Former Home Affairs minister Peter Dutton thinks he has a better chance of beating Labor than Malcolm Turnbull and won't rule out challenging him again.
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After losing a Liberal party leadership ballot 48 votes to 35 on Tuesday he resigned from the ministry to sit on the back bench.
But Mr Dutton did not rule out challenging Mr Turnbull again when asked multiple times.
"I think you're 10 steps down the road. I think we deal with the outcome of today," he told Sky News in a later interview.
He said he respected the party room's decision and would work toward helping the coalition win the next election.
"I harbour no animosity towards Malcolm Turnbull, I've always had a very good, productive, working relationship with Malcolm Turnbull," Mr Dutton told reporters in Canberra.
"I made a decision to contest this ballot because I want to make sure we can keep Bill Shorten from ever being prime minister of this country."
Mr Dutton declined to critique the Turnbull government, but said he wants to see migration addressed until infrastructure can "catch up" in capital cities.
The 47-year-old said going to the backbench gave him a chance to "smile" a bit more.
"When you're stuck in front of a camera talking about the serious issues of national security and border protection, it's pretty hard to crack a smile," he said.
"In this portfolio, because of the threat level, people don't get to see your family, because you try to guard your family from the public eye, so people don't see you in a natural environment."
Mr Dutton also said his responsibility for immigration meant people defined him by people detained on Manus Island and Nauru.
"I'd love to get everybody off there tomorrow," he said.
"If I could have brought them to Australia in a charter flight overnight I would have, but I would have seen people drown at sea, which would have been tragic."
The prime minister offered Mr Dutton a chance to continue in the Home Affairs ministry, but he declined.
"I am of the belief that given I challenged the leader of my party, that it was untenable for me to sit in the cabinet with him," Mr Dutton said.
Mr Dutton echoed former prime minister Tony Abbott after he also lost a leadership ballot to Mr Turnbull.
"No sniping, no undermining and I can relax a little bit," he said.
ReachTel polling of Mr Dutton's marginal seat of Dickson, commissioned by the Australian Taxpayers' Alliance on Monday, found he has a primary vote of 40.8 and is likely to hold it, despite his margin being cut to 1.6 per cent at the 2016 election.
Australian Associated Press
