Lenore Taylor, political editor
theguardian.com, Thursday 5 June 2014
Tony Abbott plays down dispute between minister, Alan Jones and Andrew Bolt over leadership ambitions
Malcolm Turnbull at question time on Thursday. Photograph: Gary Schafer/AAP
Malcolm Turnbull has refused to disavow all leadership ambition but said his prospects are negligible and he hit back against claims by right-wing commentator “bullies” that he was destabilising Tony Abbott.
After a week of extraordinary exchanges with the News Corp columnist Andrew Bolt and the Sydney radio announcer Alan Jones, Turnbull told the ABC’s 7.30 that “you could come to the conclusion” the attacks against him by the commentators had been “coordinated” but that he was “absolutely certain” they had not been fuelled by the prime minister’s office because “that really would be mad”.
The stoush followed Tony Abbott to Paris, en-route to D-Day anniversary commemorations, where the prime minister attempted to calm the row.
He said there had "been a bit of over excited chatter in recent days" but Turnbull was getting on with his job as part of a "very good a strong team".
"Malcolm and I have known each other for a very, very long time indeed. We go back to university days, so we’ve known each other for a long time.
"As is well known we’ve had a few ups and downs over the years but through all of that time we’ve been pretty good friends and I think Australia is lucky to have someone of Malcolm’s calibre in its public life. I certainly think the government is lucky to have a person of Malcolm’s experience and insight in the communications portfolio," he said.
But asked whether Alan Jones as a "bomb thrower" as Turnbull alleged, he said: "No. Alan is a friend of mine. Andrew Bolt is a friend of mine. I think they are both very significant commentators and they’ve got a lot to say as you know, both of them have a lot to say. I often agree with it.
"Occasionally I don’t agree with it. Alan is a formidable interlocutor – whether he’s for you or against you he’s always someone who is going to put on a very lively discussion and that’s the way with me, that’s the way with Malcolm, that’s the way with everyone who goes on his show."
Asked directly by 7:30 host Sarah Ferguson whether he wanted to again lead the Liberal party, Turnbull said he didn’t have “any plans, any desires or any expectations to be the leader” but “having said that politics is an unpredictable business”.
“My prospects are somewhere between nil and negligible,” he said, but added: “I don’t think there is any member of the House of Representatives who in the right circumstances would not take on that responsibility.”
He said he had been angered by the suggestions by Bolt and Jones that he was destabilising Abbott’s leadership because it was untrue.
“If you don’t stand up to bullies and people who peddle these lies they will start to become accepted ... these people have big megaphones,” he said.
If such untruths were not countered, “they get away from you and the risk you run is a government that is completely united and cohesive … will be in due course perceived as something else and that is not in anyone’s interests”.
He said he did not regret the dinner he shared last Wednesday with the Palmer United party leader, Clive Palmer, because “there is nothing wrong or even unusual” about talking with politicians from different parties.
The dinner “only became an issue when Andrew Bolt on Sunday [in a televised interview] used it as a means of saying to Tony Abbott that Malcolm Turnbull is after your job, forcing the prime minister to deny it … which set this hares running”.
Turnbull continued his war with the commentators Thursday morning in a 23-minute interview with Jones in which each accused the other of undermining Abbott.
After an ongoing slanging match with Bolt, the communications minister did a prearranged interview with Jones, who also saw nefarious intent in Turnbull’s dinner last week with Palmer.
Jones told Turnbull that because he had had dinner with Palmer, a trenchant critic of Abbott, “people” were suggesting that “precisely because you have no hope ever of being the leader again – you have got that into your head, no hope ever – that because of that you are happy to chuck a few bombs around that might blow up Abbott a bit, that is what they are saying”.
Turnbull replied that it was Jones who was undermining the Abbott government and “doing the work of the Labor party”, a charge not usually levelled at the Sydney announcer who is an ardent supporter of the prime minister.
“That is what you are saying and that is what Andrew Bolt is saying and it is doing the Labor party’s work,” Turnbull said.
“This is the most united, cohesive government we have had in this country for a long time and I think it is just very sad that you and Bolt are doing the work of the Labor party … You are seen by people who are loyal to the Liberal party as undermining Tony Abbott’s government at a time when we are trying to sell a difficult budget …
“This sort of stuff you are going on about is a distraction, it is a non-issue and I think it is so sad that someone who has put so much effort into supporting Tony Abbott, like you, would be undermining his government. It’s heartbreaking to listen to you do it.”
Turnbull lead the Liberal party from 2008 to 2009, losing the job to Abbott by a single vote after his party revolted against his insistence that it support the Rudd government’s proposed emissions trading scheme.
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