UPDATE: Prime Minister elect Tony Abbott has announced his new cabinet.
It is as follows:
Warren Truss, Deputy Prime Minister
Matthias Cormann, Finance Minister
Julie Bishop, Minister for Foreign Affairs (Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party)
George Brandis, Attorney-General and Minister for the Arts
Joe Hockey, Treasurer
Barnaby Joyce, Minister for Agriculture
Eric Abetz, Minister for Employment and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on the Public Service
David Johnston, Defence Minister
Christopher Pyne, Minister for Education.
Nigel Scullion, Minister for Indigenous Affairs
Malcolm Turnbull, Minister for Communications
Peter Dutton, Minister for Health and Minister for Sport
Andrew Robb, Minister for Trade and Defence
Greg Hunt, Minister for the Environment
Scott Morrison, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection
Kevin Andrews, Minister for Social Services
Phillip Ruddock, Chief Government Whip
1. Tony Abbott is expected to reveal his leadership team today, but he’s already announced that Ian Macdonald and Sophie Mirabella will be gone from the front bench. After the election, Macdonald was reportedly told by the Prime Minister-elect, “he has no room for me in the new ministry”.
Mirabella has bowed out, given that it seems likely she will lose her seat in Indi to independent Cathy McGowan. Bronwyn Bishop will be the next Parliamentary Speaker.
It’s likely they’ll only be one woman on the front bench – Julie Bishop who is expected to be named as Foreign Minister.
2. The soon-to-be sworn-in Abbott government has indicted they’ll support a US/Russia deal to rid Syria of its chemical weapons. Julie Bishop – the Foreign Minister in waiting – has said she welcomes the US and Russia deal to destroy all of the chemical weapons in Syria by mid-2014. Julie Bishop said of the agreement, “It is as a result, I believe, of the United States making it quite clear that they would use military force if need be.”
The United States and Russia have agreed on a deal to combat Syria’s chemical weapons, aiming to have it complete by the middle of next year. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov have given Syrian President Bashar al-Assad a week to hand over details of the weapons. The deal has been welcomed by the West, but members of the Free Syrian Army are less than impressed, saying that mid-2014 is too far away.
Top Comments
Good work Sweden. Our country's treatment of asylum seekers is an international embarrassment. It makes me feel sick. Authoritarianism to the extreme, targeting those with no vote, no voice, to appease the apparent racist Australian majority (though I have never meet this person the major parties are appealing to, I'm starting to wonder if this person with no intelligence or empathy actually exists in our modern Australia?). This will go down as a disgrace on our history, 100 times worse than the stolen generation.
I totally agree! Well said. It makes me feel sick to think of those poor people fleeing persecution and death to be met with such abhorrent attitudes here.
Absolutely agree. Yet Tony Abbott says the arrival of these desperate people is a National Emergency! Calls himself a Christian? Shame on him.
Family dog helps parents realise the baby sitter was abusing their child http://www.foxnews.com/us/2...
Thanks Caro I watch that it was amazing I always said Dogs are far superior to Cats what a hero.
I know dogs are amazing but it was not an article about dogs vs cats. Cats are great too..........