This is how a dumped PM should behave

Tony Abbott, Kevin Rudd and now Malcolm Turnbull should take lessons from Julia Gillard if they want an example of how to behave when the prime ministership has been snatched away.

HELL hath no fury like a woman scorned?

Well not in Australian politics.

When it comes to knifed former prime ministers, it’s Julia Gillard who is setting the gold standard in how to behave with dignity, and Kevin Rudd, Tony Abbott and now Malcolm Turnbull giving a masterclass in sniping, leaking, vengeance and bitchiness.

Every one of them had reason to be bitter about the manner of their demise, but only Gillard has risen above it to become a respected stateswoman, in the headlines for her good works rather than the hand grenades she’s lobbing at her former colleagues.

Even those on the other side of the political fence — sometimes so far on the other side they’re in the next paddock — have joined the post-parliament Team Gillard.

Right wing broadcaster Ray Hadley — who was relentless in his criticism of Gillard’s border policies — last month issued a heartfelt thank you to her for the child abuse royal commission.

“There are many people out there who didn’t want Julia Gillard to be prime minister, and there were shortcomings,” he said.

“But if you reflect on what some other prime ministers have done over history, the fact that she was the one and prime motivator for the royal commission brings her great, great credit.”

Former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard last month. Picture: Brendan Esposito/AAP

Likewise, Jeff Kennett lauded Gillard for her “warmth and her commitment to the cause” when she took over from him as BeyondBlue chair.

Contrast this with Kevin Rudd, still raking over the coals of Gillard’s betrayal of him, most recently in his new memoir.

“Their action was driven by little more than personal political ambition, dressed up as higher purpose,” he writes of Gillard and what he calls her “faceless men”.

Former prime minister Tony Abbott leaves after Question Time last month. Picture: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Widely regarded as the source of numerous leaks against Gillard when she was PM (something he denies), it would be entirely understandable if she wanted to spend her days ruminating and blaming, but other than participating in the ABC’s The Killing Season documentary, she has remained largely silent about the events that saw her punted from the prime ministership.

When Tony Abbott was similarly rolled by Malcolm Turnbull, he famously promised “no wrecking, no undermining and no sniping”.

And to be fair, he was largely right about the sniping. His attacks on Turnbull were mostly full-frontal assaults rather than anonymous pot shots, criticising him on everything from energy policy to gun laws to the budget.

And now Turnbull is taking his turn in the losers’ circle.

It started well, with a strangely cheerful farewell press conference, his grandkids playing at his feet, and then a swift disappearance to New York.

Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull speaks to the media as he leaves his residence in Point Piper, Sydney today. Picture: Dean Lewins/AAP

He told a gathering of young leaders there that he would not become “miserable, miserable ghosts” like Tony Abbott and Kevin Rudd.

He didn’t campaign for the Liberals during the Wentworth by-election, but that seemed fair since he’d been very clear that he would leave politics entirely if he lost the leadership.

But then came the sneaky Instagram follow of an account campaigning to unseat Tony Abbott, news he’d been in regular contact with winning Wentworth independent Kerryn Phelps, and his intervention in the preselection of Craig Kelly, calling Kelly’s threat to sit on the crossbench “blackmail” and describing rewarding him with preselection “a capitulation” and “the worst and weakest response to such a threat”.

In fairness, Turnbull is now a private citizen, entirely entitled to his views, and entirely entitled to lobby whoever he wants for what he believes in.

But he’s certainly starting do a fairly good impersonation of a “miserable ghost”.

Maybe leaving a legacy isn’t what these men care about — and Tony Abbott is still a politician so perhaps it’s too early for him to even think about — but what they have all left in their wake is reputations as men for whom the reins of power had to be prised from their cold, dead hands.

Claire Sutherland is the editor of RendezView.com.au.

@brolga2