Malcolm Turnbull’s keenly awaited autobiography, A Bigger Picture, isn’t due out until April. But Diary has never been deterred by a silly release date.
Today we can exclusively unveil the first juicy excerpts from the former journalist’s book (let’s just say they fell off the back of a truck). And with perfect timing, they will cause curly questions to be asked in Canberra in the year’s first sitting week.
The Turnbull book excerpts reveal the private text message correspondence between the former PM and Liberal powerbroker Mathias Cormann after the second leadership vote of August 2018 that saw Scott Morrison take the prime ministership.
Many political analysts believe Cormann’s decision to switch allegiances to Peter Dutton was the biggest factor in dooming Turnbull’s prime ministership.
Turnbull’s book, being published by Hardie Grant, will reveal that in the hours after he was deposed, Cormann dropped him a text to say he was “very sorry” and tell the ex-PM that he wasn’t part of an “insurgency”. But an angry Turnbull replied by telling Cormann he should be “ashamed” and accusing him of being “weak and treacherous”.
Cormann’s initial text to Turnbull, in part, read: “I was not part of any planned conspiracy or insurgency. I genuinely backed you until events developed, sadly, which in my judgment made our position irretrievable. I immediately and honestly advised you directly.”
Cormann claimed in the message to have been surprised by Dutton’s first (unsuccessful) challenge to Turnbull on Tuesday, August 21.
“I was genuinely blindsided by the leadership ballot on the Tuesday and events developed rapidly from there,” he told Turnbull.
He even invoked his wife, Perth lawyer Hayley Cormann, in apologising to Turnbull. “All this has been very painful — yes I know first and foremost for you and for that I’m very sorry. But also for me. My wife was genuinely traumatised by it all.”
Turnbull’s text in reply was withering: “Mathias, at a time when strength and loyalty were called for, you were weak and treacherous. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
Turnbull even referenced his mention of Hayley Cormann: “I well understand how disappointed your wife is in your conduct.”
The former PM’s book will explain why he was angrier with Cormann than any other cabinet colleague. He writes: “Cormann’s treachery was the worst and most hurtful. He’d become a trusted friend of mine, and of Lucy … I’d always trusted Cormann, ignoring constant warnings that he was an untrustworthy, Machiavellian schemer.”
Turnbull also crunches the numbers to assert that if Cormann hadn’t flipped sides to Dutton, he could have remained PM. “Dutton didn’t have the numbers at any stage — as the ballots demonstrated. If Cormann, (Mitch) Fifield and (Michaelia) Cash had voted against the spill on the Friday (August 24), it wouldn’t have been carried: there’d have been 43 votes against and 42 for.”
Plenty more to come.
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Fitz’s independence day
For years, Peter FitzSimons and Lisa Wilkinson have hosted an Australia Day barbecue at their handsome Neutral Bay harbourside home in Sydney.
But Diary has learned that this year, there was a big change to their tradition. FitzSimons apparently decided that a January 26 bash was a bad look, given the well-chronicled Australia Day “change the date” push in some quarters and his chairmanship of the Australian Republican Movement. So the couple shifted the bash forward a day to January 25 (last Saturday week), and renamed it their “Independence Day Party”. Shades of the move by Triple J to move its Hottest 100 countdown to anything but Australia Day.
Despite the date change, FitzSimons and Wilkinson attracted a big roll-up after the media pair thoughtfully emailed guests a reminder the day before.
From the political side, Labor leader Anthony Albanese and Bob Hawke’s widow Blanche d’Alpuget were honoured guests. There was also a heavy media contingent, including ABC 7.30’s political editor Laura Tingle and her partner, actor Sam Neill, Nine/2GB host Ben Fordham, new Q&A host Hamish Macdonald, Mike Carlton (FitzSimons’s former on-air radio co-host) and his partner, Four Corners supervising producer Morag Ramsay, author Kathy Lette, Ten’s head of programming Beverley McGarvey and political editor Peter van Onselen, along with ABC presenters Annabel Crabb and Julia Baird. Among FitzSimons’s mates from the Sydney Morning Herald were Kate McClymont and Jacqueline Maley.
Wilkinson’s one-time Today show on-air partner Karl Stefanovic sent his apologies from Melbourne, where he was co-hosting the Nine breakfast show’s blanket Australian Open coverage. But Karl’s brother, Sky News breakfast co-host Peter Stefanovic, turned up with his heavily pregnant partner, Nine TV host Sylvia Jeffries.
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Q&A caravan moves on
It has been a nightmare start to the new era of Q&A starting on Monday night for both new presenter Hamish Macdonald and executive producer Erin Vincent.
On Friday, Macdonald announced his much-vaunted first show in bushfire-ravaged Bega would have to be moved because of the continuing fire threat in the area.
But the new location of Queanbeyan on Canberra’s outskirts may not be much safer, given a separate bushfire-related state of emergency in the ACT. Diary is reliably informed there was even a proposal to “bus in” some of the 80-odd audience members from Bega if the roads remained open.
But given the precarious bushfire situation, sources speculated at the weekend that even a Plan C might be required to get the program to air by 9.35pm Monday.
Monday's #QandA Bushfires Special will now be broadcast from Queanbeyan.
— ABC Q+A (@QandA) January 31, 2020
South Coast residents can still participate by submitting video questions here: https://t.co/498JJXXPir
If you're near Queanbeyan, you can register to be in the audience here: https://t.co/hdvdP5FBvY pic.twitter.com/A59lNhpjgW
“It’s hard enough to put Q&A to air in Sydney or Melbourne, let alone with outside broadcast vans and bushfire emergencies,” one staffer said. Not to mention the weeks of planning in Bega that have gone down the gurgler.
Diary suggests that if Queanbeyan becomes off-limits, nearby Parliament House in Canberra could yet provide a safe haven for Hamish’s debut with the Q&A caravan.
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PvO no B-teamer
Lisa Wilkinson is set to have a permanent new co-host on The Sunday Project to replace Hamish Macdonald.
Diary is told Peter van Onselen will take over Macdonald’s role, after co-hosting The Project for much of last month. But our sources out of Ten also say that while he will co-host on Sundays, there is the possibility of a weeknight hosting role on The Project as well, possibly on Friday. He is also likely to be Waleed Aly’s main stand-in when he’s away.
PvO’s likely elevation is part of a big strategic change to The Project in 2020 by Ten’s programming boss Bev McGarvey. Early last month she told the Herald Sun she wanted more “consistency” in terms of The Project hosts, as she candidly admitted the show had not seen the ratings “growth” she expected.
“We don’t want people to feel like they’re getting the B-team,” she said. “It needs to be that if you see Waleed, Carrie (Bickmore), and Pete (Helliar) on a Monday … it will be every single Monday.”
Who's that guy in Tommy Little's chair?! Hopefully he's gone by the time The Sunday Project is on...or not? 😂😂😂 #TheProjectTV pic.twitter.com/Vxab5QyPfU
— The Project (@theprojecttv) February 2, 2020
B-team indeed! McGarvey’s pointed comments are a reference to a heavy turnover of panellists on The Project, which has seen the viewing public presented with anyone from Gorgi Coghlan to comedians Joel Creasey and Tommy Little on any given night.
Bickmore, Helliar, and Aly will be locked in as a team for each Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday through the year.
That means that it’s likely Wilkinson will be the show’s female co-host on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays. Meanwhile, we’re hearing that Aly is also likely to appear on Thursday nights as well as Monday to Wednesday, giving the Ten show needs a more “consistent” look, in McGarvey’s words, throughout the week.
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My Kitchen’s new Rules
Seven is dramatically changing its decade-long My Kitchen Rules formula — which saw the show top the national ratings for several years — in a desperate bid to restore MKR to its former glory. You could call the new version a surreal mix of MKR, Married At First Sight and Survivor.
Diary hears the most significant change involves the very feature that made the show successful in the first place: its very Australian “instant restaurants”, where viewers enjoyed the car-crash element of contestants cooking disastrous meals in the kitchens of their own homes. MKR’s home restaurant episodes were consistently among its highest-rating of previous seasons.
But for this MKR season (which started Sunday night), the home restaurants have disappeared. Instead, all contestants cook in a converted warehouse in Alexandria in Sydney’s inner-city.
That allows “cocktail parties” engineered to generate tension and even illicit affairs between members of opposing teams. Sound familiar? Seems a lot like MKR’s nemesis: Nine’s ratings juggernaut MAFS.
"First team, first Instant Restaurant... I think @manufeildel should be worried" 💪 #TeamColin are going in for the win!#MKR: The Rivals pic.twitter.com/JUvw3hkMfA
— #MKR (@mykitchenrules) February 2, 2020
MKR has even manufactured a new alleged rivalry: pitting Colin Fassnidge against Manu Feildel. “It’s chef vs chef,” Seven’s much-hyped ads scream.
Throw into the mix that for the first time contestants have the power to overrule the judges. We hear this gives it a Survivor-type edge. Word is that some contestants use their new-found power to game the system to dump contestants they don’t like.
Do these new MKR gimmicks add up to a winning formula against MAFS? The coming weeks will reveal plenty.
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McEnroe cops a serve
If Nine executives thought their big name radio talent at 3AW and 2GB would go soft on Nine network stars, they’d be disappointed.
The top rating morning host on 3AW, Neil Mitchell, freely confesses to Diary that before he conducted an interview with tennis legend and Nine commentator John McEnroe last Thursday, he told his producer: “I hope I’m wrong, but this could end in tears.”
End in tears it did. Our spies tell us that when the famously temperamental McEnroe got off the phone after the interview, he was spitting chips to his Nine minders. No, he didn’t use his famous line, “You cannot be serious”, but the words “jerk-off” and other colourful language reverberated around Melbourne Park.
Instead of talking about actual matches, Mitchell grilled McEnroe about his on-court protest last Tuesday with Martina Navratilova where the pair advocated that Margaret Court Arena be renamed “Evonne Goolagong Arena”.
After several difficult questions, McEnroe finally returned serve: “Listen, mate, I’ve got a match in a little bit. It’s OK to disagree with me but you don’t have to try to like, you know — with the way you’re talking to me, it seems like you’re looking for trouble.”
After a couple more verbal volleys between the pair, McEnroe hung up with no niceties.
Mitchell has generously invited McEnroe back: “He’s welcome on the show any time he likes.” Don’t hold your breath, Neil.
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30 years of Sullyness
Ten’s Pyrmont inner-city bunker in Sydney hosted a veritable festival of Sandra Sully last week to mark the newsreader’s 30 years with the network.
On Wednesday, the actual day of the big anniversary, staff gathered in the morning after Studio 10 for speeches and a 15-minute video that memorably featured Sully’s evolving hairstyles over three decades — not to mention her famous role in actual news events, notably her breaking the news of the 9/11 terrorist attacks to Australians.
The video presentation was highlighted by tributes even from rival newsreaders including Nine and Seven Sydney 6pm anchors Peter Overton and Mark Ferguson, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and members of the Australian mens’s hockey team, the Kookaburras (Sully is vice-president of Hockey Australia).
HA Board member @Sandra_Sully made two special presentations of #BabyGAustralia watches after today’s win to...
— Kookaburras (@Kookaburras) February 2, 2020
Player of the Match - Tom Craig
Displaying @HockeyAustralia values of Leadership, Integrity, Excellence & Inclusion - @AndrewCharter #PrideoftheKookas pic.twitter.com/yzaFpxWUXq
The Festival of Sandra reached its peak on Friday night when bubbly Ten weatherman Tim Bailey roasted the newsreader and Ten News First editor at a function dubbed “30 years of Sullyness”, at Pyrmont institution the Quarryman’s Hotel. The function was attended by a who’s who of Ten talent and management.
Bailey couldn’t resist bringing up Diary’s personal favourite anecdote about Sully: the occasion in 2005 when she rejected a date with US actor Ronn Moss, who played the chiselled-featured Ridge Forrester in Ten soapie The Bold and the Beautiful.
Moss’s agent desperately tried to line up the date but Sully emphatically shut him down. “I have to host a Surf Life Saving awards night,” she told him bluntly. Now that’s dedication!
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