Malcolm Turnbull (born 24 October 1954) was Prime Minister of Australia from 15 September 2015 to 24 August 2018, succeeding Tony Abbott and preceding Scott Morrison. He led the Liberal Party of Australia from 2008 to 2009 and from 2015 to 2018. Turnbull was a member of the party's liberal wing, supporting same-sex marriage rights, the right to choose for abortions, and stem cell research.
Biography[]
Malcolm Turnbull was born in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia in 1954, and he worked as a journalist, lawyer, merchant banker, and venture capitalist before entering politics as a Liberal Party of Australia politician. He campaigned for Australia to adopt a republican system of governance, and he was elected to the House of Representatives as the MP for Wentworth in 2004. He served as Leader of the Liberal Party from 2008 to 2009, when Tony Abbott defeated him by a single vote in a leadership election, but Turnbull successfully challenged the unpopular Abbott in 2015 and became Prime Minister. In 2017, he made a deal with the United States in which Australia would receive Central American asylum seekers in exchange for the USA accepting refugees on Nauru and Manus, but, under Donald Trump, the process was done under "extreme vetting". He also placed export restrictions on the nation's liquefied natural gas industry, and a gas and energy crisis occurred in March 2017. On 7 December 2017, same-sex marriage was legalized in Australia. However, from 2017 to 2018, a parliamentary eligibility crisis occurred when many of his party's MPs discovered that they were dual citizens of other countries and were therefore not allowed to hold office. In 2018, Scott Morrison defeated him in a leadership election.