Former Australian treasurer Scott Morrison yesterday was sworn in as the nation’s seventh prime minister in 11 years, after a stunning party revolt against Malcolm Turnbull, which the new leader said had left the government “bruised and battered.”
Former Australian minister for home affairs Peter Dutton, an ex-police officer and right-winger, was the driving force behind the move to oust Turnbull after a Liberal Party backlash against his more moderate policies.
However, it was Morrison, a Turnbull ally, who won a party vote 45-40.
Photo: Reuters
He was officially sworn in as Australia’s 30th prime minister late yesterday in a ceremony in Canberra.
Former Australian minister for the environment and energy Josh Frydenberg — who was elected as the deputy Liberal leader — was sworn in as treasurer.
Morrison — an evangelical Christian known as “ScoMo” — replaced a man who became the latest in a long line of leaders knifed in the back by ambitious colleagues.
The fresh outbreak of political instability was met with renewed public disgust toward politicians, already among the least-trusted profession in the nation.
Morrison said the battle had taken a heavy toll on parliament and the Liberal Party.
“Our job ... is to ensure that we not only bring our party back together, which has been bruised and battered this week, but that will ensure we bring the parliament back together,” he said.
He said his top priority was to help farmers in New South Wales struggling through one of the worst droughts in half a century.
Dutton pledged “absolute loyalty” to Morrison.
Turnbull’s departure from politics is to spark a by-election for his Sydney seat, threatening the government’s one-seat parliamentary majority.
He used his final news conference to lash out at the “wreckers” in his party.
“There was a determined insurgency from a number of people both in the party room and backed by voices, powerful voices, in the media,” he told reporters in reference to media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s conservative News Corporation.
“It was described as madness by many, and ... in so far as there has been chaos this week, it has been created by the wreckers,” he added.
Dutton, who favors slashing migrant numbers and even pulling Australia out of the Paris climate agreement, was the sole candidate to be prime minister until Thursday, when Morrison entered the fray to try to halt his power grab.
Morrison, a former minister for immigration and border protection who took credit for “stop the boats” — a harsh policy to halt asylum seekers from entering Australia — is further to the right than Turnbull, but not as hardline as some in the party.
Morrison was likely to continue Turnbull’s economic agenda, of which he was one of the main architects as treasurer, Flinders University politics expert Rob Manwaring said.
However, he could shift the government’s environment policy to the right as a consistent voter against the introduction of a carbon price, Manwaring added.
“In one sense, I think there would be continuity [in the economic portfolio], in another sense, [he will be] trying to downgrade or shift any radical action on climate policy,” he said.
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