To the surprise of pretty much everyone Scott Morrison, the latest PM, announced that the latest-PM-but-one Malcolm Turnbull would be attending the international oceans forum in Bali on behalf of the government of which he is no longer part.
He was scheduled to attend the forum as prime minister and a charitable interpretation would be that Morrison felt that it would show continuity with our important regional neighbours.
A less charitable one might suggest that Morrison was too scared to face Indonesian president Joko Widodo and explain the whole “move the Australian embassy to Jerusalem” thing which the Muslim world interpreted as a slap in the face to Palestine and so sent the ex to deal with it.
To be fair, it was weird when Scott made the request with this.
If that was indeed the plan, then it had a few teensy-weensy flaws. Like that Turnbull didn’t think it was a good idea and, because he’s no longer in the government and faces zero consequences from the man that took his job, said as much.
“The conclusion that I took, and my government took, after very careful and considered advice was that a policy that is well over 40 years old, 50 years old, should remain exactly the same as it is,” he said of the embassy move.
“The President expressed to me, as he has done to Prime Minister Morrison, the very serious concern held in Indonesia about the prospect of the Australian embassy in Israel being moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.”
And this led ScozMoz to publicly opine that former PMs should shut the hell up when they’re sent to represent the government in Bali.
“I got the report back from his visit,” he explained to his boss-dad Alan Jones on 2GB. “The issue of trade and other things was not really part of his [Mr Turnbull’s] brief. My view, our government’s view about these issues are clear. That’s what we’re pursuing.”
And then he lamented that today’s dumped prime ministers are not channelling their inner Victorian-era schoolchild and being seen but not heard.
“I’m always going to act with respect to previous prime ministers regardless of who they are. But I do think the exemplar about how to go about things post politics is John Howard and on Labor Party side it’s Julia Gillard.” In other words: only say things I agree with, or vanish from public life and don’t come back until there’s a portrait to unveil.
And then Malcolm returned fire with this tweet:
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
What’s especially entertaining about it was that no-one appeared to go “oh OK, that seems fair enough, must have been some sort of perfectly natural misunderstanding by two men that respect one another”.
— Scott Gadaleta (@SJGadaleta) November 1, 2018
ITS ON!!!! MAL AND SCOTTY BEHIND THE DUNNIES AFTER SCHOOOL!!!
— nicholaskmc (@nkmccallum) November 1, 2018
https://twitter.com/markgdunstan/status/1057803570785869824
And then, after we and other outlets published our stories on the tweet, came this…
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
You’re right, Malc. People do get SO senationalist about the Prime Minister and former Prime Minister directly contradicting one another and criticising each other in public. IS POLITICAL RESPECT A THING OF THE PAST?
In other words, we will be popping all of the popcorn ahead of the very special all-Turnbull Q and A episode on Thursday 8 November.
Will he dust off the leather jacket of old? If so, he’d better come on stage to this…
