Malcolm Turnbull is no longer Prime Minister, but as anyone familiar with the ongoing cravenness of Australian politics would expect, he tried to take credit for marriage equality as his political career went up in flames.

“I have been a reforming Prime Minister,” he said after being narrowly ousted in favour of now-former Treasurer Scott Morrison.

No, you didn’t. Sorry Malcolm, but that historic milestone was the product of years upon years of glittery blood, sweat, and predominantly tears.

It doesn’t belong to you. No matter how significant and shocking it was that you were the first Prime Minister to openly support marriage equality.

Yes, we all still hold bitterness towards the Labor Party for so insipidly hamstringing themselves during their own factional in-fighting and leadership carry-on by refusing to make legalising same-sex marriage a priority while in office, ignoring the long-held desire of the electorate to see it become reality.

But their failure in that regard is also your failure. Because, Malcolm Turnbull, you failed to prevent us from enduring the deeply harmful postal survey.

You failed to stop your anti-LGBTI colleagues – one of whom is now Prime Minister – from publicly, and no doubt privately, dehumanising us at every possible opportunity.

We narrowly avoided the Prime Ministership of a man so paranoid about a changing world that he wants to cease immigration entirely for the man whose Church’s founder insists on the Biblical wrongness of our sexualities and gender identities.

It’s impossible to be pleased we are instead saddled with a man who oversaw the initiation of Operation Sovereign Borders and a similar immigration platform through which he did everything in his power to delay asylum seekers – including the gay and bisexual refugees Australia presently imprisons – from access to safe and humane living conditions.

It’s impossible to be comfortable being led by yet another man whose disdain for LGBTI people shone through when he moved an amendment to marriage equality legislation which would have allowed parents to take their kids out of classrooms if same-sex marriage were discussed.

The postal survey – which gave license to homophobic vandalism of our property, attacks on young people, abuse that made us feel even more unsafe that we usually do, and a tidal wave of hate speech against us – is your achievement.

The outcome, the relief on that joyous Yes Day and all the same-sex marriages that have taken place since? They’re ours.

All that activism, that heartache, the years we spent – and some still spend, by choice or by fear – in closets were a toll on us, not you.

We have paid for marriage equality and the great symbolic milestone it represents. And there is still so much more to do.

Though you will soon find yourself out of a job, Malcolm Turnbull – despite the fact that you remain exorbitantly wealthy and will still be afforded a deeply undeserved governmental pension – marriage equality cost you nothing.

And that is why it is not yours. That is why it belongs to us.</s>Australian party picks Treasurer Scott Morrison as next prime minister, to replace Malcolm Turnbull

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australian party picks Treasurer Scott Morrison as next prime minister, to replace Malcolm Turnbull.</s>CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australian party picks Treasurer Scott Morrison as next prime minister, to replace Malcolm Turnbull.</s>Australian party picks Treasurer Scott Morrison as next prime minister, to replace Malcolm Turnbull

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australian party picks Treasurer Scott Morrison as next prime minister, to replace Malcolm Turnbull.</s>Australia has a new leader again. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was unseated in what was essentially a rebellion within his own party. Here he is speaking earlier today.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Australians will be just dumbstruck and so appalled by the conduct of the last week. To imagine that a government would be rocked by this sort of disloyalty and deliberate insurgency - is the best way to describe it - deliberate, destructive action.

KING: Louise Yaxley is a political correspondent with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. She's with me now. Hi, Louise.

KING: All right. So some very strong words from Malcolm Turnbull there. He talked about a deliberate insurgency. He talked about disloyalty. What led to this chaos within the Australian government?

YAXLEY: There are a few elements to it. As you could hear from Mr. Turnbull's voice, there is a strong element of personality here. There are factions within the Liberal Party. There is also a policy element to it. Mr. Turnbull could be seen as on the moderate side of our liberal government. The conservative side of that government is not pleased with him and has been agitating against him partly on policy. And that policy goes back to him wanting to do more to cut greenhouse gas emissions than they do partly because they want to see energy prices, power prices come down, and they want to use more coal than he's prepared to. So there's a few elements. But as you could tell, very much personality is a part of that.

KING: Just super interesting that part of this has to do with environmental policies. The idea that that could tear a government apart seems strange, I guess, here in the US. The new prime minister is a conservative lawmaker named Scott Morrison. Tell us about him.

YAXLEY: Well, he's very similar to Mr. Turnbull. And that's the irony of the outcome today - that the people trying to tear down Mr. Turnbull are the conservative edge of his party. Mr. Morrison was not trying to get rid of Mr. Turnbull. He was not one of those advocating against him, and yet he has walked out today as the new prime minister. He's walked out the winner when he wasn't the person trying to do this. So his policies mirror Mr. Turnbull's fairly closely. And in vindicating those who were pushing for change, he'll have a bit of strength to try to stick to the existing policy. So we don't expect to see a major shift in approach. It's really a loss for those who wanted that other approach.

KING: We know that now-outgoing Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and President Trump did not have the best relationship. Do we have any sense of how Morrison's policies could line up Trumps?

YAXLEY: ...Between the way Mr. Turnbull or Mr. Morrison approach things. We saw those leaks about that very first phone call between Mr. Turnbull and Mr. Trump. And we didn't get told about it at the time. But not that many months after, we heard that that conversation was a real cracker. It was really wild. And it made news around the world. Mr. Turnbull was firm. We saw transcripts of it. It was fascinating from, I'm sure, both ends. After that, both men managed to repair that relationship and have had a working relationship because that alliance is so strong. The Australia-U.S. alliance is very significant, particularly here in Australia. And so they have made it workable. And it will be a huge priority for Mr. Morrison to ensure that it's workable. Whoever wins government in Australia throughout the years has put a fair bit of priority on that relationship. So while Mr. Trump's not always easy to work with - and we saw that in that conversation on the phone - Mr. Morrison will be making it a priority to make sure it works as best he can.

KING: Australia's government has had a lot of turnover. This is the sixth time you've switched prime ministers in about a decade. Why is that?

YAXLEY: It's an interesting question. A lot of people are blaming the influence of the media. There's a debate in Australia - a little about the questions raised about how Fox News operates in the U.S., how much influence the commentators have. There is also this culture that's developed here which, as you say, has meant that people have a difference, and instead of trying to work it out, they work against each other, and we get this outcome. The public's very angry about it. We have compulsory voting in Australia, and that gives the public even more of a sense that it should be the voters who decide who is the leader when they go to the general election every three years. They don't like it, and it makes them angry when they see they sorts of transitions midterm.

KING: Louise Yaxley of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Thanks, Louise.</s>Of all the pointless convulsions in Australian politics in the last decade, this is surely the most pointless.

It achieved no benefit on any level but came at great cost to the government and to Australia.

There was no great principle at stake. The only policies at issue could have been worked through with a bit of goodwill, as Malcolm Turnbull said. The new prime minister isn’t even as electable as the one he replaced.

Only 54 per cent of the Australian electorate had even heard of Scott Morrison in an April recognition poll conducted by the Australia Institute.

In truth, a piece of factional foot-stamping within the ruling party created an earthquake.</s>As the Liberal Party grapples with the fallout from Friday's leadership change, an unexpected consequence of the end of Malcolm Turnbull's prime ministership has been revealed by none other than the Sydney outpost of Madame Tussauds.

The wax museum announced on Friday that work on a new wax figure for the now-former prime minister has stopped abruptly – and the museum's curators are considering whether it's even worth their while to continue adding more Australian prime ministers to its World Leaders exhibit.

"Malcolm Turnbull was set to be the next figure to take the stage in our World Leaders room but, in light of the current situation in Canberra, we have advised the studio team to stop work on the figure immediately," Madame Tussauds Sydney’s general manager, Mark Connolly, said.

It's not the first time the wax museum has halted the creation of an Australian political leader's statue due to their premature exit from office.

In 2013, weeks after work began on creating Kevin Rudd's figure, the team were advised to stop work.</s>CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australian party picks Treasurer Scott Morrison as next prime minister, to replace Malcolm Turnbull.</s>Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, center, arrives for a party meeting in Canberra, Australia Friday, Aug. 24, 2018. Australia government lawmakers on Friday elected Treasurer Scott Morrison as the next prime minister in a ballot that continues an era of extraordinary political instability. (David Gray/Pool Photo via AP) less

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, center, arrives for a party meeting in Canberra, Australia Friday, Aug. 24, 2018. Australia government lawmakers on Friday elected Treasurer Scott Morrison as the ... more

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, left, arrives for a party meeting in Canberra, Australia Friday, Aug. 24, 2018. Australia government lawmakers on Friday elected Treasurer Scott Morrison as the next prime minister in a ballot that continues an era of extraordinary political instability. (David Gray/Pool Photo via AP) less

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, left, arrives for a party meeting in Canberra, Australia Friday, Aug. 24, 2018. Australia government lawmakers on Friday elected Treasurer Scott Morrison as the next ... more

Australian Treasurer and new leader of the Liberal Party Scott Morrison, right, and new deputy leader Josh Frydenberg, left, leave a meeting in Canberra, Friday, Aug. 24, 2018. Australia government lawmakers on Friday elected Morrison as the next prime minister in a ballot that continues an era of extraordinary political instability. less

Australian Treasurer and new leader of the Liberal Party Scott Morrison, right, and new deputy leader Josh Frydenberg, left, leave a meeting in Canberra, Friday, Aug. 24, 2018. Australia government lawmakers on ... more

Treasurer of Australia Scott Morrison, center, arrives for a party meeting in Canberra, Australia, Friday, Aug. 24, 2018. Australia government lawmakers on Friday elected Morrison as the next prime minister in a ballot that continues an era of extraordinary political instability. (David Gray/Pool Photo via AP) less

Treasurer of Australia Scott Morrison, center, arrives for a party meeting in Canberra, Australia, Friday, Aug. 24, 2018. Australia government lawmakers on Friday elected Morrison as the next prime minister in ... more

Treasurer of Australia Scott Morrison, second from right, is congratulated by Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg, second from left, after a party meeting in Canberra, Australia, Friday, Aug. 24, 2018. Australia government lawmakers on Friday elected Morrison as the next prime minister in a ballot that continues an era of extraordinary political instability. (David Gray/Pool Photo via AP) less

Treasurer of Australia Scott Morrison, second from right, is congratulated by Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg, second from left, after a party meeting in Canberra, Australia, Friday, Aug. 24, 2018. ... more

Next Australian prime minister well placed to heal party

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia's next Prime Minister Scott Morrison is widely regarded as a conservative who respects moderates and is well placed to heal the civil war within the party that brought him to power.

Morrison is treasurer, the most coveted government office after prime minister, and was regarded as the best economic manager among the candidates.

He had told colleagues that he would not run for party leader against Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. So Turnbull's decision to quit meant Morrison could not be accused of disloyalty.

The 50-year-old former tourism marketer is passionate about his Sydney Pentecostal church and his local Rugby League football team, Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks.

"The only tip I've got is Sharks to beat Newcastle," Morrison told reporters, referring to a weekend match, as he entered the room where his conservative Liberal Party colleagues elected him their leader in a secret ballot on Friday.

His tough stance on asylum seekers in government bewildered some observers, given his devout Christian beliefs.

Morrison rose to public prominence when the conservative coalition government was first elected under Prime Minister Tony Abbott in 2013 as the minister who stopped asylum seekers from attempting to reach Australian shores by boat.

Australia uses the navy to turn boats back to Indonesia, or banishes refugees to remote immigration camps on the poor Pacific island nations of Papua New Guinea and Nauru.

The policy has been widely condemned as a callous abrogation of Australia's international obligations to help refugees.

Morrison explained his deep belief in the righteousness of crushing the people-smuggling trade and preserving the safety of people who board rickety boats to take the long and treacherous voyage to Australia.

But his empathy came under question when he criticized a former government's decision in 2010 to pay asylum seekers to fly from a remote Christmas Island camp to Sydney to attend funerals after 48 died in a boat disaster.

Morrison has a reputation as a powerbroker within the Liberal Party whose support has been crucial to previous Liberal Party leaders.

In his first speech to Parliament in 2007, Morrison said: "So what values do I derive from my faith? My answer comes from Jeremiah, chapter 9:24: I am the Lord who exercises loving kindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things, declares the Lord."</s>Australia—land of kangaroos, koalas and curtailed prime ministers. Scott Morrison is the latest to take on one of the most poisoned chalices in global politics. The country’s treasurer is due to replace Malcolm Turnbull, following a rebellion within the country’s right-wing Liberal party—the sixth time Australia has changed prime ministers in the about a decade.

Despite the drama, financial market reaction has fallen short of panic. The Australian dollar headed higher against its U.S. counterpart after Mr. Morrison’s narrow...
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull loses spill motion and resigns.