The Only Interesting Thing About Turnbull’s Leaked Memo Was That Someone Leaked it

Talking points are an essential tool of the Australian political process. They are key points that ministers are expected to mention in Question Time, which are emailed around on memos so everyone says the same thing. It's the best way to present unified message, short of some sort of Village of the Damned-style telepathy.

But there's nothing like a leak to make a boring memo look sinister. Federal Parliament had its first sitting on Tuesday, and someone in the Coalition—possibly someone still smarting over the most recent iteration of Australia's Biennial Prime Ministerial Switcheroo—celebrated by leaking Turnbull's talking points to the press. It's not at all clear why, as there was nothing in there remotely interesting. To see what I mean, read this:

• Labor's budget black hole is almost $50 billion and they have no way to fund it.
• How can Labor seriously argue it has any credibility on the budget and maintaining competent economic management, given its blatantly populist approach to every issue that it has engaged on in the past two and a half years?
• Bob Hawke has said he would kick the CFMEU out because of their repeated bad conduct.
• Why did Mr Shorten do a deal that got rid of penalty rates in return for money for his union?
• How can Labor take the moral high ground on this issue when Tony Burke has admitted to eating the meatball sub in the parliament fridge that was clearly labeled "Barnaby" in thick black marker?

The government's strategy against Labor is certainly familiar, and they're clearly kicking off 2016's first week of parliament with a tried-and-true highlights package: Labor's economic management, union corruption, Bill Shorten's lack of credibility.

So if there was nothing interesting in the leak, why was it leaked at all?

If this was leaked by a disgruntled, or even partly-gruntled Liberal MP, then it's a sign that the disunity of the Liberal party is continuing apace. Abbott was adamant that he would not "white ant" the new government (a curious claim given he immediately started doing so), but how did he define this? Does he consider white-anting to be a very specific type of undermining? Despite deposing a leader in his first term, the Liberals are still fearful of becoming the parody that Labor had become from 2010 to 2013. This could be why the leak is so uniquely un-damaging: The message is the leak itself.

This behaviour certainly has precedent. In August 2015, a month before Tony Abbott was dethroned by Turnbull, the PM's talking points memo was leaked. That memo contained these three talking points:

• We don't comment on cabinet discussions.
• The government is focused on delivering jobs and growth.
• In contrast to the experiences of Rudd and Gillard governments, our cabinet is functioning exceptionally well. Everyone knows that under Labor, cabinet submissions were almost never lodged on time and would instead more often arrive on the day or weekend before a cabinet meeting. Julia Gillard sent her bodyguard to NSC meetings. Our cabinet processes are far more effective and productive than Labor's chaos.

Although leaking the "cabinet is functioning exceptionally well" line was prone to elicit some giggles by virtue of itself being leaked, there is nothing particularly embarrassing in there. This is what the public face of internal Liberal warfare looks like. The gloves are most definitely on.

It's certainly in stark contrast to the damaging leaks that Kevin Rudd admitted responsibility for, which had a continued destabilising effect on the Gillard government.

But let's propose this alternate theory. Stick with us, because however unlikely it may sound, it's not absolutely out of the realms of possibility that Turnbull himself was behind this leak.

Turnbull knows that the press is going to keep writing about internal dissatisfaction at Turnbull replacing Abbott, and that the story will continue in some form or another until well after the next election. So if the press is going to write about this no matter what, why not guide that story in such a way that forces them to repeat the talking points? Every news story that mentions the memo leak also mentioned the contents of the memo, a two-page rundown of all Labor's failures and weaknesses.

If this is the most damaging leak against Turnbull all year, then he's going to have an exceptionally good 2016.

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