Malcolm Turnbull keen to play for Team Abbott

THE most reconciled figure in politics today is Malcolm Turnbull, but he has a strategic plan: he intends to exert a critical influence from the cabinet table in any Abbott Coalition government.

Turnbull sees himself working with Tony Abbott as part of a team but remains acutely conscious of his unique status in the Liberal Party as a former leader, former Treasury spokesman and former environment minister.

His focus, however, is not the past but the future. Abbott and Turnbull don't spend much time together but they know each other too well and have too much shared history not to work comfortably together.

Although there is no "Tony and Malcolm show", Turnbull says: "I can assure you Tony Abbott and I can authentically be a team. If we're not, then we will very obviously be found out."

Abbott and Turnbull will come together soon for a major event: the launch of the Coalition's broadband policy. It will be a fascinating exhibit: Turnbull as the tech expert and Abbott as the leader who got exposed on the National Broadband Network in the last election.

They recognise they are tied together by a new political glue. Abbott's interest is to have Turnbull inside the tent, and Turnbull knows all his future hopes lie in working with Abbott now and in office. It is mutual self-interest. Constant media stories identifying parallels between Abbott-Turnbull and Gillard-Rudd are wrong. The former are now allies while the latter are enemies, a theme Turnbull hammers in his campaigning.

In a frank interview with The Weekend Australian, Turnbull outlines how an Abbott government will work and how he expects it to work based on assurances from Abbott. "Tony has made it clear, and I thoroughly endorse this, that the next Coalition government will be a traditional Westminster cabinet government," he says. "Decisions will be taken collectively. We are not electing a president. There is no President Tony. Tony Abbott will be the prime minister. He will be, as all prime ministers are in Westminster systems, first among equals. That is absolutely critical. We are not running a personality cult here.

"From a practical point of view, and we saw this with Kevin Rudd in particular, you cannot run a federal government from the prime minister's office. The prime minister's office can give leadership and direction but if a portfolio has to be micromanaged from the PM's office then the minister isn't doing his or her job.

"Having observed the Howard government and having observed Rudd, it is very clear that the government is just too big to be micromanaged out of the PM's office. What happened with Kevin, ... because he was doing that, decisions just weren't being taken."

Turnbull says proper cabinet decision-making is critical, not least because of the diversity in senior Coalition ranks, "a group of people with experience inside ... and outside government."

Pressed on Abbott's sincerity about running a proper Westminster cabinet government, Turnbull replies: "I have absolutely no reason to doubt it." Asked about himself and Abbott, he says they should project "as a team, absolutely" and "the more we do this, the better".

This leads to three perspectives. Most senior ministers agree with Turnbull because they know Abbott's style is to consult, yet they fret about obsessive control coming from his personal office, undermining this pledge.

Turnbull puts a high priority on the cabinet system because it is the key to securing his own influence at the table across a number of portfolios where his intellectual range is unmatched among senior ministers.

Finally, Turnbull's judgment is correct that the great historical lesson from the Labor experience is to return to a more orthodox form of cabinet government.

Ruminating after the interview, Turnbull recalls the famous remark by an ageing Duke of Wellington who, after his first cabinet meeting as prime minister, declared: "An extraordinary affair. I gave them their orders and they wanted to stay and discuss them."

Abbott accepts Turnbull's loyalty at face value. He assumes Turnbull has decided his future leadership prospects depend on the Coalition winning office this year, with any future leadership change coming when it is in government.

"There's no point pretending," Turnbull says. "Of course there's a lot of people out there who think I should be leader and prefer me to Tony Abbott. But that's not going to happen. A lot of people feel that way about Rudd v Gillard. But the big difference is, if you vote Liberal, I'm part of the team. If you vote Labor and Gillard wins, Kevin is still in Siberia."

Naturally Turnbull enjoys the flood of emails he gets saying he should be PM and the regular Q&A audience appeals to the same effect. "You just have to accept the compliment," he says.

But reality then kicks in: "This is not spin, Paul, we've known each other for a long time. I think the chances of me leading the party again are very, very low. That's my judgment. They're very low; they're not zero. Politics is full of chances."

For Turnbull, this is a healthy outlook: assume it won't happen but don't blow out your candle.

Meanwhile, the sensitivity of Abbott's office about Turnbull was revealed in its recent veto on Turnbull appearing on the Nine Network's Today. Since then, Abbott has said he has no problems with Turnbull doing long-format appearances on shows such as such as ABC1's Q&A. This is sensible. If Abbott is seen to be muzzling Turnbull, that merely speaks to his own insecurity.

Turnbull's immediate focus is the communications ministry and the NBN, his responsibilities from September if Abbott wins. His comments should send a chill through the Labor Party.

Turnbull says the message of the NBN policy he will launch with Abbott is that "we will complete it (NBN) sooner, cheaper and, as a consequence, it will be more affordable.

"We would not have gone about this task of upgrading Australia's broadband by establishing a government-owned telecommunications company," Turnbull says. "That was a profound mistake.

"Having said that, we are where we are. So we will complete the broadband network as cost-effectively as we can. That will mean a change in the technologies used in the urban areas - we won't be running fibre into every premise, the cost and time involved to do that is completely out of proportion to the benefits derived."

Turnbull will impose full disclosure on Labor's NBN model: "The first thing we will do is to publish a clear analysis of how much it will cost in terms of time and dollars to complete the network under the current strategy. I predict people will be very shocked. I believe the truth will be very ugly, but no one should be afraid of the truth."

The second step he intends is another analysis showing how much can be saved by varying the strategy. His game plan is to meet consumer demands at a fraction of the cost and time without taking the fibre into premises.

The Coalition will take whatever step is required to prevent any future government repeating the NBN financial blunder. Turnbull says: "This is the biggest infrastructure project in the nation's history. It is vital to implement Coalition policy to ensure there is no major future project invested in by the commonwealth without a ... rigorous cost-benefit analysis."

How long might Turnbull stay as communications minister if the Coalition wins? Nobody knows. When asked, however, how long it will take to fix the NBN, Turnbull shoots back: "I think it will take, to get the NBN sorted out and on the right track, between 12 and 24 months." That's fast. He makes clear that completing the network would obviously take much longer.

Turnbull will hit the ground running. His nomination of a specific 12 to 24 months suggests he will get itchy ministerial feet before Abbott's first term is finished. That would surprise nobody. Turnbull's commitment to working with Abbott as a team player is genuine but must be set in context: once back in office, his ambition would quickly run beyond the communications portfolio.

These days, Turnbull radiates a reconciliation far removed from the 2009 traumas when he lost the leadership to Abbott. "These political setbacks can often destroy people," he says. "They become filled with bitterness and hatred and it starts to consume them. It is terribly easy to do that. If you can, you've got to rise above it and draw some lessons from it, and if you can do that, it will make you a better person."

What lesson has Turnbull learned? "I think to be more measured, less rash, less hasty; you know, not allow yourself to be caught up in the frenzy of the political maelstrom."

He says he has no option but to be himself. "A lot of people in public life - I regret to say I think Julia Gillard is an example - essentially become their own creation," Turnbull says. "You have all these advisers who say, wear this, do this, go there, sleep at the Rooty Hill RSL, and you're essentially trying to be something you're not.

"This is why gay marriage is so damaging for Gillard. On the surface, Abbott and Gillard have the same view on gay marriage. Abbott's position is thoroughly credible; he may be wrong but he's sincerely wrong. Gillard's position is completely unbelievable. Her position just speaks to insincerity."

Reflecting on his belief that Liberal governments are incompatible with a presidential style, Turnbull says this is not the case with Labor. Rudd ran as a presidential candidate and the public elected him on that basis. This, he argues, is one reason the public was so hostile to Gillard's takeover. The people, without consent, were losing President Rudd. Labor didn't get it.