Christopher Pyne: I’m still Malcolm Turnbull’s mate and it surprises me his biggest critics are from the political right
Former PM Malcolm Turnbull’s latest book is causing quite a stir, with the biggest critics coming from his own side of politics. Christopher Pyne reveals why the two are still friends, and his surprise at the backlash.
Opinion
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When I was growing up, I lived in a house with a swimming pool.
Lots of people do now, but they weren’t as common then.
Hence, I came to learn the term “swimming pool friends”.
Swimming pool friends were friends we only saw in summer.
They came because of the pool.
In the same way, our language uses the term “fair weather friends”.
They are friends when everything is going well for you and disappear when things turn sour, when the weather changes and the seas get choppy.
You get the picture.
I’m not a fair weather friend.
Hence, despite the criticism that is heaped on Malcolm Turnbull, mostly, it seems, from his own side of politics, I remain his friend, even though he is no longer politically powerful.
It is easy to be a politician’s friend when they are riding high.
True friends are by your side when the going gets tough.
It got very tough for Turnbull in August 2018 when he was deposed as prime minister and leader of the Liberal Party.
Now, he has written a book about that time and the rest of his life. It’s a hefty 700 pages.
I’m yet to read it, but my copy arrives this week and I’m looking forward to understanding his perspective on politics, life and the great policy issues of our time that affect our country – the Murray-Darling, submarines and ships, the NBN, climate change and energy, to name just a few.
One needs a healthy ego to offer themselves for election.
To last and climb the greasy pole, that ego needs to carry you through years of seeming failure and setbacks.
Turnbull doesn’t lack ego.
He and I would prefer to call it confidence.
It is that very confidence that creates jealousy and in some people who see you as a rival, real hatred.
Turnbull is intelligent, urbane, articulate, wealthy, caring, knowledgeable and charming.
Naturally, he is going to make enemies.
He has also made lots of friends for the same reasons.
When you set out to write a book about politics, you do so in the knowledge that you are going to be criticised.
Anyone who doesn’t realise that is naive at best, stupid at worst.
Writing a book about politics isn’t like writing a book about cooking, sewing or gardening. Those books are there to entertain and assist.
Political books are often dynamite. The author knows that.
This is Turnbull’s fourth book. I have written one, published in 2015 by Melbourne University Press.
I have finished my second and it will be published in July 2020 by Hachette Australia publishers.
I doubt mine will engender such a profound negative reaction from some quarters as Turnbull’s has.
But even if it attracts criticism, so what? It’s a free country. Politics is played hard in Australia.
In schools today, children are encouraged to deliver positive reinforcement to each other and congratulate each other for successes.
In some schools, they don’t reward winners because “everyone is a winner in our school”. Each to their own. I’m old fashioned, I rather think if you come first in a subject or a race, you are the winner and should be acknowledged.
We apparently don’t expect the same approach in politics.
It is cut throat and ruthless.
Labor and Liberal deposed two prime ministers each in bloody political coups in the space of eight years.
I write about it in my book. There wasn’t a lot of sympathy nor commiserations. The caravan moved on quickly. That’s politics. That’s why it is not to everyone’s taste.
I have viewed with interest the reaction to Turnbull’s tome.
The Turnbull haters are out in force.
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Apart from Kevin Rudd, the Labor Party has been surprisingly quiet.
Sadly, most of the Turnbull haters are on the right of politics.
Given they profess to be such great advocates of free speech, it amazes me how little they tolerate other people having an opinion.
Especially an opinion that doesn’t accord with their own.
But I’ll let you in on a trade secret, as one former politician with an opinion on many things – professional politicians just don’t care about being routinely abused in print or on the airwaves.
If they took it personally, they would be in the wrong business and they just wouldn’t last.
Malcolm and I are fortunate to possess a skin like a rhinoceros.
Turnbull would be entirely sanguine about the heaping of abuse on him and his book.
He has been putting up with it for years.
When you write a book, you put yourself out there.
You are signalling to anyone who cares that you are of the view that your opinions and reflections matter.
If you expect only plaudits, don’t write a book.
So, come one, come all. Read books. Have opinions and share them. Good, bad or indifferent, they are all welcome.