The damaging domination of Australia's right-wing media has weaponised climate change, says Malcolm Turnbull, who was Australian prime minister between 2015 and 2018.
The former Liberal Party leader has written the memoir A Bigger Picture about his 50-year career in the media, law and politics.
Malcolm Turnbull Photo: AFP
Listen to the full interview with Malcolm Turnbull
The most recent UN Climate Conference in Glasgow, which Turnbull attended, wasn’t as “inspiring" as the 2015 conference in Paris but neither was it a "train wreck" like the 2009 conference in Copenhagen, he tells Kathryn Ryan.
“I think there was some progress made. Not by Australia, I'm afraid to say, but all of the developed [countries], apart from Australia, increased their 2030 targets. You saw an agreement to reduce methane emissions by many countries, unfortunately not including Australia.”
Speaking at the conference, Turnbull poured scorn over Australia's political response to the climate crisis, saying his country "has never been more out of step on a global issue".
Any attempt to update Australia's climate policy gets hopelessly undermined by a toxic alliance between politicians and parts of the media, Turnbull says.
News Corp tycoon Rupert Murdoch’s domination of media is a malignant force in Australia, Turnbull says.
“One of the luckiest things you have in New Zealand is that you don't have a strong presence from the Murdoch media there.
“You can see the damage that Fox News has done to the United States, probably more damage than any other group.
“Then look at what Murdoch does in Australia - it's essentially constantly pushing the politics of the right. When I say that I don't mean conservatives. I mean, I would regard myself in many respects as a political conservative. I'm talking about the politics of division, of populism, denying the reality of global warming, even denying the reality of Covid.”
Rupert Murdoch Photo: AFP
This is a tragedy, Turnbull says, that has put the brakes on Australia’s potential to be a renewable energy superpower.
“We have huge landmass, we have lots of land which can be used for solar [energy]… massive areas of which have very high levels of radiation and not a lot of alternative uses for the land.
“We've got obviously similar opportunities in wind as long as we plan ahead and are smart.”
For a while, Australia was on the right track, with bipartisan support for an emissions trading scheme, then in 2009, Tony Abbott became the Liberal Party leader. (Abbott was also Australian prime minister from 2013 to 2015).
“Tony's essentially a climate change denialist. He's said climate change is crap or something similarly pithy.
“And from that moment on, from the end of 2009, the climate issue has been utterly weaponised. And it's become essentially an identity issue. People talk about believing or disbelieving in global warming - which is about as sensible as saying you believe or disbelieve in gravity - and it's become an identity issue that essentially divides politics into tribes.”
Media content, in general, has become propaganda, Turnbull says.
“There was a time when a right-wing newspaper, or conservative newspaper like The Daily Telegraph in London, would lean to the right but would still report the news straight.
“Now you've got a situation where because of the internet, digital channels and pay television, people can basically choose the news they want to hear. So you get what can be best described, I think, as monetising a market for crazy.”
The power of Murdoch’s Fox News in the United States is a prime example, he says.
“[Fox News] had the biggest single role in making Trump president. They promoted the idea that Trump had actually won the election last year, and that Joe Biden had stolen it, which is complete fantasy and denial of all the facts. They've obviously been huge opponents of taking effective action on global warming, they've got hosts that regularly criticise the wearing of masks and need for vaccines - it's just crackers.”
Turnbull says that as prime minister, his own relationship with the Murdoch media in Australia was “vexed”.
“Murdoch was quite happy to bring down my government and see Labor win. He said to [media owner] Kerry Stokes 'three years of Labor wouldn't be so bad' when he was trying to enlist Stokes and other media [players] into bringing down my government.”
Murdoch and his fellow media owners prefer prime ministers that pay due deference to them, Turnbull says, and he's never been a “very deferential person".
“The reality is that these media proprietors, if they choose to, can exert a huge amount of influence and they like politicians that suck up to them.”
Turnbull says he went into politics to get things done.
“I’ve always regarded that power without purpose is pointless ... I've always wanted to do things, my role in life, in politics, has been one of being an activist, a reformer.”
Nevertheless, all politicians have big egos, he says.
“You've got to be ambitious, you've got to have self-belief. I mean, just to put up with all the slings and arrows, you've got to have a pretty thick hide, it's a tough line of work."
In his memoir, Turnbull lays bare the Machiavellian machinations of the Liberal Party and the "guerrilla warfare" conducted against his leadership by aspirants Tony Abbott and Peter Dutton.
Turnbull fears his successor - current Australian prime minister Scott Morrison - is an effective operator and campaigner but not such an effective leader.
“My big concern always about Morrison was that he would be a bit like some Labor premiers we've had in Australia over the years, who have been successful getting re-elected and re-elected but never actually did very much.”
Australian prime minister Scott Morrison Photo: