THE political merry-go-round that has become the Australian prime minister’s office got another spin on Monday night as Malcolm Turnbull challenged Tony Abbott for the nation’s top job and won.
While the leadership challenge was met with mixed reactions across the region yesterday, Federal Member for Mallee Andrew Broad made it clear he did not support the leadership challenge.
Mr Broad told the media five prime ministers in as many years wasn’t good enough for the people of his electorate.
As a Nationals member of parliament, Mr Broad was not involved in the Liberal Party leadership vote. However, he has previously backed Tony Abbott as the leader of the Coalition.
“The Parliament is about the Australian people, not the quest for power,” he said.
Fellow National Party member senator Cory Bernardi expressed a similar sentiment calling Australian politics a “circus”.
“We have now probably had so many prime ministers and leaders of oppositions in the last eight years that I think we’ve set a new record for the entire Pacific,” he said.
Malcolm Turnbull won the Liberal Party leadership spill by 54 votes to 44 and yesterday was sworn in as Australia’s 29th prime minister.
Mr Turnbull was elected to Federal Parliament as the Member for Wentworth in 2004. Over the past decade he has experienced a meteoric rise through the party.
Up until Monday Mr Turnbull was the Minister for Communications.
Mr Abbott was assigned a back bench seat come question time yesterday but chose not to attend. Interestingly, both Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd did make an appearance following their demise.
An announcement of Mr Turnbull’s changes to the cabinet was expected to be made later in the week.
For more on this story, grab a copy of Wednesday’s Guardian (September 16).
