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Malcolm Turnbull Q&A live: Former PM appears on special edition of Q&A

Appearing on Q&A, Malcolm Turnbull says he is concerned about the deterioration in the quality of journalism at the ABC.

Greg BrownGreg Brown
@gregbrown_TheOz
9 min read
5:12PMNovember 08, 2018.
Updated 12:03AMNovember 09, 2018
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Malcolm Turnbull appears on Q&A.
Malcolm Turnbull appears on Q&A.

Malcolm Turnbull will field questions from ABC journalist Tony Jones and members of the public tonight in a special edition of Q&A about his time as Prime Minister. The program is set to begin at 8pm.

9.07pm: ‘It’s painful to talk about’

On the final question, Turnbull is asked whether he will be a “Julia, Kevin or Tony” as an ex-prime minister.

He says he will not give a “running commentary” or undermine his predecessor like “Kevin and Tony Abbott have done”.

“I’m out of partisan politics,” he says.

Turnbull says there is a “fair prospect” his removal would be raised in the election campaign.

He says people “endlessly” approached when he was holidaying in New York to talk about the coup.

“And it’s actually quite painful to talk about,” Turnbull says.

“I think those people who are responsible for taking a successful, competitive government and literally blowing it up need to have an explanation.”

9.03pm: Turnbull denies hostility to ABC

Turnbull is asked why he was “so hostile” to the ABC.

He says he is a big fan of the public broadcaster.

He says he is concerned about the deterioration in the quality of journalism at the ABC.

“There has been not enough accuracy and balance in the work of journalists here,” Turnbull says.

Turnbull denies ever calling for an ABC journalist to be sacked.

He says the role of managing director and editor-in-chief should be separated.

“I think now more than ever, in an age of fake news and the Twitterverse and all of that, we need the ABC to live up to its statutory charter of being accurate and objective,” he says.

8.56pm: Turnbull addresses ‘right-wing populism’

Turnbull is asked whether he regrets bringing on the double-dissolution election in 2016 which led to an increase of minor party representation. The questioner also asks what can be done to curb “right-wing populism”.

Turnbull says people have to respect for each other. He has a crack at the right-wing of the Liberal Party, which he says does not respect consensus.

“What you’ve seen increasingly from the Right, even if they’re not in the majority, they’ll say, ‘If you don’t give us what we want, we’ll blow the show up’,” Turnbull says.

“That is intimidating and that is bullying, and that was at the heart of the coup back in August.”

He is asked if he was “dictated” by the Right and lost the small- liberals.

He says the only thing they dictated was a “leadership coup that saw me out of my job as prime minister”.

8.52pm: Turnbull’s warning on Labor

Turnbull is asked what his “young self” would have thought about his role in keeping asylum-seekers on Manus Island and Nauru.

Turnbull says he probably would have been hard on himself “given the young are always very critical of the old”.

He says he kept the boats stopped and took people off the islands.

“The one thing you don’t want to do is get the people-smugglers back in business, because we know what happened under Labor, and it’ll happen again,” Turnbull says.

8.50pm: A question from Mike Cannon-Brookes

Atlassian’s Mike Cannon-Brookes asks a question via video about the businessman’s “vision” for a future of 100 per cent renewable energy.

Turnbull says he believes in a technology neutral approach.

“We all know where our energy future lies: it lies with renewable energy, backed up with storage, whether it is batteries or pumped hydro, which has been one of my great passions, and there are other technologies,” Turnbull says.

He says the price of renewable energy is coming down.

“The challenge is, of course, how do you store it? That’s why you need long-term vision and planning for projects like Snowy Hydro 2.0,” Turnbull says.

He says a new-coal fired power station is not economical, regardless of its carbon emissions.

“I do not believe that you would build, today, a coal-fired power station, regardless of issues about climate policy and carbon risk and all of those things,” he says.

Turnbull has not ruled out investing in Mr Cannon-Brookes’ renewable vision.

“I’m out of politics, and I will return to the business world, and I love nothing more than technology, I love new projects, I like new technology, and I love creating jobs,” he says.

8.43pm: ‘My government delivered same-sex marriage’

Turnbull was asked about his “failure” to argue the case in the media.

“I wish you’d come out and been arguing your point more,” the questioner said.

Turnbull says he was in the media lots.

“I’m sorry you missed it,” he says, while defending the achievements of his government.

Host Tony Jones asks if his appeasement to the Right of the party “killed the real Malcolm Turnbull”.

Turnbull says it didn’t because he achieved so much, including legalising same-sex marriage.

“It is a great Liberal achievement ...and it was my government that delivered it,” Turnbull says.

8.35pm: Turnbull defends Wentworth absence

Turnbull says he is sure Scott Morrison “regrets” using the Muppet Show analogy.

“The Australian parliament is at the centre of our government. It’s where our governments are formed. It’s where our laws are made,” he says.

Turnbull won’t answer whether Barnaby Joyce should be returned to the Nationals leadership.

But he puts part of the blame on Joyce for the Liberal Party’s loss in the Wentworth election campaign because of his agitation for the Nationals leadership which ruined the government’s “stability” pitch.

On his own role in the Wentworth by-election, Turnbull says it would not have helped the Liberal Party’s prospects if he campaigned in the seat.

He says the by-election was lost in the last week in the campaign because of the government’s support for the “It’s OK to be White” resolution and the decision to reconsider the location of the embassy in Israel.

“I believe the by-election was lost in the last week. It was a pretty messy week for the government,” Turnbull says.

8.32pm: Turnbull justifies rolling Abbott

Turnbull is asked about his role in rolling two former Liberal leaders, including Tony Abbott.

Turnbull fobs it and says the decision to remove him was “crazy”.

Host Tony Jones asks what the difference between the challenge against Turnbull and Turnbull’s own challenge against Tony Abbott.

Turnbull says he had a “justification”.

“It was very, very warmly welcomed by the Australian people. I mean we won the next election and we got enormous support,” Turnbull says.

“From my point of view, I had a justification which I was open about. An agenda, an economic agenda and taking a more positive approach to our society.”

8.29pm: Parliament ‘decades out of date’

Turnbull says the parliament is not “sufficiently respectful of women”.

“As someone who came into parliament from the corporate sector, I’d say it is decades out of date,” he says.

“It is like stepping into, you know, a business, an office, in the ‘80s. It is very, very blokey,”

He says it is why he introduced the “bonking ban”.

“Scott Morrison absolutely shares my values on this,” Turnbull says.

Turnbull says the investigation into bullying during the spill should be made public.

“People are entitled to know what happened,” he says.

He says he is not “miserable, bitter or resentful”.

“I’m joyful that I had the opportunity to take on that role and do as much as I did in the time that I had,” Turnbull says, noting same-sex marriage was one of his top reforms.

8.23pm: Turnbull complained to Murdoch

Turnbull is asked about the role of the media in his downfall.

He says the media has always played a part in leadership spills.

Turnbull says Sky News after dark had a lot of influence over Liberal Party branch members, more so than the general public.

“This is a fundamental problem that the Liberal Party faces. In order to be successful as a political movement, you have to win votes from the centre,” Turnbull says.

He says the “broad church” support of the Liberal Party is being frayed, noting Indi, Wentworth and Mayo used to be safe seats.

“The Liberal Party, to succeed, has to be a broad church. And that means that it has to represent people with liberal views and people with more conservative views.” \

Turnbull confirms he complained to Rupert Murdoch about News Corp’s coverage of his government.

“The point that I made to him, and to others in News Limited, is that this sort of relentless campaign against me, which was very personal and didn’t seem to have any rationale in terms of policy,” he says.

Turnbull says Murdoch never conceded the company was campaigning against him.

The only beneficiary of this coup, unless there’s a real turnaround, which is possible, is going to be Bill Shorten,” he says.

Turnbull says Kerry Stokes told him Murdoch said he wanted a change of leader and was prepared to endure three years of a Shorten government.

8.17pm: I take Morrison at his word: Turnbull

Turnbull is asked what role Scott Morrison played in is downfall and whether the Prime Minister was “Steven Bradbury”.

Turnbull says he takes Morrison at his word that he did not plan to take the top job.

“The insurgency was led by Peter Dutton, was obviously strongly supported by Tony Abbott and others,” he says.

He says Peter Dutton, Tony Abbott, Mathias Cormann, Mitch Fifield, Michaelia Cash, Greg Hunt, Steven Ciobo, Michael Keenan and Angus Taylor “blew up the government”.,

Turnbull says they rolled him when the government was doing well and was in a good position to win the election.

“Maybe they were not worried we’d lose it, maybe they were worried we’d win it,” Turnbull says.

8.13pm: ‘I can’t be a threat to parliament’

Turnbull is asked if there was anything he could have done to protect himself from the “agitators” who were behind his downfall.

He says he tried to run a “traditional” and “consultative” government.

Turnbull says he was surprised so many cabinet ministers voted against him in the first spill and acted in such a “destructive manner”.

“I did not anticipate that people would act, particularly cabinet ministers, would act so self-destructively,” he says.

He names Greg Hunt, Peter Dutton and Steven Ciobo as people who held “solemn” positions in the government when they voted against him.

“It never occurred to me that those people would act in a way that was going to be so damaging both to the government, to the party and, frankly, to the nation,” Turnbull says.

Turnbull says he wishes Scott Morrison well at the next election and the media were wrong to say he had been damaging the government since he was rolled.

“I have left the parliament,” he says.

“So I can’t be a threat to Scott Morrison or anyone else. I’m not even in the parliament.”

8.08pm: Turnbull comes out firing

The first question to Malcolm Turnbull is in tonight’s special Q&A is about why he was rolled as prime minister.

He says he can’t answer the question, arguing it needs to be put to the people who orchestrated the coup. Turnbull names Tony Abbott, Peter Dutton, Greg Hunt and Mathias Cormann as among those who are responsible for his downfall.

“They have to answer that question. I can’t answer it. From my own point of view, I described it at the time as madness,” Turnbull says.

“They have to explain why they did it and none of them have.”

Turnbull says the partroom knew about internal polling showing favourable numbers for the government in the final days of his prime ministership.

“In our own poll we were 52/48 ahead,” he says.

“So there’s no question the government was doing well. We were thoroughly competitive. And we were in a position where we had every chance, every prospect, of being able to win the election.”

8.01pm: The audience make-up

7.34pm: Big news on the jacket

6.63pm: Tweets already rolling in

Q&A fans are already tweeting away even though program doesn’t start for another hour or so.

5.26pm: Watch the trailer

The ABC has advertised tonight’s television event as a chance for Mr Turnbull to answer “questions from the people of Australia”.

5.14pm: ScoMo won’t be watching

Scott Morrison says he will not be tuning into the ABC’s Q&A program tonight to watch his predecessor Malcolm Turnbull’s first media appearance since he was ousted by Liberal MPs.

“I’m flying home to Sydney tonight,” he told reporters in Townsville this morning, “I wish him the best and if I asked him a question I would say how are you going?”

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison in Townsville. Picture: AAP
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison in Townsville. Picture: AAP

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/broadcast/malcolm-turnbull-qa-live-former-prime-minister-appears-on-abc/news-story/02afa39e2cd0d2199d31ec032b399ea9