CHAPTER NINE

Politically right, personally wrong

It was without doubt one of the worst weeks of senator Mitch Fifield’s life. Fifield had been one of the small group of eight that had helped bring down Tony Abbott, thereby restoring Malcolm Turnbull to the leadership. Almost three years later, Fifield was to appear at a press conference with two friends, Mathias Cormann and Michaelia Cash, that would inflict deep wounds on another friend, Malcolm Turnbull.

The decision left Fifield himself distressed, confounded other political friends, and will probably haunt him for the rest of his days. Fifield has reflected long and hard over what happened. It has not been an easy time for him, and, like so many others, he likens it to a grieving process. It is painful, incites bouts of introspection, guilt, deep remorse, and self-laceration.

He has reached a point of some calm. Almost three months after the events, reflecting on what happened, Fifield concluded by saying, ‘I did the right thing politically, but I did the wrong thing personally.’

As minister for communications and the arts, and deputy leader of the government in the Senate, Fifield was highly competent and extremely hardworking. He pulled off the seemingly impossible by getting all major media outlets to agree to new ownership laws, then got them through the Senate, ending Paul Keating’s outdated prince-of-print, queen-of-screen rules from the 1980s. He was respected by his colleagues and by the crossbenchers. He had a good sense of humour and was a safe pair of hands. Fifield was renowned for his breadth of knowledge and attention to detail.

Fifield had never regretted his part in Abbott’s downfall. He had never fallen out with Turnbull, had never had a row with him, had never grown distant from him, and had never had any cause to complain about his treatment. He had never once contemplated defecting from Turnbull, nor ever thought there was a better option than him to lead the government to the election. That was until Tuesday 21 August, when Turnbull vacated the leadership and the vote was read out, revealing that 35 Liberals had voted against him. Fifield voted for Turnbull in that ballot, and he believes that Cormann and Cash did, too.

Fifield had been intrigued by the leadership speculation over the previous weekend, but didn’t really think there was much to it until Sunday night’s emergency cabinet meeting. Dutton and Steve Ciobo were late getting there, and the pre-meeting dinner was incredibly awkward, marked by desultory conversations. Through it all, Michael Keenan, one of Dutton’s best mates, who had dropped strong hints to friends a few days before that Dutton was on the move, said nothing and looked like thunder. The atmospherics were terrible and portentous.

At that meeting, Turnbull and Morrison wanted to announce the decision not to legislate the emissions targets the next day and then announce the acceptance of the ACCC’s recommendations to crack down on price-gouging the day after that. Fifield could not see the logic behind separating the two, so suggested that both be announced together, and the package put to a special party-room meeting the next day before the announcement. In Fifield’s view, because the situation was so fraught, careful attention should be paid to process, because sometimes faulty process can bring you undone. Ain’t that the truth.

Morrison, especially, was opposed to Fifield’s idea, saying it was only legislation, not policy, that needed to go to the party room. Turnbull backed him. However, they did eventually agree to announce the two measures together the next day.

In retrospect, convening a special party-room meeting on Monday, where the latest iteration could be explained calmly to everyone at once, and where people would be free to blow off a bit of steam, rather than dropping it all at a press conference, where other issues were bound to intrude and cloud what was already a messy message, or while the government was under attack in parliament – which is what happened – would have been a much better way to go. And if Luke Howarth had followed through with his threat to call for Turnbull’s resignation, the likelihood is that he would have been shouted down.

Instead, at the usual Tuesday party meeting, Fifield was listening to Turnbull’s speech to MPs. He thought it was good. It was calm, measured, respectful. Then, suddenly, he heard Turnbull say he was vacating the leadership. WTF, he thought.

As soon as the vote was read out, Fifield’s heart sank. The vote against Turnbull was way too high. Like dozens of others in that room and elsewhere, he knew immediately that Turnbull would not be able to survive. As Fifield walked out with Cormann, they shared similar emotions. They were cranky that their opinions had not been sought in advance by Turnbull on vacating the leadership. Fifield says they would have done what they could to talk Turnbull out of it. Maybe he doesn’t trust us, they thought. And they both concluded that Turnbull’s position was untenable. There was only one way it could end.

Fifield and Cash spent some time with Turnbull and Cray that day, offering up whatever intelligence they had, which at that stage was not much.

They were in and out of Cormann’s office, too. That night, Fifield attended the FreeTV annual soiree. The next morning, he did interviews on ABC’s AM and with Kieran Gilbert on Sky, and a doorstop. He avoided answering when he was asked if he thought Turnbull could survive, only making it clear that he had voted for Turnbull and it was time to get on with the people’s business.

Subsequently, after the regular leadership meeting in Turnbull’s office, Cormann told Fifield that other cabinet ministers had reached the same conclusion they had, which was that Turnbull could not survive. Names swirling around included Dan Tehan, Christian Porter, and Josh Frydenberg.

Cormann wanted to tell Turnbull that he had lost even more cabinet ministers and more backbenchers since the ballot 24 hours before, that his position was not retrievable, and that he should step aside. He asked Fifield if he was okay with that. Fifield told him he was.

Cormann went to give Turnbull the bad news. As previously stated, Turnbull told him this was tantamount to giving in to terrorists, and Cormann replied he knew, but that he had to.

After question time on the Wednesday, after Cormann had appeared with Turnbull at the press conference in the prime minister’s courtyard and declared his continuing loyalty to him in response to questions from the media, Fifield and Cash went to see Turnbull, also to tell him the same thing. ‘Right, OK,’ Turnbull said. ‘So you would vote against me in a spill, would you, and vote for Peter Dutton?’

Cash told him it had not got to that. Fifield told him that if it did come to that, he would be prepared to vote for Dutton. ‘This has got to come to an end,’ he told his friend. ‘It’s not recoverable; there has to be an orderly transition.’

This was not the news that Turnbull wanted to hear. He brought up Dutton’s eligibility to sit in parliament, insisting that the governor-general would not swear him in. He walked over to his phone, saying he would call the governor-general right then and there to discuss it.

Instead, Cash suggested that Turnbull should ‘get Mathias around’. He did. Cormann offered Turnbull his resignation. Turnbull would not accept it, telling him not to be silly, saying there was no need for that. They stood, and he shook them all by the hand, thanking them for their friendship and support up to that point.

‘Why are you looking so glum?’ Turnbull asked them. ‘You should be feeling good. You are working towards what you want – Peter Dutton as leader. I am not glum.’

It took between 10 and 15 minutes. To say it was gut-wrenching is an understatement. Fifield, who had not told his staff or others, including his close friends, what he was planning, wondered how long it would take for it to leak. While Turnbull, Cray, and other staff were hoping to swing Cormann back, word seeped out that evening that Cormann was defecting.

The three of them had not thought beyond the meeting with Turnbull, but now had to think about the next step. Cormann, who was telling his colleagues he was convinced that Dutton had the numbers, said it would all come out, and he would probably have to go out and state his position. Whether Dutton had the numbers or not, the fact is that, at this point, Liberals in each camp believed it was so close that it didn’t really change the bottom line, which was that Turnbull’s leadership was over.

Cormann was insistent they had to bring it to its inevitable conclusion.

Fifield did not sleep that night. The next morning, Thursday, he rang friends, including the Speaker, Tony Smith, with whom he had worked closely during Costello’s years as treasurer, to tell them he was planning to have a press conference with Cormann and Cash so they could announce their decision. Fifield, already dressed and in his office, rang Smith around 6.00 am. Smith was at his home in Canberra, having his first cup of coffee of the morning, watching the news on television. Smith was horrified. He told Fifield he would come in straightaway to see him. Smith was in Fifield’s office before 7.00 am. Fifield was looking very stressed. He told Smith that, at their doorstop, they would be announcing they were voting for Dutton.

Smith was brutally frank with his friend. He told him he did not support what they were about to do, and wanted no part of it. He told Fifield that giving in to those determined to destroy Turnbull was both morally wrong and politically stupid – the public would be appalled, and Dutton would be an electoral disaster, particularly in Victoria. It would be like a double Hindenburg, he told his friend. Smith said he would stick with Turnbull and do everything he could to support him and stop Dutton. As far as Smith was concerned, it was nothing personal against Dutton. Smith and Dutton had entered parliament together, and had once shared a flat, but Smith was angry with him and what had occurred, and wanted no part of a ‘reckless stampede’.

Smith kept emphasising to Fifield what a really bad idea he thought it was. He urged Fifield to take time to think about it. ‘Don’t do anything. Just pause,’ he advised him. ‘Don’t go and quit. You have time. Take a bit of time.’

Then he told him to think about what it would mean for his friends, for him in his seat of Casey, and for Kelly O’Dwyer in Higgins.

‘You are entitled to do what you want to do, as long as you know you are throwing us into an electoral furnace if you make Dutton leader,’ Smith told him. ‘If you didn’t know it before, you know it now.’ Anyone who has spent five minutes watching Smith run proceedings in the House has a rough idea of how direct Smith can be. It is nothing compared to his directness in private.

Fifield was already beginning to regret what he had committed to doing. That deepened as the day wore on, and worsened during the night.

He told Cormann after Smith’s visit that he might not do the press conference. Cormann told him he could do it on his own, but he would rather Fifield and Cash were there. He wanted them both standing beside him.

As 9.00 am approached, Smith was getting ready to open proceedings in the House of Representatives. He asked his staff to let him know the minute anything happened.

Jim Chalmers, the shadow finance minister, happened to be on chamber duty that morning. There was hardly anybody else there. Like everyone else in that building, Chalmers was watching events closely. As Cormann’s shadow, Chalmers studied Cormann closely. He always thought that Cormann would choose the moment that would have maximum impact to make his announcement. He judged that Cormann liked being at the centre of things, and that whatever he did, he would do in a dramatic way.

Chalmers was scrolling through his phone, when up popped tweets about the trio walking into the prime minister’s office. Chalmers rightly assessed that Smith was focussed on what he had to do that moment, rather than on news alerts on his phone. Chalmers, who had also worked for a treasurer, liked Smith and thought him a good Speaker. In fact, even Labor MPs regarded Smith as one of the best speakers of modern times.

Chalmers walked up to the chair, showed him the alerts on his phone, and said quietly to Smith, ‘You might like to see these.’

Minutes before, Cormann had texted Sally Cray to say that the three of them needed to see Turnbull. They were told to go in the front door. Cameras stationed at the end of the corridor were able to capture them entering and leaving.

They were ushered into a waiting room. Turnbull entered, closely followed by Morrison saying, ‘This isn’t a conversation you should be having on your own.’

Angry and disappointed, Turnbull lectured them, saying this was the government of the country, not some university students’ association meeting. Again, he said there were issues with Dutton involving section 44 of the constitution that meant he could not be sworn in.

At one point, Fifield suggested another meeting, so they could talk about an orderly transition, but there was no point. They told Turnbull they were going out to do a press conference, and offered their resignations.

Fifield and Cash looked like ghosts. Each of them spoke, each saying the same thing, that Turnbull had lost the support of his colleagues, that there should be an orderly transition, and that Turnbull should call another party meeting so that the matter could be resolved.

When they got back to Cormann’s office, the prime minister’s office called, seeking their resignations in writing.

At this point, Dutton was the only candidate. Soon, Morrison would formally announce his candidacy, and so would Bishop.

Later that day, Cormann took Fifield around to see Dutton. They went to his office, but were told he wasn’t there and that they should look in the monkey-pod room. Dutton wasn’t there, either. Fifield walked into the room, saw the projector, and saw that the smallish room dominated by the highly polished table was filled with people who had worked for three years to destroy Turnbull. His brain began to throb. Did he really want to be aligned with them? Fifield was not alone in thinking this. Others had also told Dutton that they could not vote for him because of Abbott.

Fifield received a text message from Morrison that evening, asking for his support. He received other text messages, including one from Christopher Pyne, also imploring him not to throw him into the furnace by voting for Dutton. Pyne was threatening to quit his seat if Dutton was elected and then sought to punish Pyne by dumping him from cabinet. Julia Banks was getting help from the prime minister’s office to write her letter of resignation. Pyne also asked other friends of Fifield’s to intervene, to see if they could talk him around.

His Victorian colleagues from the lower house, particularly Smith and Kelly O’Dwyer, were shattered, not only fearing that their own seats would fall if Dutton were elected leader, but wondering how all of them would fare at the hands of voters appalled by what was happening. They were nowhere near as shattered as Fifield. He was distraught.

Smith texted Fifield around 7.30 pm, then went back to see him again around 9.00 pm. He wanted to have one more go at talking him around. He didn’t stay long. ‘You heard everything I said this morning,’ he said to Fifield, and then asked him for an undertaking he would think about it overnight. Fifield pledged that he would.

Fifield spent another sleepless night. Early on Friday morning, he spoke to two people whose wise counsel he valued. The first was his partner, and the other was Smith again. He had pretty much resolved in his mind not to vote for Dutton, that he would switch his vote to Morrison. He then had to tell everyone.

He ducked across the corridor to Cormann’s office first to tell him. Cormann said it looked like he could not change Fifield’s mind. Fifield confirmed he could not. He told him that Morrison had not been in the race when they made their announcement, and he had to do what he thought was best electorally. He was particularly worried about what would happen in Victoria.

Then he went to see Dutton, who had people in the room with him. Dutton ushered them out. After Fifield told him his decision, Dutton was disappointed, but remained calm and professional. He asked if Fifield was taking anyone else with him. Fifield had not sought to sway any others. They shook hands. Dutton told him that no matter what happened, he would want Fifield in his cabinet.

His next stop was the office of the defence minister, Marise Payne, to tell her his decision. The two have been friends for decades. ‘In the 30 years we have been friends, I have never wanted to throttle you until yesterday,’ she told him. They hugged and wiped away tears.

Then he went to see Simon Birmingham. They worked closely together in the Senate, and they had worked closely together to plan Turnbull’s coup against Abbott.

His final stop was Morrison’s office. He also had people with him, and ushered them out. His numbers men – Alex Hawke, Steve Irons, and Stuart Robert – were clustered around a laptop in another adviser’s office.

As Fifield walked into the treasurer’s office, the place he had spent so many hours in another life, Morrison said to him, ‘Come home, Mitch.’

Before Morrison could give him his spiel, Fifield told him he had been to see Dutton to tell him he would not be voting for him. ‘I am voting for you,’ Fifield said.

Morrison, not quite believing his luck, or mishearing what Fifield had said, asked, ‘Are you going to tell Duts?’

Fifield replied, ‘I already have.’

Morrison asked him if he was going to put out a statement. Fifield hadn’t thought about it, and it soon became immaterial anyway. Before Fifield had made the short walk back to his office, Sky was already reporting that he had switched his vote and would be supporting Morrison.

Fifield voted for the spill motion on the Friday, and then supported Morrison in the leadership.

Fifield was not the only MP traumatised by the events of that week, nor the only one to regret his actions.

His answer to the why-question – Why did Turnbull lose the prime ministership? – also echoes his colleagues. ‘A combination of reasons. There was internal agitation and a group of people who never accepted him as prime minister. That and political misjudgement in the final week by Malcolm. A large number of colleagues, in the face of those facts, determined the situation was untenable and irretrievable.’

After the election, Fifield had to make a tough choice – to either stay in cabinet as communications minister and as manager of government business in the Senate, or to go to New York to become Australia’s ambassador to the United Nations. Morrison had made it clear to him that he could do either. Fifield decided the best thing for him and his family was to go to New York.