Scott Morrison unloads on Malcolm Turnbull after being called a liar

The former PM gives his frankest account yet of replacing Malcolm Turnbull, hitting back hard after Turnbull called him a liar on national television.

Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison in August, 2018. Picture Kym Smith

On the morning Scott Morrison would become prime minister, he sent a text to his group of pastor friends saying “Staff is up, I am walking towards the sea”.

It was, says Morrison, a statement that he was “trusting God with whatever happened next”.

But whatever happened behind the scenes during that tumultuous series of leadership spills in August 2018 that led to Mr Morrison taking over as prime minister from Malcolm Turnbull is still being debated. Mr Morrison has accused Mr Turnbull of being the architect of his own leadership demise by making disastrous decisions to call for unnecessary leadership spills from which he never recovered. Mr Morrison also firmly rejected Mr Turnbull’s claim that he played a “duplicitous” “double game” during the first of two leadership spills in August 2018.

In his new book, Plans for Your Good: A Prime Minister’s Testimony of God’s Faithfulness, Mr Morrison argues that he was loyal to Mr Turnbull until the moment Mr Turnbull chose to step aside as prime minister. He says Mr Turnbull has since created a false ­narrative about the events that “suits” him.

Mr Morrison says that, when leadership rumours began swirling in mid-August 2018, Mr Turnbull asked him whether he should try to flush out leadership rivals by calling a vote for the leadership.

“I urged him not to do so, believing that it would end in disaster,” Mr Morrison writes. “If someone wants to bring on a challenge, you don’t make it easy for them. Let them bring it and wear the odium that goes with it.”

Mr Morrison says he thought Mr Turnbull had accepted his ­advice. Mr Morrison says that, as he was leaving Sydney to drive to ­Canberra that week, his wife Jen asked “Will Malcolm be all right?”

“I said: ‘He’ll be fine. All he has to do is sit tight and get through the week’.”

But in the party room meeting on the Tuesday Mr Morrison says he was stunned to see the prime minister declare the leadership vacant.

“I was shocked. I looked at Malcolm with an expression of surprise that asked, “What on earth are you doing?’” Morrison writes. “He gazed back with that look of self-assurance and determination that I was used to. He was convinced he had outsmarted them all.”

Mr Turnbull won the ballot against Peter Dutton 48 to 35, but the narrow margin only accelerated talk of an imminent leadership change.

“The seal had been broken, it would now be very difficult to stop the chain of events that would follow,” Mr Morrison says.

He says that that late on the Wednesday evening Mr Turnbull told him he should think about running if he could not hang on.

“While I was ambitious and had hoped one day to reach the top spot, it was not my preferred time to become PM,“ Mr Morrison writes, adding that his two daughters were still very young and it would have a major impact on his family.

“As I considered what to do next I had one rule: I would not be in any ballot against the current PM. I was not a challenger.”

Two days later Mr Dutton requested a second leadership spill and Mr Turnbull refused to call it unless a majority of his party room agreed.

Mr Turnbull said he would not contest the leadership if the majority of his party room agreed to the second spill, which it did.

With Mr Turnbull now out of the running, Mr Morrison said he decided to contest the ballot, ­defeating Mr Dutton and ­becoming the country’s 30th prime minister.

Mr Turnbull has since accused Mr Morrison of playing a “double game” by arranging for some of his supporters to vote for Mr ­Dutton in the first ballot to reduce Mr Turnbull’s winning margin and therefore increase the pressure on him remaining as prime minister.

In the documentary, Nemesis, Mr Turnbull said: “I’ve seen Scott say so many things that are utterly untrue – he can look you dead in the eye and say something completely opposite to what he’s really thinking.”

Mr Morrison denies point blank that he played a double game against Mr Turnbull and says he only chose to run for the leadership once Mr Turnbull had decided he would not contest the second leadership spill.

“(Turnbull’s account) is just not true, I mean it’s not possible to be true because we didn’t know he (Turnbull) was going to spill the leadership that morning (against Dutton) … because he didn’t tell me,” he says.

He says that Turnbull has simply constructed a false narrative that suits him, adding that he feels no bitterness about Turnbull’s claims. “I know my own conduct in the matter and am completely comfortable about it,” he says.