Leadership spill was driven by fear of re-election: Turnbull

Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull says the Liberals ousted him as party leader in August because they thought he would win the federal election in May. Speaking with the BBC in London overnight, Mr Turnbull described the leadership spill as a ‘peculiar Australian form of madness’. He believes internal enemies were worried his re-election would have enhanced his authority over the Liberal Party. Mr Turnbull says normally a party would replace an unpopular leader, whose ‘fate is sealed’, with someone ‘much more popular’, which he asserts wasn’t the case. Image: News Corp Australia