Morrison 45, Dutton 40

Scott Morrison is Australia’s sixth prime minister in eleven years, having prevailed in the second round of the party room vote by 45 votes to 40. Julie Bishop was eliminated after the first round: there are reports the vote was Dutton 38, Morrison 36 and Bishop 11. Josh Frydenberg replaces Julie Bishop after nearly eleven years as deputy, having won 46 votes against 20 for Steve Ciobo and 16 for Greg Hunt. Over to you.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

848 comments on “Morrison 45, Dutton 40”

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  1. The electorate is going to seriously punish the Coalition for what has just happened this week, it is now very obvious that the Federal Liberal Party caucus is truly dysfunctional.

  2. Alice Workman tweets

    Within seconds of result a message from Dutton camp – “it is not over, fight continues, fuck Scott” #auspol #libspill

  3. The chaos of the week was created by the wreckers.

    Well, if you give in to toddlers time and again they will come to the conclusion that they run the joint.

    And if I have learnt anything about parenting; you do not want the toddler in charge. They do not know how to cook, clean, pay the bills, drive a car…. and they can be rather nasty to the cat.

  4. caf: “The question though is why the objective fact of the overwhelming defeat of their position in their own plebiscite seemingly hasn’t shaken that belief?”

    It’s a question deserving of its own episode on one of those “World’s Greatest Mysteries” shows that pop up on Channel 60 something on Saturday afternoons.

  5. SK

    I am absolutely no fan of Morrison. I will give him credit for having a spine so the next battle is going to be fun 🙂

  6. Turnbull was the glue keeping the polls respectable. The voters won’t forget this. There is still an energy and emissions reduction policy to get passed. ALP will win in a landslide and Dutton will lose his seat at the election. Have faith. Shorten will easily have his measure.

  7. Davidwh, you have questions to answer: will you stand by your previous statement that you would vote against the Liberals at the next election? 😛

  8. Bushfire Bill @ #64 Friday, August 24th, 2018 – 2:11 pm

    Once again the ABC runs their coverage as if the only political commentary worth considering is that of Liberal politicians or ex-politicians, and then only if they wholeheartedly agree with the result.

    All morning they were scrambling madly to build up whoever the PM was to be. Since the ballot, already ScoMo is being touted for sainthood.

    There’s not a Labor politician or any other kind of critic or potential critic of the government in sight. It’s all very chummy and first-name.

    First order of business of an incoming Labor government should be to clean out the ABC of its Lib-friendly fanboyz, urgers, news editors and CPG whisperers.

    An special example should be made of Greg Jennett.

    Well said!

  9. I suppose all the money that the Greens collected because they were going to oppose Dutton will now be returned to the rightful owners.

  10. “Samantha Maiden tweets: Contrast this to Kevin Rudd you could hear a pin drop, every ragged breath it was so brutal and traumatic and intimate you felt you were intruding in his grief. Turnbull is alone. No family. Rattling off a shopping list & acting like nothing happened. He’s a funny fish.”

    He brought his family in at the end and, unlike the Rudds, it was all laughter and smiles. To me, this suggests that Turnbull is more of a grown up than Rudd, but to each their own on that.

    At least Turnbull didn’t say “we’ve gotta zip!”

  11. Until an election Morrison is bound by the same issue – a one seat (and no seat if Mal vacates immediately) majority. He has to let the RWNJ back benchers keep calling the shots, but may look less compromised in doing so because he is known to be a prick. For this reason alone I think he’d be wise to head to the GGs on his way home tonight or very soon. Going back to parliament is a great risk for him – not from labor, but from his own party. I think he’ll get a poll bounce that will put the LNP even with labor, and if they do they’ll go for it before the wheels can fall off.

    perhaps labor should have gone softer on dutton this week in the hope he got in?

  12. JimmyD I don’t accept I have questions to answer but I wouldn’t have said if I didn’t mean it. It’s 2013 revisited.

  13. I thought Turnbull went out with class.

    Can we compromise and say a ‘classy failure’?

    But yes, I did say earlier that ‘in these times you get a look into the timbre of peoples hearts’. He was probably one of the few in the Liberal Party that can walk away from this week with some cred (although we dont know all that happened behind the scenes).

  14. Perhaps the Labor tactics team has sent out a memo not to say anything to anyone until the dust settles?

    That would be my tactical advice. Let the Libs self-immolate. The less Labor has to do with it, the better. Else, some of the spatter might stick.

  15. @NE Qld…….yep
    Now Turnbull is gone watch the polls go even more to Shorten and the ALP. Preferred PM will have Shorten in front one would think.

  16. poroti: “Whereas Lucien you got rid of Abbott merely by you and your merry group walking into the party room singing kumbaya ?”

    At least Turnbull actually had the numbers.

  17. meher baba

    I agree. MT had the class to keep his dignity and try to be positive. I’m glad he mentioned Dutton as an insurgent.

    But didn’t he realise the danger of Dutton when he gave him so much power? I can’t agree with him that all his decisions were correct.

  18. Tristo: “Malcolm Turnbull will stay as the member for Wentworth until the election.”

    I’m sure I heard him say he would be resigning “very soon”.

  19. “Malcolm Turnbull will stay as the member for Wentworth until the election.”

    So you are saying there will be an election next week?

  20. @meher baba

    The election is probably going to be “very soon”, like a few months. Since it is now 8 months until the very latest practicable date for an House of Representatives and Half Senate election to be held.

  21. Sally Rugg tweets

    Malcolm Turnbull did not achieve marriage equality. We changed the law in spite of everything he did to stop us.

  22. Socrates 202pm

    When I was studying that many years ago I read the prologue thinking it had been written recently, because the writer said how, many years after the Athens-Sparta struggle, no-one would be able to comprehend that the little village of Sparta had been a world power when they compared it to the mighty buildings and monuments in Athens.

    I only realised at the end that it was also actually by Thucydides and was incredibly prescient.

    Really one of the greatest works on war and politics.

    But clearly not too many conservatives have read it – maybe it should be part of some compulsory “Western Civilization” course for them or something?

  23. Unlike SKY, the ABC MUST be sure of the news it broadcasts … thus they take their time. I’m not. Jennett fan but there are added constraints

  24. Remember it has always been about the policies. The libs just voted for more of the same. ALP still have the policies that resonate. What do the Coal have?

  25. Jen

    Its hard to tell where Management speaks and where the ABC Resistance speaks. Except that Stan Grant did have Wayne Swan on.

  26. meher baba:

    It’s a question deserving of its own episode on one of those “World’s Greatest Mysteries” shows that pop up on Channel 60 something on Saturday afternoons.

    I saw somewhere in the flotsam and twitsam of this week that Zed Seselja of all people was opining on how in order to win elections they had to play to their conservative “base” and then reach from there. That master strategy worked out so well for two-time loser Zed, didn’t it!

  27. meher baba @ #128 Friday, August 24th, 2018 – 2:34 pm

    Tristo: “Malcolm Turnbull will stay as the member for Wentworth until the election.”

    I’m sure I heard him say he would be resigning “very soon”.

    The words he used were “not before too long”. I wouldn’t take that to mean “very soon”. I think it more means “whenever I happen to feel like it”.

  28. Warren Entsch, demonstrating that even after the events of the last week, he still doesn’t understand his own party …

    Warren Entsch, a Queensland MP, tells reporters it would now be “insane” for the conservatives to agitate against the Morrison and Frydenberg leadership team.

  29. Rocket

    Agreed. I have learnt a lot about the essence of politics reading ancient Greek and Roman history. You see all the same behaviors and motivations, but stripped of the modern ideology and prejudices that can hide the reality. So yes, you can see exactly what led to the downfall of Sparta and Athens…. and the Liberal Party.

  30. In my lexicon, “not before” means at the same time or after, so “not before too long” becomes “too long or after too long”.

  31. For Rudd, it was his life’s work, his greatest achievement and something he held dear to his heart. He was in grief and I felt sorry for him, even though he went on to white ant and be a traitor.

    For Turnbull, it was toy, a plaything, a distraction from enjoying his riches.

    [He brought his family in at the end and, unlike the Rudds, it was all laughter and smiles. To me, this suggests that Turnbull is more of a grown up than Rudd, but to each their own on that.]

  32. Socrates

    My late dad told me that when he did army officer exams (is there such a thing?) they studied things like the battle of Cannae. I remember asking him how could that be relevant to modern war in East Asia, and he said that strategies and tactics have similarities down the ages and that some of the same mistakes had been made hundreds or even thousands of years apart militarily or politically.

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