Morrison team worked to boost first-round votes for Dutton

Malcolm Turnbull was torn down when Scott Morrison and his backers engineered a ‘very high vote’ to pump up support for Peter Dutton.

Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison. Picture: Ray Strange

Malcolm Turnbull was torn down when Scott Morrison and his backers played a “clever, controversial and deadly” role, sabotaging his prime ministership by engineering a “very high vote” to pump up support for Peter Dutton’s first failed leadership bid last year.

“The trick was for enough of Morrison’s supporters to vote for Dutton so that Turnbull would be seen by everyone to be terminal,” writes The Weekend Australian columnist Niki Savva in her new book, Plots and Prayers.

Savva reveals strategic voting in the first Liberal partyroom ballot last August paved the way for Mr Morrison to win the second three days later — with supporters switching to him when Mr Turnbull pulled out of the race.

The Morrison group’s calculated efforts, which followed “wargaming every possible scenario” and keeping numbers “stored for months” on a laptop, were intended to boost Mr Dutton’s ego as well as his numbers.

They acted “not because they wanted Dutton, but because they no longer wanted Turnbull”.

The planning and detail ­involved on Mr Morrison’s side undermines his repeated assertions he was an unswerving backer of Mr Turnbull to the end, and not engaged in plotting.

Savva writes that Mr Turnbull’s attempts to save himself after Mr Dutton’s first unsuccessful leadership tilt bought time, but plotting and planning by Morrison lieutenants was “already well advanced”. “It is impossible to get to where he (Morrison) got in 24 hours, which is what he later wanted people to believe,” she writes.

Three days after Mr Turnbull beat Mr Dutton 48-35 and then declined to renominate for the leadership when a majority wanted a further spill, Mr Morrison beat Mr Dutton 45-40.

Vital to the Morrison group’s success, writes Savva, was protecting his image as a “cleanskin” so he could not be branded “disloyal”, or seen as having “blood on his hands”.

Plots and Prayers reveals Mr Turnbull blamed Mathias Cormann more than Mr Dutton or anyone else for betraying him, convinced the resignation of his finance minister was “staged and timed” at a critical moment to ­revive a faltering Dutton challenge after the first had failed.

Savva writes that despite the Morrison team’s deft undermining of Mr Turnbull by quietly pumping up votes for his ­opponent, Mr Dutton was “suspicious”, as were some on the ­beleaguered prime minister’s side. Turnbull loyalist Craig Laundy ­believed at the time that 10 votes of Mr Morrison’s went to Mr Dutton in the first ballot.

Mr Turnbull’s office also did separate tallies of votes before Mr Turnbull called the leadership spill that day — based on Morrison backers voting for or against the prime minister. “Their count with Morrison’s people voting with the prime minister was 35, which — surprise, surprise — was the ultimate result,” says Savva.

Mr Turnbull, she writes, thought Mr Dutton’s plan to challenge was “crazy” and “incredible” because the former Queensland cop was “utterly unelectable”. He laughed off warnings from friends that Mr Dutton was “stalking him, never believing for one moment Dutton would challenge”. Savva reveals Mr Dutton had originally planned his move for a month later to coincide with the anticipated 40th consecutive losing Newspoll for the prime minister.

Senator Cormann disputes his decision to walk away from Mr Turnbull was treacherous, or linked to his friendship with Mr Dutton, arguing it was realistic to conclude the prime minister was finished if he could not gain more votes in a contest with Mr Dutton. It appears Senator Cormann was unaware of Morrison camp ­efforts to inflate the Dutton numbers.

Julie Bishop believed Senator Cormann was “complicit” and ­exploded when he announced he was quitting to vote for Mr Dutton. She reminded what was left of the Turnbull leadership group: “I told all of you years ago that this is the most disloyal man and someone you can’t trust.”

Savva writes that Mr Morrison’s two Canberra housemates, Liberal MPs Stuart Robert and Steve Irons, and chief numbers man Alex Hawke — incidentally all members of a regular prayer group — knew months ahead that Dutton intended to make a move and planned accordingly.

“Hawke had numbers of who stood where, stored for months on his laptop,” she writes.

Another key Morrison backer, West Australian Liberal Ben Morton, moved out of the Canberra apartment he shared with ­Andrew Hastie, who supported Mr Dutton, to preserve their friendship. Mr Morton later moved back.

Savva says Mr Morrison ­rejects the charge that his group’s votes boosted the anti-Turnbull result on the Tuesday, and then on the Friday ensured passage of the spill motion that spelt the end of Mr Turnbull’s prime ministership.

She quotes Mr Morrison ­as insisting he was “shocked” when Mr Turnbull announced in the partyroom that he was vacating the leadership, and saying nothing had been “activated” when Mr Turnbull gave him the all-clear on the Wednesday night to run against Mr Dutton.

“He is agitated when he is asked about what his people knew, when they knew it, and how long in ­advance they had been canvassing votes,” writes Savva.

But she says Mr Morrison’s ­account skates over assiduous courting and vote counting by his housemates, and how he knew at least one of his lieutenants, Mr Robert, had started canvassing votes “because Robert had told him he was going to do so”.

Savva writes: “Robert told me: ‘We told him we were going to do it. We were not asking permission’ … So Morrison did not give Robert a green light. But it most certainly was not a red light.” Mr Morrison’s final act before the Friday ballot he won against Mr Dutton was to pray in his office with Mr Robert.

According to Savva, Mr Dutton believed Mr Turnbull would retaliate against Mr Morrison and the government in an effort to ­ensure electoral defeat once he “put it all together”. Mr Morrison and those close to him were also “nervous”.

While blaming Mr Turnbull for his own fate, Mr Dutton was left resentful about his characterisation after the leadership turmoil.

In what Savva calls subtle criticism of Mr Morrison, Mr Dutton argued he was no further to the right than John Howard, was not the evangelist, was not an “out-and-proud” opponent of abortion, voted for gay marriage, and did not support a Tony Abbott comeback. “But you are framed with these things,” he said.