ICYMI (lols), bit of news this evening:
~MALCOLM TURNBULL IS THE NEW PM OF AUSTRALIA~
Yep, in the #libspill that gripped a nation, Turnbull won 54 votes to Tony Abbott‘s 44, making him our new overlord and Julie Bishop our ever-chic Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party.
After what seemed like a frikkin’ eternity, mostly for the tired AF journos who have been sifting through political commentary for the past 7 hours, PM Turnbull finally showed at Parliament House‘s blue room to give his victory speech.
And what a speech it was, with uplifting sentiments all ’round.
Here’s the speech in FULL.
“Thank you all very much. Julie [Bishop] and I are sorry to keep you up so late.
“This has been a very important day in the life of the nation, the Government and of course of our party.
“As you know, the party room a little while ago elected me as leader of the Liberal Party and re-elected Julie as the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party.
“I want to say at the outset what a great debt the nation owes and the party owes, the Government owes to Tony Abbott and of course, to his family Margie and their daughters. The burden of leadership is a very heavy one.
“Tony has discharged that as leader of the party and, of course, as Prime Minister over many years now and the achievements of the Government that he has led have been formidable.
“The free trade agreements that have been negotiated represent some of the key foundations of our future prosperity which I’ll talk about in a moment. And, of course, restoring the security on our borders has been an extraordinarily important step enabling us, for example, to offer the increased and generous arrangements for Syrian refugees last week. So I want to thank Tony very much indeed for that.
“This has been a very important sobering experience today. I’m very humbled by it. I’m very humbled by the great honour and responsibility that has been given to me today.
“We need to have in this country and we will have now, an economic vision, a leadership that explains the great challenges and opportunities that we face. [That] describes the way in which we can handle those challenges, seize those opportunities and does so in a manner that the Australian people understand so that we are seeking to persuade rather than seeking to lecture.
“This will be a thoroughly Liberal Government. It will be a thoroughly Liberal government committed to freedom, the individual and the market. It’ll be focused on ensuring that in the years ahead as the world becomes more and more competitive and greater opportunities arise, we are able to take advantage of that. The Australia of the future has to be a nation that is agile, that is innovative, that is creative.
“We can’t be defensive, we can’t future-proof ourselves. We have to recognise that the disruption that we see driven by technology, the volatility in change is our friend if we are agile and smart enough to take advantage of it.
“There has never been a more exciting time to be alive than today and there has never been a more exciting time to be an Australian.
“We will ensure that all Australians understand that their government recognises the opportunities of the future and is putting in place the policies and the plans to enable them to take advantage of it.”
[He continued after a brief interlude from Julie Bishop]
“As far as policy changes are concerned, let me just say this, it’s not a question of leadership style. There are few things more important in any organisation than its culture.
“The culture of our leadership is going to be one that is thoroughly consultative, a traditional thoroughly traditional Cabinet government that ensures that we make decisions in a collaborative manner. The Prime Minister of Australia is not a president. The Prime Minister is the first among equals.
“And you can see the partnership between me and Julie, the partnership with our colleagues will be a very clear cultural demonstration that we are operating in a traditional Cabinet manner and that means that I’m not going to make policy pronouncements from this podium tonight.
“Of course policies change, they change all the time, but they will be when people should have the confidence that we will be making decisions in a thoughtful and considered manner, recognising the significance of the work we have to do as the Government of Australia.”
Then there were some questions from the media, but all you really need to know is that Malc signed off thus:
Yessir!
Vine via ABC.
Lead image via Getty/Stefan Postles.
