Malcolm Turnbull has laughed off the idea that Tony Abbott is leading a rightwing “insurgency” against him, saying former ministers were entitled to express opinions or cross the floor and he and the former prime minister had had a “good chat”.
A group of conservative former ministers and some current ministers have been dubbed “the resistance”, with both Abbott and former defence minister Kevin Andrews calling for a greater military contribution from Australia in the fight against Isis, and former workplace relations minister Senator Eric Abetz crossing the floor on Thursday to vote for a crossbench motion calling for students to have a say about whether they paid union fees.
Much has been made of a weekly lunchtime meeting of conservatives, also attended by Abbott, as speculation grows that he will remain in parliament bearing hopes of a comeback.
But asked in an interview recorded for ABC’s 7.30 program whether he was worried about an Abbott-led insurgency, Turnbull laughed and said “not at all”. In the latest Newspoll Turnbull was the preferred prime minister of 64% of Australians.
“I have had a good chat with Tony. Tony and I have obviously had some differences at different times, but we have been and always will be able to have a very cordial discussion,” Turnbull said.
He said Andrews was entitled to express an opinion about the ideal military strategy in Syria and Iraq and claimed he had not been targeting anyone in particular when he said in his national security statement on Wednesday that this was “not a time for gestures or machismo”.
“People are entitled to express the view that there should be a large western military force, boots on the ground, but that is an opinion,” he said, noting that Australia could not commit the armed forces of the US, and the US president and every other leader with whom he had spoken did not believe a large military force in Iraq and Syria would be productive.
Asked about Abetz and conservative senator Cory Bernardi’s vote on the student unionism motion, Turnbull said there had been a “long tradition in the Liberal party of backbenchers being able to cross the floor, and that’s always happened. When I was a backbencher I crossed the floor myself on one memorable occasion and Philip Ruddock, a very distinguished elder statesman of our party, has crossed the floor on more than one occasion”.
Immigration minister Peter Dutton scoffed at the idea that a regular lunchtime meeting in a room called the “monkey pod” in the ministerial wing was a sign of an emerging insurgency, because the room was right next to the office of moderate minister Christopher Pyne.
“I’ve been going to Tuesday lunch for 14 years, for as long as I’ve been in parliament, I’ve gone to a Tuesday lunch with colleagues and with friends. I think it’s fair to say … just bearing in mind the monkey pod is a meeting room located between my office and Mr Pyne’s office – Christopher, who is a very good friend of mine, a bleeding moderate. If there was some underground movement by the right, we wouldn’t be holding a meeting in a lunch room beside Christopher Pyne’s office. I don’t think this adds up to anything more than colleagues catching up for lunch,” he said.
