In this excerpt from his memoir, TurnbullMalcolm details the events of the Liberal leadership coup that toppled him. 'I was caught up in a degrading and corrupt parody of democracy.' | EXCLUSIVE
After discussing the crisis with the governor-general at some length, I’d gone to bed on the night of Wednesday August 22, 2018, resolved to call an election the next morning. I’d made an appointment with the governor-general for 8am. The necessary correspondence was drafted and ready for me to sign.
Morrison was clearly getting ready to run. Should I make way for him? At the time, I wasn’t persuaded that, as many later suggested. Scott’s dream sequence, it seemed to me, was for us to have an election on March 2, 2019, as we’d agreed, win it, and then he’d have expected me to retire sometime in the course of that term. We had no agreement to that effect, but he knew me and Lucy well enough to know that I wouldn’t be seeking re-election in 2022 at the age of 68.
Events moved quickly. The Thursday morning papers were full of “D-Day” headlines predicting another spill and a Dutton win. Cormann came round to my office again with Michaelia Cash and Mitch Fifield. I was meeting with what was left of my leadership group and so they were asked to wait in the prime minister’s sitting room. When I got up to go and see them, Morrison came with me. “You need a witness,” he told me.
Christopher Pyne begged me not to put the spill motion to a ballot but to just step aside. He said he was worried the vote in favour of the spill would be humiliatingly high. I told him everyone in the party room had to take responsibility for their own actions and if they wanted to play their part in destroying their own government, then they should do so, and be seen to do so. “I take responsibility and accountability very seriously,” I told him.
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