Malcolm Turnbull: how a toff out of water became our loner PM

Never a team player, always a sole trader, Turnbull was a political interloper, but with very few political convictions.

Malcolm Turnbull and family at yesterday’s press conference. Picture: AP

Malcolm Turnbull was never a good fit for politics. It is common to portray him as a Labor wolf in a Liberal sheep’s clothing, but I think the truth is more complex. Never a team player, always a sole trader, he was a political interloper chasing the ultimate trophy, but with very few political convictions.

If Graham Richardson is right that Turnbull once pleaded to be on the NSW Labor Senate ticket, it does not mean that he was particularly committed to the Labor Party, which was more likely a mere flag of convenience. Knocking around with the Sydney push of Gough Whitlam, Neville Wran and company probably made Turnbull rich and comfortable with that side of politics, but in reality he was a man on a personal mission.

Nothing better demonstrated his preference for his own brand ahead of any party brand than the posters that have been around his electorate for years proclaiming “Turnbull for Wentworth” — no mention of Liberal.

Such hubris sent a twofold message: one, that he did not want to be identified as a Liberal and owed the party no loyalty; and, two, that he believed his personal skills, serious wealth and impressive credentials placed him on a unique pedestal, well above your common garden variety party-affiliated politician. The fact is that every other MP knows they wouldn’t be in parliament without party endorsement. John Howard regularly acknowledged this.

Turnbull boasted to me that, given the way he had ruthlessly disposed of the hapless sitting member, he was the party’s biggest and most successful branch stacker, yet once he got party endorsement he went it alone. It was the same in the 2016 federal election, when we were asked to vote for the Turnbull Coalition team. It should be politics 101 that those who do not stay in touch with the party organisation and its grassroots are very much hostage to gratuitous media advice and in serious danger of losing their way.

The position of chief of staff in any ministerial office, let alone that of prime minister, is one that requires acute political sensitivity. Yet obstinately, and against all advice, Turnbull insisted on appointing non-political operatives — a public servant, a diplomat, a media executive — none with enough knowledge of practical politics, a specialised art requiring inner toughness and well-honed political instincts.

Yet with an office staff more notable for personal loyalty than political smarts, at the 2016 federal election he seriously contemplated bypassing the organisation altogether and running the campaign out of his office. Presumably because he thought he knew better — yet he ultimately ran the most inept campaign in living memory. He wouldn’t go near policies such as industrial relations or national security, presumably because they were too closely associated with Tony Abbott, although he knew they were Labor weaknesses and the Heydon royal commission into trade unions had given him endless ammunition. Industrial relations has always been a policy no-go area for him. I attended several private events with him during the 2016 election campaign where he thunderously denounced the CFMEU and Bill Shorten to the party faithful but barely said boo in public.

He hated fundraisers. One such event at Melbourne’s Athenaeum Club during the 2016 election campaign was a classic. Turnbull was supposed to be there at 12.30pm but, close to 1pm, he was still AWOL despite urgent phone calls, so I went down to the front door to await his arrival. When he finally showed up he made a few perfunctory acknowledgments and then went straight into the foyer, where he played with his iPhone for the next 10 minutes.

During the long campaign he barely laid a glove on a very vulnerable Shorten. When we accosted him on this he pleaded helplessness: “I’m flying around everywhere every day of the campaign and I have to rely on on-the-ground advice from the research.” What this meant was that the focus groups said they didn’t think much of Shorten, so there was no need to keep attacking him.

This was a complete cop-out. We all know that people will never say they want more negativity, but we also know it works if it confirms an existing belief or prejudice.

He never accepted that the buck stopped with him. It was always someone else’s fault. Despite the fact the vacuous slogan of “jobs and growth” went down like a lead balloon, he not only doubled down but was happy to have polling booth posters proclaiming the even more fatuous non-message of “stick to the plan”. He was warned repeatedly about Labor’s dishonest but damaging “Mediscare” robocalls but did virtually nothing to counter them.

For someone who made a reputation as a tough and ruthless operator in business, he was quite the opposite in politics.

In my experience he was the archetypal anti-warrior who wanted to take politics out of politics. He trusted no one but himself and found it very hard to take decisions. In the absence of political instinct, he relied on his legal skills and often insisted on doing his own research. Experience tells you that you only ever know 80 per cent of the facts and you then have to rely on gut feel and good judgment, of which he had neither.

He never set out his vision for the future, relying rather on generalities such as delivering a sound economy and promoting innovation and change, worthy but hardly vote-winning policies. But he had a tin ear for those who complained that new technology meant job losses. The Catholic schools funding fiasco was a classic example of how not to cauterise a serious injury. He had weeks to solve it before the recent by-elections but he did nothing and paid a heavy price.

But quietly solving difficult problems is not how politics works. What the voting public wants is a clear demonstration of why your policy prescriptions are better than those of your opponents.

His greatest failing was on energy. The punters had only one concern, low fuel prices, yet he was more focused on Australia’s emissions reduction even though he knew his policy intransigence would make no difference to the global issue and would not affect our ability to meet our Paris target. Yet he never argued his case. He never told you why climate change was a great big problem right now, just that we had to act on it, an explanation that left the community none the wiser and unpersuaded of any greater urgency. By trying to neutralise energy as an issue he was depriving his own party of its most potent weapon against a Labor Party committed to much higher emissions reductions and, so, much higher energy prices.

His ruthless ambition knew no limits. After Turnbull unexpectedly lost out to Brendan Nelson in the leadership contest after the 2007 election, he immediately set out to humiliate and cripple him — a despicable act, perhaps inspired by NSW Labor’s “whatever it takes” approach. It is said that Peter Costello chose not to run for fear of the same thing happening to him. Even in the lead-up to the 2007 election Turnbull had embarrassed the party by letting it be known that in cabinet he had supported Kyoto in defiance of his colleagues. Having lost the leadership to Abbott, he accepted the offer of a cabinet position yet spent the next two years running a remorseless guerilla campaign that ultimately fatally undermined Abbott’s leadership and amplified his mistakes.

Turnbull was good offshore and probably would have made a competent foreign minister, fitting in well with the UN world view. But he made it obvious that, although he loved rubbing shoulders with the great and the good, most of what he had to do at home was a chore. He had no real empathy for bread-and-butter issues, so he left no lasting impression with voters or MPs, especially in marginal seats.

Ultimately it was not one single issue that brought him down but a widespread realisation by his colleagues that he couldn’t change his policies, his personality or his lack of will to meaningfully fight his corner.

As I discovered early on, Turnbull’s approach to politics was purely transactional — no emotion, no warmth, no empathy, no gratitude. He publicly professed to admire Howard but took little notice of Howard’s advice. Now that he has thrown in the towel it is to be hoped that he will rethink his threat to resign immediately and trigger a costly and unnecessary by-election. There is no reason he couldn’t seek a leave of absence until close to the next election.

But despite the chaos of the moment, six months is a long time in politics. Howard lost more Newspolls than he won, but he won the polls that counted. It’s a very different game once the election is called and voters stop grumbling and face the binary choice before them.

With the election of Scott Morrison the real battle begins. He has all the right qualifications — economically literate, very experienced, cool under pressure and eminently capable of uniting the party. He has a powerful narrative to deliver, much of it of his own making. The trick will be to have cut-through lines that resonate. He must also craft a few policies that highlight the chasm between the major parties. He must take Shorten head-on. To date the Labor leader has been allowed to get away with cleverly crafted half-truths, designed to mislead the unwary.

As we get to real time towards the new year we will have a much better sense of whether middle Australia prefers proven economic policies or whether it really wants a forced diet of higher taxes, higher energy prices and a slippery-as-ever Shorten, utterly beholden to the thuggery of his union mates.

Richard Alston is immediate past president of the Liberal Party and was deputy Senate leader and a senior cabinet minister in the Howard government.