Gamble backfires for Malcolm Turnbull as Dutton seizes day

Picture: Kym Smith

The Liberal leadership ballot has solved nothing for Malcolm Turnbull and his government.

Another challenge seems certain — within days or weeks — and the momentum is moving away from the embattled Prime Minister despite his win.

Turnbull’s leadership is still at grave risk, there is growing ministerial instability, Labor has effectively launched its election campaign and the discontent and concern within Liberal Party ranks is more widespread than a handful of malcontents.

As ministerial resignations — accepted or not — move into the cabinet sphere, overwhelming Turnbull, and threats emerge of by-elections forced by Turnbull supporters resigning, there is the danger that both sides will lose control of the process and the ­Coalition will rip itself apart as it rushes to a deadly election.

Last night, senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, who voted for Turnbull against Tony Abbott in 2015, laid bare widespread conservative concerns over issues well beyond last week’s national ­energy guarantee debacle in her resignation letter.

Turnbull’s decision to declare his job up for grabs backfired because the support for Peter Dutton — based on wide disenchantment with Turnbull’s political judgment and policy errors — was much higher than he expected.

This was no “empty chair challenge” or a crushing defeat for a contender; Dutton lost the vote but he looked like the winner. And it was Turnbull who looked and sounded like the loser.

This could well be a first leadership ballot victory that leads to a defeat. Dutton is now within seven Liberal votes of becoming prime minister of Australia and cannot be branded as disloyal for accepting the leader’s offer to stand.

Even Dutton’s concession was devoid of personal animosity or vengeance and Turnbull acknowledged the civility of the challenge.

Now Dutton is perfectly placed to conduct an “honourable” challenge from the backbench as Bill Shorten hammers Turnbull in ­parliament and plummeting polls panic MPs. Labor has branded Turnbull as a “white-flag prime minister” who has “no power, no authority and no convictions”.

After the ballot, Dutton was smiling, relaxed, unveiling a softer face and making all the right moves to establish the grounds for a credible and justifiable challenge as the government sinks. Standing on the spot where Turnbull launched his challenge against Tony Abbott, Dutton copped the defeat, made no silly claims about losing Newspoll surveys, didn’t attack Turnbull personally or criticise the government and avoided any denial he’d challenge again.

There has also been a calibrated distance kept between Dutton and Abbott, with repeated claims that Dutton “is no one’s puppet” to ensure the challenger is not damaged by the brutal role the former prime minister has played recently.

While Dutton was upbeat, self-deprecating and laughing at every opportunity, Turnbull appeared dispirited and without a clear response to the crisis engulfing him.