Unfriendly fire: famous fights and sledges between Australian politicians supposedly on the same side

Think political sledges and, depending on your vintage, you probably picture Paul Keating in parliament stalking the Liberal opposition leader John Hewson, and promising to “do you slowly”.

But some of the most vicious and memorable political moments have been delivered through friendly fire. Faction v faction or just a personality clash, members allegedly on the same side have prompted some of “Auspol’s” more unforgettable spats.

With social media abuzz with forward sizzle of internal party grievances spilling into the public arena, we took a look at some of the more infamous politicalinfighting.

Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd

We all know how this ended. After almost a year of backgrounding and political brawling, Julia Gillard deposed Kevin Rudd in 2010 to become Australia’s first female prime minister. Almost three years later to the day, Rudd toppled Gillard to take back the Labor leadership, before losing the election to Tony Abbott.

In his (lengthy) memoirs, Rudd describes Gillard as “part lawyer, part dentist”. Gillard painted Rudd as someone desperate for approval and “fragile in the face of criticism, including implied criticism”, in the ABC documentary, The Killing Season.

The entire Labor party appeared to be at war in this period, and while the wounds have mostly healed, there are still scars. Still, it also produced this moment involving the current prime minister.

Liberal women against Scott Morrison

Hell hath no fury like a Liberal woman betrayed by the party and the last parliamentary term offered up some excoriating moments.

The then NSW senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells took to the Senate floor to call Morrison “an autocrat and bully with no moral compass” after she was relegated to an unwinnable spot on the NSW Liberal Senate ticket. In that same speech she accused the Liberal MP Alex Hawke of “ruining” the Liberal party in NSW.

The former Liberal MP Julia Banks referred to Morrison as “menacing controlling wallpaper” in her memoir, after she quit the Liberal party to sit on the crossbench in November 2018, unhappy with the party’s direction under Morrison.

“The Liberal party has changed, largely due to the actions of the reactionary and regressive right wing who talk about and to themselves rather than listening to the people,” Banks told the chamber when she announced her resignation from the party.

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Julie Bishop, the former Liberal deputy leader who was knocked out in the first round of votes for the party leadership in the spill that eventually installed Scott Morrison as prime minister, later embraced her sense of freedom with a series of one-liners. That included when she responded to Morrison’s Hawaiian holiday during the 2019-20 devastating bushfires, telling a Liberal fundraiser: “The prime minister is testing the theory that the best way to resolve a crisis is to be as far away from it as possible.”

Hollie Hughes v Angus Taylor

The NSW Liberal senator Hollie Hughes’s first chance to sit in the Senate didn’t exactly go to plan in 2017, when the high court ruled she was ineligible to take up the seat vacated by Fiona Nash (also ineligible under section 44). That is because she had been appointed to the administrative appeals tribunal by George Brandis, putting her Senate appointment in conflict with the constitution. The late Jim Molan ended up winning the spot.

But then Hughes toppled Molan from the top spot of the Senate ticket in 2019 and quickly made her presence known. So no one was more surprised than Hughes when the most recent Senate ticket vote bumped her off the winnable spots into Senate vote obscurity. True to form, Hughes is not going quietly, accusing the shadow treasurer, Angus Taylor, of muscling her out in an attempt to win leadership votes within the party room.

“This is a message to colleagues that some people’s ambition is more focused on themselves rather than the betterment of the team.”

Hughes has also appeared on “Sky after dark” to lament that it doesn’t seem to be a good thing to be “good at your job and a woman” in the NSW Liberal party. This one still has some legs to run, so stay tuned.

Andrew Peacock and Jeff Kennett on John Howard

These days one of our biggest fears is having the group chat leaked, or DMs going public. Back in March 1987, most politicians believed their private conversations to be safe. That was until the then Victorian opposition leader, Jeff Kennett, called his federal Liberal colleague Andrew Peacock from the car on the way home from an event. The call was picked up by a scanner and published on the front pages of the nation’s newspapers.

Neither were a fan of the then opposition leader, John Howard, or how the federal Liberal party had handled the state byelection campaign.

Peacock was recorded as saying: “Well, fuck him. I’m not worried. I just … I almost bloody cried. I was terribly worried. I was terribly worried. My fuckin’ anger yesterday as Margaret knows. First thing I came in last night I said ‘Oh, fuckin’ cunt! I said the whole fuckin’ thing could upset tomorrow’ I was really … And she was saying, ‘What’s Jeffrey done?’ and I was saying ‘It’s not what Jeffrey’s done. It’s what everyone’s fucking done to Jeffrey’.”

Kennett was even more scathing: “… In the end I said to him, I said, ‘Howard. You’re a cunt. You haven’t got my support, you never will have and I’m not going to rubbish you or the party tomorrow but I feel a lot better having told you you’re a cunt.’

Peacock was sacked from the shadow ministry. Howard went on to become Australia’s second-longest-serving prime minister.

Clive Palmer v Jacqui Lambie

It seems about 100 years ago now, but before the Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie was THE Jacqui Lambie, she was an unknown elected to the Senate under the Palmer United party banner. Lambie and Palmer very quickly found themselves at odds, with Lambie outright refusing to be bound by Palmer’s decisions on legislation votes.

Palmer called Lambie a “drama queen” and later accused her of being a “plant” to destroy his political party, which at the time held enough Senate votes to either make or break Abbott government legislation. Lambie quit the party, ending Palmer’s balance of power voting block.

Fast forward a decade and Lambie is still in the Senate with her own political party, although a falling out with senator Tammy Tyrrell saw history repeat – Tyrrell’s defection from the Jacqui Lambie Network has cut down Lambie’s influence as a balance of power in the 47th parliament.

Pauline Hanson and … most of her party

Malcolm Roberts still sitting as a One Nation senator is the exception, not the rule, with Hanson famously having falling out with most of the people elected under her party banner.

One of the most memorable was Rod Culleton, who was elected as a One Nation senator in 2016, but very quickly ended in headlines. Hanson accused Culleton of having an out-of-control ego, saying of her senator: “You can’t give him advice, he runs his own race. That’s not teamwork.”

The spat led to several colourful moments, which Culleton called a “storm in a teacup” leading to this perfect segue:

Culleton resigned from One Nation in December 2016, five months after the election. Hanson declared she was “glad to see the back of him”. Later that month, the federal court held that Culleton was bankrupt, making him ineligible to sit in the Senate.