YouSaid · the spoken record

Malcolm Turnbull

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61
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2026-06-28
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2026-06-28
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  1. “Well, he's done a lot of evil things. I wouldn't say anybody's evil, but I think I've known Rupert for 50 years. You've got to ask yourself, I think in your life, what have you actually done with the power that you've had? Know Rupert's made himself rich and his family and all that stuff, but America and the English-speaking world are more divided and angry. He certainly made that angry. I don't think he would have had Brexit without Rupert. I don't think you would have had Trump without Rupert. And Rupert has been the loudest, most influential single voice to stand against action on global warming. So Brexit, Trump and climate denial. I don't think that's a great list of achievements and all of them very, very adverse. And if you want to, you know, they're bad consequences, yeah, for sure.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “I think it's not complete and utter disaster, but yeah, we definitely should have four-year terms. Unfortunately, the three-year terms are in the constitution. We'd have to get everybody, literally everybody would agree to it. Instructively, I think now all of the state and territory parliaments are four-year terms. So there's no doubt, I mean, I think most Australians would say three years is too short, five years is probably too long, four years is the right term.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Electricity prices have been coming down and they're coming down because solar and storage is cheaper. And so, you know, but when I was John Howard's environment minister 20 plus years ago, I was having to argue that we needed to pay more to save the planet. Now we're in a happy position that the renewables are actually cheaper. And, you know, so we're doing well with that.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “We can always be more innovative. Look, we're a small economy, we've got to be innovative, competitive, all of those things. Innovation and science was a huge part of my economic agenda. And I think that was something that really worked. But look, we're doing pretty well on the clean energy transition, for example. The climate change deniers, notwithstanding, we've got the biggest penetration of rooftop solar in the world, massive rollout of storage. We've obviously got the big snowy two project I started underway, but thousands and thousands of batteries all around the country. We are making, for a country that had been hitherto totally dependent on fossil fuels, we're making a very big, a successful transition to clean energy and demonstrating, and this is an important point.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Most of the Labour members who were trade unionists had worked. They were bricklayers, they were plumbers, they were engine drivers, you know, boilermakers. They were people who'd worked. Now those that have worked for trade unions have university graduates who have had jobs as officials, have never actually worked. I used to goad them in the house. I used to say, you know, as far as the Labor members are concerned, manual labour is a Mexican bandit. You know, they hadn't encountered it. And I think you get a lack of sort of real world understanding of how the real world operates in politics. And I think it's a problem. I couldn't say how big a problem it is in the UK, but it's certainly a problem in our system.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Well, I mean, I was all about innovation, lower taxes, encouraging investment. I'm not the first politician to run on a platform of jobs and growth, but that's what it's all about, ultimately. And I think you can have academic arguments for tax reform that make sense somewhere in the Treasury, but you've actually got to ask yourself, what is it going to do to people who are making investments, taking risks, hiring people, you know, one of the problems with politics, this is really a big problem with the Labour Party, this problem with both parties, but big problem with Labour is that there are very few people there with any business experience, much life's experience. I mean, when I was a kid, when I was working as a political journalist in the New South Wales State Parliament, when Neville Rand was the leader of the Labour Party,”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “It's just that somehow or other he'd got himself into, and I've seen this with a few politicians, where they're sort of trying so hard to be what they think somebody thinks a politician is that they sound like a politician and don't sound like themselves. So like this is Trump's superstrength, for example. He is utterly authentic. I mean, wild, crazy, exaggerated he may be, but it is very authentic. You know, nobody's written those lines for him, right? I'm not suggesting Keir Starmer should try to channel Donald Trump. But I think if people feel you're not authentic, or maybe he's authentically bland, I don't know. But it's a real challenge. Or authenticity. This is why Paul Inhabit, this is why people like about Pauline Hansen. They think she's very... Authentic, very real.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Was the Labor leader and When I was PM, and Bill, I must have given 100 speeches where Bill spoke after me and set piece engagements in the... And very often he had a better speech than me, and someone had written something for him. It was really good. And I pay attention to that. I was thinking to myself, that's a great speech. But he was never really able to deliver it with any conviction. And his critics, the intense, most intense ones, of course, were in his own party, would say he was a man of no conviction, but that wasn't true.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “I don't know what the numbers are. I have no idea. And as you know, politics is a relative business, right? I mean, people may not like him, but if they don't like the other people, if they dislike the other people more, he still get up But I don't understand. I mean, you tell me and Rory, I'm sure you've talked about it before, but how could a someone get to be leader of the Labour Party to be a Queen's Council and advocate, a barrister? And, you know, I've done all of those things. I haven't been Leader of the Labour Party, of course, but I'm Leader of Political Party, and I've been a lawyer. How can you do those jobs and not be a better communicator? That's the thing I can't quite understand.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “But he's reading that. So somebody has thought that's a good idea. Now, you tell me, Alistair, you've written speeches for prime ministers. Why on earth would that have been done? It seemed to me as though he was trying to do himself in. To me, I think Labor's biggest problem is a lack of, I don't know, sort of inspiring leadership. And it's a tough thing to say.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “For several minutes He speaks solemnly, gravely about the stabbing of the Jewish person at Golders Green and the evils of anti-Semitism. Now I don't think there was anyone in the House that disagreed with the word that he said, right? The sentiments were absolutely correct. But you could just feel the energy draining out of the chamber. You could just feel it being flattened. And then, having got those remarks off his chest, he then tried to rev things up and counterattack against the opposition. Which of course he couldn't do because everyone was as flat as attack. And all I could think to myself was, this is a speech that's been written. He's reading. Truthfully, the Prime Minister should not read a speech like that. He should be able to speak extemporary.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Well, look, again, you've forgotten more about this than I'll ever know. So accept this with all humility. I find Starmer a very unusual guy. I mean, I don't know him, okay? But I find him singularly unpersuasive and lacking in political eloquence. And I had an interesting experience of that in the House of Commons after the King's speech. As you know, there's an address in reply. It's moved by two government backbenchers and then the opposition leader speaks and then the PM. And I was in the public gallery watching this. It was interesting. Bad Knock gave a good speech and she towed up the Prime Minister, which is what you do in the opposition leader is. I've done that job, horrible job. And then Starmer rose to his feet. The house is packed It's full of energy. There's a bit of excitement in the air. And reading from a prepared text”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Solvent, there's more money in your pocket. You know, your kids can get a job. That's your strength. And see what's happened here is the lives have run off to the right and so they're just bleeding votes. They've lost about half their vote to Hansen. You know, Labor's had lost a bit based on the polls. But the bulk of that loss has come from the traditional centre-right parties. And I think they're digging their own grave. Interestingly, I discussed this very phenomenon with Farage in your parliament recently. And Farage agreed with me. And he said, this is the mistake Badenox making. So, you know, you'd be better judges of that than me.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “And the problem is the more you do that, the more you validate and legitimize the right-wing populist. See, if you're a centre-right party and you run off to the right and you say, right, mass migration is the issue. That's mass migration is the issue, then people say, okay, well, if that's the issue, I'll vote for the real deal. Pauline Hansen in Australia or Nigel Farage in your country. And so if you're a centre-right party, again, you guys have got just as much political experience as me, but if you're a centre-right party, my view is your only real political equity is economic management. You've got to steer down the centre and focus on economic management and say to people, well, you may not think whereas good on the environment or health or schools as the left, but we'll do a reasonable job there, but we will make sure the government's”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “See some elements of the debate there and see Starmer and Badnock perform. But the interesting thing here is that we basically have only got one major party left at the centre. That's the Labour Party. See the Liberal Party was, you know, as you guys know, you've said it earlier, always my problem the Liberal Party was always the right wing of the party. I'd never had a lot of Labour Party, my political opponents, obviously, but my problems were always with the right wing of the party, with the Murdoch media. And after I left, it kept moving further to the right. And what they have been doing is essentially trying to echo and emulate the right-wing populist arguments that one nation is putting.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “News. I mean, it's not very different to the Sky News in the UK. It's about to change its name, in fact, to remove that confusion. So I think there's that sort of angry attitude that's part of it. But I think Labour will win the next election, and I think they will win it because they will say a vote for Hansen or a vote for the Liberal Party or the National Party is a vote for Hansen and they'll say, do you really want Pauline Hansen to be running your country? You may think she's courageous and blunt and says it like it is and authentic, but do you actually want to run the show? See, the curious thing that's happened in our system, and I was in the House of Commons recently actually the week of the King's speech, and I was fascinated to see it.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “It's too early to say definitively, but there are signs that we have. You've got to be careful about Opinion polls, as we all know, tell you what people think on the day the poll is taken. And people are very sophisticated about opinion polls and they'll say things to pollsters intending to send a message, right? So I don't think Pauline Hansen's going to be the next Prime Minister of Australia. I might be proved wrong. I hope I'm not proved wrong. But I don't think she is. Our system of voting does tend to bring people to the centre and I agree with you that one nation looks like a counter-argument there. The One Nation support is very linked to the you can all get stuffed sort of anger that is being promoted through a lot of the right-wing media, particularly Murdoch's media, where we have an equivalent of Fox News here called Sky.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Never, I understand if Charles was going to abdicate for anyone, it would be for Rory. I've got the inside word from the palace on that.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “We're about 46.5% yes and balance no. So that's why we lost. But yeah, I mean, look, our constitution, you've got to remember, Australia was not an independent country in 1901. Australians saw themselves as part of Britain. And in fact, they saw themselves as part of Greater Britain for a long time after that. So, you know, if Britain became a republic, if Rory became the president of the great British Republic,”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “I think it's with a five party system plus smaller parties and independents. First past the post doesn't work. But anyway, the problem that we have with referenda is that they need to be approved by a national majority and a majority in four out of six states. And we have compulsory voting for them as well. And in a compulsory voting environment, the people that don't know don't care aren't interested who would normally stay at home are the ones that will vote no. And so every referendum campaign Albo went through this with the voice campaign for years ago. Every referendum campaign, the no votes say, if you don't know vote no. And people do And so we got, we think”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Compulsory voting. Yeah, and preferential voting. I mean, if you guys don't move to both, or at least preferential voting, you will end up with a democracy with very little legitimacy because you'll have more and more people winning constituencies with a plurality of 20% or something like that. I mean, it's just.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Certainly, the closest we've got to date. I don't think it's gone forever. I mean, it was unfortunately in our system, I mean, we've got a couple of things in our electoral system which I strongly commend to you in the UK. Strongly commend to you.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “Have to be classified, but there is so much that goes on once you put that veil of secrecy over it, there is so much crazy stuff that will go on underneath that cloak and which of course can end up misleading government but also doing a lot of injustice.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “It is very, very easy to develop conspiracy theories and to become very, very conspiratorial. I mean, I had experience with this when I was first a very young lawyer, before Spycatcher, when I defended Kerry Packer, you may remember in the early 80s he was accused of all sorts of crimes, you know, murder, drug trafficking, a whole lot of stuff by a royal commission that had gone really run off the rails and had all these secret hearings. And, you know, again, there's a lot of books written about this, and it was bonkers. But it's the kind of thing that happens. So that's why sunlight is so important. That's why transparency, oversight is so critically important. And whenever governments are saying, oh, it's classified, you can't look at this, you can't look at that. I accept something.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “I couldn't look, there's no doubt that Peter Wright. I think some of them certainly had that view. I don't know. I couldn't go that far, Alistair. But there was definitely a view in those intelligence community circles that Wilson was, if not a Soviet agent at least very close to people who were, who were connected to the Soviets. So, yeah, I mean, it's a... It's a very dark and murky part of your history. And I mean, I think part of the problem with spooks, and we've all dealt with them over the years in different capacities, is that when people are living in a secret world,”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “Untrue. No, sorry, but quite untrue, paused and then said utterly untrue, just to be quite clear. In fact, it was utterly true. As Charles Moore acknowledges in his official biography of Thatcher, and as anyone can see if you look at the memos in the public records office, there's actually a memorandum. It's quite quaint, really. He says to Thatcher, he says, ordinarily I would recommend dealing with someone like Mr Pincher with a very long spoon. However, on this occasion, I think we should, and they got a guy, you might remember him called Lord Rawlinson, who'd been... Attorney General, I think, at one point, who's a barrister, to be the cutout. And he was given the stuff on Hollis and briefed Pincher, and then Pincher was put in touch with Wright by Victor Rothschild. And so part of our case was, this is just a whole lot of hypocrisy.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “When I put to him some correspondence he'd written which was misleading when he said this is a lie and he said no I was just being economical with the truth ha ha. And of course just memo to self, last place to joke about telling the truth is in a witness box when you're under oath. Everyone doesn't think it's funny. But in fact I put to Armstrong that the brief that Pincher had been effectively set up to do this stuff about Hollis and I might say the person who introduced Wright to Pincher was Victor Rothschild. So you can see why you can develop a few conspiracy theories here. So I put to Armstrong that Pincher had been brought into this with the connivance of government. And Armstrong said that is a very ingenious conspiracy theory Mr. Turnbull but utterly”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “Through documents that have come out in the public records office. Sir Robert Armstrong, who was Thatcher's cabinet secretary, as you recall, had actually recommended to Thatcher that Pincher be briefed on the Hollis allegation so that it could be got out through the pen effectively of a safely conservative journalist. So the spycatcher case is also about the extraordinary hypocrisy of the British establishment. I mean Armstrong came to Australia and lied in the witness box. You know, I couldn't get the judge to accept that he committed perjury, but he had to correct his evidence. He had to apologise to the court for misleading the court. He had that one-liner which he thought was funny.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “For papers like the Express and the Mail and so forth, and wrote about espionage and was like an official conduit for the security agencies. And he was put in touch with Pincher and Pincher wrote a book about it called Their Trade is Treachery, which got all the Hollis stuff out in the public domain. And then he wrote a second book called Too Secret Too Long, which did the same. And so when Wright wanted to publish his book, In fact, pretty much everything had already been published by Pincher. So one of our arguments was, many arguments, but one of the arguments was this stuff is not confidential anymore. And what was worse was that the publication by Pincher had actually been connived in by the British government. Not only had they known Pincher was about to publish his book and did nothing to restrain it, but in fact we now”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “Okay, well, we're in a good position now because a lot of this stuff has now been published in the public records office. But the backstory was that Wright worked for MI5. He was essentially a mole hunter and he was a technical guy originally bugging embassies and bugging hotels and so forth. And he spent a lot of time, for example, debriefing Anthony Blunt and Cairn Cross, you know, who were two of the Cambridge Five spiring. But he did develop an obsession, some might say, an unhealthy obsession that the one-time head of MI5, a guy called Roger Hollis, was also a Soviet agent. Anyway, this stuff about Hollis, he'd been agitating about this. By this stage, he's retired. He was put in touch with Chapman Pincher. He'd remember was a very conservative journalist who worked.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “And gosh, they fought hard too. I mean, we went to the Court of Appeal two or three times just on the interlocutory stages, you know, on the interrogatories and discovery. And they went all the way to the High Court. But it was a great adventure. Forty years ago this year, by the way, 40 years ago this year.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “Not really. No, I wouldn't say, I mean, the spy catcher case fell into my lap, Alistair. I mean, Peter Wright had written this book. The British government had gotten an injunction to restrain it in Australia, which is where he lived. He'd had a big law firm advising the publishers that told him he couldn't win lots of QCs had said the same. And through a couple of connections, he ended up with me, and I just set up a law firm. You know, I'd been working for Kerry Packer for a few years, defending him legally And that was an unfashionable view at the time, and we did. So it was really just a stroke of luck. But to my astonishment, the Brits didn't settle. And they fought it all the way. You know, they fought it all the way to a trial.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “Maybe if I was a Melbourneian, I would have found it more understandable. But for me, the interest in your antecedents and where you came from as opposed to what you're doing right now and what you're going to do tomorrow, I found that curious. It didn't worry me. I found it curious. But I've always had great affection for the UK and felt very much at home there, although I was, you know, I did go through periods where I thought I might get thrown into a basement by MI5 over the spy catcher case.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “Since I ceased to be a schoolboy. I mean, you know, when you see a boy, little boy, you'll say, hello Johnny, you know, where are you at school? What's your favorite sport? Do you like maths or something? All these inane questions adults ask. Nobody's ever asked me that. I mean, you know, people have, if they're interviewing you or it's really getting to know you. Whereas in Melbourne, interestingly, they do. And Lucy, my wife, who was Lord Mayor of Sydney at one point, was once asked about this difference. And Lucy said, well, the point is that the question in each case, in Sydney, they ask you where you live. In Melbourne, they ask you where you went to school. Each question is designed to put you in a social category, social context. The difference is you can never change where you went to school, but as to where you live, you could have bought a big house last week.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “Yeah, I mean, I just don't understand why people are hung up. Let me put it this to give you this example. So I've lived in Sydney all my life. No one in Sydney has ever asked me where I went to school.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “Well, look, I really enjoyed it. I mean, I had a job for about half the time I was at Oxford. I had a job working for the Sunday Times because I'd got to know Harry Evans before I went to Oxford, actually. He'd heard me speak in a debate somewhere and offered me a job. I was a journalist in those days and he was like God. Absolutely he was God. And he was a great friend and mentor for me ever since. And indeed, Tina Brown, who I know you spoke to recently reigns a really good friend. So I didn't come away with any negative feelings about the UK at all. I mean, the class system, Rory, is always a bit puzzling for Australians. We don't sort of understand it.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “Have done well, some of them haven't. I tell you a story about wrote scholars, if you like. My father, I told you he was a hotel broker, and when I won a road scholarship, I called him and he was out at a inspecting a pub. He was going to sell out at North St Mary's, which is way out in northwestern Sydney. In those days, that was a pretty rough pub, that particular pub, the North St Mary's Hotel. I rang him and told him this. you know, he was very pleased. And then 10 minutes later he calls me back and he said, I'm coming into town. I've got to celebrate with you. He said, I've told the public in here that you've won the Rhodes Scholarship and he replied by saying that's fantastic because he's got a cousin who works at the Department of Main Roads. It was a good sort of good reality check for those things”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “No, no, she's not from the same tradition. No, look, I don't think the... No, I mean, I would think there are more academically gifted people probably in the House of Commons than they're in the House of Representatives in Australia. I'm not sure, but certainly one of the things that makes our political system different, and this isn't where we've got more in common with the US, is Australia's a very big country geographically. And so everyone who's a member of the House of Representatives or the Senate, apart from the handful that represent Canberra, have to come from somewhere else. And so you don't get that sort of intimacy that you get in the UK where almost all of your politicians most of the time are living in and around London. That's a different atmosphere. But look, I think the Rhodes Scholars have, I mean, some of them...”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “Well, I suppose a very ambitious, very hardworking, determined to do well, prove myself to my parents, you know, that sort of thing. Yeah. Common tray and successful people, I suppose.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “Money in those days, and I learnt, so I became quite good domestically for, you know, there's not many men of my generation can cook or iron or wash or do all those domestic things because they had mothers doing it for them. So I could do all those things.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “Really admirable guy. The most important thing, and gosh, you see so much divorce nowadays, but he never criticised my mother at all. Always spoke very positively about her to me. And so it never occurred to me that my mother had done something wrong by leaving us because he literally brainwashed me. Your mother loves you, you know, etc, etc. And she'd gone to New Zealand and then the United States. And so, and I remained in touch with her. So I had a good, albeit somewhat distant relationship with her as a result. But no, he was an extraordinary guy. So my relationship with him was very close but almost like a big brother, little brother relationship, as you'd expect. You know, two guys living together had advantages though. We didn't have a lot of money.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “Well, I mean, this part of my backstory would appeal to you, Alistair in particular. My mother was a writer, actor, later became a university professor called Coral Lansbury and related, therefore, to George Lansbury and that Labor family in the UK. My father, Bruce Turnbull, was a country boy salesman became a hotel broker. got together. I was the product of that encounter. They got married after quite a while after I was born, so I am in fact a bastard in every respect. I always like that line in King Lear. Now God stand up for bastards. Anyway, they split up, coral my mother left when I was about eight or thereabouts and I was, yes, I was brought up for most of my child. By my father, or much of it, and I had a very, very, very close relationship with him. He was a really...”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “Cynics, we used to say, oh, the Americans talk about democracy and freedom, but they don't actually believe it. They're just out for themselves. And you can argue about that. Trump actually says, I am out for myself. America first. And so if there is a, if you're sitting around the cabinet table in London today and somebody says, is there a risk we have critical services depended on an American LLM? Is there a risk? That it could be leveraged or interfered with in order to disadvantage us vis- ⁇-vis the US.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “I mean, we've always understood like when I made the decision or my government made the decision to ban Chinese vendors from 5G in Australia and we were way ahead of the UK on that. In fact, we're ahead of the Americans. That's another story. And this was for technical reasons, not resources in the political decision. We were not accusing Huawei of engaging in espionage or doing anything wrong at all, nothing like that. But we just took the view this was a very big capability that Chinese would have in Australia. And can we assume that Beijing's intent towards us would always be menai? Well, clearly not. But we always made that assumption with the Americans. And so this is the thing. I mean, I think a lot of us when we're dealing with America under Trump are struggling to come to terms not with an apocalyptic portrayal or scenario, but with the reality of what he's actually saying.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  45. “Intent can change in a heartbeat. And so the thing that has changed the dynamic with the United States, that we've started to occur to us that America's intent towards us, America's closest allies, may not be benign.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  46. “Rory, I'm not an expert on AI or pretty much anything, to be honest, but I think the answer is you just have to try to find a way of giving yourself the Autonomy that you need. Now it may be, for example, that you don't want critical government services to be dependent on large language models that you feel you are at risk of being cut off from. For example, would you want your telecommunications to be dependent on Starlink? Now it's a very good service, no question about that. But would you want it all to be dependent on Starlink that Elon Musk could cut off at any time? You guys understand this as well as I do, if not better. I mean, a threat is the combination of capability and intent. Capability takes a long time to put in place dependence on an AI model, a Starlink system, you know, a 5G system.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  47. “He's got a project, Project 25, whatever it's called, but the Heritage Foundation wrote for him. And so it's very, very different. This is a much more cohesive Trump 2 and with much more of an agenda. Having said that, as we've seen with the Iran excursion, he's capable of running off script and off agenda anytime he likes.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  48. “Yeah, turn two. Look, it's the same guy. He's obviously older. The big difference is in term one, he didn't expect to win. He wasn't prepared, he didn't have a plan, and he had people working for him in the White House, many of whom were very good. And they would routinely tell him not to do things or seek to steer him in more conventional channels. And everyone in the world pretty much expected that would work. I mean, I remember Xi Jinping and I talked about Trump after he'd won the election but before he was in office. And President Xi was quite relaxed about him. He thought he would be sort of institutionalized by the machinery of government. Anyway, naturally that didn't work. Second time around, very different. His team is totally devoted to him. The principal criterion for selection is loyalty to the boss.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  49. “So maybe as we see. Lucy tried to console me later and said that's really just like him saying your second best boyfriend. Anyway, it was a big row. But the good thing about it was that he stuck to the deal. And because I'd stood up to him and because he's a bully, he respected that. And after that, the relationship went very well. Because the thing about Trump is that if you suck up to him, which is what most people stupidly do, you will just get more bullying. The only way to deal with a guy is to stand your ground. And if you don't do that, frankly, if you're a leader and you're not prepared to do that, you should give the job away to someone else who can.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  50. “We had a big argument about it, which got very, very heated, really heated. I was saying essentially we expect the United States to stick to its word. I said, you're like a new CEO. You've taken over a company, you've inherited a contract you don't like. Can criticize it, you can say your predecessor was an idiot, but you've still got to stick with it. Take a write down if you like, but you've got to stick with it. Anyway, it was very rowdy call. And he was furious. He ended up saying that it was the worst crawl he had had all day. It was even worse than talking to Putin. Although he is very friend.”

    2026-06-28 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 195. Can the West Reclaim its Power from Trump? (Malcolm Turnbull) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source