Malcolm Turnbull: the prime minister who burst his own thought bubbles
From the NBN to Snowy 2.0, Malcolm Turnbull’s legacy is one of costly big ideas that didn’t deliver on his pledges.
In late July 2016 Malcolm Turnbull, then prime minister, was watching television with his wife, Lucy, at home in Sydney and saw video and revelations on the ABC’s Four Corners program about violent handling of youths being held at the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre in Darwin.
Within 10 hours Turnbull announced on ABC radio that he was calling a royal commission to investigate the “shocking and appalling” allegations.
Within two days, Brian Martin, the former Northern Territory Supreme Court judge, was announced as the sole royal commissioner with terms of reference to look into the Don Dale detention centre – not wider detention in the NT, despite Labor calls for the inclusion of an Indigenous commissioner and wide terms of reference.
Turnbull had acted, as he said, “quickly” and passionately. But within days of the appointment Martin faced criticism because of his previous judgments and the employment of his daughter by the NT government. Again, within days, Martin resigned and was replaced by Mick Gooda as an Indigenous commissioner (despite him calling for the sacking of the NT government over the Don Dale centre) and former Queensland Supreme Court justice Margaret White.
Bill Shorten, then opposition leader, declared Turnbull had “bungled” the key decisions with “high-handed one-man-band antics” that did not allow enough consultation with the Indigenous community over how the investigation would proceed.
The calling of the royal commission was a case study in Turnbull’s approach to politics and policy: as prime minister he responded immediately to media reports with a big idea; he didn’t address details, including the key appointment of a royal commissioner, and; changed his mind later.
A grand idea too hastily announced without full assessment led to poor process and political damage instead of political advantage.
Inconsistent approaches to issues also clouded Turnbull’s ability to sell a message and pursue implementation of ideas. On the Indigenous voice to parliament, Turnbull opposed the voice and offered the initial devastating assessment of it being a “third chamber of parliament” but he has since moved to support it.
Some of Turnbull’s former cabinet colleagues, who needless to say are not sympathetic to their former leader, point to an irony over detail with Turnbull as minister and prime minister. When in discussions and meetings with colleagues and others Turnbull had a habit of suddenly pulling out his phone and searching for the latest data or statistics in relation to something that has just been mentioned.
It was a similar, although different, approach to Kevin Rudd’s seeking minute details about a particular issue in a haphazard and unpredictable way that suggested a brilliant mind was becoming bored with other aspects of the discussion.
As well, there seemed to be a boredom creeping into Turnbull’s approach as far as selling a political message was concerned – once a big idea was announced he didn’t spend enough time selling it to the public and looking at the implementation of the idea and policy.
Just this week Turnbull was defending another of his decisions – the creation of a foreign influence register in 2017, which only had its first forced registration a few days ago – before a parliamentary committee.
“The problem is not the legislation … (it) is an enforcement problem,” he told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday.
Even Turnbull’s singular achievement of legislating for same-sex marriage actually had major difficulties as his legislation for a national vote was defeated twice and in the end it was the conservative Liberal leaders, Peter Dutton and Mathias Cormann, who came up with the innovative idea of a voluntary postal plebiscite that provided an avenue for public debate and participation, and satisfied the need for a majority public endorsement.
But there were much bigger ideas and policies – with much bigger budgets – that Turnbull championed with less than optimum public policy or political outcomes. As communications minister and prime minister Turnbull led the way on the National Broadband Network. Turnbull said the cost of the NBN was “fiendishly expensive” but there was no choice. Ultimately, including a deal Turnbull organised for NBN to take over Telstra’s copper network, the cost rose from $5bn to $15bn, and a final estimate of more than $50bn.
Despite the costs, experts claim Australia is lagging behind the world on broadband and Labor turned expanding the broadband network – with enough copper to circle the globe – into a political negative.
Turnbull’s defence was that he inherited a mess from the previous Labor government.
“Ubiquitous broadband is a really good idea. The way Labor went about it was insane, certifiably insane,” Turnbull said. “I inherited a mess, and I had to make the best of it. And you know what? The project is nearly complete, and it will keep on getting upgraded forever.”
The NBN is now the biggest government project in Australian history and even dwarfs another of Turnbull’s “big ideas”, the hydro-storage system Snowy 2.0, designed to supply hydro-electricity into the grid at times of high cost and high demand by releasing dam water that has been pumped uphill overnight during periods of low cost and low demand.
All the 2017 announcements encompassed the truly iconic Snowy Mountains Hydro Scheme with promises of helping renewable energy targets and cutting electricity costs within four years with the huge hydro battery. The construction works have consumed billions already and taken the cost beyond the initial estimate of $2bn.
Amid management resignations, company collapses and spiralling claims for payouts, the estimated cost of construction went from $2bn to $4bn to $5bn, and is now at least $6bn, and that doesn’t include the additional costs for transmission, which is now due to begin in 2025.
The final cost is estimated to be close to $20bn – 10 times the initial cost Turnbull announced and with predictions of rising costs to taxpayers and energy consumers.
Being the most brilliant person in the room with the biggest ideas doesn’t mean you can put sound policy into practice with a reasonable political and financial cost. Legacy needs to be measured against results not intent.
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