Malcolm Turnbull braces for leadership challenge

The PM has lost the confidence of half his colleagues as his backers admit they’re bracing for a challenge from Peter Dutton.

Mr Turnbull will fly out next week for a six-day Asia-Pacific tour Picture: Kym Smith

Malcolm Turnbull has lost the confidence of half of his Liberal Party cabinet colleagues as the Prime Minister’s backers admit they are bracing for a leadership challenge from Home Affairs Minister and leading Queensland conservative Peter Dutton.

The loss of significant frontbench support follows the Prime Minister’s dramatic retreat yesterday in effectively dumping the ill-fated national energy guarantee and switching the focus to an electricity price war against energy ­retailers and generators.

LIVE: Follow the unfolding events in our PoliticsNow blog.

Attempts to cauterise the ­damage across a broader range of political crises — including company tax cuts and school funding — have failed to win over rebel MPs, who claim it may be too ­little, too late.

As Mr Turnbull was ringing colleagues last night after reports of a collapse in cabinet support, Mr Dutton’s younger supporters were urging that he strike immediately for the leadership, as early as this morning. There is now a strong chance the Liberal Party meeting at 9am will turn into a leadership ballot which is being put at above 50 per cent.

Liberals MPs last night told The Australian that they didn’t want a challenge before September but conceded the “young” Liberals could not be held back despite warnings an early challenge without guarantee of the numbers could come unstuck.

Mr Turnbull’s office was expecting a challenge but the speed of developments caught some senior ministers off guard as supporters of Mr Turnbull tried to keep their positions under the Prime Minister.

Mr Dutton’s camp believed that it could get to the required 43 votes to roll Mr Turnbull, while the Prime Minister’s backers claimed he still had majority support inside the Liberal partyroom, which is due to meet this morning.

They claim there are now nine cabinet ministers ready to support Mr Dutton, which is half of the 18 Liberal members of the 23-member cabinet. At least half of the six members of the outer ministry are believed to be with Mr Dutton.

As internal dissent widens to other key policy failures of the government, The Australian has confirmed Education Minister Simon Birmingham failed at the weekend to urgently end the war with the Catholic school sector.

It is understood Senator Birmingham made private overtures to senior church officials last week and again at the weekend, seeking to secure a deal that would allow him to announce to colleagues in the Liberal partyroom meeting today that he had resolved the damaging 15-month-long dispute.

The Australian has been told Catholic officials told Senator Birmingham that there were outstanding funding issues that could not be resolved in one day.

A spokesperson for Mr Birmingham said: “The minister continues to consult with all non-government stakeholders but ... there is still work to be done to finalise the response to the SES review.”

MPs supportive of a change to Mr Dutton were divided yesterday on whether the crisis should be brought to an end immediately with a leadership spill as early as this afternoon.

Several senior backers of Mr Dutton favoured a “wait and see” approach until the September parliamentary sitting.

Asked if he had spoken to Mr Dutton yesterday and whether he continued to retain his support, Mr Turnbull replied: “Absolutely. Peter Dutton was at our leadership group meeting this morning and he was at cabinet last night. He’s a member of our team, he’s given me his absolute support.”

Mr Turnbull will fly out of Australia next week for a six-day Asia-Pacific tour, visiting Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Nauru, where he will attend the Pacific Islands Forum. The Australian understands there is no move to cancel or postpone the trip.

The return of Liberal MPs to Canberra on September 10, following a fortnight break, will coincide with the expected 40th consecutive Newspoll loss for the ­Coalition, five months after Mr Turnbull hit 30 losing Newspolls.

In September 2015, citing his reasons for challenging Tony ­Abbott, Mr Turnbull said: “The one thing that is clear about our current situation is the trajectory. We have lost 30 Newspolls in a row. It is clear that the people have made up their mind about Mr ­Abbott’s leadership.”

Mr Abbott said his campaign against the NEG was “not about personalities”. He declined to pledge his support to Mr Turnbull.

“It is not about personalities, it is not about him, it is not about me, it is about what is going to give Australians the best possible ­energy system that delivers affordable, reliable power,” he said.

Coalition marginal seat holders yesterday publicly backed Mr Turnbull but some privately lobbied in favour of Mr Dutton to ­improve the party’s chances in Queensland. LNP president Gary Spence has privately urged federal MPs to replace Mr Turnbull with Mr Dutton, arguing he would do better at defending the Coalition’s nine marginal seats in the battleground state.

Scott Morrison said last night he had been personally assured by Mr Dutton that he was “fully supportive” of the Prime Minister. “It’s become pretty clear, it’s been a pretty torrid decade,” he said. “We’ve had a great period of stability over the past three years. I think this stability in our government has helped key outcomes like the strong performance we had on jobs.”

LNP sources said a switch to Mr Dutton could improve the party’s chances in some non-government seats, such as the knife-edge Townsville-based seat of Herbert, and Kennedy, held since 1993 by crossbencher Bob Katter.

The discussions follow the LNP’s defeat in last month’s Longman by-election, north of Brisbane, where the party’s primary vote crashed to 29.6 per cent, down from 39 per cent in 2016. Support for One Nation rose 6.5 percentage points to 15.9 per cent.

Barnaby Joyce yesterday welcomed the government’s changes on energy policy and backed Mr Turnbull to remain as Prime Minister. The former deputy prime minister, who previously called for Mr Turnbull to reconsider his position by Christmas, said voters would not like it if Liberal MPs dumped the Prime Minister.

“Peter Dutton is doing a very good job, Malcolm Turnbull is doing a good job, I think people now want this to settle down,” Mr Joyce told Sky News.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING: Greg Brown, Jared Owens