Malcolm Turnbull PM: Tony Abbott’s leadership praised by leader during first Question Time
NEWLY sworn-in prime minister Malcolm Turnbull is standing by the coalition government’s commitment to hold a national plebiscite on legalising same-sex marriage.
NEWLY sworn-in prime minister Malcolm Turnbull is standing by the coalition government’s commitment to hold a national plebiscite on legalising same-sex marriage.
All Australians will have a choice about how the issue is resolved at the next election, likely in 2016, he said.
“Labor will say vote for us and marriage equality will be dealt with by the politicians ... we will say, if we are re-elected to government, every single Australian will have a say,” Mr Turnbull told parliament on Tuesday.
In his first Question Time after toppling Tony Abbott for the leadership, Mr Turnbull took the opportunity to praise the man he dethroned.
The parliament and the coalition parties owed Mr Abbott a great debt, he said.
“Our nation, our Parliament, our Government, our party, our parties, the Coalition, owe Tony Abbott an enormous debt of gratitude for his leadership and his service over many, many years,” he said.
“He led us out of Opposition back into Government. The challenges of leadership are very considerable. The pressures are enormous and as Tony Abbott has often said himself, very, very profoundly, that all of us here are volunteers.
“He is a great Australian and our country has been better, has been improved, better led under his time as prime minister,” Mr Turnbull told parliament on Tuesday.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten was also gracious in his tribute to Mr Abbott, saying the former prime minister had been a formidable fighter but who could also be unexpectedly generous and personal.
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Mr Shorten said he witnessed Mr Abbott’s humility when he spoke to defence personnel, often telling them “I’ve never served”. “I don’t think you need to judge yourself any less for not having actually worn the uniform of this country,”
Mr Shorten said. “You have represented and been the prime minister of this country. That is service indeed.” Mr Abbott wasn’t present in the chamber to hear the tributes.
But it didn’t take long for the questions to be fired at the new PM.
Responding to his first question in parliament as leader, Mr Turnbull refused to disown the Abbott government’s badly-received first budget, telling parliament the whole cabinet gave it support.
He was responding to a question from Shorten who asked if he still supported “unreservedly and wholeheartedly” every element of the 2014 budget.
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“When the leader of the opposition invites me to sit here and unilaterally disown one policy or another, he demonstrates that he fails to understand that cabinet ... is a collective method of making decisions,” Mr Turnbull said.
Earlier Turnbull had taken the oath of office to become Australia’s 29th prime minister.
Watching a ceremony at Government House in Canberra on Tuesday were his wife Lucy, her father Tom Hughes - a former federal attorney-general - mother Christine, daughter Daisy, son-in-law James Brown and grandson Jack Turnbull-Brown, together with deputy Liberal leader Julie Bishop.
“Congratulations prime minister,” Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove told a beaming Mr Turnbull.
Originally published as Malcolm Turnbull PM: Tony Abbott’s leadership praised by leader during first Question Time
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