“I have been wrong all along. I thought he should have joined the Labor Party,” he said.
“It turns out he should have joined the Greens.”
Mr Turnbull has credited himself in 2012 with introducing left-wing millionaire Graeme Wood to then Guardian UK editor Alan Rusbridger, as well as helping to recruit two senior Canberra press gallery journalists to establish an Australian digital version of the British publication.
Mr Turnbull was one of the key figures behind the establishment of The Guardian in Australia, according to his memoir, in which he boasts it was further evidence his deal-making skills “remained intact”. He also claims to have introduced The Guardian Australia’s first political writers, Lenore Taylor (now editor) and Katharine Murphy, to Rusbridger to help set up the publication.
Illustration: Johannes Leak
In The Guardian Australia on Thursday, Taylor said the website owed Mr Turnbull “thanks — but not favours” and claimed his recollection “skips” significant aspects of her recruitment and the establishment of the digital publication. Taylor wrote that Mr Turnbull did not influence the paper: “As Turnbull writes, in the seven years we have been operating, Guardian Australia only rarely endorsed his or his government’s policies. Since we are a progressive publication and he is a politician of the centre right, that should hardly come as a shock.”
Mr Turnbull wrote that he had begun to “despair” about the state of journalism in Australia, with shrinking newsrooms and editorial standards that “were dropping to loopy standards of the twittersphere”. “I wasn’t especially concerned about the political slant of one outlet or another, but more about the fact newsrooms were shrinking … Gina Rinehart was threatening to buy Fairfax — no doubt so its newspapers could emulate her ultra-right-wing views.”
The former prime minister, communications minister and journalist claimed it was he who convinced Rusbridger to set up The Guardian Australia during conversations in June 2012.
“I suggested to Alan Rusbridger, editor of the UK’s Guardian, that he should establish an Australian edition … we exchanged some rough numbers and he concluded he’d need $20m of underwriting for three years.”
Mr Turnbull wrote he brokered the $20m deal between Rusbridger and Mr Wood, the founder of travel firm Wotif who was on “the political left” and had been a generous donor to the Greens.
The cover of Malcolm Turnbull: A Bigger Picture.
He wrote that he was not able to fund the deal himself “given my political role”. He claimed he persuaded Mr Wood to drop left-wing digital start-up The Global Mail and fund The Guardian Australia instead. “It (The Global Mail) wasn’t going to make it. So, I suggested to Graeme he drop The Global Mail and instead use his fortune to bankroll an Australian edition of The Guardian.
“Once Graeme Wood was on board, I introduced Rusbridger to two seasoned Canberra political writers, Lenore Taylor and Katharine Murphy (aka Murpharoo). He sent his deputy, Kath Viner, to Australia to be the first editor.”
However, Taylor wrote on Thursday that Mr Turnbull’s account skipped over a long process of establishing The Guardian after the introductions to Rusbridger, claiming it took almost a year. “Turnbull’s recollection skips over a long and complicated process that followed those initial introductions, after which Turnbull had no further involvement as far as I know. I had some early conversations with Rusbridger … and then waited; first to hear from Rusbridger about whether his discussions with Wood had amounted to anything, then to meet Viner when she came to Australia.”
