Turnbull is far too insignificant to qualify as a right rat

Malcolm Turnbull, centre, may end up being the Liberal Party’s cross between Mark Latham, right, and Kevin Rudd, left, more annoying than damaging to the party that propelled him to power.

Though the term is used loosely, there have been only a handful of political rats in Australian politics. These men had power and influence and inflicted serious damage on their party.

Measured against history, those whispering that Malcolm Turnbull is one of the country’s newest political rats are wrong. He may have become prime minister but he is more Mark Latham than Billy Hughes. Simply put, Turnbull’s influence is too minor to qualify him as a political rat in the history books.

Turnbull’s legacy is grim. A few policy wins cannot hide the fact he reduced the Liberal Party to a one-seat majority at the 2016 election after Tony Abbott delivered a thumping 14-seat win in 2013.

Turnbull then helped take the last seat from the Morrison government at the weekend by-election in Wentworth. Call it closing the deal by a man who proved himself ill-suited as a team player or leader of the country. Turnbull rates as an incompetent prime minister, not a political rat.

Billy Hughes became Labor prime minister in 1915, fell out with Labor over conscription, then split the party by taking others with him. That qualifies him as a political rat. Joseph Lyons quit the Labor Party in 1931 over economic policy, crossed the floor, joined other defectors to form the new United Australia Party and became prime minister. Given the damage done to Labor, Lyons earns a ranking in the history books as a political rat. Jack Lang’s remarkable influence made him a Labor rat until his protege Paul Keating fought to have him re-­admitted to the ALP in 1973.

As ANU historian Benjamin T. Jones wrote this year: “Ultimately the worst rats are the ones that do the worst damage. Hughes and Lyons instigated the first two Labor splits in 1916 and 1931. Collectively the Groupers who forced the 1955 split complete the trident of Labor rats.” To call Turnbull a political rat is to suggest that like these great figures from Australian history, he fought big ideological battles inspiring deep loyalty among rebels in his own party. Turnbull only has Craig Laundy.

There are plenty of other minor political rascals, people like Mal Colston, Cheryl Kernot or Peter Slipper, who deserted their parties and disappeared into the political ether. And other failed leaders who snipe from the sidelines long past their use-by dates, people like John Hewson and Malcolm Fraser. They inflicted no real damage on their old parties.

Labelling Latham a political rat elevates him to a level he doesn’t deserve. A more apt description is failed Labor leader, a bitter man still searching for a new political home. Sure, he turned on former colleagues in his vituperative diary, but he hardly dented the Labor Party given the election win just a few years later. And Latham’s present political shenanigans, bouncing between Liberal branch meetings, the Liberal Democrats and One Nation, are more about feeding his relevance deprivation syndrome.

Kevin Rudd cannot fairly be classified as a political rat or a failure. He won an election where Kim Beazley failed. Post-politics, the globetrotting Rudd is more a political pest popping up on his favourite platforms, even causing political elites in Washington DC to tire of him.

The danger zone for Turnbull is somewhere between Latham and Rudd. Turnbull won’t be flirting with Pauline Hanson or fronting Sky News but he shares Latham’s media addiction and will seek out his own gaggle of friendly media platforms. Turnbull may end up being the Liberal Party’s cross between Latham and Rudd, more annoying than damaging to the party that propelled him to power.

It is rash to label him a political rat. Certainly, his behaviour, like Latham’s, is often undignified given the support he received from the Liberal Party. Turnbull was supported in his 2004 run for Wentworth by John Howard. That was after Turnbull spat the dummy after the republican referendum, famously calling Howard the man who broke the nation’s heart. Ever the statesman, Howard was big enough make Turnbull a minister. The Liberal Party elected Turnbull leader of the party twice, first as opposition leader then as prime minister. After losing more than 30 Newspolls in a row, a KPI used to turf Abbott, Turnbull was replaced too. Amid media hand-wringing over Turnbull’s downfall, remember he called the first leadership spill and his closest supporters enabled the second deadly one. Turnbull quit parliament, deserting the party that took him into high office.

It didn’t stop there. Turnbull anointed Dave Sharma, a political newbie and Wentworth outsider, to replace him. Then Turnbull deserted Sharma in a tough battle against the high-profile, politically canny Kerryn Phelps. Turnbull’s legacy may record that he used Sharma as a pawn to ensure Wentworth was lost. Many suspect that strategic leaks against the Morrison government, the worst suggesting the government supported discrimination against gay students, came from the Turnbull camp. Then a stream of tweets and interviews from Turnbull’s son, who, poor lad, may have inherited the worst of Turnbull genes.

Turnbull could have said, ‘‘I love my son but disagree with his criticism of a great party that allowed me to become prime minister”.’ Instead, silence. And every entreaty from Morrison down, from friends and colleagues asking Turnbull to publicly support Sharma in the final days of the campaign, were met with more brooding Turnbull temperament.

It is important to place Turnbull in the correct cohort of former leaders and prime ministers. He has shown little inclination to aim for the Howard end of the leaders loyal to their party. To date, Turnbull prefers the company of vengeful bad losers. Once Turnbull is correctly classified, the direction of the Morrison government becomes much clearer. It must settle on policies that resonate with middle Australia, not Wentworth.

Turnbull was incompetent in politics because he misunderstood the country. A few years before he was prime minister, Turnbull and I disagreed over his expensive climate change policies that promised to hike up the price of energy. I said it was electoral madness for a Liberal. He looked at me with furrowed brow as if he felt sorry for me and said something along the lines of, “Janet, you just don’t understand Wentworth. The people here love me, and Wentworth is just like the rest of Australia.” It was early days, and living in Wentworth I didn’t doubt that some loved having Turnbull as their local candidate. But I did suggest, with a laugh, that the rest of his political analysis was a joke. ­Except Turnbull wasn’t joking.

Though bruised and battered from stupid own-goals and Turnbull’s incompetence as leader, the Liberal Party will be stronger and wiser if it learns from his failures rather than obsesses about his ranking as a political rat. Turnbull’s political influence doesn’t stretch far enough for him to be mentioned in the same breath as Hughes, Lyons or Lang.

[e-mail]