Extraordinary machinations that drove a nation to distraction and pushed politics to the brink
LINDA Silmalis and Annika Smethurst look into the cloak and dagger operations that shaped a week in Australian politics that nobody saw coming.
NSW
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ON Thursday night, a handful of Liberal MPs who had been caught up in the hysteria for a change of leadership began to get cold feet. “I’ve got sucked up in this, what have we done?” one MP was overheard saying in Parliament’s halls.
It was a situation that seemed unthinkable a fortnight ago.
And it was only the beginning of a week-long festival of the unthinkable, with unlikely scenarios piling on top of each other faster than anyone in could comprehend.
How unthinkable? Malcolm Turnbull giving his first-round vote to Julie Bishop in a leadership spill. Venerated greybeard and sick-leave Senator Arthur Sinodinos dragging himself to Canberra to accompany Turnbull to his execution.
Controversial NSW left-wing powerbroker Michael Photios sweeping in at the head of a posse of historic factional enemies, including NSW centre-right figure Alex Hawke, WA right-winger Ben Morton and Morrison’s Canberra flatmate, MP Stuart Robert, with one task: to outplay the upstart Peter Dutton and his right-wing backers at any cost.
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At the beginning of July, with his government’s polling almost 50:50 with Labor, Turnbull was by far the Coalition’s best hope. He had navigated tough reforms including school funding, same-sex marriage and had even massaged his signature energy policy through the party room.
But the National Energy Guarantee became the crucible of everything party hardheads hated about the Turnbull era: fear of a drift to the “left”, worry about power prices and the cost of living and the terror of losing their seats.
It also became the opportunity to make Turnbull pay for the crime of tearing down Tony Abbott before his prime ministership was two years old.
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Ideology wasn’t enough. The plotters — including Tony Abbott, Kevin Andrews, Michael Sukkar, Tony Pasin and Zed Seselja — needed to unite their enemy’s enemies and persuade someone to be the candidate.
It had to be Peter Dutton — the only sufficiently famous conservative, handily also from the crucial state of Queensland — even though Dutton has never hit double figures in popularity polls.
Their first overtures went to Queensland MPs and marginal seat holders from across Australia, with the Dutton camp pledging electorate visits and a harder campaigning style than Turnbull was able to offer.
On Wednesday, August 15, it began. The setting was Finance Minister Mathias Cormann’s parliamentary office where a regular group of conservative friends was having drinks.
Cormann, whose bloc of WA votes would be needed for a Dutton victory, was at that stage still supporting Turnbull.
The gathering started with disgruntled chatter about the NEG that is understood to have become more animated. The room suddenly fell silent when Turnbull’s principal private secretary Sally Cray entered.
There is dispute about whether Cray was lurking in the corridor and suspected something, or whether Cormann spontaneously invited her to pop in.
Either way, any subterfuge was over. On Friday, The Daily Telegraph splashed with conservatives urging Dutton to run.
Having become aware of his perilous position, Turnbull immediately redesigned his flagship energy policy, ditching the plan to legislate the NEG’s emissions target. Last Sunday, he flagged a plan to impose price caps on energy prices in this newspaper, which also revealed he was also preparing to walk away from toxic big-business tax cuts.
It didn’t work. A Dutton supporter helping draft MPs said at the time: “It’s on. But cold feet is a strong chance.”
When Parliament resumed on Monday, Turnbull knew time was running out. By this stage, Photios and the posse had already begun gathering in Canberra, fuelling rumours when they were spotted at a restaurant.
Turnbull surprised the pro-Dutton plotters on Tuesday morning by calling a spill of the leadership. He wanted to flush out the “wreckers” agitating for change and prove he was still the preferred PM, among voters and within his own party room.
It worked, Turnbull winning the ballot 48 votes to Dutton’s 35 — but Team Dutton knew Turnbull was mortally wounded.
“It spurred them on,” one senior Liberal MP said. “It was live by the sword, die by the sword.”
“I don’t think the PM ever understood the lasting scars of what he did to Tony Abbott,” another senior Liberal said this week. “In the end (former PM John) Howard was able to manage those factional problems, I don’t think he could.”
By Wednesday night, when news of a second coup had spread around Parliament, Turnbull made an even more vital error. He was only a handful of votes away from maintaining his leadership, but instead of hitting the phones and demanding support, he fanned instability. One MP in Parliament House that night described the atmosphere as “desperate” as both sides sought to draft support.
“Sally Cray has turned into a gangster, telling MPs to go home,” the source said.
Turnbull wanted to embarrass his disloyal ministers and scare wavering MPs into thinking the government would crumble under Peter Dutton. He declared he would only call a party room meeting if the Dutton camp could provide a petition of 43 signatures, and as they tried to recruit names, team Turnbull fought back.
“(Craig) Laundy is going through hallways with (Chris) Pyne and (Trent) Zimmerman bailing up any MP they can and trying to force an answer. It’s incredible. So desperate”, a source said.
The Dutton camp also stepped up its campaign.
In a sign of desperation, one of the “wreckers” even approached a veteran Labor MP considered a master in rolling prime ministers.
That Labor MP counselled his Liberal friend on the need for a petition as a way of flushing out MPs, such as Greg Hunt, who were playing both sides.
“I told them that the way we would do it is get them to put their names down, if they weren’t willing to sign up then you couldn’t be confident of their support,” the Labor MP said.
Several Liberal MPs claim they were “bullied”, with Victorian Julia Banks among those who is understood to have told colleagues that she would quit should Dutton become leader.
Photios’ collaborators Alex Hawke and Stuart Robert paced the halls, asking MPs if a Morrison candidacy was palatable.
This revealed a significant development in the posse’s thinking. Photios, for one, had previously held a view that the only likely alternative to Malcolm Turnbull as PM was fellow moderate Julie Bishop — the rock star Foreign Minister who is in constant demand for visits to marginal electorates, such is her public popularity and ease with shopping-mall walk-throughs.
But that was before Abbott loyalists had landed on Dutton as their candidate. Bishop’s public popularity has never been matched by cross-factional party support. The right considers her as much a “leftie” as Turnbull.
A more factionally palatable option would be required. It would have to Morrison: he supported Turnbull in the Abbott knifing too — but being from the centre right, he could bring votes Bishop could never hope to win.
The Turnbull camp had lost Cormann, who appeared to have been convinced by the Right that Turnbull no longer had majority support. Nobody doubted Cormann’s sincerity — he had pledged loyalty to Turnbull, but as a friend of Dutton’s (they often walk to work together in Canberra), he truly believed the Queenslander had the numbers.
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So how did team Dutton get so comprehensively gamed?
When they heard of the powerbroker conclave of Hawke, Photios, Morton and Sinodinos gathering around the PMO, the majority in the Dutton camp appeared unperturbed — an early sign of their failure to grasp the gravity of the enemy force.
They were being outplayed.
But heading in to the party room on Friday, with a gravely ill Arthur Sinodinos walking in beside Turnbull, at least one Dutton supporter appeared appropriately worried.
“Dutton,” the source texted back when The Sunday Telegraph asked who would win. “But I never trust anything Photios is involved in.”
There was a theory that the Photios conclave had put up Bishop as a strategic feint, aimed at creating confusion.
While the conclave denies anything so cynical, one source close to the group admits Bishop’s candidacy conveniently “centres ScoMo where he has been positioned by circumstances as the alternate to the Right.”
In other words, Bishop’s candidacy had the side-effect of making Morrison look more mainstream to both sides.
The conclave was well aware the Right privately called Morrison “ScoMod” — a dismissive reference to a perception he leans left.
As for Bishop, she appears to have genuinely believed it was worth a shot, with one moderate source saying it was both her “hatred for Dutton” and her likely retirement at the election that drove her candidacy.
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“She wanted to be the moderates’ candidate,” the source said. “She had never run for leader before and wanted to have a go.
“I believe Malcolm even voted for her the first round.”
The moderates believe the Dutton camp had overstated their numbers in a “fake it till you make it” strategy.
Morrison has pledged to make peace, but some fear the Dutton forces won’t quit until their man takes the top job, despite warnings from senior Liberals.
“If people don’t have a sense that unity is vital, God help us,” one senior liberal said. Yesterday, Morrison began handing out the peace pipes with the rebels promised key portfolios, including Dutton.
Anger is normal after any factional row, but the wounds from this fight will never heal for some members of Parliament.
“It’s a f---ing disgrace,” one loyal Turnbull backer said on Friday. “No one has covered themselves in glory.”
“But we came at Queensland and gave them a blood nose and reminded them they don’t run the country.”