Malcolm Turnbull wreaks Roman vengeance. But what of his legacy?

Consider Malcolm Turnbull – former prime minister unseated twice as Liberal leader through the intransigence of the Coalition on climate change – attending the Glasgow COP26 climate change summit.

There, too, is the man who replaced him as Prime Minister, Scott Morrison.

“He lied to me on many occasions,” former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull said about Scott Morrison on the sidelines of the Glasgow summit.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Turnbull is convinced Morrison played a sly, double game during the leadership challenge, “professing public loyalty to me while at the same time allowing his supporters to undermine me”, as he wrote in his autobiography, A Bigger Picture.

Morrison is in Glasgow to pledge net zero emissions in Australia by the year 2050 – something Turnbull knows the Coalition would have denied him; even a plan as bereft of depth as this.

It is clearly too much.

Turnbull unloads on Morrison, in a radio interview, on ABC TV and in conversations with journalists.

He calls Morrison a well-known liar, who had lied to him “on many occasions” when they worked together in government.

It was a spectacular assault, even for Turnbull, a man capable of volcanic outbursts when the passion takes him. He famously honed the art of attack as a young lawyer, representing the volatile media tycoon Kerry Packer, before becoming Packer’s enemy, and once called former prime minister John Howard “the man who broke a nation’s heart” when the 1999 republican referendum failed.

Inevitably, the word “embittered” soon bounced from Glasgow to Australia.

A national newspaper quoted former minister Christopher Pyne as saying, “in my experience, Scott Morrison never lied to me”, under a headline declaring “Liberals lash ‘turncoat Turnbull’ over attack”.

Conservative talkback radio filled with sound and fury, and 2GB’s Ben Fordham called Turnbull’s rage “one of the most unhinged attacks I’ve seen in some time”.

“Malcolm, what is wrong with you? Do you realise how bitter you sound?” Fordham demanded.

Turnbull, like every political leader toppled by colleagues, undoubtedly remains stung by the experience of being deposed.

Embittered, however, might not be the right word for an immensely wealthy man who is happy in marriage and who travelled to Glasgow pushing renewable energies with the International Hydro Power Association and as the chair of Australian Fortescue Future Industries.

Call it, instead, vengeance. He is, after all, a student of ancient Rome, where blood flowed.

A classical get-square, perhaps, for indignities leading back to two days before Turnbull was toppled in 2018 when Morrison threw his arm around him and beamed, Brutus-like: “this is my leader and I’m ambitious for him”.

Turnbull’s most vociferous onslaught did not focus on the climate “plan” that Morrison brought to Glasgow, though his disdain for it was mighty. “I mean,” he said, “Australia has never been more out of step on a global issue with its friends and allies than it is on climate.”

Instead, it was about what had occurred at the G20. In Rome.

Malcolm Turnbull and his then treasurer Scott Morrison in 2018 when Morrison declared “this is my leader and I’m ambitious for him”.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

It was about mendacity.

He took the opportunity to expand dramatically on French President Emmanuel Macron’s accusation in Rome that Morrison had lied to him in relation to Australia’s sudden cancellation of the $90 billion submarines contract with France.

Turnbull is friendly with Macron and was prime minister when the original deal for the French submarines was signed in 2016. The way the contract was broken, Turnbull says, was a “very shameful episode”.

“You know, it really is a breach of trust, a breach of faith, and it has damaged Australia’s reputation for trustworthiness, which is a very important asset whether it’s ... between nations or in business or personal life,” he told Leigh Sales on the ABC’s 7.30.

A few months out from the next election, he may as well have said outright he couldn’t bear to see Morrison returned to power.

Little wonder former colleagues, including Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, have been almost falling over themselves to repudiate the charge that Morrison has a reputation for lying.

More exotic was Finance Minister Simon Birmingham’s suggestion that journalists shouldn’t have asked Macron about Morrison in the first place.

Over the past decade of frequent leadership coups in Australia, it has become almost a cliche to judge that former prime ministers who publicly undermine their successors are in danger of destroying their own legacy.

Kevin Rudd set out to damage Julia Gillard after he was overthrown in 2010, and these days, with Turnbull, frequently speaks out against the Murdoch media’s influence on politics, and in both their downfalls.

Tony Abbott, having promised “no wrecking, no undermining, and no sniping” after he was replaced by Turnbull, later undertook a damaging campaign from within the Parliament against the Turnbull government’s direction.

Only Gillard has maintained a dignified silence about those who succeeded her.

Now it is Turnbull’s turn, and he’s not holding back, though he points out he is a private citizen in a free country and is entitled to say whatever he wishes.

But do the words and actions of disappointed and angry ex-prime ministers really destroy their legacies?

Those with longer memories might reflect that once the sourness eventually settles, former leaders bathe in a more mellow light.

Malcolm Fraser was reviled for years for his role in the dismissal of the Whitlam government. He mounted furious criticism of the border policies of Howard’s government during the 1990s and quit the Liberal Party altogether in 2010 over its conservative tilt when Abbott took the leadership from Turnbull.

Yet Fraser, who died in 2015, is widely remembered as a significant humanitarian for his work with refugees. He eventually reconciled with Gough Whitlam, and they became elderly friends.

Bob Hawke fumed for years over losing his leadership to Paul Keating – though he took care to ensure he was not seen to undermine Keating’s period as prime minister.

In fact, Hawke resolved his greatest (largely private) loathing for Whitlam because he had become a sort of secular saint to the Labor faithful, although his short-lived government had dissolved into chaos. Hawke, who had run a much steadier ship of state, smarted at criticism that he had become too motivated by money-making after politics.

And yet, by the time Hawke was approaching death, he was lionised across the political spectrum like few before him as a great reformist prime minister.

It remains to be seen how Keating and Howard will eventually be judged, though their legacies as warriors for their separate causes seem secure.

Both, as it happens, are unusual in the modern era of leadership turbulence.

They were not ousted by their colleagues, but by the voters.

Judgement on Turnbull’s legacy will have to wait until the bile settles, which we can be sure will be some time after the Morrison government is but a memory.

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