INTERVIEW WITH HAMISH MACDONALD 25/5/26
Listen to the interview here: Mornings - ABC listen
HAMISH MACDONALD: Have you been involved in talking about a new political party with some of the Teals or inviting some Liberal moderates to join them?
MALCOLM TURNBULL: I haven’t invited any Liberal moderates to do this, but I have spoken to lots of people about this including Teals. I have written about it publicly ,so its not a secret. I think the Liberal party has made a mistake by moving relentlessly further and further to the right, to the point of basically copying One Nation's policies, but thereby validating them. All that does is give One Nation more oxygen, more legitimacy, and it is no surprise that One Nation is now outpolling them. So,..The Liberal Party is determined to keep doing this, so I think that they're past the point of no return, and as a result, there's only one major party that you could really describe as a centre party in Australian politics and it's Labor. I think Australia deserves another one. They deserve two centrist choices, I think.
HAMISH MACDONALD: I do think we should just be clear about this, though maybe you haven't invited any Liberals. Have you spoken to any Liberal moderates about this sort of proposition?
MALCOLM TURNBULL: Look, people talk to me…. Hamish, I'm too old to get into the gotcha business. I talk to everybody about politics all the time, and this issue is one of the most spoken - the demise, the shrinking demise of the Liberal Party - is one of the most talked about issues and you don't have to be a political genius, like you and Samantha, to observe that there is a big vacuum emerging on the centre right, the ground that the Liberal Party, sometimes a bit awkwardly, but in the past, always used to occupy.
HAMISH MACDONALD: Sam Maiden, obviously the immediate iteration of this discussion was kind of kicked off by David Pocock on Insiders yesterday, indicating somehow that he might be open to this sort of thing. How real is it? How current are the discussions? How formulated are the ideas?
SAM MAIDEN: Well, based on the current reporting, there are some preliminary discussions, but there's also some barriers around exactly what would be the core business, I suppose, of a political party. I mean, one of the benefits of being an independent is you're independent. And once you're in a political party, that raises a whole range of different issues. Now, there would be people that like the idea of the Teals and the independents banding together to become a more unified force. There'll be people that have problems with it that like voting for an independent because they're independent. So I think that there are risks here. There are obviously all of the issues that go with a major political party in terms of funding it, fundraising, how that works, how that fits in with the whole ethical framework of the independents. Not that they've been shy of raising money or spending it in the past. So I think that there's issues and complications around here, but what it really goes to is, I think, the vulnerability and the weakness right now of the Liberal Party, where they're sort of being cannibalised on both sides by One Nation on the right and the Teals on the left.
HAMISH MACDONALD: Here's Allegra Spender speaking on Radio National this morning:
ALLEGRA SPENDER (clip): Oh, things are, you know, there are conversations. That's about all I can say at this point.
RN HOST (clip): What does that mean?
ALLEGRA SPENDER (clip): Ah, it just means that there are conversations. I'm consulting with my community, looking at what the options are... There's a lot of speculation in the media, not all of it correct, may I say. But, yeah, for me, it's about actually listening to the community.
HAMISH MACDONALD: Well, I guess that's not a no. Malcolm Turnbull, one of the interesting things I thought Allegra Spender had to say when she was on Breakfast this morning, here on 702, was that political parties don't necessarily need to be what the two majors are in Australia right now. You don't necessarily have to have this notion that once you're in the party, you're in, and you can't speak out, you can't have differences of opinion about policies. And she pointed to the UK as an example of that. Could you help us think through what it might look like if there was some kind of new party?
MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, even our existing parties have different rules. If you cross the floor on the Labor Party, you're out. That's it. Your career in the Labor Party is over. Liberals and Nationals cross the floor all the time. So, it might be a preselection issue for you, but it's not going to result in being chucked out of the party room. So parties - you can design whatever rules you like to fit the day, but the real issue is this. I don't think people truthfully voted for the Teals because they were independent. They voted for them as independents because they were not Labor or Liberal. Right? Because in those electorates - one of which, of course, I know very well, because I used to represent it, and I've always lived there, Wentworth - the Liberal Party was seen as having moved too far away from the centre, and too far to the right. And Allegra was able to come through the centre, as indeed Kerryn Phelps did for a period. So that's why they supported them. Now, if you had a party, an association, an alliance, call it what you will, that had those values, and they are essentially being progressive, I would say just simply rational, common-sensical on climate, practical on social issues, but centrist, a bit conservative on the economy and being pro-business and so forth. If you've got that combination, which broadly covers most of the Teals, most of those independents, then I think that would get a lot of support. And this is the ground, sadly, that the Liberal Party has abandoned, or certainly the electorate thinks it's abandoned it. Otherwise, they wouldn't have elected all these independents in what had been safe Liberal seats.
HAMISH MACDONALD: Can I just clarify something? This is obviously a side issue to this, but nonetheless, it'd be interesting to know. I was just looking at the very well-known scholarly source, Wikipedia, which said that Mr Turnbull let his Liberal Party membership lapse in 1986, rejoined in 2000, and there's periodically been times to, you know, kick Mr Turnbull out of the Liberal Party. Can I just clarify - are you still in? You're lapsed? You, like, expect someone to...
MALCOLM TURNBULL: No, I'm still a member of the Liberal Party, and there are people that regularly call for me to be expelled. There was a branch of the Liberal Party that moved a motion to expel me from the Liberal Party when I was Prime Minister, actually. So, there's always been this sort of right wing group...
HAMISH MACDONALD: So you... you're hanging on, you're helping to organise a little bit on the side, but for their own good, or what?
MALCOLM TURNBULL: I am not organising anything, just to be quite clear. I mean, it's really a matter for these independent members of Parliament, and they're the natural people to do this. And really, the question I think for them, for their supporters, for their electorates - and I point to Allegra Spender only because she's my local member - is: is Allegra Spender's highest and best role in politics being a thoughtful, eloquent, knowledgeable crossbencher, or should she be on the front bench, whether it is in opposition or in government? Of course, when you're in opposition, you're the alternative government. The reality is, we don't have enough talent in government. And I can say, because I've been in quite a few cabinets over the years, there is not one cabinet of which I have been a member, let alone Prime Minister, which would not have been considerably improved by having any of these Teals as members. And when I say Teals, I'd include Bec Sharkie, and I'd include Helen Haines, who are not Teals, but they're also independent. So these independents are really high quality political individuals with a lot of great political skills, life experience, and so forth. They should at least have the opportunity to be part of a government. And if you're perpetually on the crossbench, the most you can hope for is that one day there'll be a hung parliament and you'll have some leverage. So I think that's the argument. Now, if the Liberal Party had got the memo about the Teals, they would have tacked back to the centre and tried to recruit them. But instead, as we know, Sam and Hamish, they keep on moving further to the right, trying to outdo One Nation. You can never outflank One Nation on the right.
HAMISH MACDONALD: It's coming up to 20 minutes past 9:00. Sam Maiden is here from news.com.au, and Malcolm Turnbull, the former Prime Minister. Sam, I know when we spoke in the wake of the Farrer by-election, you sort of hinted a note of caution about not overstating where One Nation is at because it's won a single by-election seat. But obviously, some polls out over the weekend - the Redbridge poll in the Fin Review - has certainly got a lot of people talking and excited. How are things looking for One Nation more broadly at the moment?
SAM MAIDEN: Well, they're looking great, according to the polls. But I mean, I am still cautious to the extent that I think that sometimes voters use polls in between elections to send a message to the government, or indeed the opposition, that they're not happy, right? So it's kind of strategic. Now, we've seen the result in South Australia, which was obviously quite good for One Nation, but my point is just that what people say they're going to do in a poll - how long is it, two years out, or a bit less from an election? - may be very different to how they vote at that time. That's all I'm saying. So I think that you're not going to know for sure until the election rolls around. That's all I'm saying.
HAMISH MACDONALD: And might it also be possible, Sam Maiden, that the current debate around tax and budget reform might offer an opportunity for the Liberals to find their way back to young voters, for example, in these inner city seats in cities like Sydney?
SAM MAIDEN: Well, I think that if, off the back of this sort of fairly significant change to the tax system, that if Angus Taylor's numbers don't lift in a big way, I think that's going to be a real vote of no confidence, and it might revive discussion of Andrew Hastie returning to the scene. So, I think it's tricky. But, I mean, I don't know I suppose we've asked Mr Turnbull before about his views on capital gains tax, and it usually results in a discussion of Scott Morrison trying to do it. But how would... how...
Malcolm Turnbull: That’s not true
SAM, MAIDEN: You've done that before. And then you blame me for my role in that. But...
MALCOLM TURNBULL: That was negative gearing, actually.
SAM MAIDEN: That's right - well, that's when Scott Morrison was allegedly looking at negative gearing. But, I mean, how would you do it if you were a leader right now? What would be your approach to the reforms to negative gearing and capital gains tax?
MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, let me say this. I think that Jim Chalmers and Albanese and co did a very effective job in getting everybody prepared for a change to negative gearing and capital gains tax insofar as it applied to investment residential property. I mean, obviously, it's a broken promise and all that stuff, but if they'd limited it to that, I don't think there'd be much concern. What has surprised everybody is the change to capital gains tax in its application to every other kind of asset. And it's obviously the indexation, the Keating formula indexation, in many cases, can result in lower capital gains taxes. If you think about it, if you've owned an asset for 20 years and you sell it today, it's gone up in value of course, you pay capital gains tax even at the reduced rate. Most of that gain, you'll be paying tax on this inflation. So there's some merit, there's an argument you can make for the Keating model. But the problem is, they haven't been able to explain it, and the application on other types of assets has not been explained. I think, to be honest with you I think the best advice - and this is the first time I've said anything publicly on the debate - the best advice, I think, was Pocock's advice on the Insiders show on Sunday, when he said the real estate stuff should be passed, and its application to other assets should go to a Senate committee and be looked at very, very carefully. And I think if I was the government, I'd be allowing that to happen, because I think everyone could benefit from that. And you could then discriminate, because part of the objective, one assumes, of changing the tax regime for residential real estate investment is to say to investors: don't invest in that, unless it's a new build, invest in productive assets, in companies and businesses and so forth. But if you're applying the same capital gains tax to all assets, you're not actually providing that signal.
**ends**
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