Malcolm Turnbull Age, Wife, Children, Family, Biography

Some Lesser Known Facts About Malcolm Turnbull

• Turnbull’s maternal grandmother, May Lansbury, was born in England.

• Malcolm is of direct paternal Scottish descent. His great-great-great grandfather John Turnbull immigrated to New South Wales from Scotland in 1802 and worked there as a tailor.

• His parents were not married to each other at the time he was born. They exchanged vows only after he was one year and two months old.

• According to Malcolm, his parents did not share a good relationship. They only stayed with one another because Malcolm was a child.
  

  Malcolm Turnbull as a toddler with his mother

• In an interview, Malcolm said that his mother used to talk down to his father as she used to earn more than him. He also claimed that she, while working in a college, met with a professor with whom she began an affair.

• His parents divorced when he was nine years old. Following the divorce, his mother left for New Zealand and from there, after earning a PhD, she went to the United States of America.

• After the end of his parents’ relationship, Turnbull was raised alone by his father. They both shifted to a smaller rented flat in the suburbs of Sydney. His father also hid the fact that his mother had left them for a long time.
  

  Malcolm posing for a photo with his father

• As per him, since his father had a touring job, he was often left alone at home because of which he felt very lonely.

• After studying for three years at the Vaucluse Public School, he attended the St Ives-based Sydney Grammar School.

• He used to stay in the hostel of the Sydney Grammar School, where he used to get bullied by other students due to bed wetting.

• Since Malcolm’s father did not earn enough, he sometimes could not deposit school fees on time. This led the school to send several warning letters on numerous occasions.

• In school, Malcolm did not perform well in mathematics but did well in other subjects such as Greek, English, and History.

• He also took part in many extra-curricular activities and was part of his school’s debate and drama clubs. He won many accolades for the clubs, including the Lawrence Campbell Oratory Competition.
  

  Malcolm Turnbull with his schoolmates at Vaucluse Public School

• His interest in politics arose at a very young age. He even wrote numerous articles on the Australian and international political situation for his school’s magazines and newspapers. The interest further deepened after he had a conversation with the former Premier of New South Wales Jack Lang.

• Turnbull suffered from asthma as a child due to which he could not play physically demanding sports.

• At the age of 15, Malcolm started working and earning to help his father financially. He also used to load bananas in the fruit market in Australia.

• For performing well in academics, Turnbull was appointed co-captain of his school in 1972. He was also awarded a scholarship which covered a major part of the fees.

• He did not have many friends in school because of his strict nature as a prefect of his class.

• He graduated from high school with a Dux (leader). However, some other sources claim that he did not receive a Dux.

• As a youngster, he wished to lead the Labor Party’s Australian Workers’ Union (AWU).

• After joining the University of Sydney in 1973, Malcolm Turnbull joined the university’s student union of which he went on to become a board director. He also joined the Students’ Representative Council.
  

  A photo of Malcolm taken during his graduation ceremony at the University of Sydney

• After completing his graduation, Turnbull worked as a news reporter with the Austalia-based Nation Review, Radio 2SM and Channel 9. He reported on these channels on political issues.

• In 1978, he was awarded the Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford University. There, he met Lucy, his wife.

• At Oxford University, he initially enrolled in a business degree. He, however, quit the course to sidestep to law.

• At the university, Turnbull met Kerry Francis Bullmore Packer, a businessman, and later, worked with him as a law associate for him.

• While undergoing post-graduate studies in the UK, he worked briefly for the Sunday Times.
  

  Malcolm’s photo taken when he was in his early 20s

• Theresa May, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, was Malcolm’s classmate at Oxford. According to her, Malcolm helped Philip May, Theresa’s husband, to propose to her.
  

  A photo of Malcolm Turnbull taken with the British Prime Minister May

• In 1981, Malcolm was one of the few candidates chosen by the Liberal Party to contest preselection for the New South Wales state election. He, however, was defeated by Peter Coleman.

• In 1982, William McMahon, the former Prime Minister of Australia, after retiring from politics, selected Malcolm as his successor candidate for the Lowe constituency by-polls. The party, however, chose someone else as a candidate leading to a loss of seat in the by-elections.

• In 1983, Malcolm returned to Australia, where he joined the Australian Consolidated Press Holdings Group. He worked there till 1985.

• In the meanwhile, Turnbull became a member of the New South Wales Bar Association after passing a national-level bar examination.
  

  A photo of Malcolm taken while he was representing a client in a court in Australia

• Later, he worked as a defence lawyer for Kerry Packer after the latter was accused of being involved in the killing of a banker named Ian Coote. To improve the public’s backing of Packer, Malcolm released a 6000-word press release, which was published in many national newspapers and magazines.
  

  Malcolm Turnbull (right) with Kerry Packer during a hearing session

• He later had to leave the NSW Bar Association after he fell out of favour with the senior officials of the Bar Association for asking Packer to file a defamation case against the person who accused him of murdering the banker.

• Turnbull later asked the Australian government to establish a fact-finding committee to scrutinise the findings reported by the Costigan Commission. In the report, it was mentioned that Packer was involved in several extortion and murder cases.

• In 1986, he established a law firm named Turnbull McWilliam.

• In the same year, his firm defended a former British Military Intelligence (MI5) employee named Peter Wright against the British government. The British government sought to ban the publication of Peter’s book in Australia. In the book, he mentioned his secret tasks against the Soviet Union during the Cold War era.
  

  Peter Wright, the former MI5 employee, with Malcolm Turnbull during an event

• Initially, the Australian government banned the sale and publication of the book. However, after Malcolm’s argument on impeaching civil rights, the government decided to lift the ban.

• Peter’s case was instrumental in uplifting Malcolm’s public image as an advocate in Australia and the European Union.

• He did not renew his membership of the Liberal Party after it lapsed in 1986.

• Malcolm expanded his business from owning a law firm to establishing an investment banking company named Whitlam Turnbull & Co Ltd. in 1987.

• In 1988, he penned the trial of Peter in his book titled The Spycatcher Trial. The book sold millions of copies in both, the United Kingdom and Australia.
  

  The Spycatcher Trial’s cover page

• In the same year, he purchased a retail complex situated at the Military Complex in Cremorne for $6.8 million. He sold the property in 1999 for $4.5 million.

• Malcolm was very close to his mother. He, in the 1980s, purchased a luxurious home for her in Sydney and tried to persuade her to leave the US and live close to him. However, she refused to relocate.

• In 1990. the name of Whitlam Turnbull & Co Ltd. was renamed to Turnbull & Partners Ltd.

• In 1991, Malcolm went to the United States of America to attend his mother’s funeral. While there, he came across numerous letters penned by his father to her in which he scolded her for not attending Malcolm’s birthdays when he was a child. One letter read,
  

  He was expecting you for his birthday and you did not even come.”

• In 1993, Malcolm Turnbull was appointed as the director of the Star Technology Systems. He remained in the post till 1995.

• He was appointed as the chairman of the Axiom Forest Resources in 1993. His appointment came at a time when the company was involved in logging the Solomon Islands. He is credited with making a deal with Prime Minister Solomon Mamaloni to allow Axiom to continue logging, which he earlier threatened to close.

• In the same year, the Government of Australia decided to discard the monarchic form of government by adopting a republican form of government. For this, the Prime Minister constituted the Republic Advisory Committee and appointed Turnbull as a core member and later as a chairman.

• Malcolm Turnbull later became chairperson of the Australian Republican Movement. He remained a part of the movement till 2000. He was also one of the founding members of the movement.

• In 1994, he purchased the Australia-based OzEmail, an Internet Service Provider (ISP), and bought stakes worth $500,000 in it.

• Malcolm has often supported the demand of the Australians to change the national flag. He has also served as a member of the Ausflag, an organisation promoting the adoption of the new flag.

• He left the organisation in 1994 after Ausflag demanded his resignation for not being able to rally support for it.

• In 1997, Malcolm left Turnbull & Partners Ltd due to a fallout with business partners and became Goldman Sachs Australia’s managing director.

• Later, he purchased stakes and became a partner in the organisation.

• Turnbull worked in both personal and managerial positions as a journalist, a lawyer, a merchant banker, a venture capitalist, and Chairman of the Australian Republican Movement before 1997.

• In 1998, Malcolm attended the Australian Constitutional Convention in Canberra as an elected delegate. There, he spoke against the then-ongoing notion of merging the posts of President and Prime Minister. He, however, favoured the adoption of the bi-partisan appointment republican model.

• In 1999, he sold his stakes in the OzEmail for $57 million to Worldcom, a telecommunications company, just a couple of months before the dot com bubble burst.

• In the same year, Malcolm Turnbull campaigned in favour of the Australian Republic Referendum and led the Yes Campaign as its chairperson.
  

  Malcolm leading a campaign in favour of making Australia a republic

• Upon failing to gain support for the referendum, he blamed the then-Prime Minister for not working with him for the “Republican cause.”

• He penned a book titled Fighting for the Republic in 1999.

• In 2000, he was appointed as the treasurer of the Liberal Party owing to his extensive experience in dealing with legal financial issues in the corporate sector.

• In the same year, Malcolm was selected along with Peter King to contest the preselect elections from the Division of Wentworth by the Liberal Party. He, however, withdrew himself later after realising that Peter had more supporters than him.

• In 2002, he was appointed as a member of the federal and New South Wales executives committee. He remained in the committees till 2003.

• Malcolm was raised as a Presbyterian, a Reformed (Calvinist) Protestant tradition, by his father. However, in his early 20s, he became an agnostic. He became a Roman Catholic at the insistence of Lucy, his wife, in 2002.
  

  A photo of Malcolm Turnbull taken in a church

• He has often received criticism from many Australian religious groups and churches for supporting the legalisation of abortion and same-gender marriage.

• In the 2003 preselection, Malcolm decided to contest against Peter. Peter, in an election campaign, claimed that Malcolm was trying to influence the voting pattern in the division by recruiting members into the party in the division who would vote for him.

• As the director of the Liberal Party’s research centre Menzies Research Centre as its director, he conducted numerous researches in areas such as education, indigenous affairs, home ownership affordability, balancing work and family responsibilities and national population and fertility policy.

• He once again began advocating for adopting a new flag for Australia in 2004 after joining the Australian National Flag Association.

• In 2005, the combined net worth of Malcolm and Lucy Turnbull was assessed at A$133 million, which made him Australia’s Richest parliamentarian.

• Malcolm Turnbull was listed in the BRW Rich 200 list in 2010 with a net worth of A$186 million. However, his ranking slipped, and in 2014, he was not included in the list.

• Thereafter, he tried to finish a novel started by his late mother, Coral Lansbury, called Opium.

• Malcolm Turnbull occasionally consumes alcoholic beverages.
  

  Malcolm Turnbull enjoying a beer during an event

• He does not smoke tobacco and is anti-smoking. However, in an interview, he revealed that while studying at Sydney University, he once tried smoking marijuana but quit it after not liking it. He has also campaigned many times against smoking.

• The middle name “Bligh” was adopted by his family in honour of Governor William Bligh who was removed from his post after the Rum Revolution in New South Wales. Turnbull’s great-great-great-great-grandfather was one of the most loyal followers of William.

• Even though he is a member of the Australian Liberal Party, Malcolm is close to many members of the Labor Party due to his family members’ relations with them. According to sources, he, in the 1990s, wished to join the Labor Party and leave the Liberal Party.

• In 2007, he was appointed as the Minister of Environment and Water for a short time by Prime Minister John Howard at a time when there was an inadequate water supply in Australia due to a drought.

• In the same year, he approved establishing a pulp mill in the Australian state of Tasmania. He, however, received criticism from the public as the mill was environmentally challenging and would have led to more hazards.

• Later, he passed a bill, levying more than 48 conditions on the pulp mill owners to reduce environmental damage.

• Turnbull, in 2007, during an election campaign, said that he would work on implementing a cloud seeding technology which was built in Russia. He also said that if he formed the government, it would invest $10 million.

• After winning the elections in 2007, Malcolm decided to contest in-party elections for the leadership role after John Howard denounced his post following a loss in the elections.

• Malcolm was defeated by a very small margin of votes by Brendan Nelson, who appointed Malcolm as a shadow treasurer of the party to remove any scope of resentment amongst his followers.

• According to senior members of the party, Malcolm lost the leadership elections as he did not toe the line of the party on several issues such as by apologising to the Stolen Generations.

• Even though the Liberal Party was one of the coalition parties that had formed the government, Malcolm and many other ministers in the government criticised the then Prime Minister for increasing taxes in the 2008 finance budget.

• By the middle of 2008, Brendan’s popularity and support in the party decreased as he constantly changed his stand on emissions trading and climate change.

• Later, his leadership was challenged by Malcolm and an in-party election was conducted in which Malcolm emerged victorious over Brendan by four votes.

• Malcolm Turnbull gave a speech in the Senate in June 2009 in which he claimed that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was involved in a car dealership scam (later came to be known as the OzCar affair) and called for an inquiry into the matter.

• Malcolm was reportedly approached by a civil servant named Godwin Grech, who gave him all the details of the scam through an email. However, later, an inquiry determined that the email was fake and the information in it was manufactured.

• Thereafter, the Australian National Audit Office established a fact-finding committee, which determined that the Prime Minister had nothing to do with the scam. This led to a massive loss of Malcolm’s popularity among the public.

• When the Australian government proposed the implementation of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) in November of the same year, Malcolm expressed his support for it. However, several MPs of the Liberal Party were against it, leading to a split in the party.

• Many MPs later called for conducting a leadership election in the party; however, their demand failed.

• Tony Abbott later challenged Turnbull to a leadership election. Malcolm initially believed that Tony would lose because he thought Tony had no support to prove his majority. However, Tony won with just a single vote.

• Malcolm reportedly intended to leave politics after his defeat.

• In 2010, he announced that he wouldn’t contest the senate elections. However, he later changed his mind and decided to run for the elections, stating that the Former PM Howard had motivated him to do so.

• Malcolm has often voiced his opinion in favour of passing same-sex marriage law in Australia.

• In 2010, he advocated for the formation of unions in the country to support the legalization of same-sex marriage. This proposal, however, faced significant criticism, even from his party.

• In the same year, Abbott and Malcolm called for discontinuing the National Broadband Network (NBN). However, they later dropped the idea due to criticisms.

• In 2013, they both came up with minimal revamping of the functioning of the NBN and tried introducing fibre to the node (FTTN) and the last mile by copper cable.

• To implement FTTN, Malcolm oversaw the signing of the deal between NBN and Telstra Group Limited in 2014.

• In the same year, he announced that despite the reports of the government to incur losses, it would continue the implementation of the FTTN.

• He criticised the Australian media in 2014 saying “the media went too far by publishing the emails in the newspapers” after details of emails of Nova Peris, Senator of Australia, were leaked in which she talked about using public money for personal use.

• In September 2015, Malcolm Turnbull left his post as cabinet minister to contest against Tony Abbott in the party leadership elections as the party’s image had decreased substantially as per the opinion polls before the federal elections.

• Malcolm defeated Tony with a margin of 10 votes in the elections and became the new leader of the Liberal Party. This also led to Malcolm becoming the Liberal Party’s next Prime Ministerial candidate.
  

  Malcolm Turnbull with Tony Abbott during a party meet

• Soon after becoming Prime Minister, Malcolm increased the total number of female MPs in his cabinet. Under his leadership, the government allotted the Ministry of Defence portfolio to a woman MP for the first time.

• Malcolm, who did not have a clear majority to govern, was reportedly asked by the National Party of Australia (one of the coalition parties) to make several deals totalling $4 billion on their behalf.

• They later asked him to hand over control of the Ministry of Water to one of their party’s MPs for their support to his government.

• In 2015, Queen Elizabeth II issued an order to the provision of granting a knighthood/damehood to a recipient of the Order of Australia on Malcolm’s recommendation. This move was appreciated by pro-Republicans and criticised by monarchists.

• He has often spoken in favour of re-establishing the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC). A bill seeking the same was presented in the Senate in 2016; however, it was rejected.

• Thereafter, Malcolm, along with his cabinet ministers, formally requested the Governor General of Australia to dissolve the Senate. His request was accepted and new federal elections were held.

• Prime Minister of New Zealand John Key met with Malcolm Turnbull in February 2016. They signed an agreement which allowed citizens of New Zealand to acquire Australian citizenship if their wages were five times more than the average wage in Australia.
  

  John shaking hands with the Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull

• While campaigning for the 2016 elections, he invited Sheikh Shady Alsuleiman, president of the Australian National Imams Council, for dinner at his home which created an uproar in the LGBTQIA+ community due to the latter’s anti-LGBTQ position.
  

  Sheikh Shady Alsuleiman at the dinner party hosted by Malcolm Turnbull

• Soon after, Malcolm Turnbull released a statement in which he said that he would not have asked Shady to come to his house if he was aware of his stance.

• The Liberal Party had the highest number of seats in the 2016 elections but could not prove their majority, so the party had to ally with a few other parties to form their government.

• According to sources, Malcolm spent $1.75 million for campaigning for the Liberal Party.

• In 2016, the Malcolm-led Liberal Party voted in favour of the legalisation of same-sex in Australia. However, when a bill a legalisation bill was presented by the party in the Senate, it was rejected, twice.

• After forming a government, Malcolm spoke with President Barack Obama over the telephone to discuss the influx of refugees from Central Asia and Central America. A deal was made between the US and Australia according to which both countries would take some refugees after a thorough background check.
  

  Malcolm Turnbull posing for a selfie with President Barack Obama

• In 2017, after Donald Trump took over the office of the President, he talked about discarding the deal with Australia, calling it “dumb.”

• Thereafter, he visited the United States of America, where he met the President to retain the Resettlement Deal that he signed with Barack Obama.

• A letter written by Malcolm Turnbull to his ex-girlfriend addressing her cat once went viral on the internet.
  

  The letter written by Malcolm Turnbull to his ex-girlfriend

• Malcolm played an instrumental role in implementing the “pumped hydro” electricity generation method. He devised the technique in March 2017 when Southern Australia began facing power outages for hours.

• In November of the same year, Malcolm passed a law that increased the taxes on the export of Liquified Natural Gas (LNG). He did so because of the shortage of the supply of natural gas in Australia. This was criticised by many gas-exporting enterprises.

• Later, he supported conducting a plebiscite in the country on same-sex marriage issues. More than 61 per cent of Australians voted in its favour.

• In 2017, when Donald Trump decided to withdraw the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Malcolm visited the 11 nations who had signed the treaty out of fear of the failure of the partnership. The partnership was renamed TPP-11 later.
  

  Malcolm posing for a photo with the partners of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)

• In December 2017, the Labor Party once again presented the same-sex legalisation bill, and this time, it was passed in the Senate. The law debarring same-sex marriage was amended in the constitution on 9 January 2018.
  

  Malcolm Turnbull with other MPs celebrating after the passage of the law that legalised same-sex marriage

• He is credited with devising policies and deals with the city and state governments in Australia to chalk out a middle path if there is a conflict of interests so that the development does not get affected.

• His government became unstable in 2017 after two of his cabinet ministers were disqualified by the Australian High Court for violating the Parliamentary Eligibility Law by holding dual citizenship.

• The party regained its majority in the Senate once again in December 2017 after the two dismissed members won the bye-elections after renouncing their other citizenship.

• In the same year, he expressed his desire to send more Australian troops to Afghanistan to help the US-led NATO forces in conducting anti-terrorist operations.
  

  Malcolm Turnbull’s photo taken while he was visiting the Australian troops deployed in Afghanistan

• A photo of Malcolm went viral on the internet in 2017 in which he was seen holding a glass of beer in one hand and holding his granddaughter in the other. He received criticism and was also trolled for it.
  

  The 2017 photo of Malcolm for which he was trolled by internet users

• Despite supporting the change in the design of the Australian flag earlier, Malcolm changed his stand on the issue in 2018 after he rejected the new flag design proposed by Ausflag. The president of the organisation, in an interview, said,
  

  For those idiots who tell us we should not be debating it on this day, it’s the lowest form of censorship. On what day should we debate it? Maybe Bastille Day? Or American Independence Day?”

  

  The flag design with removed Union Jack which was proposed by Ausflag in 2018

• By mid-August 2018, the Liberal Party was divided into two factions; Turnbull leading the liberal faction and Tony Abbott and the then Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton leading the conservative faction.

• Later, Dutton challenged Malcolm Turnbull to an in-party leadership election, which Malcolm won by eight votes.

• Thereafter, Dutton and Abbott called for another round of the leadership elections. However, Malcolm denied as Dutton’s eligibility as a Member of the House of Representatives was under scrutiny by the Solicitor General of Australia.

• After the Solicitor General revealed that Dutton was not fit to serve, Dutton presented Malcolm with a petition signed by 43 members of the Liberal Party. After that, Malcolm decided to step down, appointing Scott Morrison as the next Prime Minister.

• During his tenure as the leader of the Liberal Party, the party often had revolts over his views on climate conservation, same-sex marriage, and taxation on natural exploitation of the resources in Australia. He is known to have centrist, progressive, and socially liberal political views.

• In the later phase of his political career, Tony Abbott and Peter Dutton became his biggest rivals. After leaving his post as PM, Turnbull called a press conference in which he called both of them “wreckers.”

• As the Prime Minister of Australia, Malcolm earned a salary of $507,338.

• Even though Malcolm Turnbull is against the consumption of tobacco, in 2018, a report emerged according to which he held stakes in numerous tobacco and cigarette-producing global companies.

• He joined a US-based finance company named Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. in June 2019.

• In December 2019, he was invited as a guest on Tony Jones-hosted Australian program named Q+A.
  

  Malcolm Turnbull in a snip of the reality talk show Q+A

• After the Scott Morrison government discarded Malcolm’s plan to increase taxes on LNG exports, Malcolm criticized him and also spoke out against the government for its lack of environmental conservation efforts.

• In 2020, after reports surfaced that Rupert Murdoch, an American businessman, had control over a majority of the Australian media, Malcolm and Kevin Rudd filed a petition in the Royal Commission established to ensure the media remained unbiased and free of corruption.

• He later floated an e-petition seeking a probe into the issue on the internet which gained more than 500,000 signatures from Australians, becoming the most signed petition.

• On 9 November 2020, this petition was presented in the Senate by Andrew Leigh, an MP of the Labor Party.

• Some of the autobiographies that he has penned are A Bigger Picture (2020), Is the West Dying Out?: Family, Fertility and Survival (2003), and The Reluctant Republic (1993).
  

  A Bigger Picture’s cover page

• The International Hydropower Association (IHA) appointed him as a non-executive member in January 2021.

• Thereafter, Malcolm became the co-chairperson of the International Forum on Pumped Storage Hydropower, a branch of the IHA.

• Malcolm is well-known for taking a stance against the expansionist policies of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

• When he was invited by the Taiwan-based Centre for Asia Pacific Resilience and Innovation to deliver a speech in 2023, he criticised China for showing its military and economic force against Taiwan in the South China Sea.
  

  A photo of Turnbull taken in Taiwan while he was delivering a speech

• He has also served as the director of Clean Up Australia, an NGO working on preserving nature and climate in Australia and abroad.

• Under his Prime Ministership, the Australian government laid a huge emphasis on modernising its defence forces, especially the naval arm. The country commissioned more than 54 naval ships into service from 2015 to 2018.
  

  A photo of Malcolm Turnbull taken while he was giving a speech during the inauguration of a ship of the Australian Navy