Turnbull Government infighting continues, Tony Abbott refuses Liberal MPs calls to ’move on’

MALCOLM Turnbull has declared he won’t be shaken by ‘political gossip’ as Tony Abbott continued his attack on government policy today.

MALCOLM Turnbull has declared he will be prime minister “for a very long time” despite ongoing dissent from frustrated Liberal backbenchers.

The Prime Minister refused to acknowledge internal tensions in the Coalition at a press conference in Sydney today where he announced 10,000 new internships for young Australians.

“I intend to be Prime Minister for a very long time,” Mr Turnbull told reporters.

“I know you may think that at 62 I am too old — I can assure you I will be Prime Minister for a very long time.

“I will be running at the 2019 election and will win. So that’s my commitment.”

Mr Turnbull said he was focused on the needs of 24 million Australians, not “personalities” or political gossip.

Earlier today, former Prime Minister Tony Abbott took another swipe at the Turnbull Government by calling for an overhaul of policy and Liberal Party reform in a radio interview with Sydney shock jock Alan Jones.

Mr Abbott is refusing to remain silent despite warnings from senior conservative Liberal MPs that the party needs to “move on” from its bitter infighting or lose government.

“The only way we can win the next election is by being the best possible government and the best possible party,” Mr Abbott told 2GB radio this morning.

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Mr Abbott’s comments come after Malcolm Turnbull call for “builders, not wreckers” over the weekend. Picture: AAP

Mr Abbott’s comments come after Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull wrote “this is a time for builders, not wreckers” in a column commemorating one year on from the federal election at the weekend.

Mr Turnbull also wrote in the column that his government’s achievements were “not theories, or thought bubbles, or glib one-liners”.

“It’s a simple truth that we (the Liberals) are haemorrhaging members,” Mr Abbott told 2GB host Alan Jones today.

“We are haemorrhaging members in every state but it's a particular problem in NSW because we’ve got this dreadful situation where we’ve got factionalists and lobbyists who seem to be controlling the party,” he said.

It doubles down on a talk he gave at a NSW Liberal Party forum on Saturday about the need for party reform.

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Tony Abbott’s war of words with Malcolm Turnbull shows no signs of easing.

In another swipe to Malcolm Turnbull this morning, Mr Abbott said he had managed to take the Liberals to two elections as party leader with no infighting by “deciding exactly what it was we were fighting for and then very purposefully getting on with that job”.

Outlining his alternative policy agenda, which he said would appeal to voters and win the next federal election, Mr Abbott said the government needed to take pressure off power prices, stop subsidising wind turbines, “significantly scale back immigration” to take pressure off housing prices, and get the budget under control but halting all new spending except on defence or urgent economic infrastructure.

He also called for measures to prevent any known jihadis being loose on Australian streets and Senate reform.

PM Malcolm Turnbull said his government’s achievements were “not theories, or thought bubbles, or glib one-liners”. Picture: Kym Smith

It comes after senior conservatives, including Peter Dutton and Mathias Cormann, called for the party to move on from the infighting.

“The things that he’s advocating now are not consistent with what he did when he was prime minister,” Senator Cormann told Sky News on Sunday.

“So, if the proposition is the government now is supposedly more left-wing than he would like, that would have applied equally to his government at the time.

“I don’t think these are useful observations.”

Meanwhile, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton told 2GB on Thursday that the Liberals needed to “move on before this stuff consumes us”.

Tensions flared last week after frontbench Christopher Pynes comments to a private meeting of party faithful about the rise of the moderate faction and that same sex marriage laws could be introduced “sooner than everyone thinks”.