Just days have passed since then-Treasurer Scott Morrison assured reporters he was not making plans to pursue the prime ministership of Australia.
"The Prime Minister has my full and total support, and I want to put to rest any suggestion that I've made any approach (or) any approach has been made. It's all the usual nonsense. And the Prime Minister knows exactly where I stand. The Australian people always know where I stand."
He now stands as head of the Liberal Party and Australia's sixth prime minister in a decade.
Scott Morrison grew up in the Sydney beachside suburb of Bronte, ((BRON-tee)) the younger of two sons.
Destined to be in the public eye, he had a short-lived career as a child actor, appearing in a number of television commercials.
After high school, he gained an honours degree in applied economic geography at the University of New South Wales.
Mr Morrison then held several positions on councils promoting Australia's tourism industry before spending four years as state director of the New South Wales Liberal Party.
He entered federal politics towards the end of 2007 after winning the seat of Cook, in south-eastern Sydney.
Australian National University politics lecturer Jill Sheppard says Scott Morrison is somewhat of a chameleon, straddling the Liberal Party factions.
"Scott Morrison's a really interesting case. He was sort of focalised in the Liberal Party. He's a creature of the Liberal Party. He's proven quite adept at dealing with the right and the left of the party."
In his maiden speech to parliament, Mr Morrison said he was proud of then-prime minister Kevin Rudd’s national apology to Indigenous Australians, which parliament had witnessed the day before.
And he called for greater humanitarian aid to Africa.
Over the decade he has spent in parliament, he has held three federal portfolios.
Mr Morrison made his mark as immigration and border-protection minister, launching the so-called "stop the boats" policy to curtail what was termed illegal immigration and people-smuggling.
This year, it was revealed that, while in role, he had asked ASIO to delay security checks on asylum seekers so they would miss a deadline to obtain permanent protection visas.
Malcolm Turnbull, as prime minister, leapt to his defence after a strong public backlash.
"Scott Morrison is doing an outstanding job as Treasurer, of course. When he was the minister for immigration and border protection, he stopped the boats. He did an outstanding job in securing our borders. We make no apologies for sending the clearest message to the people smugglers and to their would-be customers: 'If you think you can come to Australia on a people smuggler's boat, you're wrong. You won't. You won't get here. You will not become a permanent resident.'"
Mr Morrison spent nine months as social-services minister before being appointed Treasurer in September 2015.
He has a reputation as a deeply religious man, attending a Pentecostal church.
He opposed legalising same-sex marriage in Australia in 2017.
Mr Morrison says he once aspired to the defence portfolio and never anticipated ending up in the role of Treasurer.
He counts Australia's longest-serving Treasurer, Peter Costello, as one of his mentors.
In his time as Treasurer, Mr Morrison promoted the economic theory of expanding overall wealth to solve financial shortfalls, believing everyone wins when there is more money to go around.
"You've got to make the pie bigger. And if the pie's bigger, everybody's getting more, and regardless of what their share is, except for Western Australia. And what we've done on digital transactions, low-value threshold goods, all of these things, and I announced this in the budget, over the next four years, the GST pool is going to grow by $6.5 billion specifically because of the decisions we have taken as a government."
The ANU's Jill Sheppard says Scott Morrison kept a relatively low profile as Treasurer and she expects him to take the same approach as prime minister.
"Scott Morrison hasn't been Treasurer during a period of great international economic growth, so he hasn't been able to take credit for things that are outside of his remit as Australian treasurer. So he's probably had a really low profile. I think Scott Morrison will keep his head down as prime minister and will move forward in the same vein as Malcolm Turnbull."
In early 2018, Scott Morrison, as Treasurer, asked Australians to put their trust in the Coalition, saying the most important thing for the country is stability.
"The Australian economy is now pulling out of one of the toughest periods we have faced in generations. Our national economy is strengthening, but it is also true that the benefits are yet to reach everyone. And this will take more time. That is why it is important to stick to our plan. We are close to our destination, and we must stick to our plan."
With a federal election due in the next nine months, Scott Morrison must now convince Australians the Liberal Party, which has shown little stability or certainty, is the best party to run the country.
