Malcolm Turnbull interview with BBC Today programme 11/5/2026
BBC Audio | Today | 11/05/2026
JOURNALIST: The dynamic between the world's two biggest economies is notable for the impact that it has on other nations trying to navigate it. And to that end, the former Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, is speaking in London tomorrow about his experiences in doing just that, and he joins us in the studio. Good morning.
MALCOLM TURNBULL: Good morning, great to be with you.
JOURNALIST: Just take us back, because there are things… Australia's geographical position is important in this as well, it gives you a really interesting perspective in how to balance those competing nations, competing economies, competing diplomacy and politics. It's not an easy thing to do, is it?
MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, it's a balance. We have our great ally, a strategic partner in Washington, but our principal trading partner in Beijing. We have over 5% of Australians are of Chinese heritage, so they are part of the Australian family. Two of our four grandchildren call me ‘Yé Ye’...grandfather, and so it's really important for us to maintain a strong, friendly, respectful relationship with China, and occasionally that has meant that we've had to push back. So we seek as Prime Minister Albanese says, we seek to agree where we can, but disagree where we must.
JOURNALIST: And how did you balance that? Because sometimes the two sides have completely different opinions on things, and you can't afford to alienate either of them.
MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, you simply have to be true to yourself. This is a critically important thing, both with China and with Washington. In the imperial capital, they regard deferences as their due. So people who go to Washington and suck up to Donald Trump, or frankly do the same in Beijing, are making a massive mistake. You win respect from strong men, from bullies if you want to call them that, by standing your ground and being true to your own values. So, more recently, the focus has been on Donald Trump, and you can see that those, the people, the leaders, look at the Europeans, look at that unfortunate sort of awful incident in Turnberry last year when the Europeans rolled over to Donald Trump. What did they get in return for that? Tariffs and threats to invade Greenland. The bottom line is, sovereignty matters, and you have to stand up and defend your sovereignty. And all of the flattering and grovelling is a massive mistake, particularly with Trump.
JOURNALIST: It's interesting you say that because when those leaders, and one of the problems is that they tend to not explicitly talk about their motivation, do they? It's something that we see and it's quite clear that when you have a personality who is making decisions on his own, big, far-reaching decisions, often depending on what kind of mood he's in that day. For those leaders to speak out, to risk souring that relationship for a long time, it feels like the kind of dance that we've barely seen before.
MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, that's true. I was fortunate in my dealings with Trump in the first term, because by force of circumstance we had a very big row, really our first encounter. And cutting a long story short, I stood my ground, he started off saying “no way”, ended up begrudgingly and unhappily agreeing to stick with an agreement I'd done with his predecessor. But that won his respect, and you don't have to…there's no need to be rude or performative, you can be respectful, but nonetheless stand your ground. You've got to be very careful, whether it is in the playground or in geopolitics, if you are dealing with strong men, bullies, people who like to use force [and] power to get their own way, who bluntly say might is right…who in the American’s case now say the international rules-based order is irrelevant or a cloud castle abstraction, as they say in the National Defense Strategy, if you're dealing with that, the only way to do that is with, obviously, respectfully and politely, but stand your ground. Do not take a backward step.
JOURNALIST: And, as you said, quite clearly there, you do not see in your opinion enough groundstanding happening right now.
MALCOLM TURNBULL: . No, I don't. I think Mark Carney is probably the best example of that. Again, force of circumstance put him in that position. What else could he do? The American President was saying Canada should be the 51st State. He was speaking about Canada, frankly, not dissimilarly to the way Putin talks about Ukraine. It was very confronting. And…Carney is a strong figure, man of great integrity, he stood his ground, and that was the right thing to do, both politically for him within Canada, but also ultimately in dealing with the American President. Mind you, Canada is very, very vulnerable. Carney has famously talked about middle powers and so forth, let's say Australia, UK, Canada as the three middle powers...
JOURNALIST: And do you think there's a future in that?
MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, there is. There absolutely is, but, of course, Canada, in a way is the middle power that's got the greatest challenge in affecting that because over 70% of its trade is with the United States. Our trade with the United States is relatively small, and America has a huge trade surplus with us. So, this is why I was able to persuade Trump not to impose tariffs on our steel and aluminium, because I could say, look, you've got the best trade deal, you can't get a better trade deal than you have with Australia. Canada's in a different situation.
JOURNALIST: Malcolm Turnbull, former Prime Minister of Australia…we focus so much on politics this morning on the program, you must look and think that in a way, I know you're never fully out into politics, but...
MALCOLM TURNBULL: I’m twitching… leadership changes. Loyal colleagues, going through the… Malcolm Fraser, who's obviously a former Australian Prime Minister, had a wonderful expression, he used to say, going through the hypocrisies, and the hypocrisies are: the cabinet is entirely united; the leader has my total support…and other things that everyone is saying…
JOURNALIST: Atleast you can watch that from the outside today.
JOURNALIST: I was just reading an interesting sentence: It's clear enough the government is not successful in providing the economic leadership that we need. Who said that? Malcolm Turnbull when he resigned from the Cabinet and had a change of leadership, got rid of Tony Abbott. What's your advice to people in Keir Starmer’s Cabinet?
MALCOLM TURNBULL: I'd hesitate to pile into UK politics, but look…they're clearly in a lot of trouble. The numbers say that.
JOURNALIST: But you think the changing leadership can work
MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, changing leadership can work. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I would say that certainly the change from Abbott to myself in 2015 took us from being way behind in the polls to being back with the fighting chance. And, we actually won the next election, not by much, but we did at least we won it. We would have been wiped out, otherwise. Sometimes leadership changes can be very adverse, and the problem is the public rewards you for economic competence. There’s a good article in the FT today, if I'm allowed to mention a rival publication, by Martin Wolfe talking about how vulnerable Britain is to authoritarianism because of the lack of a written Constitution and so forth. And one of the things you could usefully do here is adopt the Australian electoral system which we've had for over a century - compulsory voting, compulsory preferential voting, independent electoral commission, which means no gerrymandering, but it does bring politics to the centre. The first past the post is quite undemocratic once you get beyond a two-party system.
JOURNALIST: There might be one or two cocked ears in Westminster this morning. Malcolm Turnbull, thanks for coming to see us.
**ENDS**
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