The Nationals are 'holding a gun to the Liberal Party’s head', says Malcolm Turnbull | Insiders: On Background

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I'm Stephen Stockwell.

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On Tuesday, the coalition split.

By Thursday, olive branches were being offered.

The two parties aren't reunited just yet, but Susan Lee and David Littleproud have met.

They've paused, announcing separate shadow ministries.

The Nationals leader has agreed to stick with shadow cabinet solidarity if they do form a coalition.

The Liberals, for their part, have agreed to consider four policy demands from the Nats.

This breakup may indeed be short-lived.

If the Liberals do agree to these policy demands, they'll be back together.

But is sticking with the Nationals going to help Susan Lee in her effort to modernise the Liberal Party and reconnect with the sensible centre, as she says she wants to do?

Or should the party use this moment to completely rethink its direction without the Nationals?

That's what I'm keen to explore.

Welcome to Insiders on Background.

Former Liberal Prime Ministers John Howard and Tony Abbott have both been urging the coalition to urgently reform this week as the only way to have any chance at returning to government.

But there's another former Prime Minister we haven't heard from, Malcolm Turnbull, who joins me now.

Welcome.

Good to talk to you.

Good to talk to you, David.

So should the Liberals re-enter a coalition agreement now with the Nationals or not?

What are some of the pros and cons here, as you see it?

Well,

if they don't form a coalition or reform the coalition, they are guaranteeing that they've got no prospect of forming a government.

So, you know, if the Libs and the Nats are not in coalition, they're going to be in permanent opposition.

So the answer to the question is, of course they should be in coalition.

But I also think the demands of the National Party here are very, very unreasonable at this stage of the political cycle.

I mean, you know,

the next election's three years away.

You don't know what the economy is going to be like then.

You don't know what anything is going to be like that, really.

And so it's far better to be totally flexible on policy at this stage.

The voters have given their verdict

and have a review.

This is not to say you have no policies, but that you say, you know, we will finalise and formalise our policies closer to the election.

And you can do that as a coalition.

I think this holding a gun to the Liberal Party's head, which is what the Nats are doing, is really, really unwise.

It's stupid politically, because if Susan Lee agrees to it, then

people will say, there you go again, the Liberals are doing, you know, the tail's wagging the dog, the Liberals are doing the Nationals bidding.

I mean, it's just, it is just, this is just so bad politically for them.

So unwise.

And are you saying that, regardless of the specifics of these four policies, you're just saying any policies right now should not be locked in at the very start of what's going to be a difficult parliamentary term.

Or are you saying the four specific policies the Nats are demanding are problematic?

Well, look,

David Littleproud has watered down the demand on nuclear to instead of having said of the truly crazy idea of saying the government should build nine nuclear power stations, which was seven, was it?

Okay, well, seven was a nine, it was equally friendless,

but it was a bad idea and friendless.

To he's now saying

the federal Commonwealth law bans on nuclear

developments should be lifted.

Look, I think

most people would say there's no reason to maintain those bans.

They were imposed during the Howard government as part of a deal in the Senate to get support in the Senate.

I don't think there's no prospect of anyone in the private sector ever building a nuclear power station here.

So if that's

that would be something that would be easy to agree to.

But things like the $20 billion regional fund,

you know, you don't know what the budget's going to be looking like in three years' time.

I mean,

that could be very affordable or it could be utterly economically reckless.

So why would you lock yourself into that now?

That's something that you should be, a policy that you should, you know, formulating closer to the election.

And of course, that's the way it's normally done.

You know, David, I've signed a couple of these coalition agreements, and they're all basically the same.

They say nothing about policy.

See, that's worse.

This is interesting.

Your agreements didn't include any policy.

They just meant to, one, here's your share of the front pitch basically.

They basically all be, obviously I haven't seen the ones that Morrison

signed, let alone Dutton, but

they've, in my experience, they've all been pretty much the same words.

And they say, you know, the parties will consult.

The parties nonetheless have the ability to go their own way on particular policies if they choose.

Do they say anything about shadow cabinet having to stick together?

Well, that's, yes, absolutely.

Of course they do.

Yeah, I mean, whether it's the cabinet or the shadow cabinet,

it's collective responsibility.

Of course, they've got to stick together.

Yes, it does say that.

Well,

that's inherent.

But the main things are,

you you know, ministries and chairmanships of committees and so forth are distributed in accordance with the relative share of the parties in the coalition party room.

The leader of the Nationals is the deputy prime minister when they're in government.

But the deputy leader of the Liberal Party is the deputy opposition leader when they're in opposition.

It's all mechanical stuff.

It's all processed stuff, not totally stuff.

Totally.

Totally processed stuff.

This is not to say that deals on policy are not done, they are, but they're not actually in the coalition agreement, you know, the famously secret coalition agreement.

I mean,

it probably would have been better to just publish it because it's not.

Yeah, I was going to ask, why does it have to be?

I've no idea.

It always has been.

Is that the Nats prefer it to be secret?

I don't...

No one's really wanted it that much,

to be honest.

But coming back to the...

Because anyone that was familiar with it knew there was nothing in it.

Okay, coming back to these demands, though,

$20 billion regional fund, I hear what you're saying about, you know, the budget's already in deficit, we don't know how bad things are going to get.

But isn't there always a price to keeping the coalition together, to keeping the Nats and the Libs in one tent?

Don't the Libs always have to offer the Nats a bit of something, whether it's dams or whatever it is?

Yeah, well,

and vice versa.

I mean, that's a coalition and there's got to be compromise.

And part, the whole, you know, Parliament is set up as a place for compromising and doing deals and reaching consensus.

So, yes, of course, but I'm just saying that locking yourself into policies at the beginning of a term of opposition

just doesn't seem to me to make any sense because then

let's say you

say that it's decided for very good reasons that this particular policy is no longer appropriate, then you'll be accused of doing backflips and so forth.

You're much better off saying, look,

we took all these policies to the election when we were hoping to become the government.

We're now in the opposition, so our policies are of

academic interest only until such time as we get close to the election.

We're going to work on our policies, consult widely, and then closer to the election, we will formulate our policies and set them out.

And that's what people normally do.

Yeah, I guess on these four policies, they may not end up being in the technical, in the document, the agreement, the coalition agreement, but clearly the Nats want some some sort of commitment on them.

Do you think the Libs should agree to

these demands as a price for keeping the coalition together?

Whether it's in this formal agreement or just a separate sort of, yep, we're going to do these things.

Well, look,

I think the Nats should back off, frankly, but

if the

The only basis on which you could agree on them is on the basis that they are subject to review and there is no guarantee that they will be the policies you take to the election, which means, of course, that the commitment is meaningless.

Well, that's the thing.

But

this is why

this is a fight about nothing.

It's as though

they've just done enormous self-harm for no purpose at all.

Yeah, the Nationals, by blowing this up in this way, they've done, it's just, it,

Anyway, there it is.

Well, okay, but if Susan Lee agrees to these demands, whether in the agreement or just gives some sort of commitment verbally or in writing, are you saying she is then immediately a weakened leader at the outset?

Well, she will be, that's what her critics will accuse her of being.

I mean, you know, the Labor Party will say this is...

And

a lot of people will say the Liberals are just dancing to the Nationals tune, you know, voting.

That's what you'd say as well?

Well, I wouldn't say that, but that's because I'm

far too polite.

But yeah, but I mean, it's like it's a very obvious thing to say.

I mean, Europe, you know, how many times have there been elections, for example, where

in Liberal seats, in seats, say in South Australia, where the Liberals were trying to hold a seat or win a seat, the Labor Party would turn up with posters of Barnaby Joyce and say, this is the guy that you're really talking about.

You know, this was particularly when water was a big issue.

So

the fact is you've

got to live with the Nats.

The Nats, Libs have got to live with the Nats and vice versa.

Well this comes back to the fact that they're not going to be able to do that if the Liberals are looking like being, if they're looking like

being written and script is being written and directed by the National Party, that absolutely does not help them.

So, I mean, you did seem to argue at the start, though, they have to stay in coalition to have any chance of being in government.

But can the Liberal Party modernise, as Susan Lee keeps saying she wants to do, to reflect a modern Australia,

which includes clearly

a credible position on climate change.

Of course it does.

If they're in a coalition with the Nats.

Well, yes, it can be, but you see, the process has got to be one where policies are arrived at together.

in the coalition party room, in the coalition shadow cabinet,

with everybody respecting everybody else, not with one side, which is the situation at the moment, holding a gun to the head of the other and saying we're not going to be in the coalition unless you agree to these policies.

See, this is the thing.

It's the National Party is treating the Liberal Party with zero respect and trying to stand over them.

And if Susan Lee goes along with it, then, look, I'm not going to go out there saying it, but you know as well as I do, we've both been around a while.

Everybody else will be saying they are just, this is just yet another case of the tail wagging the dog.

And

that's going to be bad for both of them because there's not much joy in opposition.

As our mutual friend Christopher Pine used to say, the best, sorry, the worst day in government is better than the best day in opposition.

But can the Liberals reach the Sensible Centre, win back the women, the young voters, all these demographics that they lost, Metropolitan Australia, where they've been wiped out.

Sure.

Can they do this with

the coalition?

Well,

I don't think the Nationals are the problem per se, by the way.

So let's, you know,

let's not.

Let's go there.

We haven't lost the media.

So why the Liberals lost so badly in this election?

Look, the right wing of the party.

and their backers in the right-wing media, in the Murdoch media in particular, which is the ecosystem, the angertainment ecosystem in which the right wing wing of politics exists nowadays, they got what they wanted.

They got Peter Dutton as the leader and they got control of the party and they have burnt it to the ground.

So, you know, we just should reflect on this, you know, Tony Abbott, Peter Credlin, you know, Boris Whitaker, your old colleague at Sky News, all of these characters, you know, Lachlan Murdoch, all of the people that are involved in that right-wing sort of echo chamber ecosystem, which is where these, where sadly the right wing of politics now largely operates, they got exactly what they wanted.

They got the people they wanted and they got control and the Australian public said no.

And it was a massive rejection.

I mean I haven't checked all the stats beneath Anthony Greene, but I've never seen a party in an election campaign go backwards so much in the course of the campaign.

you know, in the like in the five weeks of the campaign.

A few months out from the campaign, I know.

Correct, I know.

And what happened was people started to focus on Dutton and the message.

And of course, you know,

who is the big Uber hero of that right-wing angertainment system?

Donald Trump.

And, you know, that was,

you know, Dutton was channeling Trump.

And,

initially, a few months ago, three months ago, of course, people were saying, oh, Dutton will be better as Prime Minister because he'll be able to get on with Trump, whereas Albanese won't be as good as sucking up to him, as good at sucking up to Trump.

Then people started to realise that this Donald Trump capital was actually not that attractive at all and actually was...

harming Australia with the tariffs and so forth and threats to the global economy.

And so

that's what you ended up with.

But so ultimately the problem for the Liberal Party is that they're currently now, not every one of them, but most of them are now living in that right-wing media ecosystem, which is all about culture wars and

turning issues that should be economic and practical issues into culture war issues.

And this is what they've ended up with.

And of course now, as you know,

what are they saying?

What are these opinion leaders saying?

They're saying, oh, no, the problem with Dutton was he didn't go far enough.

He wasn't Trumpy enough.

He wasn't right-wing enough.

Which is what they said about Scomo when he lost in 22.

So this is why I say, David, one of the great

fallacies in politics, probably in life generally, is things can't get any worse.

They always can.

That's a depressing note for the Liberals.

It is where they are right now.

Where they are right now.

We obviously had a leadership vote there a week or so ago.

Susan Lee prevailed over Angus Taylor, but not by a huge margin.

The numbers might even shift a bit when the Senate changes and so on.

Are the internal differences in the Liberal Party alone able to be resolved over things like nuclear net zero and so on?

Well, I mean,

if you the problem is that you've I don't I don't know whether there are enough differences in there.

You see,

there are hardly any moderates left.

A lot of them lost their seats in 22.

More of them lost their seats in the last election.

So,

you know, the Liberal Party, the Liberal,

the bluest ribbon Liberal seats in Sydney are now, look like every single one of them, will be held.

by

independent smaller liberal women who are progressive on climate.

So when you hear Susan Lee say she wants to modernise and reach the sensible centre,

are you saying, well, good luck with that, given the party you've got?

Are you saying it's impossible for her to do that given the way the Liberal Party is today?

I think it's going to be very hard for anyone to do it.

I mean, Susan, of course, was a supporter of Peter Dutton.

I mean, she supported Dutton in the

coup that Dutton

instigated in 2018 against, you know, that brought down my leadership.

Right.

And she, so she was.

Isn't she a moderate, though, Susan Lee?

Well, I don't know.

You can say whatever you are.

You can self-assign political identity, I guess.

But her track record wouldn't suggest that.

But I think, look,

look, I've always got on well with Susan.

She was disappointed when she had to leave my ministry because of a travel.

expenses scandal,

and probably that's why she supported Dutton, I don't know.

But the problem.

Because you had to sack her from the cabinet.

Yeah, well, well, yes, exactly.

Because, you know, these issues are obviously important.

But anyway, leaving that aside,

I think she's, I've known her for years.

I've absolutely, you know, I've always got on well with her.

I like her.

Is she up to the job, though?

Well,

I think

you don't know.

You never know.

I couldn't say yes or no.

But I'd say this,

it's very hard.

I mean, the Liberal Party, the problem is that it's, well, look,

let me give you a case study.

The seat of Indi.

In 2013, notwithstanding a large swing to the Liberal Party, which brought Tony Abbott and the coalition back into government,

Sophie Mirabella was defeated in the seat of Indi by Cathy McGowan, an independent.

And that was clearly a personal vote against Sophie.

You know, people didn't like her,

you know, for whatever reason.

In 2016, as we were coming into the 2016 election, I was concerned, as I was Prime Minister by this stage, that the party should select somebody else other than Sophie to

contest that seat.

But the

non, you know, the more moderate members of the Indi Liberal Party had either been driven out or left or whatever.

And the local party said, no, no, the voters are wrong.

We're going to put Sophie up again.

And of course, what they said was, the electorate said, what part of,

you know, go away did you not understand last time?

And McGowan was re-elected with an increased majority.

And so this is a problem with political parties, that if the, if the, sort of, in this case, the Liberal Party, if the moderate people, the more centrist people,

if they leave, if they drift away and you're attracted and you end up with a party membership that basically consists of people who hang on every word of Sky News after dark as your membership, then it is very hard to change direction.

So this is the, this is, you know, this is this is the real challenge.

And, you know, maybe.

Just coming back, just coming back, I mean, it's a fair point.

Just coming back to your view of Susan Lee, though, I mean, this is someone who sat in your cabinet, right?

Sure, you've worked with Susan Lee, and you're not sure whether she is up to the task of leading the Liberal Party from this very low point.

Well, I'm not sure whether she's up to the task of successfully leading the Liberal Party, but I would say that I don't think there's anyone in the

parliament at the moment.

I can't say, David.

You don't know how world leaders are going to turn out until they get the job.

You know, there are some people who, you know, are very

offer great promise and don't do well and vice versa.

And of course the circle, but the circumstances are very tough because

you see, if you have got a party membership,

both

in the parliament and in the branches,

who see their main goal as winning the approval of

you know, Sky News, 2GB, Murdoch tabloids,

seeking the endorsement there.

And that was absolutely what Dutton did.

Yes, you know, Dutton was very loath to come on the ABC.

He just wanted to go on Sky and 2GB.

That was his comfort zone.

And so, but if

that's what you think your market is, then when you get into an election and you've got to appeal to everybody,

you do very poorly.

I mean, David Crowe, you know, from the Sydney Morning Herald, made a very good point, I thought, after the election when he said in fact the media really should criticise themselves for not having been critical enough of Peter Dutton because if they had been more critical of him he may well have realised that he needed to get out of that comfort zone and engage with the broader scope of the media so that he was regularly you know talking to people like you at the ABC.

I remember him making that point David Crowe was on Insiders morning after the election.

A very

always open to introspection, I think, the media's role in all of this.

Look, Malcolm Turnbull, I also want to ask you about Anthony Albanese right now.

I mean,

he is now in such a rare position of political strength, huge majority in the House, an opposition that's divided and demoralised.

He can arguably use this opportunity to do some difficult reform from a position of political safety.

Do you agree with that?

And how should he be thinking about what he does now with this moment?

Well, look, yes, he's got the opportunity to do more,

but he's got to be very wary of hubris.

And I know Antony very well, as you do, and he is very alert to that.

I mean, we'll never forget the hubris that led John Howard to do work choices,

you know, when he amazingly had a majority in the Senate.

And, you know, whether you think work choices was a good reform or not, it was one for which he did not have an electoral mandate.

And

it was very obviously, that was one of the things that

was fatal to his government that had been re-elected with an increased majority in 2018.

You don't go too far beyond the mandate, even with this.

Well, yeah, look, I think there are always things,

circumstances mean there are always things you're going to have to legislate which you did not take to

the previous election.

But this is where political experience and judgment is important, and Antony's got buckets of both.

So

you've just got to make sure that you are not seen as running off too much,

you know, with the grandeur of the victory that you've won.

Because, you know, it's, look,

I don't take one

iota of credit away from Albanese and the Labor Party for their victory and nobody should.

But, you know, you would have to say that the Liberals

under Dutton

made it very easy for them.

I mean they made that it's difficult to think of any mistakes they didn't make.

Well just finally then Malcolm Turnbull, I mean how pessimistic are you about the survival of the Liberal Party at this point?

I mean people have talked about this existential moment.

Is it that dire or do they survive from here?

Look, I think

political parties generally do survive.

So

I certainly wouldn't say the Liberal Party is doomed.

It doesn't have the institutional solidity and base that the Labor Party has of the trade union movement.

You know, that is the Labor Party, is the political wing of the trade union movement.

That's what it is.

So, it's got that solidity there.

The Liberal Party doesn't have that, but I think it will survive.

I think the

you know, the interesting question is whether the teals

evolve or into a centrist, small L liberal party.

Do you think they will?

Well,

they all profess that they don't want to, I mean, but there are a lot of reasons, not least of which is the Senate,

to do that.

But, you know, there is, you know, when you think, when you look at Sydney and you look at,

you know, McKellar, Warringah, Wentworth, and in all likelihood, Bradfield.

all being held, these all rolled gold blue ribbon safe liberal seats, all now held by independents you say wow i mean what that that that's not the liberal party we should all of us are familiar with and andy i mean you talk to these uh independents should they are you talking to them about that well i i talked to some i know i know some of them very well know uh you know allegora spender for most of her life uh but the um

i uh

No,

of course I've talked to them.

I've actually did it on my own podcast series.

I did an interview with Zali and Allegra a few years ago about this very issue.

But I think

that is the interesting question whether

a new party or parties form because clearly we're now at a point where a third of the electorate are not voting first vote, primary vote for either Labor or Liberal or National.

And so there's clearly an openness to this.

And there are, you know, there is a, the Liberal Party has lost these seats because it has been perceived as abandoning the centre ground.

And in Australia, that is fatal because

most Australians are in the centre, they're the sensible centre,

and our electoral system brings things to the centre because of compulsory voting and preferential voting.

If we did see this new sort of party potentially forming, could the Liberal or some form of Liberal Party get into coalition with

that sort of new party?

Well,

it could do.

Yeah, it absolutely could do.

Who knows?

I mean,

we're really in a new world.

I mean, the scale of the Liberal Party's,

you know, it's essentially it's been evicted from Australia's cities.

And that is, you know,

you cannot win

government

with the, you know, the...

that eviction remaining in place.

And

I just don't know that they're, I'm not, I just don't see at the moment how they're going to get back there, particularly if they're continually running back to that, you know, right-wing, populist angertainment media system.

So, you know, if they keep taking their political direction from Lachlan Murdoch and Peter Credlin and Tony Abbott and characters like that,

then they will then they will retreat further and further from the centre and with the electoral consequences we've seen.

So it's a real challenge.

I mean,

I don't want to delegitimise the point of view that Credlin and Abbott and co-have.

I mean, they're entitled to a point of view.

I'm just saying that it is political kryptonite for a party that wants to win government.

Malcolm Turnbull, always interesting to chat.

Thanks so much for joining us.

Thank you.

And thanks for your company as well.

If you do have any thoughts on this conversation or ideas for the podcast, drop us a line, insiders at abc.net.au.

We'll have a lot more on all of this.

It has been a pretty wild week for the Liberal and National parties.

Will they get back into coalition?

We'll chew over all of that Sunday morning.

Hope you can join us from the couch at 9 o'clock on ABC TV.

You're making us all feel very excited about being here.

Nearly two years ago, Erin Patterson served beef wellington to her family at that now infamous mushroom lunch, and her murder trial has finally begun.

I'm Stephen Stockwell.

Each day we're racing straight from court to our Mushroom Case Daily studio to bring you all the evidence from the trial.

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