Dutton grateful to Morrison for recommending Turnbull keeps him on board

Peter Dutton says he’s grateful to Scott Morrison for recommending he stays on as Immigration Minister.

Peter Dutton has offered his resignation to Malcolm Turnbull.

Peter Dutton has expressed gratitude to Scott Morrison for recommending to Malcolm Turnbull that he be retained as Immigration Minister.

Mr Dutton, who publicly backed Tony Abbott during Monday’s Liberal leadership crisis, has offered his resignation to the new Prime Minister and is calling on his colleagues to unite around Mr Turnbull.

“Scott’s been very generous to me. He said to me that he advised Tony Abbott that I was the best person to fill his job when he left border protection to make sure that we can continue the work of stopping the boats,” the Immigration Minister told 2GB’s Ray Hadley.

“And he says that he’s advised the same to Malcolm and I’m very grateful for that.”

“I’m not going to beg for my job. I think I’ve performed well in border protection, but ultimately I respect the fact that it’s Malcolm’s decision to make.”

Mr Morrison is widely tipped to become treasurer in the Mr Turnbull’s cabinet, having personally supported Mr Abbott on Monday without lobbying his factional allies to do the same.

Early evidence is emerging of ructions within the new order, with details surfacing of the new leader’s first cabinet meeting along with a confidential document undermining Mr Turnbull’s reputation for promoting women.

Mr Dutton urged all Coalition MPs and supporters to “come together” in common cause of defeating Labor at the next election.

“We need to make sure we protect Tony’s legacy, we need to make sure that we support Malcolm because the tonic for all of this will be success at the next election when we can make sure that we can keep the CFMEU and AWU thugs out of office,” he said.

“Otherwise we will have generations of debt, we’ll have high levels of unemployment and interest rates again and we just can’t afford to return to that.”

Assistant Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, who also supported Mr Abbott, said the government had “bigger fish to fry” than worrying about leakers.

“I just hope that all my colleagues are kicking in the same direction, supporting Malcolm Turnbull and the government more broadly as we’re getting on with the job of producing good results for the Australian people,” he told ABC Radio.