Tony Abbott cabinet reshuffle moves Scott Morrison out of immigration

Scott Morrison will become social services minister and take charge of a “families package” and ongoing welfare crackdown while defence minister David Johnston has been dumped from cabinet by Tony Abbott in a bigger than expected ministerial shake-up.

The prime minister has also elevated Sussan Ley to the health and sport portfolio and into cabinet where she will become the second woman on his frontbench alongside Julie Bishop.

The current social services minister, Kevin Andrews, will move to defence and the current health minister, Peter Dutton – who the prime minister described as a “tough, no nonsense individual” – will take over immigration and border security.

Morrison was understood to have been disappointed having sought the defence portfolio in the reshuffle. In his announcement Tony Abbott stressed Morrison’s role in social services would be central to the government’s hopes for a political revival in the new year by putting “jobs and families at the heart of our political agenda”, as well as to its plans for “budget repair”.

“The minister [is] responsible for crafting the holistic families package which will be such an important part of our political and economic agenda,” Abbott said as he announced the first major changes to the ministerial arrangements since opposition.

He said Morrison would be responsible for ensuring “mutual obligation” was at the heart of social services policy and said targeting welfare to the vulnerable was “an ongoing program … Fit working-age people should be working, preferably for a wage, but if not then for the dole.

“I can think of no finer advocate than Scott Morrison, he is the master of difficult policy as he has abundantly demonstrated in all but stopping the boats over the last 15 months,” Abbott said. “He is also an extremely decent human being.”

“The minister for social services is essentially a ministry for economic participation and it is essential to have a minister of Scott’s drive and competence in this role.”

He denied Morrison’s appointment to a role central to next year’s budget planning was an indication of any lack of faith in his existing economic team.

“[Treasurer] Joe [Hockey] and I are the closest possible economic partnership … I suppose what you could say is that æ we now want to focus even more on the one commitment we made that is yet to be substantially completed … to get the budget back under control.”

After the reshuffle announcement Morrison issued a statement saying that “serving in the Cabinet is a great privilege. We do so at the request of the prime minister in whatever role he asks us to, in service of the Australian people. Our responsibility as ministers is to get the job done.”

The reshuffle is the final part of Abbott’s attempt to “reboot” public perceptions of his government after he admitted the coalition’s performance had been a bit “ragged”, made minor changes to defence force allowances and foreshadowed another revamp of his signature paid parental leave scheme as part of a new parenting and child care package. The prime minister said he would be happy to take this new ministry to the next election.

Abbott said Kevin Andrews was a very experienced minister and a “safe pair of hands” for the defence portfolio.

Andrews will inherit difficult defence procurement decisions, including the process to choose a replacement for the Collins class submarines. Dutton will inherit the problem of more than 2,000 asylum seekers still in offshore detention and more than 30,000 asylum seekers in Australia facing the uncertainty of temporary protection visas.

Abbott has reversed his decision not to include science in a ministerial title, renaming the portfolio held by industry minister Ian Macfarlane as “industry and science”.

Abbott said he was pleased to have been able to appoint another woman to cabinet, as well as two new female parliamentary secretaries: Kelly O’Dwyer, who becomes parliamentary secretary to the treasurer, and Karen Andrews, who becomes parliamentary secretary to the minister for industry and science.

Another parliamentary secretary – Queensland senator Brett Mason – has been returned to the backbench.

Sussan Ley, who represents the far western New South Wales seat of Farrer, has been assistant education minister with responsibility for childcare. She has performed well in parliament and has been seen an effective at explaining the government’s policies and shows like the ABC’s Q&A.

Josh Frydenberg, currently the prime minister’s parliamentary secretary, takes the assistant treasurer’s role – a sought-after training ground ministry for ambitious up and comers. The Victorian MP and former adviser to both John Howard and Alexander Downer replaces John Howard’s former chief of staff Arthur Sinodinos, who stood aside in March after being called as a witness to the Independent Commission against Corruption.

Sinodinos resigned from the ministry on Friday because the Icac report, which the government was waiting on to decide his future, has been delayed until March at the earliest, meaning the government would have been without an assistant treasurer in the lead up to another budget.

When he announced his first ministry last September, Abbott said he was “obviously disappointed” there weren’t more women in it. He said Sophie Mirabella would have made cabinet had she not lost her Victorian seat of Indi.

But he said there were “some very good and talented women knocking on the door of the cabinet and there are lots of good and talented women knocking on the door of the ministry. So I think you can expect to see, as time goes by, more women in both the cabinet and the ministry.”

David Johnston’s ill-disciplined comments that the Adelaide-based Australian Submarine Corporation “could not build a canoe” contributed to the Coalition’s defeat in the byelection for the South Australian seat of Fisher, which gave Labor the numbers to rule the state in its own right.

Johnston has also been the subject of serious internal leaks in recent weeks, including that he and a senior staffer had spent $6,300 on food and drink with foreign officials and industry representatives, even as defence personnel learned they would be suffering a sub-inflation pay rise of 1.5% for the next three years.
Abbott expressed “gratitude” to David Johnston, who he said had done “a fine job”.

Acting opposition leader Senator Penny Wong said the prime minister had “announced a change to his frontbench team but not a change to his policies”.

“No reshuffle can fix this government’s unfair budget,” she said.

In other changes to the ministerial arrangements:

• former Western Australia treasurer Christian Porter, who entered federal parliament last year, becomes parliamentary secretary to the prime minister
• a decision to make the industry minister responsible for training has been reversed, with education minister Christopher Pyne rebadged as minister for education and training
• Senator Simon Birmingham – now parliamentary secretary for the environment – has been promoted to assistant minister for education and training
• Queensland MP Steve Ciobo – now parliamentary secretary to the treasurer – will become parliamentary secretary for foreign affairs and trade
• Bob Baldwin moves from parliamentary secretary for industry to parliamentary secretary for the environment

The Greens leader, Senator Christine Milne, said “putting Scott Morrison in charge of social services will send shivers down the spines of people across the country. Scott Morrison and the word compassion don’t go in the same sentence.”

“Australians fundamentally want to be sure that there is a safety net. Australians are fundamentally saying they don’t agree that people should live for six months on nothing if they are unemployed,” she said.

“The PM has decided that the way he is going to handle the Senate is not listen to the fact that the Senate fundamentally objects to the policies that the government is putting up there and instead is going to put crash and crash through Scott Morrison in charge of social services.”

Milne said the prime minister would not be able to “flog the Senate into submission”.