According to News.com.au, more than 28 changes to personnel and ministerial responsibilities were made official.
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One week after the 60-year-old multi-millionaire toppled Tony Abbott as leader in a Liberal Party coup, a Newspoll of 1,645 voters found 55% of them rated Turnbull as their preferred prime minister.
Abbott meanwhile let fly on newly-appointed Treasurer Scott Morrison, disputing claims that Morrison warned the ousted PM ahead of Turnbull’s leadership challenge.
Productivity Commission chairman Peter Harris will tell a competition summit on Tuesday that two years after launching what it said would be the most comprehensive review in two decades the government has done nothing about competition policy despite “occasionally reported sightings”. He has now announced his Cabinet.
The government’s changes have also prompted corresponding moves in the opposition with former ACT chief minister Katy Gallagher, set for frontbench promotion along with Queensland rising stars Jim Chalmers and Terri Butler.
Kelly O’Dwyer was singled out by Turnbull as one of the new generation “with enormous capacity”, who joins cabinet as small business minister and assistant treasurer.
Mr Abbott further fuelled speculation he may leave parliament after the election.
The ANZ survey was conducted the weekend after Malcolm Turnbull beat Tony Abbott in a liberal leadership spill on September 14.
Not all Abbott-backers were cut from the cabinet. If Brandis has anything to do with it they will. Perhaps Turnbull doesn’t recognise the effect Brandis remaining as attorney-general will have on women around Australia.
He continued: “It is vital to have a contemporary, 21st-century government and that requires renewal”.
We also learned from Turnbull’s 730 interview that he wears an Apple Watch and that he once told a director at Goldman Sachs in New York that cab drivers are hard workers who earn low wages.
But Turnbull said there needed to be a “genuine popular movement” for change. “Australia is well placed to take advantage of these changes, and the renewable energy industry is looking forward to working with Minister Frydenberg, whose early comments show that he recognizes the growing economic contribution of clean energy like wind, solar, bioenergy and energy efficiency”.
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Abbott declined to say whether he would be prepared to serve as a minister in a Turnbull-led government.
