Venom

by David Crowe

  Cormann wanted to convince Turnbull to admit defeat but needed more help. He found two cabinet ministers, Michaelia Cash and Mitch Fifield, who were willing to join him in a delegation to Turnbull’s office at 4.30 p.m. to tell him he no longer had a majority. Together, they pressed him to do what Cormann had asked earlier: arrange an orderly transition and convene another meeting of the party room to choose a new leader.9 Again, Turnbull refused to submit to this pressure.

  ‘This is terrorism,’ Turnbull told them.10

  Cormann did not disagree but argued they had no choice but to concede the numbers were against Turnbull and a new leader should be named. The trio backed Dutton.

  ‘Why give in to terrorism?’ Turnbull responded.

  In Turnbull’s account, the reply from Cormann was a surrender: ‘We have to give in.’

  Turnbull saw this challenge as an insurgency from the right of the party, fomented by Abbott and urged on by conservatives in the media with Dutton as their chosen figurehead. To him, this was an illegitimate putsch because the conservatives did not have a majority and were using intimidation and bullying to force the outcome they wanted. Turnbull completely rejected this delegation and its plea for another party room meeting.

  The loss of Cash and Fifield stung more than other desertions. Turnbull had promoted both to his cabinet after replacing Abbott. He had helped Cash during the last months of the Abbott government when she was scrambling, as the Minister for Women, to secure funding for a $100 million package to stop violence against women and children. The approval and announcement of the policy was one of Turnbull’s first statements as Prime Minister. He had made Cash the Employment Minister and defended her when she faced an investigation into the way her office tipped off the media about a police raid on the Australian Workers’ Union.

  Fifield had been integral to Turnbull’s challenge three years earlier as a senior member of the conservative side of the Liberal Party’s Victorian division, demonstrating the loss of support for Abbott within his own base by walking into the ballot alongside Turnbull. He had risen to cabinet as Communications Minister to run the national broadband network and, in a difficult Senate negotiation, amended media ownership laws to allow more corporate mergers. These two ministers had gained status and influence from the rise of Turnbull; in the end, they would not risk either to save him.

  The clamour in the conservative media grew louder as rumours spread that Cormann had resigned. Some commentators were so exhilarated at the idea of defeating Turnbull they ran from the grandstand and onto the field, where they threw themselves into the game. Alan Jones was calling MPs to urge them to vote against Turnbull.11 ‘This is critical stuff, you’ve really got to think about this, the party’s got to change direction,’ he said. Jones also spread misinformation, deliberately or not, that heightened the sense of chaos and conveyed the assumption that Turnbull had lost his majority. ‘Get ready. Party room meeting tonight. Goodbye Malcolm who doesn’t have the numbers,’ Jones posted on Twitter at 6.13 p.m. It was not true. The chief whip, Nola Marino, confirmed there was no meeting, but her words could not stop the bedlam.

  Abbott expressed sadness at the crisis. ‘I want to see the era of the political assassin end,’ he said on 2GB, before adding some fine print to his declaration. ‘I also want to see the best possible government.’ He said he had not done a deal for a promotion. On Sky News, Peta Credlin dismissed the idea that Dutton had been plotting for months. ‘Ask the base and they’ll tell you this shambles of a mess is of Turnbull’s own making,’ she said. Andrew Bolt was surprised the Liberals did not turn to Abbott as leader when Dutton had gone into the leadership challenge without a clear idea of what he would do differently from Turnbull.

  ‘Good luck to Peter Dutton, I like him,’ said Bolt soon after 7 p.m. ‘He could actually be good. But on days like this, you think that the Liberals just need to go up in flames now, and hope that from the ashes something good can once more grow.’ The party’s professed supporters seem to will it to self-immolation.

  The day was ending with Turnbull battered by the loss of his company tax policy and Dutton bruised by his rushed proposal to remove the GST from electricity bills, an idea described by Morrison as an ‘absolute budget blower’ that would cost $7.5 billion over four years. The Dutton campaign lacked a compelling policy message to justify its assault on the leadership, but this did not stop a sudden escalation in its push for an urgent party room meeting. The new pressure point was a formal letter being signed by Liberal MPs to demand another ballot. Reports of the petition appeared on social media and online news sites after the six o’clock and seven o’clock television news bulletins.

  Dutton’s allies spread word of the petition in the expectation that Turnbull could not refuse a meeting when presented with a formal request. They based their calculation on history: five years earlier, Julia Gillard had agreed to a Labor caucus meeting to vote on her prime ministership after her challenger, Kevin Rudd, gained support in a petition said to be circulating among MPs. The rumour of the petition spread so quickly on Wednesday, 26 June 2013, that she appeared on Sky News to announce a meeting.12 Yet Gillard never saw the petition. It was never released and nobody was ever certain who signed it. Spooked by this piece of paper, Gillard lost the ballot by 45 to 57 votes at seven o’clock that night.

  Joel Fitzgibbon, the Labor Shadow Minister for Agriculture and one of Rudd’s numbers men five years earlier, knew all about the petition and was willing to offer help to those in need. One of Dutton’s allies asked for Fitzgibbon’s advice on Tuesday night while one of Morrison’s supporters discussed the same subject with him on Wednesday morning. The Labor frontbencher, a senior figure in the New South Wales right, expressed surprise the Liberals had few rules to govern the situation they now faced, but the party room lacked the structure of the Labor caucus, which has an elected chair to run meetings. Fitzgibbon thought they did not need a rule and told them a petition could work. A leader can’t prevent a meeting if the members want one. It was as if he had pointed out a battering ram that lay outside the caucus room door, waiting to be lifted and used on the Liberal party room at the other end of the corridor.

  Dutton launched the petition when Turnbull refused to listen to Cormann. If the leader would not agree to a meeting, the challenger would force one. Dutton’s lieutenants fanned out through the building, each of them carrying a separate piece of paper, to convince their colleagues to sign the document and demand a meeting that could decide the leadership before Parliament rose on Thursday night for a two-week recess. Those charged with getting signatures on the petition included Andrew Hastie from Western Australia, Tony Pasin from South Australia, Michael Sukkar from Victoria, Jason Wood from Victoria and Victorian Senator James Paterson. Progress was slow. Liberals were reluctant to put their names to a document that might be made public and used against them by proving to voters they had brought down a Prime Minister. Hastie discovered this when he approached Queensland MP Trevor Evans with a manila folder that held the piece of paper and a list of names.

  ‘That? I’m not signing that,’ said Evans. ‘That is a suicide note.’ The assumption that Queensland MPs wanted Turnbull torn down was not as simple as it looked. Evans represented the marginal seat of Brisbane, north of the river from New Farm to Paddington and up to Newmarket. He was not alone in rejecting this new tactic. Liberal MPs began to leave the building and openly dismissed the petition when asked by journalists about the rumours of a meeting that night. Another Queenslander, Bert van Manen, who held the seat of Forde by just 0.63 per cent, told reporters to be careful with ‘fake news’ about a second ballot.13 Jane Prentice, an ally of Turnbull who had won and held the outer-Brisbane seat of Ryan at three elections, said she heard there were only nine signatures on the document. What did she think of the petition? ‘I think people should stop thinking about themselves and start thinking about the people of Australia,’ she said.

  Turnbull had to be ready for another vote while doing every
thing to prevent it happening. He called Arthur Sinodinos in Sydney soon after sunset to discuss whether his friend and ally, one of the group that propelled him into the leadership years earlier, could come to Canberra to help again. Turnbull told him the vote could be close. There could even be one vote in it. Sinodinos had been on medical leave since September after being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, but the exhausting cancer treatment, including chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant several months earlier, would not stop him. ‘I’ll come down,’ he said.14

  Morrison’s supporters were careful to keep their plans to themselves as they called to gauge the level of support for Turnbull and to gently raise the idea of elevating the Treasurer to Prime Minister. Scott Briggs, the businessman and former Liberal Party official, called Michael Photios, the lobbyist and influential leader among the party’s moderate wing in New South Wales, to have a conversation with only one purpose. It was an overture to swing the moderate faction behind Morrison, long before there was any agreement that Morrison would run. Cray learnt of the call and interrupted a six o’clock meeting between Turnbull, Pyne and Morrison in Turnbull’s office to ask the Treasurer what he or his lieutenants were up to. Morrison denied a plan to secure votes. Briggs called Cray soon afterwards to insist he was loyal to Turnbull.

  Morrison told a supporter shortly before seven o’clock he would not move while Turnbull remained leader and other MPs should take the same approach. ‘I’m not in,’ he messaged. ‘They need to stay with MT.’15 Morrison gathered his closest allies that night at the Kingston foreshore apartment he shared with Stuart Robert and Steve Irons to discuss strategy over pizza.

  Cray tried again to save the government by seeing the one person with enough authority to stop the bloodlust. She sent a message to Cormann to suggest they hold their usual conversation over a glass of wine at the end of a day in Parliament. She walked to his office just before 8 p.m. Nine frenetic hours had passed since Cormann had told Cray and Bold the tide was against them, but Cray was still sure he was wrong. She told him the Dutton lieutenants kept exaggerating their numbers, just as they had on the eve of the party room meeting when they told the media they had a majority.

  ‘They are having you on,’ Cray said. She went through the names that might have shifted to Dutton as well as names she thought had come back to Turnbull, but Cormann would not relent. He was quieter than usual. Cray had encouraged the rise of Cormann to a position of enormous power in the government, making him a trusted minister to Turnbull, but she worried that her support for this senior conservative had harmed her relationships with the moderates of the party, not least Bishop, Brandis, Pyne and Birmingham. For all her personal friendship with Cormann over the years, she now saw that this rescue attempt had failed.

  ‘It will always be the betrayal by Cormann that cut me the most,’ she said later.16

  James McGrath felt sure enough of the leadership outcome to burn his bridges at the very time Cray and Cormann were debating the numbers. McGrath had given up on Turnbull and his office and believed another ballot was the only way to end the excruciating pain of a failing government. The Queensland Senator had sided with Dutton and offered his resignation as an assistant minister within hours of the Tuesday ballot, only to have the offer rejected. Now he visited Turnbull again to insist he accept the resignation. McGrath followed the discussion with a public statement that heaped pressure on the Prime Minister to face up to his loss of support in the party room. At 8.02 p.m. he posted his resignation letter on Facebook to set out his alarm at the loss of support for the Liberal National Party in his home state.

  ‘The people who have for all their lives counted on us to look after them and their families are now questioning our commitment to them,’ McGrath said in his resignation letter to Turnbull. ‘Our people feel forgotten, ignored, and spoken down to. As a Liberal National Party Senator for Queensland, this is an intolerable situation. As I have said to you previously, my most important job is that of a Liberal National Party Senator for Queensland. The values of the Liberal National Party and its members and supporters must always come first — before my career and yours. We must always stand up for our people.’

  Greg Hunt was not ready to do the same. Within minutes of McGrath’s post, the Health Minister denied any knowledge of the petition and said he supported Turnbull. ‘I haven’t seen anything, I haven’t signed anything, and to this moment I’m not aware of it,’ he said of the petition when a camera crew found him in the Mural Hall.17 ‘I set out my position in Question Time today and my position has not changed. The Prime Minister has my support.’ It was another moment of utter bewilderment. A minister who had voted against Turnbull declared support for him at the very time Liberals were telling journalists he would run for deputy on a ticket with Dutton. The challenge blended confusion and duplicity to create chaos.

  The wandering tribes of the party room were hungry for certainty when the government was hurtling towards another confrontation and Dutton’s lieutenants were putting pressure on their colleagues to join their cause. Sarah Henderson, the member for Corangamite, one of the government’s most marginal seats, was offered a ministry if she abandoned Turnbull and supported Dutton.18 She rejected the offer and said her voters would not have forgiven this ‘act of treachery’ if she had agreed: ‘Imagine the disgust of the people I represent.’

  The moderate wing of the party formed a group to stick together. Paul Fletcher, the Minister for Urban Infrastructure and a long Turnbull supporter from the New South Wales division, set up the group with a benign name and a social purpose. He called it Sensible Friends and created it on WhatsApp, the messaging service that was an essential application on every politician’s mobile phone, with an invitation to drinks in his office that night. Among those invited were Julia Banks, Simon Birmingham, Richard Colbeck, Chris Crewther, Lucy Gichuhi, Sarah Henderson, Jane Hume, Craig Laundy, Julian Leeser, Kelly O’Dwyer, Marise Payne, Jane Prentice, Melissa Price, Christopher Pyne, Anne Ruston, Scott Ryan, Tony Smith and Trent Zimmerman.

  Some shared stories in Fletcher’s office of the pressure they were under to decide between Turnbull and Dutton as well as the undeclared candidate, Morrison. One of them, Hume, was exposed because her position on the party’s Senate ticket in Victoria had not been confirmed. The uncertainty over her future had been prolonged by the Victorian conservatives all year. The state division had endorsed all members of the lower house as candidates at the next election, but had not done so for Hume and her fellow Victorian Senator, Paterson. As someone who had voted for same sex marriage, Hume was vulnerable to a challenge from conservatives led by Sukkar and his friend Marcus Bastiaan, a party vice president who had gained power throughout the division by recruiting members from church groups. Sukkar and Bastiaan had demonstrated their strength months earlier by defending Michael Kroger, the Victorian party president, against a challenge. The same influence could be brought to bear on Hume with a simple calculation: she could vote for Dutton and guarantee six more years in the Senate, or she could stick with Turnbull and be thrown out by the Right.

  The group in Fletcher’s office heard Hume talk of phone calls she had taken that day from Kroger, who wanted her to know the advantage to her own prospects from switching camps. Hume had put a question to him: ‘Is this the state president of the Victorian division telling me how to vote?’ Kroger replied that it was not; he was simply talking to her as a friend. Yet the message was clear: to vote for Turnbull was to put her political career at risk after years of work to enter Parliament.

  Stories like this spread among the guests in Fletcher’s office by the time Turnbull arrived with a short message for them all, summed up in three words. Hold your nerve. The long hours, and the contrast of pleasant drinks with brutal politics, made everyone anxious. One of the MPs put words to the frustration: ‘I’m sick of walking around with champagne when Rome is burning.’ The support for the Prime Minister did not seem strong enough. Hume said as much in a conversation wit
h Turnbull.

  ‘Where are my ministers?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m here,’ said Laundy. So was O’Dwyer. But Frydenberg arrived late, looking wretched, and Tehan did not attend. Fifield and Cash were not there, even though many MPs had no inkling as to why they were absent.

  The Prime Minister’s dinner that Wednesday night was chilli con carne in his office with those he could trust: Lucy, Michael McCormack, Pyne, Cray and Banks.

  Those loyal to Turnbull were feeling outnumbered.

  12

  OVER THE PRECIPICE

  THURSDAY 23 AUGUST

  DUTTON CALLED TURNBULL SOON after 7.30 on the morning of 23 August to set off a sequence of events that were intended to demolish the Prime Minister’s last defences. He told Turnbull he had lost control of the party room and should allow a ballot within hours to decide the leadership. Turnbull refused on the grounds he had not seen the petition. The two men were at a stand-off, but Turnbull had one advantage: whoever signed the petition, the Prime Minister decided whether to call a meeting. He also chose its timing. Dutton wanted a meeting as soon as possible in the belief he had the numbers to succeed and should use them before Liberals had time to return to their electorates and think through their decisions over time. Rather than slowing down, he rushed towards a ballot. So began one of the most demented days in Australian politics, a day when competing politicians pursued their ambitions with such brutal force they broke their party room and opened the doors of Parliament to total chaos.

  Turnbull believed Dutton was holding the government to ransom and told him so that morning, before delivering an extraordinary warning: the party room confrontation was escalating into a constitutional crisis. Turnbull told Dutton he had spoken to the Governor-General, Sir Peter Cosgrove, and informed him that Dutton’s eligibility to sit in Parliament was a grave issue. Were Dutton to be elected leader, he added, he would be plunging the government into a constitutional crisis on a scale not seen since 1975. He told Dutton he should refer himself to the High Court. Dutton refused.