AUSTRALIAN PM HURT BY LOSS OF SUPPORT
Almost 40% of his party voted against him
CANBERRA • Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott thwarted a leadership challenge, though failed to end speculation his job is under threat after almost 40% of his Liberal Party colleagues voted against him.
Liberal lawmakers voted by 61 to 39 against a motion that would have declared his job vacant and allowed candidates to run against him. Internal support for the prime minister has dwindled 17 months after he won office amid the government’s slumping poll ratings and concern about his leadership style.
“Apart from keeping his job, this is probably the worst possible result for the prime minister,” said Haydon Manning, a politics professor at Flinders University in Adelaide. “A very solid block has just voted against his leadership. It seems a matter of when, not if, he leaves.”
While the cabinet publicly rallied behind the prime minister, Monday’s vote has weakened Mr. Abbott, 57, and increased pressure on him to reset his policy agenda. An opinion poll released Monday showed the government trailing the Labor party by 14 points, with Mr. Abbott the most unpopular Liberal-National coalition prime minister on record.
With the federal budget due in three months, Mr. Abbott must now seek to quell public anger sparked by last year’s spending cuts, while repairing a deficit forecast to hit US$31.3 billion.
“It’s hard to see where Abbott can improve his lot from here,” Prof. Manning said. “It was basically a vote in the confidence of his prime ministership; and there’s obviously no real confidence in it.”
Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, tipped in local media as potential successors, “didn’t need to go for it today because they can just sit back and watch Abbott’s leadership f all apart,” he said.
Mr. Abbott said in a video statement afterward that he should stay in charge of the government until voters decide his fate in elections next year.
“We want to end the disunity and the uncertainty which destroyed two Labor governments and give you the good government that you deserve,” Mr. Abbott said, referring to the centre-left Labor Party that dumped prime ministers in similar internal struggles in 2010 and 2013.
“We think that when you elect a government, when you elect a prime minister, you deserve to keep that government and that prime minister until you have a chance to change your mind,” he added.
Discontent came to a head after Mr. Abbott bestowed a knighthood
This is probably the worst possible result. It seems a matter of when, not if, he leaves
on Prince Philip on Jan. 26, Australia’s national day. Some Liberal colleagues said that exacerbated a backlash in a Queensland state election on Jan. 31 that saw the governing Liberal National Party lose a massive majority.
The government has made the worst start in opinion polls for a party returning to office in almost 30 years. Voters have deserted the coalition after it backtracked on election pledges not to cut funding for education, health and the public broadcaster, and amid concerns about Mr. Abbott’s judgment.
Support for the coalition fell three points to 43% on a two-party preferred basis, compared with Labor at 57%, according to a Newspoll survey published on Monday. Dissatisfaction with Mr. Abbott’s performance rose 10 points to 68%, the worst rating for a coalition prime minister since Newspoll records began three decades ago.
Asked who would be best to lead the Liberal Party, 25% backed Mr. Abbott, compared with 64% for Mr. Turnbull. The survey of 1,178 people was conducted Feb. 6-8, with a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.