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  Social questions were the consuming debates for the right of the party and a test of commitment for those who claimed to believe in conservative values, requiring speeches, essays or television interviews to provide ‘red meat’ to the ‘base’ by arguing that same sex marriage was a distraction and freedom of speech was more important than protection from racial vilification. In the world outside Parliament House, a majority of Australians supported marriage equality and strongly believed it should be unlawful to offend, insult or humiliate someone on the basis of race.17 The culture wars widened the gulf between the party room and the community it claimed to represent.

  The muttering against Abbott grew stronger and the leaking against him became more blatant, a sure sign ministers feared no consequences from offending a Prime Minister they did not expect to stay in power. In one of the most detailed cabinet leaks in years, Peter Hartcher of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age recounted a proposal from the Immigration Minister, Peter Dutton, supported by Abbott, to revoke the Australian citizenship of suspected terrorists.18 Minister after minister spoke against it, not least Julie Bishop and the Attorney-General, George Brandis. Turnbull warned that the courts should decide whether someone was a terrorist rather than leave this to the discretion of the minister and his power over citizenship. The cabinet proposal was defeated, the Prime Minister was rolled and the public was told of the humiliation within a week. Abbott was so angry at the leak he decided Turnbull was the source and should be sacked, but Hockey persuaded him to stay his hand.

  The next jolt to Abbott’s leadership came from a political ally and philosophical soulmate on 15 July, when the Herald Sun reported that the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Bronwyn Bishop, had taken a charter flight from Melbourne to Geelong the previous November at a cost of $5,227, charged to taxpayers as a parliamentary expense.19 Only later did it emerge the flight was in a deluxe twin-engine Agusta helicopter, which landed on the lawns of the Clifton Springs Golf Club so Bishop could attend a function to raise funds for a Liberal Party candidate. The blades of the ‘choppergate’ scandal hacked into the government as the scrutiny of the Speaker turned into criticism of Abbott for not taking control of the problem. It became a test of political skill so excruciating that Abbott found he could no longer defend his friend even though he could not easily sack her, given she was elected by the House rather than appointed by the executive. On 2 August, he asked her to resign and she reluctantly complied to avoid being removed by her own colleagues in the chamber. In an acid remark after the event, she noted that one media commentator, Andrew Bolt of the Herald Sun, knew of her resignation before she did.20 She would make Abbott pay for deserting her.

  Abbott needed shelter from leaks and scandals to assure voters he was managing a steady government, and he thought he found this calm when Parliament resumed in the week after Bronwyn Bishop resigned. This was the moment to show Australians he was acting on climate change in a way that would not put the economy at risk, something he had promised since the election with a ‘direct action’ scheme that used government funds to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Cabinet met on Monday, 10 August, to decide the target for the emission cuts, the metric underpinning every aspect of climate policy.

  ‘We have got to reduce our emissions,’ Abbott said in a press conference to announce the policy the next day. ‘But we have got to reduce our emissions in ways which are consistent with continued strong growth. We have come to the position as a government that our 2030 emissions reduction target will be in the range of 26 to 28 per cent. There is a definite commitment to 26 per cent but we believe under the policies that we have got, with the circumstances that we think will apply, that we can go to 28 per cent. This is fairly and squarely in the middle of comparable economies.’

  Abbott had been sceptical of climate science for years, had once told voters it was ‘absolute crap’ and had argued vehemently in opposition against putting a price on carbon emissions.21 As Prime Minister, however, he endorsed the need for action. Polling suggested that at around the time of this decision, 56 per cent of Australians believed climate change was happening and was caused by human activity.22 Abbott’s target was attacked by environmental groups for being too weak, but he presented it to Australians as responsible, achievable and solid. There is a definite commitment to 26 per cent. That pledge would be remembered when he cited this very target to renounce his own policy, split the Liberal Party and maim his successor.

  On the same day Abbott announced his climate policy, the party room began a debate on whether to have a conscience vote on marriage equality. The idea brought the government to a halt in one of its longest, most acrimonious and most damaging party room meetings. By the time the debate was over, just after nine o’clock that night, the Liberals and Nationals had argued for six hours in a marathon required for no other policy in all their debates between the 2013 and 2019 elections. This social change had a unique power to torment the Liberals and Nationals. While Labor had allowed a conscience vote on marriage since 2011, the conservatives could not bring themselves to allow the same freedom.

  Warren Entsch began the debate when the Liberals met that morning for their usual party room meeting, before they were joined by the Nationals. The Queenslander, a supporter of gay rights for many years, wanted approval for a free vote on changes to the Marriage Act, in keeping with the party’s belief in individual liberty. His request was no surprise to Abbott. Entsch had sent Abbott a text message that morning to tell him he wanted to raise the subject that day. Abbott replied at 8.07 a.m. with approval: ‘If it must, I suppose today’s party room meeting is as good as any.’23

  Menzies had allowed free votes on divorce laws, Gorton had allowed them on the abolition of the death penalty and Howard had used them as a pressure valve when there were differences in the party room on euthanasia, human cloning, abortion and stem cell embryo research.24 On same sex marriage, however, Abbott did everything he could to prevent a free vote. On his way to the party room meeting, he was asked by the Education Minister, Christopher Pyne, a supporter of same sex marriage, whether the subject would come up. Abbott did not reveal his communication with Entsch, an omission that looked devious later. Once the Queensland backbencher stood as promised and asked for a conscience vote, Abbott argued the debate should wait for the joint party room meeting with the Nationals. Pyne was furious. In a sharp word to the Prime Minister in front of everyone, he called this ‘branch stacking’ and an affront to party tradition because the Liberals should decide their policy themselves. But Abbott insisted. Allowing the more conservative Nationals into the debate increased the numbers against a conscience vote.

  So began the debate that ultimately led to Australia’s postal survey on same sex marriage three years later. The discussion started with angry questions over Abbott’s judgement and boiling resentment at the tactics used to guarantee the outcome he wanted. As the meeting wore on, and ministers seemed to be more in favour of a conscience vote than many of the backbenchers, one of Abbott’s closest allies, Eric Abetz, the Workplace Relations Minister and a conservative with a tight hold on the Tasmanian division of the party, made a remark that revealed an intransigent approach to this nightmare policy. Abetz suggested that any minister who did not support a party position in favour of traditional marriage could resign, a hint Turnbull dismissed at once. ‘One thing I did learn as leader is that it’s probably best to keep the team together,’ Turnbull said.25 He noted the government was behind in the polls. ‘Are you seriously saying that having ministers resign would be good for us?’

  This was an early sign of a fracture that would break the party room. Those who opposed same sex marriage were so unyielding they not only wanted to enforce their policy but deny a free vote to others. It was a tyranny of the majority that created a lasting bitterness. The opportunity to settle the issue was in front of them: allow a free vote, leave the matter to Parliament, ride out the complaints from conservative party members and regroup for an election
. Rather than allow this freedom, Abbott wanted a binding decision. Rather than release the pressure in the party room, he bottled it up. He could not do what Menzies, Gorton and Howard had done. It was a crippling failure.

  The idea of a conscience vote was canvassed for hours before one backbencher, Angus Taylor, from the rural seat of Hume in New South Wales, suggested putting a vote to the people. Scott Ryan, a parliamentary secretary, thought this was the wrong approach and cited the lessons of history. Governments did not call plebiscites because they were strong, he said, they called them because they were weak. Turnbull argued for a conscience vote as the way to settle the party’s differences. Yet the plebiscite gained ground when Hockey, Morrison and Julie Bishop spoke. Hockey was the first to refer to a referendum rather than a plebiscite, but there was no clarity about what this meant. Morrison argued for an outcome that respected religious freedom because of the ‘bigotry of secularism’ that prevented church groups being heard. He argued for a referendum. Bishop also supported a vote by the people.26

  Abbott ended the meeting by telling everyone the ‘people’s vote’ was the outcome. Entsch saw this as a ‘total ambush’ and others called it a ‘stitch-up’ when there had been no vote in the room to endorse the proposal and no cabinet decision to make it policy. Rather than deciding whether to legislate same sex marriage or not, the government could only agree that it needed a new process to make up its mind. Sinodinos turned to Laundy. ‘What an act of political genius,’ he said. ‘Our new position is we don’t have a position.’

  In a late-night press conference to reveal the outcome, Abbott said the ‘disposition’ was for a popular vote and added: ‘We have not finalised a position.’ Yet he imposed his policy with stronger wording every day. On Wednesday he called the popular vote the ‘strong disposition’ of the party room and on Thursday it was a ‘decision’. By Monday it was a ‘very strong decision’. In the cabinet room on Monday night, 17 August, Turnbull and Pyne reminded Abbott the party room had not agreed to such a concrete policy to hold a plebiscite. ‘Pyne let him have it,’ one source said later. ‘Abbott was read the riot act.’27

  This was a turning point. Abbott fought the marriage debate alongside the social conservatives in the party, including foot-soldiers such as Michael Sukkar and Zed Seselja, committed Catholics who helped organise the backbench to delay same sex marriage as long as possible. Yet Abbott fought in a way that alienated others who disagreed with the plebiscite or his political judgement. The plebiscite became an article of faith for its admirers but it also came at an enormous cost — weakening Abbott in the party room, accelerating a leadership spill, lumbering the government with a divisive policy, aggravating the tensions within the party, postponing hard decisions until the next term of Parliament and infuriating many gay Australians by putting their rights to a popular vote.

  Turnbull welcomed new friends to his Kingston apartment two nights after the same sex marriage debate. On Thursday, 13 August, he had supper with Mitch Fifield and Scott Ryan, two members of the Victorian right who had kept their distance from him for years. Fifield was one of the frontbenchers who helped destroy Turnbull’s leadership in 2009 by resigning from the shadow ministry over the Opposition Leader’s support for an emissions trading scheme. ‘Malcolm Turnbull may be the leader of the Liberal Party in fact but he is no longer the leader of the Liberal Party in spirit,’ Fifield said three days before the party room elected Abbott.28 Ryan had barely spoken to Turnbull in the six years since that spill. Now these two joined him with Simon Birmingham, from the moderate side of the South Australian division, and James McGrath, a conservative from Queensland. This was a strong sign he would get the numbers.

  Abbott’s fate was sealed over the next four weeks in a steady erosion of his support on the conservative side of the party room. Turnbull could not succeed without convincing some of those on the right that he had changed from his time as Opposition Leader six years earlier. What doomed Abbott was that he lost too many from his own side of the party.

  Bishop saw this shift for herself when three Liberal senators walked to her office on Wednesday, 9 September, and told her they were supporting Turnbull. The delegation consisted of Fifield and Ryan as well as Michaelia Cash, a Western Australian who had supported Abbott for years and was aligned with Cormann, the senior conservative in their state.29 This was a demonstration to Bishop that Turnbull had won over people she might never have expected to support him.

  Turnbull travelled to Canberra on Sunday, 13 September, to prepare for a week in Parliament and, most likely, a leadership challenge. Cray drove and Turnbull telephoned his colleagues as the Sydney suburbs passed by and they joined the Hume Highway. He fell silent for some time until they reached the petrol stations and fast-food outlets of Sutton Forest, where Cray spoke up.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ she asked.

  ‘Well you’ve heard the phone calls. I’ve got the numbers. I’m going to do it.’

  The core group of Turnbull lieutenants gathered that night for a final check on their support, but they avoided the Kingston apartment in favour of a more discreet location. Hendy, the member for Eden-Monaro, hosted the group at his house near Queanbeyan, where they talked in a large shed with a billiard table in the middle. In a departure from their previous meetings, they were joined by a trusted adviser to Bishop — her chief of staff, Murray Hansen — so the Liberal deputy leader could be given an account of the support for Turnbull. This was a delicate matter because Bishop was an obvious candidate for the leadership and had been careful to keep her options open. Turnbull canvassed the numbers with Brough, Fifield, Hendy, Laundy, McGrath, Roy, Ryan and Sinodinos, with Cray and Hansen also in the room. Birmingham called in from his mobile.

  ‘Malcolm had a moment when the gravity of it hit him,’ Laundy recalled. ‘I could see the realisation on his face that he actually had the numbers.’ Others remembered Turnbull being composed during this discussion, but Laundy sensed a hesitation. After the meeting broke up, with tactics decided for the following day, Laundy called Turnbull to make doubly sure he would run. ‘You have absolutely got the numbers,’ he told him. ‘It is time. I am giving you this advice as your friend, not as a political animal.’

  Abbott, meanwhile, told friends the Liberal Party would never sack a first-term Prime Minister. It seemed unimaginable to him, just as it had in February. When he returned to Canberra on Monday morning, after days in Papua New Guinea the previous week and a lightning trip to Adelaide via Perth, he was told the Turnbull camp might have a narrow majority. Yet he did not seem convinced.

  Bishop visited Abbott at noon on Monday to tell him she thought he no longer had majority support in the party room. Alone of all the ministers, Bishop answered to the parliamentary party rather than the leader alone because she was the elected deputy. While she did not name the ministers who believed Abbott should go, she made her assessment after speaking to Turnbull, Brandis and Pyne that morning and hearing from Hansen about the Queanbeyan meeting. Abbott was cautious in reply. He made no move to bring on a ballot and chose to wait for his rumoured challenger to declare himself.

  Turnbull did exactly that at the end of Question Time. He approached Abbott and asked for a private discussion in his office, where he offered his resignation as Communications Minister and said he would challenge for the leadership. Abbott was obstinate and incredulous, to the point that he urged Turnbull to return to his office as if the conversation had never happened. Turnbull replied that Abbott would be very much mistaken if he thought he would do that. He left the meeting and called a press conference in a Parliament House courtyard, where he lamented Abbott’s failure and made his claim to offer better leadership — and set the benchmark by which to measure his success. Turnbull said it was time for a new style of leadership that respected the people’s intelligence by using ‘advocacy, not slogans’ to win over Australians.

  ‘The one thing that is clear about our current situation is the trajectory,’ he said. ‘We have l
ost 30 Newspolls in a row. It is clear that the people have made up their mind about Mr Abbott’s leadership.’ He promised to restore traditional cabinet government. ‘There must be an end to policy on the run and captain’s calls. We need to be truly consultative with colleagues, members of Parliament, senators and the wider public. We have to make a change for our country’s sake, for the government’s sake, for the party’s sake.’

  Abbott brought on the vote that night with a declaration that any Prime Minister who had won an election should be safe from a revolt.

  ‘The prime ministership of this country is not a prize or a plaything to be demanded,’ he said. ‘It should be something which is earned by a vote of the Australian people.’ In a surprise, he declared the ballot would be for the deputy leadership as well — a calculated move against Bishop because it allowed Abbott to seek support from others who might want to join his ticket. It also left Bishop free to vote as she wished, given he had put her position in play.

  Morrison held back. Liberals who called him that night were told he was voting for Abbott, but this was not the ultimate test of his loyalty. Morrison’s lieutenants were voting for Turnbull. They were playing a double game by supporting the challenger in the hope of installing Morrison as Treasurer while giving him a way to assure the public he had not deserted Abbott. As an attempt at plausible deniability, this denial was plausible only to the gullible. When Abbott sought Morrison’s help he got nowhere. Those doing the numbers for Abbott knew at least three hours before the ballot that he could not see off the threat unless he had strong and vocal support from Morrison and his group. Hours before the ballot, Abbott made a final bid to save himself by offering Morrison the chance to form a ticket and become his running mate as deputy leader. This would have put Morrison in conflict with Bishop as deputy and would have spelled the end of Hockey. Because the elected deputy can choose his or her portfolio, and because Morrison would choose treasury, Abbott was finally admitting he had to drop his Treasurer.