
Morrison, a former tourism executive, rose to prominence by spearheading the ‘‘stop the boats’’ approach to border protection as immigration minister to Tony Abbott.
His hardline stance towards asylum seekers bewildered some observers, given his devout Christian beliefs.
But he professed a deep belief in the righteousness of crushing the people behind the smuggling trade and preserving the safety of those on board rickety boats.
Morrison was elected to parliament in 2007 in the electorate of Cook in the Sutherland Shire.
During a nine-month stint as social services minister, Morrison was also forced to sell the Abbott government’s deeply unpopular 2014 budget, which was laced with a cocktail of deep welfare cuts.
Morrison has been far more pragmatic in the role of treasurer, performing backflips on a range of unpopular government policies.
Immensely unpopular measures including a Medicare levy hike, superannuation changes and big business tax cuts were each eventually cast aside like water off a duck’s back. He also avoided falling into the trap of immediate predecessors of making outlandish promises about surpluses. –