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Labor Senator Sam Dastyari claims Tony Abbott is positioning himself for a leadership challenge
28 August 2016
LABOR Senator Sam Dastyari has claimed Tony Abbott is positioning himself to challenge Malcolm Turnbull for the Liberal leadership.
Speaking on Sky News on Sunday morning, Senator Dastyari predicated that Mr Turnbull would not last any more than eighteen months as Prime Minister.
“We sat here and we had the exact same conversations about Kevin Rudd and we were saying ‘It can’t happen, it can’t happen, and it happened’. Of course Tony Abbott thinks it can happen,” he said.
“This isn’t not premeditated; he’s not walking around giving these speeches, building up these issues, reminding people he’s around, talking about his legacy, for any reason other than this is a guy who’s having another tilt at the leadership,” Senator Dastyari said.
His comments come the morning after Labor stormed to a landslide victory in the Northern Territory, and on the eve of a new session of parliament.
On Friday, Mr Abbott gave a speech at a construction business forum in Melbourne, stating that the Turnbull government’s priorities should be to reel in the budget deficit and re-establish the Australian Building and Construction Corporation.
Mr Abbott and Mr Turnbull have contested the Liberal leadership on multiple occasions.
In December 2009 Mr Abbott defeated Mr Turnbull in a party room ballot by one vote when the party was in opposition.
In February 2015 a leadership spill motion against Mr Abbott was defeated, but Mr Turnbull successfully challenged Mr Abbott in September of that year.
