Malcolm Turnbull Predicted Peter Dutton Would Do “Enormous Damage” To Australia In His Memoir
"Dutton, were he to become prime minister, would run off to the right with a divisive, dog-whistling, anti-immigration agenda."
If leadership spills are our national sport, then ex-PM’s heaping shit on their former colleagues who turfed them out is kinda like our Olympics.
Ex-PM Malcolm Turnbull has carried on that proud tradition since losing the top job two years ago — he’s previously shaded the government on climate change, described Scott Morrison as the Steven Bradbury of politics and started following an Instagram page dedicated to getting Tony Abbott voted out at the election.
If you’re looking to get stuck into more petty drama, you’re in luck — today Turnbull officially released his new memoir A Bigger Picture, although thanks to a staffer in Scott Morrison’s office who leaked the book last week we’ve already heard a lot of the spicy stories inside its pages.
One paragraph getting a lot of attention is one where Turnbull literally described Peter Dutton as someone who “would do enormous damage to the social fabric of Australia”.
Yes, even the man who trusted Dutton with one of the most powerful positions in his cabinet — under Turnbull’s leadership the proud conservative was gifted control of the new Home Affairs “super portfolio” — didn’t trust him with the leadership position.
In the memoir Turnbull recalls the moments leading up to his downfall — in case you’ve forgotten, he backed Morrison as his successor after it became clear he had no hope of keeping his job.
At the time Peter Dutton was the other serious contender.
“Morrison was my natural, most likely and best qualified successor and, while more conservative than me on social issues, was, I believed, a responsible, safe pair of hands,” Turnbull wrote in his memoir.
“But Dutton, were he to become prime minister, would run off to the right with a divisive, dog-whistling, anti-immigration agenda, written and directed by Sky News and 2GB, designed to throw red meat to the base.
“With no constraints, Dutton would do enormous damage to the social fabric of Australia. It’s one thing having the tough cop handling border protection and counter-terrorism, but not at the head of our multicultural society.”
Phew. Lucky we didn’t get a divisive, dog-whistling, anti-immigration agenda written and directed by Sky News and 2GB, designed to throw red meat to the base ?
— ?Jonny Gorden? (@JonnyGorden) April 16, 2020
In which Turnbull implicitly describes the Liberal-voting ‘base’ as racists pic.twitter.com/hLUleI8m6A
— Sally Rugg (@sallyrugg) April 18, 2020
It’s brilliant that Malcolm Turnbull didn’t trust Peter Dutton, but still gave him enormous power over our lives.
— The Special BKA (@thespecialbka) April 16, 2020
While it’s interesting to hear someone from the party finally acknowledge Dutton’s obvious anti-immigration agenda, people are less than impressed that it came from the man who expanded Dutton’s powers over immigration, border security and intelligence agencies with the Home Affairs portfolio.