Prime Minister Tony Abbott has promised his government will “strive to govern for all Australians” as the new Cabinet was sworn in at Government House in Canberra.

    TONY ABBOTT was sworn in as Australia’s new prime minister Wednesday and immediately ordered the scrapping of the nation’s carbon tax and the halting of asylum-seeker boats.

    The 55-year-old conservative launched straight into work with a Cabinet meeting after the ceremony at Government House in Canberra where his Liberal/National government officially brought six years of Labor rule to a close.

    “Today is not just a ceremonial day, it’s an action day. The Australian people expect us to get straight down to business and that’s exactly what this government will do,” said Abbott, a political hard man who has worked to soften his macho image in recent months.

    In presenting his frontbench team to Governor-General Quentin Bryce, he added: “We will be a problem-solving government based on values, not ideology.”

    Abbott was elected Sept. 7 on a pledge to quickly scrap taxes on corporate pollution and mining profits imposed under Labor, as well as introducing a costly paid parental leave scheme and a vow to build new roads across the vast nation.

    Top of Abbot’s to-do list is axing the unpopular carbon tax, which charges the country’s biggest polluters for their emissions at a fixed price. The tax has been attacked over its impact on household power bills since it was first levied in July 2012.

    His government instead favors a “direct action” plan that includes an emissions reduction fund to pay companies to increase their energy efficiency, and money for schemes to replenish soil carbon and plant 20 million trees.

    Abbott, who once said that evidence blaming mankind for climate change was “absolute crap,” said he would immediately instruct officials “to prepare the carbon tax repeal legislation.”

    He would remove the tax from July 2014 if the Parliament passes his legislative agenda.

    As of Wednesday, the Clean Energy Finance Corp., a A$10 billion (US$9.4 billion) government fund to finance low-pollution technologies, has been barred from making any further loans.

    Australia is one of the world’s worst emitters of greenhouse gases on a per capita basis due largely to its heavy reliance on abundant reserves of cheap coal for electricity generation.

    Another central plank of his election campaign was stopping asylum-seeker boats. He announced that Australia’s contentious new policy on asylum-seekers that includes turning back their boats to Indonesia — their typical point of transit — began Wednesday after the swearing in ceremony. That could prove to be an early test of his mettle.

    Australia has seen an increase in the number of such asylum-seekers from Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries, many of whom pay smugglers up to US$10,000 to get them to Australia from Indonesian ports. It has struggled to manage the stream of asylum-seekers arriving on rickety, overloaded fishing boats with hundreds dying on the risky journey in recent years.

    The new government announced Tuesday that the deputy army chief, Major General Angus Campbell, had been appointed to lead Australia’s new border protection policy, Operation Sovereign Borders. Campbell will be promoted to lieutenant general in this new role.

    The new policy includes a proposal to embed Australian police in Indonesia, buy up fishing boats to keep them out of people-smugglers’ hands, and pay locals for intelligence — plans that have received a cool reception in Jakarta.

    “It’s so important that we send a message to the people-smugglers that, from today, their business model is coming to an end,” Abbott said.

    Also, refugees who arrive by boat now are given temporary protection visas instead of being permanently resettled in Australia. That policy started Wednesday, also.

    Abbott plans to make his first international trip as prime minister to Indonesia on Sept. 30 to discuss the plan and other issues.

    Acting opposition leader Chris Bowen on Wednesday said the plan would cause problems with the countries’ close relationship.

    “Mr. Abbott has told us he wants a Jakarta-based foreign policy at the same time as saying to Jakarta we don’t care what you think, this is what we’re doing,” Bowen told Australian Broadcasting Corp. “This is a recipe, frankly, for ongoing problems in relation to boats arriving in Australia — it’s (a) recipe for ongoing dispute with Indonesia about this issue.”

    Abbott’s leadership team has already begun exercising control. Two days after the election, Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop canceled the previous government’s appointment of Steve Bracks, a former Labor state premier, to consul-general to New York.

    His 42-member executive was sworn in by Bryce at Government House in Canberra on Wednesday.

    “We will strive to govern for all Australians, including those who didn’t vote for us,” Abbott said.

    “We won’t forget those who are often marginalized: people with disabilities, indigenous people and women struggling to combine career and family.

    “We will do our best not to leave anyone behind.”

    Abbott spared no time in announcing a series of changes to government, including the termination of three department heads — Andrew Metcalfe at Agriculture, Blair Comley at Resources and Energy and Don Russell at Innovation, Industry, Science and Research.

    Treasury Secretary Dr. Martin Parkinson will step down from his position in mid-2014, although the government did say it will discuss a further appointment with him next year.

    Two new department secretaries were appointed — Dr. Gordon de Brouwer to the Department of the Environment and Renée Leon to the Department of Employment.

    The departments are at the heart of key Abbott government policies: a revamped work for the dole program, workplace relations changes, abolishing the carbon tax and streamlining environmental regulation for major projects.

    Abbott said the previous Kevin Rudd and Gillard Labor governments had created “confused responsibilities, duplication and waste.”

    “The changes ... will simplify the management of government business and create clear lines of accountability,” he said.

    Born in London, England, in 1957, to an Australian mother and an English-born father, Abbott has been Leader of the Liberal Party since 2009, and the Member of Parliament for Warringah since 1994.

    Prior to entering Parliament, Abbott earned a bachelor of economics and a bachelor of laws at the University of Sydney, and later for a master of arts as a Rhodes Scholar at Queen’s College, Oxford. He later trained as a Roman Catholic seminarian and worked as a journalist, business manager, and political adviser. In 1992, he was appointed director of Australians for constitutional monarchy, a position he held until 1994 when he successfully stood in the Warringah by-election.

    Abbott was first appointed to the Cabinet in 1998 under the John Howard government, as minister for employment, workplace relations and small business. In 2003, he became minister for health and aging, retaining this position until the defeat of the Howard government at the 2007 election.

    (SD-Agencies)