Ego: Malcolm Turnbull and the Liberal Party's Civil War

By Aaron Patrick

The riveting story of an ex-prime minister, the travails of his successor's government, and what that bodes for the future of politics

Malcolm Turnbull's campaign against Scott Morrison and the Liberal Party is one of the greatest acts of political disloyalty in Australian history. Through the pursuit of causes close to his heart, Turnbull destabilised a government he was once part of and courted forces openly hostile to it.

This account explores the egos, alliances and thwarted power that have left a trail of personal destruction across the political world. Friends have been turned into enemies, loyalties eroded and reputations shattered. Time will tell whether Turnbull's response to his own political party sets Australia on a different course, but the discourse has changed forever, helped by social media, single-issue stances and a sense of virtue.

Aaron Patrick reveals the stories behind the Morrison government's biggest scandals, from the shocking allegations against Christian Porter to the scandalous treatment of women inside the Liberal Party - stories with profound implications for Australian politics, media and society.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Jun 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781460714461

Aaron Patrick

Aaron Patrick is the Senior Correspondent at the Australian Financial Review, based in Sydney, and has written for the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. He is the author of three books on Australian politics: Downfall, Credlin and Co., and The Surprise Party. He is also an ex-Young Labor president and associate of Bill Shorten.

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CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1: Election night

Chapter 2: Rejection

Chapter 3: From allies to rivals

Chapter 4: Unacceptable conduct

Chapter 5: Who is Kate?

Chapter 6: Haunted by Higgins

Chapter 7: Bursting the bubble

Chapter 8: Justice and gratitude

Chapter 9: Porter falls

Chapter 10: Going after Hunt

Chapter 11: Flirting with independence

Chapter 12: Family and friends

Chapter 13: Falling out with France

Chapter 14: No regrets

Chapter 15: The campaign begins

Chapter 16: Malcolm’s motivation

Photo Section

Acknowledgements

Endnotes

About the Author

Copyright

INTRODUCTION

Malcolm Bligh Turnbull was everything Scott John Morrison was not: erudite, worldly, cultured. Turnbull, a Rhodes Scholar, liked to quote poetry. Morrison, a Pentecostal Christian, preferred the Bible. Once, in parliament, referring to bushfires that ravaged Victoria, Turnbull cited the great Australian poet Dorothea Mackellar, who wrote, ‘We love her beauty and her terror.’¹ The quotation was doubly apt, for the devastating power of wildfires and the man who uttered the words.

As Australia’s twenty-ninth prime minister, Turnbull epitomised missed opportunity. The great promise of Turnbull’s leadership was lost in the pointless dissipation of its political capital by decisions not taken – on climate policy, economics, technology and social change. Perhaps the only signature social advancement of his government, the end to the prohibition on gay marriage, was achieved in spite of him. The bill’s sponsor, Warren Entsch, was disgusted when Turnbull supported changes that would have delayed a vote, probably permanently, and then denied Entsch the opportunity to name volunteers in parliament who had spent a decade of their lives fighting for the same right as heterosexual couples.²

Turnbull was driven from office on 24 August 2018, not by a conspiracy hatched by alienated conservative colleagues – although they were alienated and were conspiring – but by his own terror at staring them down. For all his eloquence, sophistication and confidence, Turnbull as prime minister was afraid of intra-party conflict, a fear that would vanish soon after leaving the office he wanted to keep so badly that he was willing to threaten a constitutional confrontation.

In the end, Turnbull was too politically weak to even contest his own leadership. He left office recognised for two non-achievements: squandering the handsome parliamentary majority bequeathed to him by his predecessor, Tony Abbott; and introducing a ban on consensual relationships between ministers and advisers that would do nothing to shield his successor from multiple sex scandals.

Turnbull’s humiliation was compounded by what he saw as the calibre of his replacement: a party apparatchik and second-tier industry lobbyist. Worse still, Morrison’s persona was a hit in the outer suburbs, towns and country areas that chose the government.

Initially, after the 2019 election victory, the government assumed Turnbull would make peace with his personal loss. Turnbull wished his successor well. He appeared to mean it. Ministers expected their former colleague to adopt the traditional retiring persona of former prime ministers, and, if not support the government, then not actively undermine it. No other Liberal leader, even those who had left the party, had immediately gone to war with it.

Besides, Turnbull seemed more interested in pursuing his predecessor than his successor. He argued that Abbott, the prime minister from 2013 to 2015, led a conspiracy designed to cost the Liberal Party power. Abbott’s ambition was to return as opposition leader and try to win government at the following election, Turnbull said. ‘The worst possible outcome for Abbott would be for me to win the 2016 election,’ he wrote in his memoir, A Bigger Picture. ‘He knew that he wouldn’t be elected [leader] again before the election, so his strategy was to continue damaging my government so I that couldn’t win.’³

Turnbull was an atypical ex-politician. One of the richest men elected to Australian office, he had no financial need for the post-political government appointments beloved by most politicians. His media allies were Liberal Party critics. The commentators who attacked him were government sympathisers.

Of Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison, Turnbull was the strongest orator. Abbott’s expertise in delivering short quotes for television made voters underestimate his intelligence. Turnbull’s struggles to do the same may have led Australians to overestimate his. Either way, Turnbull’s authority as a speaker propelled him through four careers: broadcast journalism, the law, investment banking and politics. In the first three, he was able to thrive on raw talent. In the fourth, it got him to the top and then failed him. Ultimately, Turnbull lacked the most important quality needed for leadership: the ability to win his colleagues’ trust.

Like most of the Australian establishment, Turnbull expected Morrison to lead the Coalition to a convincing loss at the 2019 election. The surprise victory hardened Turnbull’s resentment about his own removal. Encouraged to anger by those closest to him, Turnbull sought a form of post-electoral vindication. He openly campaigned against his own party. He promoted the Liberals’ enemies, attacked their supporters and condemned their policies. He plotted and schemed, applying his enormous energy to the destruction of the Morrison government.

As this book will show, Turnbull participated in the public criticism of several of the Morrison government’s greatest challenges after the 2019 election: the historical rape claim against Attorney-General Christian Porter; political adviser Brittany Higgins’s allegation that she was raped; Education Minister Alan Tudge’s sexual relationship with his press secretary; the tortuous efforts to formulate an internationally credible climate policy that wouldn’t alienate the Coalition’s conservative supporters; and Australia’s diplomatic rift with France over a switch from diesel to nuclear submarines. The Liberal Party had never seen so much naked hostility from a former leader.

Turnbull’s influence was broader, though, and reflected a shift in how politics is fought day by day, hour by hour. Turnbull’s criticism of Morrison’s government turned him into a Twitter hero. He embraced the social media discourse, a digital world where the politically engaged shout at each other and at the public figures they love or hate. At any moment, Turnbull could inject himself into the public debate. The media middleman was removed. A few keystrokes and he was trending.

Some political insiders dismiss Twitter and other social media as fringe fora, unrepresentative of the national psyche. The social media network is a creature of the left, they say, so ideologically driven as to be pointless as a measure of public sentiment or a forum for serious discussion.

Others, including conservatives, acknowledge the reality. The political and media class is addicted to social media. Social media has wormed itself inside their brains, sowing fear of the digital horde’s fury and pleasure at their praise. Politicians use Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to blatantly flatter egos. Some, including Josh Frydenberg, a politician who could command access to millions through television cameras almost at will, complain when junior colleagues fail to retweet banal opinion articles written under his name. A few others, including Victorian libertarian Liberal Tim Wilson, fight back, pointlessly arguing with posters who will never be swayed. In newsrooms, reporters, editors and producers obsess over feeds. They look for story ideas, monitor the competition, sample the mood – social media is an excuse to avoid the human-to-human contact that uncovers real news, which is information not already public. Mostly, though, they use it to promote themselves. Social media is a semi-legitimate display of narcissism for journalists, placing many at, and often above, the level of the elected representatives who previously dominated political discourse.

Every day, probably every hour, a journalist somewhere conducts a private cost-benefit analysis: will this lead sentence outrage social media or draw praise? Do I dare defy the digital mob today? What angle can I take to attract more followers, the industry’s unsubtle measure of influence and popularity? Provided with the intoxicating opportunity of digital fame and unfiltered speech, writers, columnists, reporters, activists and attention seekers, of indiscriminate ideological persuasions and professional experience, have freed themselves from the restraints of impartial argument. On social media, current affairs talk shows and elsewhere, people who should have been guardians of truth turn into propagators of bias. They push agendas inherent in their coverage, whip up outrage and punish counter-narrative proponents. The partisan public, uninterested in the mundane realities of politics, loves them for it.

Previous generations attributed the reactive behaviour of governments to what was dubbed the 24-hour news cycle. As internet journalism has risen in parallel with social media, so the news cycle has shrunk, on some days, to 60 minutes. Outrage turns over so fast that it has become almost impossible for traditional media to keep up. Sober long-term policy discussion has become a luxury unaffordable to most cash-strapped media outlets, and of no interest to Twitter trolls.

As social media devours politics, Turnbull and others invested in the government’s destruction watch in evident pleasure. They should feel shame. Online outrage is a consequence of their behaviour. Politicians build their careers demonising opponents, inside and outside their parties. As professional propagandists, they cast their opponents as venal, dishonest or corrupt. They convince supporters that those who disagree with them are amoral. The consequence of the dishonesty is a tear in the fabric of politics. The removal of an editorial filter, subject to the self-discipline imposed by old media outlets, exposes millions of Australians to lies about their governments on Twitter, Facebook and other sites. The beneficiaries of a wealthy, free country run by a sophisticated public service and a democratic system without structural corruption are told that politics is ‘broken’, policy is in crisis and the parliament a place of chaos. Individual politicians, from all sides, are subjected to smears designed to destroy their credibility, usually by accusing them of corruption or being driven by vested interests. The objective is usually to undermine their ability to implement policy and operate as effective advocates for their political parties.

The effect of these digital hit jobs is near policy paralysis. Significant reforms have gone from hard to difficult to near impossible. Moving the country forward and fixing the problems that hold it back – a lack of opportunity for the working classes and poor, chronic Indigenous disadvantage, a biased tax system and inefficient government sector – are now almost beyond the capacities of the political system, which is too intimidated to risk nation-changing reform.

The irony of the new political culture is that those inside the system – the politicians, lobbyists, public servants and journalists – know better. They understand that politics and power involve continuous compromise by mostly decent people balancing endlessly competing interests. Both sides run competent administrations. Both sides favour their supporters. Neither side is bad.

Turnbull, who compromised his principles in power as much as anyone, knows this. He didn’t care. He was determined to undermine the party that made him prime minister. He needed Morrison to lose. Morrison’s success was Turnbull’s failure.

The story of the Morrison government is more than one man’s revenge. And this book is about more than Malcolm Turnbull. But Turnbull’s assault on his party and his successor epitomises politics in the digital age: angry, bitter and divisive. Turnbull’s revenge is the story of modern politics, of a democracy unable to agree on almost anything. Of a system that celebrates the politics of personal destruction over the spirit of societal cooperation. It is a story of fantastic potential defeated by ego and self-indulgence. It is the story of modern Australia: privileged, petty and riven.

CHAPTER 1

ELECTION NIGHT

Scott Morrison didn’t know he would win.

David Gazard and Scott Briggs, two Liberal political advisers who had sought fortunes as lobbyists, flopped onto a couch in the Morrisons’ living room, where the prime minister’s eldest daughter, Lily, was excitedly flipping between the television channels covering polling day. The prime minister’s close friends had arrived after the polls had closed on the third Saturday in May 2019, prepared for a wake at his official residence in the Sydney harbourside suburb of Kirribilli. The election strategy seemed to be predicated on a loss. Morrison would push Labor as hard as he could and emerge from the election a valiant loser. By holding Labor to a small majority, or even minority government, Morrison would retain enough credibility with his Liberal colleagues to be re-elected party leader. He would then spend the following three years fighting to defeat Labor leader Bill Shorten.

The party’s polling, circulated among a tiny, trusted group, barely hinted at the prospect of the government staging one of the most unanticipated victories in Australian politics. Early that week, CT Group, the party’s long-standing pollster, had detected a shift in a Labor seat straddling the Brisbane outer suburbs, Longman. A Liberal Party adviser had told national director Andrew Hirst that the figures suggested the Labor Party’s plan to abolish tax refunds for some share dividends was driving the seat to the Coalition.

At the same time, Hirst knew that Morrison’s support for coal mining and gas production in the state, in contrast with Labor’s more ambitious climate-change policies, was having an effect in resources-dependent electorates in northern Queensland. Crucially, Shorten had refused to support the Carmichael coal mine being built by Indian group Adani, which had become the focus of environmental protests across the nation. Working-class Queensland voters were worried about restrictions on mining, which contributed about $40 billion to the state’s economy. If accurate, the shift in Longman was remarkable. The Labor Party had easily won the seat in a by-election ten months earlier, a victory that a jubilant Shorten had hailed as the final electoral hurdle before his general-election triumph. Hirst told the adviser there was extra money available to spend in the seat, where it was used to stoke fears about the Labor Party’s tax-credit plan.

In central Sydney, at the Sofitel Wentworth, hundreds of Liberal Party members, supporters and donors gathered on election night for what they expected to be a wake. Around 9pm, the word went out to MPs in the field: get in here for a victory celebration.

As one MP arrived, he saw a senior party official. He wanted to know if head office had anticipated such a big swing to Morrison. ‘Did you see this coming?’ he asked the official, who had a beer in his hand.

‘Fuck no, mate,’ the official replied.

The party’s polling had, in addition to Longman, detected an uptick in support for the Coalition in Victoria two days before the poll. But it wasn’t until election day – until some voters walked into polling booths – that concerns about Shorten’s character had crystallised, according to Liberal Party officials. The swing Labor anticipated in its leader’s home state, which was needed to win power, never came.

At Kirribilli House, the prime minister invited Briggs and Gazard into his private study. The TV was turned off. Morrison didn’t want the commentators getting into his head. They followed the count on Morrison’s iPad. After a few hours, he said to the others, ‘I think we can win this.’

On a blank piece of paper, Morrison added up the Coalition’s likely seats in the House of Representatives. He landed on 78. It would be a slim but workable majority in the 151-seat parliament. Gazard checked the figures. He came up with the same number.

It would take another two weeks for Morrison’s prediction to be proved wrong, by only by one seat. A 4 percent swing delivered Longman to the Coalition, but the Liberals couldn’t quite capture Macquarie, a seat in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. The government emerged from the election with 77 seats. Morrison had his miracle. He also had a nightmare coming. His name was Malcolm Turnbull.

CHAPTER 2

REJECTION

In his final week as prime minister, in August 2018, Malcolm Turnbull engaged in a form of manic activity that suggested he was losing touch with reality. He urged Attorney-General Christian Porter to provide legal advice to Governor-General Peter Cosgrove that a rival leadership contender, Peter Dutton, was constitutionally unable to become prime minister. He called for a spill of his position, which he knew he would lose, and kept it a surprise from his key tactician, Minister for Finance Mathias Cormann. The prime minister’s official car was on standby to take him to Government House in Yarralumla to see the governor-general at 8am on Thursday, 23 August. Paperwork to dissolve parliament and hold an election had been prepared for Cosgrove’s signature. Turnbull told media owner Rupert Murdoch that if he was replaced by Peter Dutton the government would likely be forced to go to an election immediately because Dutton wouldn’t be able to command majority support in the House of Representatives. ‘There was a lot of nonsense going on,’ one of Turnbull’s ministers, Christopher Pyne, told journalist Niki Savva. ‘He wanted to keep all his options open.’¹

Turnbull lacked the chamber’s support too. The day before he was removed, 26 of the 58 House of Representatives Liberals put their signatures on a petition seeking a leadership vote. If Turnbull had called a snap election that morning, he would have been asking Australians not to vote for a Liberal–National coalition led by Malcolm Turnbull, but to back Malcolm Turnbull in a power struggle with the Liberal Party. It could have been one of the most damaging acts of political self-indulgence in Australian history.

‘I was seriously thinking about it,’ he told a private function in Sydney in May 2021 held by a start-up company he had invested in. ‘I would have been running against the Labor Party and the right wing of the Liberal Party. Ultimately I was talked out of it.’

When Turnbull called an early election before, it had ended badly. In May 2016, after the Senate twice refused to pass three industrial-relations bills, Turnbull advised Cosgrove to dissolve both houses of parliament, initiating the longest election campaign since 1954. Over a two-month grind, voters struggled to understand what Turnbull stood for, what policies he was championing and how he would improve the country. He barely mentioned industrial relations, the ostensible reason for the election in the first place. The result was the loss of most of Abbott’s 2013 gains. Turnbull was left with 76 seats in the House of Representatives, the minimum needed for a majority. The election demonstrated the paradox of Turnbull’s popularity: he was worldly, intelligent and articulate, and many distrusted him for it.

This second time round, Turnbull would have had almost no chance of winning the election. He had lost most of his support in the political centre, which regarded his decision not to take stronger action on climate change as cowardice in the face of the Coalition’s conservative wing. Members of the party’s conservative base regarded him as a member of a left-leaning urban elite more interested in appealing to ABC viewers than them. A divided government led by a discredited leader with a finely balanced parliament seeking re-election against a confident and united opposition would have likely ended in a loss of historic proportions. Everything Turnbull had done in his career up to this point would have been overshadowed by such a defeat.

Turnbull didn’t deny he had a robust ego. His rivals said he was a narcissist. His willingness to seriously countenance using an election campaign to avoid being removed as prime minister illustrated his desperation to retain power. Turnbull was convinced Cosgrove would have backed him. ‘He would have welcomed’ an election that would have ended the Liberal leadership struggle, Turnbull wrote.² Anne Twomey, a constitutional scholar, said Cosgrove would have had discretion to accept or reject Turnbull’s request. ‘He could have legitimately chosen to act in either way,’ she wrote.³ Turnbull referred to the early-election plan in his memoir and concluded, correctly: ‘It’s hard to see how it wouldn’t have resulted in a Labor victory’.⁴

Turnbull was saved from himself by his wife, Lucy, and two political advisers, Sally Cray and David Bold. They convinced him to accept his removal gracefully, which he did on 24 August in a touching and thoughtful press conference attended by his family, staff and much of the Canberra press gallery. ‘I want to thank the Australian people for the support they’ve given me and my government over the last nearly three years,’ he said. ‘We’ve been able to achieve, as a progressive Liberal Coalition government, enormous reforms and very, very substantial achievements.’

Lucy Turnbull’s calm judgement didn’t last. She deeply resented her husband’s treatment, according to friends of the couple. As his most important adviser and confidante, she helped stoke a festering anger, they said. After a period of mourning, he returned to the public stage in what could only be described as a war against his party. Not since John Gorton resigned from the Liberal Party in 1975 and ran as an independent Senate candidate had a former prime minister acted so aggressively towards former colleagues.

After the 2019 election, Turnbull achieved part of what he wanted. His opposition to the Morrison government led many Australians who had lost faith in him and his government to give Turnbull credit for standing up for his beliefs. Once again, he became important to the public discourse. A man whose opinions were sought and listened too. A person who could influence, a little, the flow of public opinion. It was a comeback, of sorts, to soothe the humiliation of his failure.

*

In the immediate aftermath of his removal from office, Malcolm Turnbull’s anger and disappointment didn’t harden into resentment of Morrison’s success. Initially, Turnbull accepted Morrison’s account of his role in the 2018 change of power: that