In gory detail, this ABC documentary dices the Abbott, Turnbull, Morrison years

Ambition. Betrayal. Revenge. Anyone who has paid the slightest attention to Australian politics for the past few decades knows that these are the maladies, both compelling and contemptible, infecting many of those who grasp for power and those who gather around them.

They are the three words that greet the viewer during the opening moments of a new documentary series about to be screened on ABC TV.

The prime ministerships of Tony Abbott, Scott Morrison and Malcolm Turnbull are examined in Nemesis.Credit: ABC

Nemesis, it is called. If you squint, it’s almost an anagram for enemy, which, of course, defines the relationships of the three central characters in the series.

Three prime ministers, all from the same political party. Tony Abbott. Malcolm Turnbull. Scott Morrison. Variously, they loathe each other.

Journalist Mark Willacy, winner of multiple Walkley Awards, and a team of the ABC’s most experienced documentary producers and camera people have combined to turn the tumultuous period covering those three prime ministerships – through the words of the participants themselves – into an absorbing three-part series that promises to be as much a feast for political historians as for those who enjoy drama.

Apart from the leadership coups, internal wars and three fierce elections, the period included a pandemic which, as the ABC declares, “turned Australian politics on its head”.

The ABC is unmatched in this style of revelatory journalism in the aftermath of political turbulence. The Killing Season, a docuseries from 2015 piecing together Labor’s own period of ambition, betrayal and revenge during the Rudd and Gillard years, remains jaw-dropping viewing.

The genre goes back to 1989, when ABC TV’s Four Corners interviewed prominent Liberal MPs – principally John Moore and Wilson Tuckey – boasting and gloating about the plot that toppled John Howard and re-installed Andrew Peacock as leader of the Liberal Party.

Scott Morrison during an interview for the ABC documentary series Nemesis.Credit: ABC

Australian viewers had never seen such hubris on screen.

These years later, Nemesis will prove that surprise or disquiet about politicians openly blabbing about leadership conspiracies is all but extinct.

The machinations of the last Liberal period are sliced and diced in gory detail, direct to camera, by those who took part.

“The level of plotting was quite extraordinary,” Willacy says. On display is “hurt, triumph, comedy, tragedy and devastation”.

Willacy set about planning for what would become Nemesis in October 2022.

Malcolm Turnbull during an interview for the ABC documentary series Nemesis.Credit: ABC

The most pressing task was to persuade the former prime ministers, senior members of the parliamentary Liberal Party, backbenchers and key staffers and others to speak about the fraught years.

Willacy said he was surprised to find how easy it was to get people on camera.

“We sent out about 150 letters – to backbenchers, frontbenchers, all those we thought were important to the story,” he says.

The result was 60 candid interviews with those who were “in the room” at the most high-tension moments over the nine years of the three prime ministerships.

“A lot of them said they felt it was important to explain what had happened, why it had happened and how big decisions were made,” Willacy says.

Plenty of them also used their moments before the camera to settle political scores and to offer free character assessments about their factional enemies.

“I got the sense there was a simmering tension still there,” says Willacy. “The vehemence of some of the responses surprised me – these were people who were supposed to be on the same team. Some of them still don’t speak to each other.”

He doesn’t give away much of the detail he gleaned. It’s not surprising: Nemesis promises to be a rolling series of exclusive insights awaiting the audience, relying for its impact on surprise.

One of Willacy’s devices was to ask each of his interviewees for a one-word assessment of each of the prime ministers.

Intriguingly, Willacy hints that the most cutting word is the one used by Turnbull to describe Morrison. He won’t say what it is.

The most polarising responses, he says, were the various words used by interviewees to describe Turnbull.

A sampling of the one-word judgments on the first of the three PMs, Abbott, gives a flavour of disparate views.

“What one word springs to mind when I say the name Tony Abbott?” Willacy asked.

“Indefatigable,” said Morrison.

“Negative,” said Turnbull.

Current deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley gave two words: “team player”.

Barnaby Joyce offered a typically enigmatic response. “Pugilistic and give you a hug,” Joyce declared.

Most of the interviews, however, delve much deeper.

“From the start, we told everyone we didn’t want political sound-grabs,” Willacy says. “We wanted this to be truly reflective of the period. We wanted them to take us into the room: the prime minister’s office, the party room, the restaurants where the plotting took place.”

The only former prime minister of the three to decline to speak on camera was Abbott.

Nemesis producer and Walkley-winning journalist Mark Willacy says he was surprised over how many people stepped forward to be interviewed in the documentary.Credit: Harriet Tatham

“Tony Abbott was polite; he listened to what we wanted to do. I knew him from years ago when I was working in the press gallery,” Willacy says.

“I got the sense he simply didn’t want to look in the rear-view mirror.

“He declined, but told us to feel free to talk to anyone in his circle. As the process continued, I went back to him regularly and asked if he wished to comment on what others had said, but he stuck to his original decision.”

One of the revelations was that the former Chief of the Australian Defence Force, Angus Houston, talked Abbott out of sending troops to Ukraine after Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 was shot down in July 2014, killing all 289 on board, including 27 Australians. Russian troops were too close for comfort, Houston advised the animated Abbott.

Both Turnbull and Morrison agreed to be interviewed.

They had plenty to say. They talked to Willacy for eight hours over two days.

“Turnbull is a natural narrator,” Willacy says.

Indeed, here is Turnbull describing Abbott’s sudden intervention on the National Energy Guarantee, a policy undermined by the party’s right as a proxy for destroying Turnbull’s leadership.

“He [Abbott] said that the NEG was a crock of shit, and he was generally very aggressive,” Turnbull says.

Eleven days later, Turnbull lost the prime ministership, Peter Dutton lost his bid for it and Morrison was installed.

Revenge, you might conclude, had been served on Turnbull for cutting short Abbott’s prime ministership in 2015.

“Morrison was supportive from the start,” Willacy says of the last former PM’s agreement to appear.

“He said it was our history, and he wanted it to be told.

“He’s a man who wanted to control the interview, but he loosened up and admitted he had some regrets. On women’s issues, for instance, including the events surrounding Brittany Higgins, he admitted he could have handled things in a better way, including the language used.

“People in the ABC [involved in the series] were surprised about the candid material he provided.”

In return, “quite a few Liberal women” gave telling interviews about the way they saw how Morrison handled women’s issues.

“Most were not very positive,” Willacy says, drily.

Nemesis premieres on January 29 at 8pm on ABC and iview.

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