Turnbull lifts lid on his tumultuous reign

Malcolm Turnbull. Picture: Adam Taylor

Malcolm Turnbull has delivered the manuscript of his much anticipated autobiography to his publisher Sandy Grant.

“It’s in,” said a source with access to the vault at Grant’s independent publisher Hardie Grant.

The publication date for the most eagerly awaited book in federal politics has been set for April, weeks before Turnbull’s successor as PM Scott Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg are forecast to finally deliver the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Coalition government’s first surplus.

Turnbull’s book — titled A Bigger Picture — should help fill the news cycle in the lead-up to the second Tuesday in May.

Margin Call can share a few key details about it.

The manuscript is enormous.

Some of the elaborate detail about the Liberal Party’s anguish over energy policy, and other internecine internal fights, may not survive the coming months of editing.

Apparently its author’s thoroughness comes from a sense of civic duty.

“He believes the Australian people need to know what he was dealing with,” one of Turnbull’s early readers told us.

While the length may need a little adjustment to avoid Kevin Rudd proportions, we’re told much of the manuscript is riveting.

That’s not something usually said about post-prime ministerial autobiographies, a genre with a long tradition of boring readers.

Turnbull, the former Bulletin journalist, former swashbuckling lawyer and former confidante to Kerry Packer, was a different sort of politician.

It would be a breach of our 29th Prime Minister’s own advice if his volume isn’t highly readable.

“Never be dull,” Turnbull the politician memorably told journalists over the years.

In good news for the reading public, we are told the work ­excoriates some of the senior members of the Morrison government.

“He really unbelts!” said another reader.

Some of his former colleagues may disagree, but that sounds promising to us.

Illustration: Rod Clement

Forrest reorganisation

Ahead of his 59th birthday, billionaire Andrew Forrest has pulled back from half a dozen of his private companies.

What’s that about?

Margin Call has discovered a considerable reorganisation of the empire that flows from Forrest’s mighty Fortescue Metals, the iron ore cash machine that has made the risk-taking businessman Australia’s eighth richest person with a fortune valued by wealth guru John Stensholt at no less than $7.34bn.

Forrest — who turns 59 in November — recently came off the board of exploration outfit Squadron Resources.

Nicola and Andrew Forrest.

The Perth-based billionaire also removed himself as the secretary of six other vehicles, including three at the heart of his investment and philanthropic empire.

Forrest is no longer a secretary of diversification outfit Minderoo Capital (the one with John Hartman as its chief investment officer), its corporate parent Minderoo or The Minderoo Foundation (the charitable behemoth now administered by former NAB banker Andrew Hagger).

The rejig has also seen Forrest step down as the secretary of three other companies: Forrest Group, Red Sky Stations and AF Nickel.

A Minderoo spokesman told us the corporate housekeeping is not a sign of retirement, but of maturity.

“Andrew was listed as company secretary when those entities were first registered. Minderoo’s in-house counsel now performs this function,” the spokesman said.

The delegation still leaves the hyperactive Forrest with plenty to keep him busy.

Along with his chairmanship of the $27bn “third force” Fortescue, there’s his Global Rapid Rugby competition that is apparently going to storm the Asia-Pacific in 2020, his crusade against modern slavery, and his and wife Nicola’s Bill Gates-inspired Giving Pledge to donate most of their fortune.

And, like his fellow overachiever Kevin Rudd, Forrest is doing a PhD on the side (in the mining mogul’s case, on Western Australian marine life).

We sense he’s not really one for retirement.

Race for riches

Paul Anderson’s Network Ten has temporarily secured the services of race-caller Matt Hill, an employee at the Seven West Media-backed Racing.com.

Ever since the Victoria Racing Club switched broadcasting partners for the Melbourne Cup from Kerry Stokes’ Seven West to the CBS-owned Ten, the identity of the race’s caller has been a knotty question.

Or should that be an expensive question.

Margin Call gathers the Seven-backed Racing.com asked for $100,000 from the VRC to loan their calling star for the big race.

The VRC kept a polite silence when asked about the cost yesterday.

And, really, after signing a $100m, five-year deal with Ten, it’s not as if the VRC couldn’t afford to flick a few crumbs Racing.com’s way.

As it seems they have.

Hands-on approach

Margin Call was already a big fan of Richard McGregor, the Lowy Institute’s east Asian expert, who was once the Beijing correspondent at this masthead.

Our fandom has been reaffirmed by the new edition of Australian Foreign Affairs, the latest addition to Morry Schwartz’s independent publishing empire.

McGregor’s essay Trade deficits: How China could punish Australia is a must-read for all of our readers who do, or plan to do, business with our biggest trading partner.

It’s also well worth a read for those interested in metaphor.

“China and Australia are kind of in a multi-scrotum clutch on iron ore … They are not going to hurt us. We are not going to hurt them,” McGregor quotes an unnamed “retired senior Australian mining executive” as telling him.

If Trade Minister Simon Birmingham adds that vivid image to his talking point roster, we’ll know who to thank.