CANBERRA, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull called for unity after narrowly winning a leadership ballot on Tuesday morning.

Turnbull defeated Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, the most senior conservative member of the government, 48-35 after he prompted the challenge by declaring leadership of the Liberal Party vacant at a party room meeting on Tuesday morning.

"We cannot allow internal issues to undermine our work," Turnbull told reporters in Canberra.

"United we are able to deliver the great results that we have for all Australians.

"We are seeing the strongest economic growth we have had for a long time, and last year was the strongest jobs growth in the history of the country."

Dutton resigned from his position as home affairs minister on Tuesday despite Turnbull asking him to continue to serve in the position.

"Peter has done an outstanding job as home affairs minister and I want to thank him for his work," Turnbull said.

"I've invited him to continue in that office, however he has said to me that he doesn't feel he can remain in the Cabinet having challenged me for the leadership of the party, and so he is resigning."

His resignation has prompted speculation that Dutton is preparing to mount another leadership challenge once he has had more time to gauge his support among the party.

It was reported that a second challenge was likely to occur as early as Thursday, the last Parliamentary sitting day until September.

A successful challenge on Thursday would give Dutton time to establish himself as prime minister and announce policy positions before facing the Opposition Australian Labor Party (ALP) in parliament in September.

Turnbull also announced that deputy leadership of the party was vacated on Tuesday morning but incumbent Julie Bishop, a Turnbull supporter, ran unopposed.

If Dutton does challenge for the leadership again it has been reported that Health Minister Greg Hunt will run as his deputy.

Tuesday's leadership challenge came after weeks of conservative government Members of Parliament (MPs) threatening to rebel against Turnbull over the prime minister's signature energy policy, the National Energy Guarantee (NEG).

The conservatives, led by Dutton and former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, have taken issue with Turnbull's plan to embed an emissions reduction target of 26 percent within the legislation, arguing that the policy should be solely focused on reducing electricity prices.

The prime minister on Monday announced that he had abandoned his plan to legislate the emissions target; a move that was described by many as a desperate attempt to save his status as leader with pressure mounting.

A Fairfax-Ipsos poll published on Sunday night revealed that the Liberal National Party (LNP) was facing a landslide election defeat to the ALP with the Opposition leading 55-45 on a two-party preferred basis.

Especially concerning for Turnbull was that the poll revealed that the party's conservative support base was abandoning the LNP in favor of the right-wing One Nation Party (ONP), fuelling the discontent among conservative MPs.

The poll exacerbated the results of July's Longman by-election where voters swung 3.7 percent in favour of the ALP for the Opposition to retain the seat in the key battleground state of Queensland.

Dutton's own electorate of Dickson borders Longman prompting speculation that Dutton could lose his seat, which he won by 3.2 percent in 2016, at the upcoming general election,

Gary Spence, president of the LNP in Queensland, on Monday urged Queensland government MPs to support Dutton over Turnbull, saying that the former was the LNP's best chance of beating the ALP in Queensland. Enditem

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