Australia’s Prime Minister Makes Few Changes to New Cabinet

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has named a new Cabinet little changed from that with which he narrowly won the July 2 election, eschewing a major reshuffle in favour of consolidating his shaky position. It may have been good economics, but it was certainly very, very poor politics.

“I’m not going to put “conservative “or ‘moderate” or ‘liberal” tags on my colleagues”, Turnbull said.

NSW Nationals senator Fiona Nash, now minister for regional development and communications and rural health, also takes on the additional role of local government and territories minister.

PM Malcolm Turnbull faces his first party room meeting after the election on Monday.

Liberal Senator Richard Colbeck was demoted from the ministry as it was unsure whether or not he would gain re-election in the Senate.

The Prime Minister decided not to shift his Health Minister Sussan Ley, despite taking damage from the Medicare issue at the election.

Just over a fortnight since the Coalition scraped home in the federal election, Turnbull has unveiled a 23-member cabinet – the largest since 1975.

Victorian rural Liberal MP Dan Tehan was promoted to Minister for Defence Personnel adding to his role as Minister for Veterans Affairs.

Gregg Hunt will take up Pyne’s old role, moving on from the environment portfolio.

“What we are doing in defence industry is completely transformational”, Turnbull said.

COSBOA, one of Australia’s peak bodies for small business, has already labelled this a “mistake”.

The cuts revealed in May will see the company tax rate for small businesses reduced from 28.5 percent to 27.5 percent.

“The reforms are important, but in the implementation and transition, there is work to be done”, Mr Turnbull said.

But others say proposed changes to superannuation caused most problems.

Christopher Pyne has told the Nine Network tweaking policies is what he calls “good government”. I spoke to Scott Morrison at the time, he assured me it wasn’t retrospective.

“The business of government is much bigger than any individual”, he said.

Australia has called for a free trade deal with Britain following its exit from the European Union (EU), the BBC reported on Sunday.

That raises questions about how effective his government will be in the long term, especially without the support of powerful conservatives.