Malcolm Turnbull has brushed off any suggestion he has betrayed former colleagues and defended the disclosure of private messages and diary notes of secret discussions in his memoir, which could breach cabinet confidentiality.
“If you don’t do that, how can you tell the story?” he told The Australian in an exclusive interview.
“The reality is I am writing history. My government is over. We are in a different government, different political era and of course with the COVID pandemic it is, you know, we are crossing what is going to be quite a watershed. READ NEXT
“There is not much point in writing a memoir if you cannot write it truthfully. OK, sometimes you have got to use discretion and judgment but it’s important that people know what happened. And, you know, I’ve given a truthful account.”
Mr Turnbull insisted his new book, A Bigger Picture, provided “a balanced account” of his relationship with Scott Morrison, whom he regards as a friend, despite accusing him of undermining Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey, leaking to the media (including The Australian) and playing a “double game” to become Prime Minister.
“Let’s face it, he wouldn’t be Prime Minister if I hadn’t gone to great lengths to ensure that (Peter) Dutton didn’t succeed me,” Mr Turnbull said.
“And that rather underlines the regard I had for him. If I thought he was a terrible person, I wouldn’t have gone to so much trouble to make sure that he became PM rather than Dutton.”
The Coalition would have won the election last year if Mr Turnbull had remained prime minister, he said. He pointed to party polling, quoted in the book, which showed the Coalition tracking ahead of Labor. He also said then opposition leader Bill Shorten was a “huge liability” for Labor.
“I lost 38 Newspolls,” Mr Turnbull conceded. “That is absolutely right. And, I mean, ScoMo lost every Newspoll too and won the election. So, you know, losing Newspolls doesn’t mean you are going to lose the election.
“The absolute fact of the matter is that in August 2018 the government was in its strongest position it had been in since the election in 2016. We were two points behind in Newspoll and we were ahead comfortably on our own polling.”
Ultimately, Mr Turnbull blamed Mr Dutton and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann for his downfall.
“Dutton’s coup, his challenge, was defeated,” he said. “The ministers who had voted for him were all — with a couple of exceptions — begging for forgiveness and pledging loyalty publicly and privately.
“And then Cormann decided to breathe life back into it, and essentially did so, scoffing at the prediction that I made to him that if he did that he would end up making Morrison prime minister.”
Mr Turnbull writes that he hoped to “steer” the Liberal Party back to the “centre” ground of politics, which better represented its true “liberal foundations”. But in the interview he said the party remained in the grip of right-wing rump, which holds the party “hostage” through “terrorism” and is supported by sections of the media.
“Even though there are small-l Liberals in the Liberal Party, and some of them are leading governments, like Steven Marshall and Gladys Berejiklian, the politics at state level is somewhat different,” Mr Turnbull said.
“At the federal level, the dynamic there is one where the right (wing) essentially terrorises the rest and it’s profoundly undemocratic.”
He added: “You know, this is not (Robert) Menzies’ Liberal Party. It is not even John Howard’s Liberal Party anymore.”
The former prime minister laughed when asked to respond to reports that some Liberals want him expelled from the party. “These are people committed to freedom of speech, no doubt,” he joked.
