New Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison yesterday visited the drought-stricken Outback in a demonstration that he had turned his focus away from his government’s internal drama to the problems of the nation, but a leading opinion poll showed it now faces an even greater chance of electoral defeat after changing leaders.
Morrison nominated drought assistance as a top priority along with national security and economic growth when he was chosen by lawmakers in his conservative Liberal Party on Friday to replace Malcolm Turnbull, who became the fourth prime minister to be dumped by his or her own party since 2010 in response to poor opinion polling.
Morrison flew to Queensland state, where crops are failing and ranchers are struggling to feed sheep and cattle after six years of drought. He has not announced any new initiatives to help farmers.
Photo: Reuters
Morrison is working to heal a bitter rift between conservative and moderate lawmakers in his conservative government to present a united front to voters at elections due by May next year.
His Cabinet includes a number of ministers who were involved in Turnbull’s ouster, taken as a sign he was trying to unite the party, including Peter Dutton, the hard-right lawmaker who led the charge against Turnbull, but lost the leadership ballot to Morrison.
Dutton was sworn in once again yesterday as home affairs minister. He had quit that post so he could publicly challenge Turnbull.
Former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott, a key Dutton ally who was replaced by Turnbull in a similar Liberal Party revolt in 2015, yesterday said that the government would not turn against Morrison.
“The era of the political assassin is over and thank God for that,” Abbott told Sydney Radio 2GB.
Morrison welcomed Abbott’s comments.
“It’s been a pretty tumultuous time and I think Australians would welcome the fact that that that period of time is over and it should be over,” he told reporters in the town of Quilpie. “The age of bitterness has come to a close and the age of working together and focusing on the future has come.”
Morrison has offered Abbot a newly created role of special envoy for indigenous affairs, but Abbott has yet to decide whether he will accept it.
The opinion poll by the respected Newspoll published yesterday found that the government popular support has crashed to its lowest level in a decade due to the infighting.
It found that only 33 percent of respondents intended to vote for the ruling Liberal-National coalition, a tie with a poll in 2008 when the Liberal party was in opposition a year after being voted out of power.
The two-party-preferred split between the opposition Labor party and the coalition blew out from 51-49 in favor of Labor two weeks ago to 56-44, which would translate into a heavy election defeat.
The poll, published by The Australian newspaper, also showed Labor leader Bill Shorten was now preferred prime minister among voters.
The poll was based on a survey of 1,783 voters nationwide from Friday to Sunday. It had 2.3 percentage point margin of error.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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