Peter Dutton spills beans on Former PM Malcolm Turnbull

Peter Dutton has savaged former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull in a new TV documentary that charts the meteoric rise of Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

The Home Affairs Minister, who unsuccessfully challenged for the Liberal Party leadership last year, said Mr Turnbull’s resignation was vindictive and selfish.

“He chose to leave in a way that John Howard never would,” Mr Dutton said.

“In a way that Kevin Rudd didn’t, in a way Julia Gillard didn’t and it was done simply out of spite.”

Bad Blood/New Blood is a two-part series which premieres on Sky News tonight.

Part one looks at the knifing of Mr Turnbull.

Coalitions MPs, including Mr Dutton and Mr Morrison, expose the details of “spill week” and beyond to David Speers.

The documentary reveals how a heated argument over dinner in a Canberra restaurant between Mr Turnbull ally Craig Laundy and Queensland MP Luke Howarth kicked off the leadership spill.

“When I got there Craig said something like, ‘You’re not supporting this madness, are you’ and then we just had a frank discussion,” Mr Howarth said.

“It was pretty straightforward and honest. What I was going to suggest to Malcolm is that actually he resign so we didn’t need a ballot and we didn’t need any division.”

Mr Laundy said they caused a scene and it was then he knew the spill was brewing.

“We lost our temper,” he said. “It was a tense exchange.” Mr Laundy called Mr Turnbull straight after the dinner to warn him there could be a move against him.

“Malcolm said to me very clearly I would rather live on my feet than die on my knees,” Mr Laundy said.

A snap leadership spill was called the next morning.

Mr Turnbull narrowly defeated Mr Dutton, 48 votes to 35, but he was mortally wounded. Steven Ciobo, the former trade and defence industry minister who backed Mr Dutton, claimed the Home Affairs Minister “drove” the coup against Mr Turnbull and had been gathering supporters for “quite some time”.

“Peter was relatively confident that he would have the numbers,” Mr Ciobo said.

He said his first “serious” conversation about a leadership tilt by Mr Dutton was when they flew to Canberra for the Sunday night Cabinet meeting before “spill week”.

“Obviously you need to have someone who is willing to, in many respects, take the bullets, and Peter was of the view that it was better that he put himself forward than to continue to wait for something to change,” Mr Ciobo said.

The toxic relationship between former PM Tony Abbott and Mr Turnbull is also canvassed in the series. “It was pathological,” former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce said. “If you put them both in the room, there wouldn’t have been a metaphorical fight, it would have been a literal fight.”

Bad Blood/New Blood airs at 6pm tonight on Sky News.