The texts, threats and lies that will haunt the Morrison government
READ MORE
It was a week that fuelled distrust, bruised friendships and left enmities that will last for years.
The Tuesday vote was a jolt that threw the Dutton forces off balance. Dutton had to resign from the ministry and was joined by a senior member of the NSW conservatives, Concetta Fierravanti-Wells.
Arguments will rage for some time over the way five ministers who voted against Turnbull then submitted their resignations but negotiated over the terms. Cabinet ministers Greg Hunt, Steve Ciobo and Michael Keenan told Turnbull they would support him and kept their positions. Junior ministers Angus Taylor and Alan Tudge did the same. Their assurances may be in writing. Asked in Question Time where they stood, they supported Turnbull again.
Did their pledges mean nothing? Their decisions left them vulnerable to attack from Labor at the time, and no doubt in the future, about whether they lied to Parliament.
The stumbles became serious when Dutton went on radio on Wednesday morning and aired his idea of dropping GST from electricity bills, a move that would deprive the federal or state governments of $7.5 billion in revenue over four years. Morrison demolished the suggestion.
It was a startling moment for the Liberals. Here was a man who had the ambition to become leader, the determination to take down a prime minister and the ruthlessness to trigger a crisis. Yet he lacked a cogent policy plan to justify a change or set a new direction. The turmoil was all about personalities and old hatreds.
How Cormann responded will be debated for years. The Finance Minister became convinced on Wednesday morning that Turnbull could not hold on. By lunchtime that day, he had heard from four cabinet ministers and about six backbenchers who had voted for Turnbull out of solidarity but would otherwise have backed Dutton.
Mathias Cormann, standing behind Mitch Fifield after announcing his resignation, was an instrumental player in Malcolm Turnbull’s demise. Photo: Dominic Lorrimer
A fifth cabinet minister went to Cormann later on Wednesday with a similar message. These were people who had not voted with Hunt, Ciobo and Keenan to support Dutton on the Tuesday. Only two of those cabinet ministers, Mitch Fifield and Michaelia Cash, went public with the Finance Minister.
Cormann has not named the others but his count of the numbers is crucial to every analysis of that agonising week.
Turnbull’s message to Cormann still echoes today: “This is terrorism.” In a fateful meeting on Wednesday, Turnbull urged Cormann, Cash and Fifield not to give in to this “terrorism” from the Dutton camp. Turnbull repeated that comment, revealed in The Australian Financial Review this week, in some of his other meetings.
Was Cormann right? “He was lied to by Dutton about the numbers,” says one Liberal. This is totally contradictory to Cormann’s own assessment, relayed to his colleagues, that five cabinet ministers and six backbenchers wanted change.
Cormann was conspicuously absent when Turnbull held his usual leadership meeting on Thursday morning. Bishop and Morrison were there along with the Nationals leaders, as well as senior cabinet colleagues Christopher Pyne and Simon Birmingham.
The gulf between the two camps was there to be seen in the Prime Minister’s suite. Cormann, Cash and Fifield waited next door to the leadership group while the meeting went on. Nobody had to wonder about their message for the Prime Minister. When the time came to hear it, Morrison joined Turnbull to meet the three in the adjacent room.
For the second time in two days, Turnbull rejected Cormann’s conclusion and urged him to rethink. One source says Turnbull used the “terrorism” argument again.
The rush for a decision gave the second challenge greater momentum by the hour. One of Turnbull’s allies texted Cormann to ask him to check the numbers but it was too late: he was already calling a press conference in the Senate courtyard to call for a ballot and declare support for the challenger.
What intensified the damage was the desperate effort to force a meeting using a petition from Liberal MPs. This was an idea from the Dutton camp, which leaked the idea of a petition on Wednesday night, but it was made more painful by the rules Turnbull chose to impose.
The decision to demand an absolute majority for the petition, to be signed by at least 43 out of 85 members of the party room, made Thursday afternoon and evening an excruciating time for Liberals who wanted to end the chaos but did not want to sign their names to a document that would record their decisions.
As with so many stages of last week, some of those involved wanted an outcome without accountability. Parliament had been adjourned, cabinet ministers had resigned, the Liberal Party’s federal executive had called for a ballot and the Prime Minister faced escalating demands to go. Yet Liberal MPs feared a backlash in their electorates if voters found out they had signed the petition to get rid of Turnbull.
The intimidation towards some MPs was real but those MPs will not be helped by going public to reveal the threats or name those who made them. Fairfax Media has confirmed conversations in which MPs were told that a change to Dutton could help their chances at a preselection or were pressured to the point of tears to sign the petition.
Only one MP, Julia Banks from Victoria, put her name to accusations of bullying and intimidation by others, but there are as many opinions on this as there are Liberal MPs.
Changing seats: As Peter Dutton approaches, Julia Banks moves to sit closer to Malcolm Turnbull during a division last Thursday, the day before Mr Turnbull lost the prime ministership. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
One Liberal says misogyny was a factor in the push to install Dutton. Another says some of the Dutton supporters had their “elbows out” but faced resistance from their colleagues. A third says this was politics, not bullying. Those who supported Dutton insist they did not intimidate anyone.
“It made me feel physically sick,” one MP says of this stage of the spill. This was a traumatic experience for Liberals who had boasted for years they were above the brutal politics of the Labor Party – the “Stalinism” of forcing members of a faction to vote with the powerbroker. It turned out the Liberals had their own reds under their beds.
Cormann urged colleagues to sign the petition, as did conservative Liberal Senator James Paterson and Victorian MP Jason Wood. Hastie did the same. There were five different sheets of paper and various members of the Dutton side put the case to their friends.
The astonishing development was the lack of progress. By Thursday evening, some estimated there were fewer than 25 names on the petition – a subject of dispute given there were five sheets of paper in different hands.
The response was disbelief that the Dutton campaign could be so incompetent. “That was the moment we realised what was happening – that they were all lying,” says one MP. The numbers for Dutton were not there. The misinformation campaign had worked but there had been a failure to lock in the numbers.
Labor MPs who know how to mount a spill are amazed that Dutton campaigners headed to dinner on Thursday night rather than sweat over a spreadsheet full of names. Ciobo and Keenan dined at the upmarket Ottoman restaurant. Sukkar, Taylor, Hastie, Pasin and Seselja gathered over a Japanese meal. They were counting their teriyaki chicken too soon.
New Prime Minister Scott Morrison poses for a portrait on his first day in the job. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
The petition only gained a majority because it was signed by MPs who had no intention of voting for Dutton. The crucial factor was the decision by Morrison to enter the contest, which in turn followed the fateful meeting with the Prime Minister on Thursday morning when Cormann had withdrawn his support.
This is why the recriminations will never end. The Dutton supporters stand condemned by some for lying about their numbers and unleashing havoc at the top of the Australian government. And for what? It is extraordinary that senior Victorian Liberals like Hunt and Sukkar sided with Dutton when polling showed Turnbull had stronger support in their own state.
Sometimes the most intriguing aspect of a spill is what does not happen. At no point did a group of cabinet ministers gather in a courtyard to stare down Dutton. Just as his silence spoke volumes on the Friday, so did theirs the following week.
Turnbull only needed three more people to stand by him to win the Friday ballot, but the Dutton campaign would have kept going. “They had so damaged him there was no coming back,” says one MP.
It is easier to wreck than rebuild in Australian politics. The nonchalant claims from ministers that they can all move on, that the public has no interesting in “tea-leaf gazing” over the spill, is a glaring false confidence about their ability to unify their party.
This may be the biggest myth of all from the spill: the idea that Morrison can “heal the wounds” in time for the election.
Comments
Post a Comment