The Sketch: Malcolm Turnbull is not the messiah, he’s a very haunted boy

It was at his crucifixion that Jesus made his famously charitable request: “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

But, as he emerged from 76 days in the tomb into the Q&A studio last night, Malcolm Turnbull dispensed with the forgiveness bit.

The coup that ended his political mission on Earth, he insisted, was inexplicable. Crazy, and pointless, too. If Turnbull was going to be putting any requests to the Almighty last night, letting his crucifiers off the hook wasn’t going to be one.

The Q&A audience was torn between appreciation for his service to the nation, and disappointment at how they thought the promise of Malcolm had fallen short of the reality.

It’s been a bumpy marriage, Turnbull and Q&A. People think mistily of those days of leather, a honeymoon during which moon-eyed audience members went so far as to beg him to form a party with Kevin Rudd.

But the 2016 version of Turnbull was a more prickly affair, accusing host Tony Jones of being “a very good spokesman for the ALP” — and not in a good way. Turnbull and Jones were happy together again last night. The former PM had fresher targets.

Many were named in his bucketing — Mathias Cormann, Greg Hunt, Tony Abbott among them — but a special tone was reserved for Peter Dutton, his name exiting Turnbull’s mouth each time like a voodoo doll, which was then filled with pins, set alight and tossed down a long drop.

Q&A’s a show Paul Keating once said no minister had any business going on: “You just wash the government through mud every time you turn up.”

Thanks to the events of late August, Turnbull is free of any such concerns, arriving with a mud supply as plentiful as if it had been on special in Costco.

It’s been a tectonic collision you could chart by Q&A appearances alone. When Turnbull was on last December, stand-in host Virginia Trioli — her leather dress a sartorial memorial to Malcolm 1.0 — triggered an exchange that now looks eerie in its prescience.

Trioli: “I don’t think the conservatives in your party are a figment of the imagination of the ABC.”

Turnbull: “Oh, no, but, you know … No. Well …”

Still, it’s done now. His key teachings? His government kicked goals. The coup was inexplicable. The proprietor of this paper was not strictly helpful. Bill Shorten is bad, nearly as bad as Dutton.

And, over the fiery splats from the long drop, he wished Scott Morrison well.

“I’ve retired from politics,” he said, his face aglow. “I will return to the business world.”

The resurrection is done.
The Mal-ssiah is ready to ascend back into heaven.