Incoming Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison promised generational change in the warring Liberal party on Friday, seeking to end an internecine battle that has scarred the conservative government ahead of an election due by May 2019.
Morrison, who was treasurer under outgoing prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, emerged the surprise winner in a three-way challenge for the leadership of the Liberal party brought on by a right-wing rival this week.
“Our job … as we take forward this mantle of leadership as a new generation, is to ensure that we not only bring our party back together, which has been bruised and battered this week, but that … we bring the parliament back together,” Morrison said in his first appearance after his party-room victory.
“The new generation of Liberal leadership is on your side”, he told Australian voters, many of whom are angry and frustrated with a decade of political instability in which no sitting prime minister has lasted a full term.