Catch up here:

Solicitor-General's advice has "as good as cleared" Peter Dutton of any eligibility concerns

That advice has been given to the PM, who is also awaiting a petition with 43 signatures before he calls a party room meeting for a leadership spill

Peter Dutton, Julie Bishop and Scott Morrison will all nominate for the leadership if there's a spill today — the PM won't

Tune into our rolling television coverage of the leadership crisis

But the High Court could disagree with the Solicitor-General, who for all we know could be a good "friend" of Dutton... Dutton may "not be incapable" of contesting the Liberal (CONservative) leadership but he is fully incapable of being acknowledged by the voters as an "improvement"...

Apparently Scott Morrison got the gig...

According to my sources, Mr Rupert Murdoch is on his way to Kanbra, with a sour face as if the result was like him sitting on a cactus, while Mr Thony Habbott — the Thurd — was looking like a depleted cadaver, barely warmed up to say the usual kraponics on ABC TeeVee...

Of course, in the cartoon at top, god is Uncle Rupe... Rupert could not make us swallow Tony twice so he went for his other gun — Peter Dutton, who looked like death warmed up, but still manages to say something nasty about "Bill Shorten"... As if Bill was a real existential threat to the survival of the Liberal (CONservative) party...

For a few days this week Australians seriously reckoned with the idea of Peter Dutton as prime minister.

Just three more party room votes and he would have been in the Lodge.

Opinion polls show he may not be popular with the public, but that does not mean the issues he champions are not resonating.

He built his campaign around what he and others have identified as a change in Australian politics; it is a shift that aligns with the ideological battles that have so profoundly reshaped global politics.

Internationally, people are reclaiming the idea of national identity; there is a blowback against globalisation; a rejection of political elites and politics-as-usual; immigration, free trade, energy policy have become defining issues.

Politics is becoming increasingly polarised and fractured.

It is disrupting democracies, redefining ideological boundaries; trade barriers have gone back up, borders have been strengthened.

Populism and the politics of identity have given cover to ugly strains of extremism and xenophobia the world thought it had banished forever.

Freedom House, the organisation that measures the growth of political freedom, says democracy is in retreat.

Its report, Freedom in the World 2015 — Discarding Democracy: the Return of the Iron Fist, found a resurgence of strongman autocratic leaders, an erosion of civil liberties and rule of law.

Freedom House concluded democracy was "under greater threat than at any point in the last 25 years".

Since then, two more events have shaken global politics: Brexit and the Trump presidency.

British journalist and political observer David Goodhart has written that the two events have marked, "not so much the arrival of the populist era but its coming of age".

Mr Goodhart does not see populism as the enemy of democracy, but in many ways its essence.

Those left behind are now being heard after too long being ignored by the so-called left progressives, and their belief in open borders and free trade.

Hillary Clinton called them "the deplorables"; this is the deplorables' revenge.

Goodhart says we are seeing a "core values divide".

As Goodhart puts it: "We are in a border war between nationalists, mainly on the right, and multicultural globalists mainly on the left."

This border war has reignited old ideological battles. In his new book, Conservatism: An Invitation to the Great Tradition, philosopher Roger Scruton writes:

"Issues that were for years undiscussable have appeared at the top of the agenda, and demographic and strategic changes have redrawn the map of the world.

"We should not be surprised if people previously unimaginable as the holders of high office suddenly emerge at the top."

Mr Scruton is a conservative and argues conservatives need to be clearer about their beliefs and political goals.

Read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-25/liberal-party-civil-war-isnt-over/...

We all know (we should) what I think of Roger Scruton... He is not a true philosopher but a pseudo-Christian conservative who prefers the beauty of crusty old paintings rather than indulge in the pleasure of the flesh... But unfortunately, these moralisticators are everywhere and only 3 votes from making your life a misery...

Morrison has welcomed Peter Dutton back into the fold, handing him his old home affairs portfolio.

However, he has removed immigration and citizenship from the portfolio, giving those responsibilities to David Coleman, the former assistant minister for finance.

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/aug/26/dutton-stays-but-...

Dutton should have remained on the back-benches where his hard-core butt belongs, next to Abbutt (sorry I mean Abbott)... But butt:

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In 1999, Dutton left the police force to become a businessman, completing a Bachelor of Business at the Queensland University of Technology.[14][15] He and his father founded the business Dutton Holdings, which was registered in 2000; it operated under six different trading and business names.[16] The company bought, renovated, and converted buildings into childcare centres, and in 2002 sold three childcare centres to the now defunct ABC Learning. ABC Learning continued to pay rent to Dutton Holdings for a commercial lease until at least 2007.[17

...

As the 2010 election approached, it looked like Dutton would lose to the Labor candidate due to a redistribution of division boundaries that had erased his majority and made Dickson notionally Labor. To safeguard himself, Dutton sought pre-selection for the merged Liberal National Party in the safe Liberal seat of McPherson on the Gold Coast (despite not living in or near McPherson).[25] Some constituents complained, "The abandoning of a seat by a sitting MP halfway through a parliamentary term to contest pre-selection in a seat over 100 kilometres to the south is not looked upon favourably."[26]

Dutton lost the McPherson pre-selection to Karen Andrews, reportedly due to misgivings from former Nationals in the area.[27]He then asked the LNP to "deliver him a seat for which he doesn't have to fight other preselection candidates." Liberal MP Alex Somlyay (the chief Opposition whip of the time) said that Dutton's expectation of an uncontested preselection was "unusual."[28]When the state executive didn't provide Dutton an unchallenged preselection, Dutton reluctantly returned to campaign for the seat of Dickson.[29][30]

...

In 2016, News Corp Sunday political editor Samantha Maiden[37] wrote a column critical of Jamie Briggs.[38] Dutton drafted a text message to Briggs describing Maiden as a "mad fucking witch" but inadvertently sent it to Maiden.[39] Maiden accepted an apology from Dutton.[40][41]

...

On 11 September 2015, Dutton was overheard on an open microphone, prior to a community meeting on Syrian refugees, joking about rising sea levels in the Pacific Islands. He said "time doesn't mean anything when you're about to have water lapping at your door".[47] Dutton initially refused to apologise, saying it was a private conversation, but later apologised.[48] The foreign minister of the Marshall Islands at the time, Tony deBrum, responded by writing the "insensitivity knows no bounds in the big polluting island down [south]" and the "Next time waves are battering my home [and] my grandkids are scared, I'll ask Peter Dutton to come over, and we'll see if he is still laughing,"

.....

Dutton is aligned with the right-wing, conservative faction of the Liberal Party.[97][98][99][100][101] He has been described as a right-wing populist.

...

... In response to this letter, on 16 March 2017, Dutton said that the CEOs "shouldn't shove their views down our throats" and that CEOs who were "doing the wrong thing" should "be publicly shamed".[110] Dutton repeated his criticism at a speech to the LNP State Council in Queensland on 18 March.[111]

Dutton, who owns six properties with his wife, including a shopping centre in Townsville, opposes any changes to negative gearing that currently offer tax breaks to property investors, stating that changing it would harm the economy.[119][neutrality is disputed]

Dutton is opposed to an Australian republic.[9]

Read more:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Dutton

So this means that Morrison loves the ultra-right-wing coal hungry royalist anti-renewables anti-gays capitalists with a big stick in this country, while bleating noises about reducing taxes blah blah blah (mostly to the rich capitalists)... etc.

From Waleed Aly at the SMH...

Gus: Dutton should resign or at least Morrison shoud kick him out.