Grab The Popcorn, Because Malcolm Turnbull Is Turning Into A Real Messy Bitch
It’s all going so well. After two months of semi-dignified silence, former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has decided he simply does not give a fuck any more.
Fresh off announcing that he will be appearing on his own edition of the ABC’s Q&A next week, the former PM has taken to Twitter to directly challenge his replacement, Scott Morrison.
First, some backstory: Remember during the Wentworth by-election when Scott Morrison floated the idea of moving Australia’s embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem? It was a very bad idea that was criticised by pretty much everyone.
Well, we can now add Turnbull to the list of critics. During a trip to Bali earlier this week, he told the media that moving the embassy would invoke a “very negative reaction” from Indonesia, saying it jeopardised a proposed trade deal between the two countries.
But the thing is, he made those comments while he was representing the government at a summit, which is a bit rude tbh. ScoMo had done Turnbull a favour by continuing to give him a role on the world stage and making him look important, and Turnbull has turned around and loudly sledged him for it.
So this morning, the PM confirmed in an interview with Alan Jones that Turnbull won’t be sent on any more overseas trips. It’s the diplomatic equivalent of putting the former PM in the naughty corner.
In the interview, ScoMo implied that Turnbull had overstepped the mark by discussing issues like trade, saying they were “not really part of the brief” for his trip.
That prompted this extremely sassy tweet from the former PM.
A few facts. @ScottMorrisonMP asked me to discuss trade and the embassy issue in Bali and we had a call before I left to confirm his messages which I duly relayed to @jokowi There was a detailed paper on the issue in my official brief as well.
— Malcolm Turnbull (@TurnbullMalcolm) November 1, 2018
It was vintage Turnbull — the kind of thing we saw from him in the days before he became PM and his soul was sucked out of his body.
Naturally, the tweet was picked up by media outlets. News Corp said he had “lashed out” at ScoMo, and Fairfax described it as a “public rebuke”. So a few hours later, he sent another tweet getting mad about the coverage of his first tweet, because he’s a messy bitch who lives for drama.
So my previous tweet – a simple statement of fact has been described in the media as “lashing out” (the Oz) or as a “public rebuke” (SMH). Neither characterisation is reasonable, but is objective reporting unadorned by sensationalism a thing of the past?
— Malcolm Turnbull (@TurnbullMalcolm) November 1, 2018
And THEN, this afternoon, Scott Morrison’s office put out a statement walking back his earlier comments and confirming that Turnbull actually HAD been authorised to discuss trade issues in Indonesia. So basically, ScoMo got mad at Turnbull this morning for no reason.
Anyway, Turnbull is now fully off the leash when it comes to criticising his former colleagues. Q&A is on this Thursday, and based on Turnbull’s last few tweets, it’ll be well worth the watch.