Malcolm Turnbull Is Still Prime Minister, Peter Dutton Resigns as Minister After #LibSpill

In case you didn’t hear, it was briefly on this morning.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has narrowly managed to hold onto his job following a sudden 'spill', after a week of intense speculation about his remaining support in the Liberal Party, the ABC reports.

PM Turnbull opened a party room meeting this morning by declaring all leadership positions vacant. This is what we call a 'spill', and it is how we went from Kevin Rudd to Julia Gillard to Kevin Rudd again during the last Labor era of government, and how Turnbull unseated then PM Tony Abbott back in 2015.

Australians reacted to yet another spill the only way they knew how: sick memes.

for any foreign followers #libspill is the purge

— lucy valentine (@LucyXIV) August 20, 2018

Australia your prime minister is... #auspol #libspill pic.twitter.com/2dVyU3RfNf

— Mich-Elle Myers (@MichMyersMUA) August 20, 2018

The Liberals were asked to select the head of their party, dividing their votes between the current leader, Malcolm Turnbull, and the Minister for Home Affairs, Peter Dutton, who you may remember from these concerning tales, and who this past week emerged as a favourite among the conservative branch of the Liberals, which includes Abbott.

However, Dutton failed to collect enough votes to topple the current leader, with Turnbull triumphing 48 – 35.

Dutton immediately resigned from his ministry position, and will move to the backbench alongside perpetual rabblerouser Abbott. There is speculation more might resign too; however, the ABC also suggests that Turnbull’s narrow margin of victory may have fully exposed his weakness within the party, and inspire yet another challenge down the track.

Though the internal drama didn’t start this month—technically, you need only look to Turnbull’s toppling of Abbott in 2015, or perhaps even Abbott’s toppling of Turnbull as opposition leader in '09, for the inciting incident—it all came to a head over last week’s announcement of the National Energy Guarantee (AKA the NEG).

The NEG was meant to be a signature bit of policy for PM Turnbull; an effort to lower emissions (meeting the Paris Agreement target Tony Abbott agreed to back when he held the top job) in the battle against climate change, as well as drop prices for Australians and improve energy reliability.

However, Abbott and other vocal critics within the Liberals challenged the NEG, until the PM capitulated. Nonetheless, there was remaining suspicion that the party would try and replace their leader before next year’s federal election.

This story isn’t even close to over, but we’ll learn more about the current status of the government, and Australia’s commitment to fighting climate change, over the coming days and months.

In the meantime, can we interest you in another meme?

Header Image: Facebook (malcolmturnbull & peterduttonmp)