Posted on 08/25/2018 6:59:56 PM PDT by naturalman1975
Scott Morrison has emerged as Australia's new prime minister after a chaotic week of political infighting and surprise twists.
A social conservative, Mr Morrison also appeals to the moderate elements of the Liberal Party and is widely recognised as a shrewd and pragmatic political engineer.
Although he did not initiate the leadership challenge against former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, he defeated the man who did, Peter Dutton, at the final pass.
He then went on to be thanked for his loyalty in Mr Turnbull's final speech as the country's leader.
Yet Mr Morrison - known as " ScoMo" around Parliament House - has long been seen to harbour leadership ambitions and was an obvious contender once Mr Turnbull's fragile alliances began to collapse.
Conservative rising
The 50-year-old is one of the country's leading religious conservatives and represents a deeply traditional heartland of Sydney.
He opposed the same sex marriage bill but kept a low profile during that debate - he ultimately abstained, a clear sign of his pragmatic approach when politics and personal beliefs collide.
But he rose to national prominence for vigorously enforcing Australia's controversial approach to asylum seekers, including the "Stop the Boats" policy, as immigration minister in Tony Abbott's government.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Dutton is a strong conservative. I'd call Morrison a moderate conservative.
But Morrison still represents a considerable improvement over Malcolm Turnbull who was simply a moderate centrist, leading a party that was more conservative than he was.
I was wondering where he stood.
If that happens you'd have DJT in DC,perhaps someone with some intestinal fortitude in London and Australia's new PM.
Of course Trudeau is worse than useless...but three out of four ain't bad.
Only matters if he can lead the Liberal party coalition to remain in power. Otherwise back to Labour and a return to the abyss.
They could do worse than have an evangelical Christian as PM.
It still matters even if he’s only there a few months, because Turnbull was a huge liability and could have done a lot more damage. But, yes, I’d like to see Morrison turn around the party’s political fortunes. Bill Shorten (the Labor leader) is deeply unpopular and it really wouldn’t take that much for Labor’s support to collapse. It’s well ahead in the polls but it’s not a very robust lead.
How long before an election must be held?
No such thing as a moderate conservative.
Either you are a conservative or you aren’t one.
Turnbull was the quintessential moderate. Ughh!
Glad he’s gone. Morrison is a definite improvement.
Just FYI...its "Labor",not "Labour".Yes,it's true.Naturalman explained it to us here on FR some time ago...IIRC it's connected to a man from the United States who was influential in Australian politics.
Just sayin'.... :-)
There must be a half Senate election by May next year. A House election could technically wait until November 2019, but it is very unusual not to hold them at the same time (combining them saves money and the electorate appreciates not having to vote twice). So before May, almost certainly.
I will labor to remember this.
He regarded the American spelling of labor as more 'modern' and in 1912, persuaded the party to adopt it.
Don't you mean labour? ;-)
Conservative Peter Dutton led a challenge (”spill” ) to the milqetoast PM Malcolm Turnbull (who nearly blew the last election after ousting Tony Abbot). It failed but Turnbull decided to quit.
Morrison defeated Dutton in the race to replace him. He was the “moderate” option compared to conservative Dutton and Turnbull’s loyal deputy Julie Bishop. Be he sounds ok.
It was some climate change BS that led to Turnbull’s downfall. Like us, Australians are resistant to that nonsense.
Election in May, most likely.
Sounds like Morrison has his work cut out for him in repairing the damage Turnbull caused to the coalition. Are you pessimistic about the election?
The odds are definitely against us at the moment, but to me that really means things can only get better.
I don’t know if Morrison can turn things around. But Turnbull certainly wasn’t going to.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.