Malcolm Turnbull Calls Kevin Rudd And Tony Abbott Miserable Ghosts In Leaked New York Recording
Malcolm Turnbull's follow up tweet is weird but somehow not surprising.
Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has heavily criticised fellow formers leaders Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott for sticking around in parliament after losing the prime ministership, in a speech from New York.
Speaking at a young leaders’ forum, Turnbull called the two “miserable, miserable ghosts” for damaging successive governments.
“For reasons that they’ve not been able to explain, there was an element of the party and the media that wanted to blow up the government, and they did,” Turnbull can be heard saying in leaked footage, obtained by Nine News’ Chris Uhlmann. “Of course they didn’t get their guy up. They got ScoMo.”
He continued:
“But when you stop being prime minister, that’s it. There’s no way I would be hanging around like Kevin Rudd or Tony Abbott. I mean seriously, these people they are like miserable, miserable ghosts.”
Earlier reports also suggested that Turnbull had said Rudd and Abbott were “hanging around like a lipid” (a class of water insoluble organic compounds that are soluble in organic solvents). On Twitter, Uhlmann clarified that Turnbull had actually said Rudd and Abbott were “hanging around like limpet” (a mollusc that is known for clinging tightly to rocks).
But then Turnbull himself clarified that he had said neither limpet nor lipid, and had instead said “embittered”, as he explained in this extremely confusing tweet:
I hate to spoil a good lipid or limpet (or lipidinous limpet) story – but the adjective mistaken for, variously, an indissoluble fat or a tenacious sea slug is “embittered” I guess an iPhone at 50 paces is not an ideal recording device!
— Malcolm Turnbull (@TurnbullMalcolm) October 1, 2018
Good to know.
Turnbull also said that he would still fight for issues he cared about, if not remaining directly involved in partisan politics.
“I’m not going to become a Trappist monk,” he said. “But my days of being involved in partisan politics are over.”
He singled out energy issues and constitutional matters as two issues he would care about — some commentators, reading between the lines, believe that he was referring to the fight to prevent climate change and the desire for Australia to switch from a constitutional monarchy to a republic.