On the night that Tony Abbott would be dispatched as prime minister, Lucy Turnbull made a hurried, last-minute flight to Canberra. The 57-year-old had been in Sydney that day minding grandson Jack. Meanwhile, husband Malcolm and his ministerial backers were manoeuvring to oust the underperforming Abbott, confident that they had the numbers.

"I look after my grandson every second Monday – sometimes every Monday," Turnbull says of daughter Daisy's child. "It was one of my Jack Mondays and I was in Sydney fully focused on the task of looking after a two-year-old, which makes it very hard to listen to the news."