Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull on how the Liberal Party operates behind closed doors | 7.30

welcome to this 7:30 special Malcolm Turnbull has been a major figure in Australian public life for four decades from his time as Carrie Packers lawyer to the head of the republican movement to opposition leader and finally prime minister as we all know his leadership ended brutally in 2018 when Mr Turnbull was challenged by his colleague Peter Dutton although ultimately it was Scott Morrison who prevailed amidst the chaos to seize the top job what we've not heard until now is Malcolm Turnbull's inside story of what happened that week Plus during many other key moments in his colourful life all of which are included in his new memoir a bigger picture under Nelson's leadership is on borrowed time I'd like to announce that Malcolm Turnbull has been elected as leader of the parliamentary Liberal Party it was hardly a decisive victory but more than enough for the man who'd coveted the job for the best part of a year I will not lead a party that is not as committed to effective action on climate change as I am the leadership threat comes from inside his own tent and some liberals seem determined to destroy the leader if Tony Abbot becomes leader on Monday he will be your third new leader in two years that is not a good look is it I think it is unhealthy for parties to keep changing leaders all the time very impressive Tony Abbot seemed as shocked as anyone at the outcome of the Liberals leadership boat I am feeling a bit overwhelmed Australia is under new management and Australia is once more open for business while the Prime Minister survived the spill motion it was effectively a vote of no confidence in him good government starts today Malcolm Turnbull delivered a bombshell eight months in the making we have lost 30 news polls in a row it is clear that the people have made up their mind about mr. Abbott's leadership we are not the Labour Party Malcolm Turnbull was successful on 54 Tony Abbott 44 he's second rising as Liberal leader comes almost seven years to the day since his first they'll be no wrecking no undermining and no sniping hi there mark mr. Turnbull's initial stratospheric ratings reflected his broad appeal but compromises on climate change in same-sex marriage shattered his mystique I think he's had difficulty conveying a clear message as to what he stands for I would challenge for the leadership of the parliamentary Liberal three years after malcolm turnbull enrolled tony abbott Peter Dutton is trying to oust Malcolm Turnbull we advise the prime minister of our judgment that he no longer enjoyed majority support in the party room this is my later and I'm ambitious for him the successful candidate was Scott Morrison he won this vote by forty five votes to forty four Peter Dutton Australians will be just dumbstruck and so appalled Malcolm Turnbull welcome back to the program great to be with you you handed over the final part of your book to publish a couple of months ago could you possibly have imagined how much the world would have changed in the period of time before it came out no no it seems like a completely different world but it's it's important for us for life to go on it's important for us to keep reading it's an Australian book with an Australian publisher and Australian printer and Australian booksellers who all need things to sell so we decided to press on and stick to the date we'd set last year what are your observations as you look at what's going on in the oil at the moment this virus defies our very humanity this is biology confounding politics just like climate change is physics confounding politics here in Australia so far the response has been effective and we are seeing the curve flattening so I think all the governments in Australia can take some satisfaction and no cause for complacency of course but some satisfaction that's so far the measures are working but the economic shock will be massive let's go back to a time before we were all living in this new normal when politics was politics and that was the final week of your prime ministership yourself had set the bar of losing 30 news polls in a row as justification for the removal of a leader well it's not quite true was great respect I know I should that was a I wish I'd never said that but I the critique I made of the Abbott government was essentially that it was a bad government and and I cited as evidence that its political cause was lost really as a means of persuading my colleagues that we'd lost 30 news polls in a row but yes I'd certainly mention it but that wasn't the reason I challenged Tony Abbott not at all nonetheless you did by citing that then give you colleagues an excuse later to say well you live by the sword you die by the sword yeah well certainly they were able to use that but the reality is that the when the coup occurred when Dutton and the you know the right-wing group that supported him Abbott and others and their friends in the Murdoch media and you know the right-wing media generally they overthrew my government and overthrew my prime ministership not because they thought I'd lose an election but because they thought I would win it why do you think they didn't want you to win an election when you were leading their side this is what's happened to the Liberal Party it has become so Tribe alized I mean there's some very keen observations of George Brandis in the book which I think among the most insightful about the way in which the right-wing have basically taken the liberal the liberalism out of the Liberal Party and they would have preferred Abbott and his friends and you know in the Murdoch media you know the right-wing shock jocks they would have preferred Bill Shorten to be Prime Minister than me they a liberal party that they could not control was not a liberal party they wanted to have and it was it's all about raw power I'm afraid you mentioned George Brandis he wrote you a letter after you'd been dumped as Prime Minister talking about this tribalism and it was almost a little bit of critical of you saying you know you didn't understand how tribal it was do you think that that's fair that you somehow lacked an understanding of the very tribal nature of what was going on I think yes I think it I think it is a fair criticism I think but you know the the problem is that had I not trusted people from different parts of the party had I not sought to work with people from different parts of the party whether it was Dutton and Foreman or Morrison or various others then I could not have got any of the things I got done but the but the truth is that when I was Prime Minister everybody told me not to trust everybody else there was virtually nobody that I wasn't being warned against and I go through that in the book so - so you could easily in that sort of environment where you're literally literally being told by this person don't Tim that person don't trust her that person don't trust any of them you could you could literally become just convulsed in a sort of sea of paranoia and and prime ministers have gotten to that shape now I was determined to look past that and and place my trust in everybody in order to get the job done and get things done you see all my life I've never sought to have power without purpose power for powers sake is what is it's what drives far too many people and politics I would say most people in politics frankly and a huge number of people in the media it is just power for power sake it turns them on it's a aphrodisiac a drug whatever you want to call it but for me power without purpose was pointless the idea that you would sit in the Prime Minister's chair or the Premier's chair or at ministers chair and not actually get things done seemed to me to be mad why wouldn't you be better off sailing or paddling a kayak or reading a book your enemies aren't sitting here so I have to try to guess what they would maybe say to that they would probably say come on Malcolm you're an ambitious guy you wanted to be lady took the leadership from Brendan Nelson you took it from Tony Abbott you were ambitious yes purpose yes of course I'm ambitious yeah I've never of course absolutely but the point was I wanted to do things and get things done and effect change and effect reform and I was able to do that when did you tweak that Peter Dutton was seriously contemplating a run at the leadership are very late probably it it was such an absurd proposition I never I didn't imagine that he was so deluded as to imagine that our political prospects would be advanced by change of leadership and especially to him and I did never occurred to me Frank that so many people would support him I mean he he was if Dutton had become leader not even Bill Shorten could have lost the election what role do you think that News Corp played and he mentioned I played a big role well I mean Rupert Murdoch as I relate in the book and you know conversation I had with Murdoch I mean Murdoch acknowledges that one of his most senior executives was part of the Abbott you know plan to bring down the government with the goal of sending us into opposition so that Abbott could come back as leader after the election and bring the party back to victory in 2022 know this just describing that sounds in unhinge doesn't it but that was Abbott's agenda and as Rupert acknowledged to me it had the support of one of his most senior and most influential editorial executives and I think it went a lot further than that so it was it was crazy nor was part of Alan Jones agenda I mean they tried to foment a coup at the end of 2017 and I set out all the evidence for that in the book you know it is these were people that were a foreign company controlled by foreign nationals was conspiring to overthrow the Prime Minister of Australia now that those are the you've got it from Murdoch's own admissions in in the pin the book why did you choose to bring on the spill on the Tuesday of that final week they were about to move they were getting momentum I could see that they had the support of the right-wing media I could see it was being coordinated so I thought it was important to bring it to a head and demonstrate that he didn't have the numbers which I did and you know frankly if if Corman had not betrayed me in the shocking way he did the Dutton coup would have been over by the by Tuesday I'll come to Matthias Korman in a second but that spill though did flush out that there were 30 five votes for Peter Dutton did you do yourself a fatal blow by actually getting that out on the record well they were claiming they had a majority 35 was not a majority so the you see the way the right wing operates in the Liberal Party and this is something Morrison has to confront by the way because they do they would do exactly the same to him if they thought they could the way they operate is to basically bully and intimidate people and what they do they operate like a terrorist no they don't use guns and bombs I hasten to add but that it is the technique of terrorism where you create enough mayhem enough damage that people in the middle say it's got to come to an end how can I stop this terrible horror what my judgment was the best way to do that was to flush it out and as I said I mean if if Corman basically rescued Dutton's coup and he did so well why why did he do it presumably because he wanted Dutton to be Prime Minister he certainly didn't want Morrison to be foreign minister that's for sure but again he's not here to put his version of events but his position at the time no I said I said out his position in the book I said out in his own work his position at the time was that he felt that the situation in the party room made your position irretrievable and that the longer it went on the worse the situation would get he said he said to me Matthias said to me in the Prime Minister's Office he said you have to give in to the terrorists his words the third most senior person in the government and he said actually for the fourth I should say after after the Deputy PM truly and he was the next leader of the government in the Senate he said you have to give in to the terrorists now you've got to think about that so basically that is that is now that if you believe the words have Dutton's closest friends Corman was in it from the outset he could he claims he wasn't but see the way these poos work the way people operate and and you know they're not the first people to do it like this they try to create the impression that the disarray has come from another source their art and so then they can say oh well it's all fallen to bits and so we'll have to step in now you know I've the times I've challenged for the leadership I have done so openly so I'm not that's not my modus operandi I'm a very upfront person you must have been in the in the approach to asking Brendan Nelson and Tony Abbott working to shore up your position well the Nelson interestingly as I described at the Nelson spill came as a complete surprise to me it was all it was a ambush for Brendan hatched while I was overseas our guy got back literally that morning and it was all called on that afternoon but but certainly as far as Abbott was concerned I go throw it all in the book inside between quite a bit of detail but you know it's interesting it is interesting and isn't it this is an interesting point so and I make no criticism Lee but just observer observe that what we're talking about is the tactics of the last week and not the substantive issue as to why we regard it as OK or acceptable that elements of the media conspire with the right wing of the Liberal Party to overthrow the Prime Minister in circumstances where our political position was in very good shape we were we were we were just behind labor on the publish polls and ahead of them on our own pulse on on any view we were I mean you look at what Rupert Murdoch said to to Carrie Stokes so Rupert Murdoch Carrie Stokes you know media proprietor owner of the West Australian the Seven Network goes to see Rupert and Rupert says we've got to get rid of Malcolm Stoke says why he says he can't Rupert says he can't beat shortening stakes this will lessen our IDs you know he's way ahead of him his preferred PM is you know and he just behind on the published pulse isn't a very good position to which Murdoch says three years of labour wouldn't be so bad so think about that so so determined were they to get rid of a prime minister they did not own because this is all about power remember because the one thing those plutocrats knew the billionaire media proprietors knew was that I did not belong to them so I don't think it was my concern about climate change or my support of same-sex marriage or other you know allegedly smaller liberal agendas I think when you boil it down and I say this you know approaching my 66th birthday and having spent much of my life dealing with billionaires of one kind or another I think this was ultimately about power they wanted to have again a prime minister who they felt they had some control over they had an ownership of and they had and they wanted to feel that as they had done with Abbott that they were in charge and so your strategy in the end was that you stood aside so that Scott Morrison would become Prime Minister not Peter Dutton just explain for people how that worked and what was important to me was that I ensure that Dutton did not become Prime Minister above all now Morrison and I are different men we have different values in some respects but while we had differences but as p.m. and treasurer we're long-standing friends we've worked closely together I know him very well he's got his limitations as we all have right it's not perfect but he is a much safer pair of handsome Peter Dutton by far and I always regarded him as my most likely successor not perhaps not inevitable successor but most likely successor what I did was I said I said we'll have a spill motion to declare the the motion is to declare the leadership of the party vacant and if that is carried and I obviously urge people to vote against the spill then I will not recon test the ballot and so I basically broke it up into two votes so the first vote was resolved as you know 45:40 in favor of the spill so I didn't run in the leadership ballot that followed and it was Dutton Dutton finished first then Morrison and then Julie didn't get a lot of votes she was excluded and Morrison won by by by by five votes again honey you write of Scott Morrison that the only conclusion you could reach was that he had played a double game that week telling you that he supported you while behind the scenes shoring up his position to become leader Scott Morrison has always denied that why was that your conclusion well his supporters say I mean the problem was Scott you know Scott has to live with his close allies I mean people like Stewart Robert and others have boasted about how they voted you know Ben Morton and others there was a group of them that voted for Dutton in the ballot on the Tuesday obviously hoping that they didn't put him over the line but they wanted to give him a big enough vote to destabilise my leadership and you know the bottom line is Scott you know when Abbott was defeated Scott for saying publicly he was supporting Abbott but he was working to get the numbers to vote for me so he you know he has that's his MO right but the he's also who you know can I know Scott very well he is a lifelong political operator and he is a control freak so the idea that those people that were voting for Dutton technically were doing so without his consent and approval is both possible that it's unlikely you mentioned Lee you consider Scott Morrison a safe pair of hands one person that you did not consider a safe pair of hands as Prime Minister was Tony Abbott you write that Abbott was a dangerous PM and threat to the nation and its security in what way well he's he basically abandoned cabinet government as you know the it was erratic these whole style of government was erratic and flaky from a national security point of view I go into more detail in the book of course but I mean just consider this you know at a time when terrorism was our biggest you know a domestic security issue Abbott was determined to ramp up the rhetoric in a way that was calculated to inflame animosity against Muslims and that was his that was obviously lapped up and echoed by the Murdoch press who were doing the same thing that made Australia less safe it was profoundly dangerous you've written extensively about the way the Prime Minister's Office functioned under Tony Abbott and his chief of staff Peter cred Lin you're right I've never known a leader more dominated by another than Abbott bike readlyn the relationship was completely asymmetrical he worshipped and feared her she on the other hand treated him with disdain why had that did not dynamic developed and then how did it play out in terms of cabinet ministers dealings with the prime minister's office well you were really dealing with Peter when Peter was running the country and that was obvious and dominating Abbott so it was a it was as though she felt I've created you you're my creation and she felt she owned him it was a bizarre a truly bizarre relationship I don't want to put words in Tony Abbott's mouth but again to try to be fair he would say you were always plotting against me you were always undermining me from day one what's your response I'm true and and so set in the book that's quite untrue I mean the Abbott government was brought down by the Abbott government I mean Cridland and Abbott destroyed their own governor due to their own follies and then set out to destroy mine so it is you know both of them demonstrated a Forte for negativity and destruction as opposed to try to do something positive you know yourself in the book that the criticisms of your prime ministership can pretty much be split into two groups we've spoken a little bit about the riot and the view that you weren't really a true liberal that you were public enemy number one and then there was also the criticism of the left which was that you were a disappointment that you didn't deliver on the socially progressive values that you claimed to hold because you've handed to the right wing of the party so to address the left when it came to in particular climate change and same-sex marriage Australians were expecting you to be what you'd always been on those issues which was the opposite of Tony Abbott and they got a continuation of the Abbott policies no but they got well we got a we had a vote on it which had been Abbott's policy but I don't think if habit had remained Prime Minister we would have seen same-sex marriage legalized let's get real the fact is I legalized it so I delivered on my commitment to enable people regardless of their sexual orientation to be married climate change though you had to deal with the National Party that there would be no change to climate change yes well well that's that's right that is absolutely right but that was only up to the 2016 election you've got to remember that you know I you know I was part of the government the Howard government that supported an emissions trading scheme moon in 2007 both Howard and Rudd went to the polls promising an emissions trading scheme I fought as hard as I could to keep that as our policy and I got overthrown by the right as you know at the end of 2009 by the time I became leader again in 2015 we had a different set of policies and we had a commitment to reviewing those climate policy is in 2017 so from my point of view in order to keep the government together it was better to say we'll deal with this review of our policies in 2017 which is what we did and out of that came a bunch of measures including the national energy guarantee should you have pushed back harder on the national party on that coalition agreement because really were they really going to walk away from the coalition and also do you regret that it gave rise to this perception that you had compromised on some of your core values in order to seize the prime ministership well it's again we're talking about tactics rather than the substance but it seems to be mostly about tactics and in the Australian media what I wanted to do was get us to a sensible climate policy an effective climate policy but to do that I had to bring the party with me you see see this is this is the challenge you know a lot of people say about Prime Minister's why don't you do that why didn't you do this or that well you're not a dictator you've got to keep the try and keep the show together now ultimately if people are prepared to blow it up then you know then then it all falls but but I so it was my determination to get keep the show together and get us to the right place in terms of climate policy and you know I mean just something like snowy - I mean no one else would have done snowy 2.0 you're on climate change the scientific evidence is so overwhelming and it's accepted in such a widespread manner from major corporations like you know bhp and have been for you has been fuse the Chinese government a conservative British government NASA universally just about why is the right wing of the Australian Liberal Party and people will say within the National Party is so captive to climate change denial ISM well it is a it's a toxic combination of right-wing politics right-wing media principally the Murdoch media but also people like Alan Jones although he also works for Murdoch as well but you know Jones and Hadley and that it's that ecosystem that right-wing ecosystem that supports this and of course vested interests in the you know fossil fuel sector you know people like Clive Palmer and Gina Rinehart who you know want to make money mining coal well that's you can sort of understand he can that that's the one part of it that you can understand you know that's in the great race of life always backed self-interest okay why for the rest of our political complexion it is it is it is impossible to provide a rational analysis of it I mean one of the key things that people need to understand about politics and it took me quite a while to realize this and I don't think I ever really accepted it is that politicians are not rational for the most part they are not rational you know they are in the world of business you could grow up in a rational environment because ultimately everything is measured in dollars and cents right and so you you know if you're making money you're doing well if you're not making money you've got to change something in politics you get people playing on irrational fears stoking fear stoking division and they are completely heedless of the public interest or the public consequences other than what it can do for them electorally and so the the bottom line is that they do not the right wing of the Liberal Party in the National Party do not accept the reality of climate change some some of them are Frank are about and others like Barnaby Joyce most of them you know use mealy-mouthed expressions but underpinning it all is a refusal to recognize that we have a responsibility to reduce our emissions another reason that the right of the party hated you is simply just water under the bridge stemming from your period as opposition leader and that period included an unfortunate episode known as u2 gate in which he'd relied on some information from a Treasury official called Godwin Gretsch to attack Prime Minister Rudd and it was later revealed that mr. Gretsch had fabricated the material that you rely you're right that that episode caused you to lose faith in your political judgment and that it rattled you for a long time why did it shake you up so much well I just felt so bad about it you know I had made I'd relied in good faith on somebody that I trusted and had every reason to trust but nonetheless I was appalled but I hold myself to high standards and I had you know I had failed them so that was a that was a real failing on my part what combination did the Gretsch episode and then losing the party leadership have on you personally I started to sink into a very very deep depression it was very deep and very dangerous I'd never given much thought to mental health before I'd always had been aware that you know people have mental health issues but I'd never really thought about it a lot and I felt myself I felt these thoughts death of self-destruction coming into my mind unbidden and unwanted and I couldn't get them out of my mind and I got sicker and sicker and sicker it was that it was a terrible time and I you know managed that by you know I made an announcement that I would retire from Parliament the moment I made that announcement I knew it was a mistake I then changed my mind and ran again and I ran again in large part to survive because I felt this was something I could do to claw my way out of this terrible hole this black hole I'd found myself in you include a diary entry in your book from that period in which you write I feel at present like a complete and utter failure you write things like you blame yourself you despise yourself frankly I'm thinking about dying all the time people would find that so at odds with the very confident malcolm turnbull that they know from your public appearances for a while there I was definitely faking the confidence I was it was you know it was a strobe was exhausting just to get through a day it was so bleak reading you memoir it appears that the two most influential figures in your life have been your wife Lucy and your father Bruce on the day you became Prime Minister Lucy was at your side did you think about your dad I did yeah I did I did he would have been so proud he was such a he was such an incredible man my father you know he well he was incurred was hard to talk about him without shedding a tear actually um look what he did for me was provide absolute ly unconditional love but he insert the circumstances were that my mother left us when I was young and four really critically important years of my life Bruce brought me up you know himself and he never criticized her and she did not you know that the flat we were living in was sold the furniture went you know he she was the major income earner in the family at that time and you know things were pretty tough for a while until he got on his feet and did well but he never ever criticized her and he literally brainwashed me into believing that she loved me more than any mother ever loved a little boy in ever that she loved me that you know I was so special and important to her and I believed that there wasn't really until I was an adult but it started me that if she cleared out when I was nine she was may not have been quite as maternal as my father had represented a debate you talk about your wife Lucy more as an equal and as your intellectual partner than really any man of your stature that I have had any dealings with why is she so integral to everything that you've achieved well I have always had a stronger sense of Lucy and me than I do of me we've been together for so long for over 40 years we've been married for 40 years I was I think I was always meant to meet Lucy I used to when I was a kid I used to sometimes think of who I would marry and a this sort of image of a girl who I imagined was more or less my age would come into my mind and when I met Lucy and got to know her and I saw her childhood pictures that was the little girl but it was a it I just from the time I met her I knew that this was the you know this was the this was the the love of my life when you spoke in Parliament after the death of Gough Whitlam you asked what is the thread that emerges from history out of the humdrum of the daily grind of politics and of Whitlam you said that what people remember is a big nurse generosity and enormous optimism and ambition for Australia what thread do you hope emerges from the history of Malcolm Turnbull well you know I was there's always a bit of transference when you give speeches like that and really for me it is optimism a fusion of a better Australia a fairer Australia an Australia that can achieve even more than it has done to date in Australia where Australians can realize their dreams and it's that you know whether it was the innovation agenda you know or Snowy Hydro or the reforms we made to tax or the city's agenda or all of the reforms and so many others were enlarging once were designed to enlarge and broaden our opportunities Malcolm Turnbull thank you thank you and if that interview has raised any issues for you you can call lifeline on one 311 14 or beyondblue on one 322 46 36 of course we approached all of those mentioned in the Malcolm Turnbull interview for comment including Scott Morrison Tony Abbott Matthias Korman Peter Dutton Peter Creveling Rupert Murdoch Paul Whittaker Ray Hadley Alan Jones and Carrie Stokes 2gb radio presenter Alan Jones says neither Mr Turnbull nor anything he now says is in any way relevant to the good governance of this country Sky News Australia's CEO Paul Whittaker says once again Malcolm Turnbull's characterizations are wrong and I reject his assertions Mr Turnbull appears to blame everyone for his demise apart from one notable exception all the others declined to comment Tony Abbott has an open invitation to join us for a similar in-depth interview about his prime ministership anytime thanks PA company good hi I'm Leigh sales thanks for watching this story if you'd like 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Channel: ABC News In-depth

Views: 88,033

Keywords: news, abc, abc news, australia, malcolm turnbull, prime minister, liberal, coalition, peter dutton, tony abbott, scott morrison, parliament, same-sex marriage, climate change, environment

Id: KzhKp8ETM-o

Length: 38min 16sec (2296 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 20 2020