Turnbull sworn in as Australia’s new prime minister

Treasurer Joe Hockey, a strong Abbott ally, is one minister with his job in doubt.

Julia Gillard as Prime Minister had been very engaged with New Zealand – “Kevin Rudd less so, to be blunt”.

A key ally of Tony Abbott has offered to resign from the ministry as Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull prepares to reshuffle his frontbench.

Abbott pledged to make the leadership transition “as easy as I can” in what could be seen as a dig at the former Labor government, which was riven by in-fighting. But said he would not destabilize the new prime minister.

As well, Turnbull has a chance this week to design a cabinet that is more representative of the Australian population-including, most obviously, more women.

As minister for communications since 2013, Turnbull has been there for everything from the government’s lacklustre startup policies to the downgrading of the National Broadband Network, as well as the implementation of Australia’s mandatory data retention scheme.

Recent years have seen a merry-go-round of leaders.

“We have been a government of men and women, not a government of gods walking upon the earth”.

A toxic organisational culture within Australia’s two major political parties has been the source of remarkable division and unrest leading to nine leadership spills over the past decade. We have more polls and more commentary than ever before – mostly sour, bitter character assassination. I don’t want anything, shhh, calm down.

Journalists should not reward treachery. He praised Mr Abbott for policies which, he argued, were enabling Australia to resettle an extra 12,000 Syrian and Iraqi refugees.

Australia’s ruling conservatives ousted Prime Minister Tony Abbott as party leader Monday evening by an internal government challenge, and the party’s former leader was elected to replace him.

Earlier in the day, Abbott dismissed speculation about his position as leader at a media event in South Australia.“I just am not going to get caught up in Canberra gossip, I’m not going to play Canberra games,” Abbott said. “That’s natural. That’s human”.

Liberal candidate Andrew Hastie does not support marriage equality himself, but at a Canning political forum this week said he supports the Liberal policy of holding a plebiscite on the issue after the next election. There is your fractured party room to unite, an economy to kick start, and various other pressing policy concerns for you to address.

He said he was not too concerned with the poll describing it as a sugar hit. Analysts have tipped an imminent recession for the economy, which has been struggling to recover from a dramatic slowdown in its massive resources sector amid falling commodity prices and shrinking demand, made worse by the economic woes if its biggest trading partner, China.

Environmental groups have welcomed his return to power and expressed hope that his government would take tougher action on Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, which are among the world’s worst on a per capita basis.