Two-thirds rule to stop Liberals’ leadership shuffle

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has sought to pacify voter anger over Australia’s revolving door of prime ministers with an “historic” overhaul of the Liberal Party’s rules that will make it harder to overthrow the leader.

Under the changes backed at a surprise partyroom meeting in Canberra last night, two-thirds of Liberal MPs would be required to back any move to dump the party leader.

SHANE WRIGHT: Fear drives Liberals bid to placate angry voters

Mr Morrison said the decision meant an elected Liberal leader who won an election and became prime minister would remain in the nation’s top job for that entire parliamentary term.

He said that as a “safeguard”, if a special majority — two-thirds of the parliamentary party room — agreed on tossing out a leader, a change could happen.

“Australians have the very reasonable expectation that when they elected a government, when they elect a prime minister, that they should be the ones to determine if that prime minister is to not continue in that office,” Mr Morrison said.

“What this is doing is the parliamentary Liberal Party acknowledging that its own conduct over this period of time needs to be changed.”

The idea to raise the threshold for a leadership change was put to senior members of the Federal Government’s backbench on Thursday.

There was support for a two-thirds majority when Mr Morrison returned to Australia from the G20 summit in Argentina yesterday.

Ministers are understood to have initially backed increasing the threshold to 75 per cent.

The West Australian also understands there were concerns within the Liberal Party about the move, with complaints that it would consolidate power around the prime minister and reduce their responsiveness to the concerns of backbenchers, because the leader would only need the support of 35 per cent of the party room to remain in the top job.

One Liberal MP said the whole aim of the rule shift, which would only apply to elected prime ministers after next year’s poll, was to make next year’s election a contest between Mr Morrison and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten.

Mr Morrison said former prime minister Tony Abbott and former deputy Liberal leader Julie Bishop had backed the move, and he had discussed it with former prime minister John Howard.

Last night’s meeting was called after tensions over the future direction of the party descended into open warfare, prompting Mr Morrison to get involved in a Sydney preselection battle to avoid triggering a fresh managerial crisis in Canberra. But the rescue of outspoken conservative MP Craig Kelly angered former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, who told his successor to effectively sacrifice the coalition Government and call a poll for early March to prevent its chaos from destroying the NSW Liberal Government’s re-election chances on March 23.

Mr Turnbull inserted himself into the preselection battle in the southern Sydney seat of Hughes by trying to block Mr Morrison’s plan to save the career of Mr Kelly, who last week signalled he was prepared to diminish the Government’s numbers in Parliament even further by going to the crossbench if he was dumped as the Liberal candidate.

Mr Turnbull revealed he and Mr Morrison had planned to go to a March 2 election.

“It would be manifestly in the best interests and prospects of the Morrison Government to go to the polls as soon as it can after the summer break,” Mr Turnbull said.

The plan for an early Federal election was hatched before a string of terrible poll results, including the by-election for Mr Turnbull’s seat of Wentworth and the recent Victorian State election, which has sent shock-waves through the Federal Liberal Party.

Mr Turnbull argued that the Liberal Party brand was being so “severely damaged” that it was imperilling the NSW Liberal Government led by Premier Gladys Berejiklian.

“From the point of view of a very good State government with real achievements and terrific track record, it would be better if the Federal Government were to go before the 23rd of March,” Mr Turnbull said.

Mr Kelly, a chief critic of the coalition’s now-defunct national energy guarantee policy, had been expected to lose preselection in Hughes before Mr Morrison threw his weight behind the conservative backbencher’s bid for re-endorsement.

He will remain the Liberal candidate for the seat at next year’s election after the NSW party executive bowed to the Prime Minister’s wishes, rather than risk further embarrassment and the defection of yet another Government MP to the burgeoning Lower House crossbench.

This was despite Mr Turnbull having approaching State executive members urging them not to cancel preselections, describing the push to deny a preselection because of Mr Kelly’s threat to leave the Liberal Party as the “worst and weakest” response.

After surviving the test of his authority, Mr Morrison told Parliament that the Government was united in its fight against the ALP.

“I can assure the leader of the Labor Party that everybody on this side of the House is going to work incredibly hard to the next election to ensure the rest of the world never know who the leader of the Labor Party is,” the Prime Minister said.

The decision by the NSW party executive is certain to enrage Mr Kelly’s factional opponents, who were denied the opportunity to roll Mr Kelly and install a moderate in Hughes.

Asked about Mr Turnbull’s contributions, Finance Minister and WA Liberal senator Mathias Cormann said the former PM was a private citizen and “entitled to his views”.