Once upon a time, Malcolm Turnbull declared politics was a "team business". That was way back in July 2013 on the now defunct program Observer Effect.
Back then, in an interview with Ellen Fanning, Mr Turnbull dismissed polls showing he was the preferred leader and encouraged his supporters to vote for the Coalition under Tony Abbott.
“Well that’s very flattering, but it’s a little bit like fantasy football, because it’s not going to happen,” he said.
“We have a leader, we have a team.
“The message that I have is that if you would prefer me to be the leader of the Liberal party, that’s very flattering but I’m not. But I’m part of the Liberal team.
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“So if you’re a Malcolm Turnbull supporter then that’s a very good reason to vote for the Coalition.”
Mr Turnbull told Ms Fanning: “We have room in our party for more than one big figure. Politics is a team business.”
But there were signs of the Prime Minister-to-come in Mr Turnbull's 2013 TV interview, when he spoke about the importance of not talking down to the electorate.
“I actually think dumbing everything down into the 10 second sound bite is an attempt, a patronising attempt to communicate to the common man,’’ he said.
“I think people increasingly look at the dumbing down and the oversimplification of problems as indicating less intelligence on the part of politicians.”
During the interview, Mr Turnbull trod carefully around then-prime minister Kevin Rudd’s policy to turn asylum seeker boats back to Indonesia, and declared Indonesia “had no lawful or diplomatic complaint”.
“It is a very difficult and challenging and potentially dangerous policy to implement, but from the point of view of Indonesia, if the boat is escorted back to the edge of the Indonesian territorial waters and left with enough fuel to get back to Indonesia, they are Indonesian flag vessels,” he said.
Mr Turnbull also used the interview to speak about his support of an emissions trading scheme and to discuss Mr Abbott and former prime minister Julia Gillard’s opposition to gay marriage.
