Malcolm Turnbull, Prime Minister of Australia from 2015-2018, doesn’t hold back in this wide-ranging interview with Freddie Sayers.
We cover everything from the Black Lives Matter protests to rising China and the absence of conservatism in much Right-wing thought. Singling out Donald Trump as someone who is “clearly not a conservative”, the two-time Liberal Party leader explains what he learned about the president from his time in office. Some key quotes:
On statues
- “I’m not a fan of tearing down statues… you can tear down a statue, but you can’t tear down the history”.
On Black Lives Matter
- Supports the movement but hasn’t “had the opportunity” to take the knee.
On China
- “China has changed its approach in recent years to bullying and bellicose rhetoric”.
- “Wolf warrior diplomacy is counter-productive”.
- “Trump is using China as a way to deflect from his failures with Covid”.
- Says US-China relations risk “falling into the Thucydides Trap”.
- No need for relations to “become any more intense”.
On 5G
- “I’m not saying that Huawei is spying for China, but if they’re required to, they will have to”.
- “Surprised” by the British government’s decision to grant Huawei access to key infrastructure.
- “Most people in the Five Eyes Intelligence World would say that Australia has taken a more prudent approach”.
On Dominic Cummings
- “Going to Barnard Castle to check your eyesight seems like a pretty wild thing to do”.
- “It’s important that the Prime Minister is not seen as being under the dominion of another”.
On conservatism
- Boris could “place Brexit within the tradition of practical, patriotic British conservatism”.
- But “most people who claim to be conservatives nowadays wouldn’t know the difference between Edmund Burke and Tony Burke” [Labour politician in Australia].
- “Many conservatives are the absolute antithesis of conservatives”.
- Instead there is “a lot of Right-wing, nativist populism flying around, which doesn’t respect institutions”.
On Trump
- Trump is “clearly not a conservative”.
- The most “idiosyncratic president in history”.
- Describing him as a “bully” is like saying “the Pope’s a Catholic”.
- Expected Trump to be “changed by the office”, but this was “confounded”.
- Found him “practical, pragmatic and business-like” in personal dealings.
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