Malcolm Bligh Turnbull was born in Sydney, New South Wales, on 24 October 1954, the only child of Bruce Bligh Turnbull and Coral Magnolia Lansbury. His father was a hotel broker, while his mother was a radio actor, writer, and academic, and a second cousin of the British film and television actress Angela Lansbury. His maternal grandmother, May Lansbury (née Morle), was born in England, while his other grandparents were Australian-born. He is also of Scottish descent; his great-great-great-grandfather John Turnbull (1751–1834) arrived on the Coromandel in 1802 in New South Wales and became a tailor. In an interview in 2015, Turnbull said that his middle name “Bligh” has been a family tradition for generations, originally given in honour of Governor William Bligh. Turnbull’s parents married in December 1955, fourteen months after his birth. They separated when he was nine, with his mother leaving first for New Zealand and then the United States. Turnbull was from then raised solely by his father. Turnbull suffered from asthma as a young child.

Turnbull spent his first three years of school at Vaucluse Public School. He then boarded at Sydney Grammar Preparatory School in St Ives, before attending Grammar’s high school campus on College Street on a partial scholarship. During this time he lived at the school’s former Randwick boarding facilities. He was made senior school co-captain in 1972, as well as winning the Lawrence Campbell Oratory Competition, excelling particularly in the literary subjects such as English and history. However, contrary to certain sources, Turnbull was not the dux of his graduating year at Sydney Grammar. In 1987, in memory of his late father, he set up the Bruce Turnbull means-tested scholarship at Sydney Grammar, which offers full remission of fees to a student unable to afford them.

In 1973, Turnbull attended the University of Sydney, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in political science in 1977 and a Bachelor of Laws in 1978. During his studies, he was involved in student politics, serving as board director of the University of Sydney Union. He also worked part-time as a political journalist for Nation Review, Radio 2SM and Channel 9, covering state politics.

In 1978, Turnbull won a Rhodes Scholarship and attended Brasenose College, Oxford, where he studied for a Bachelor of Civil Law from 1978 to 1980, graduating with honours. While at Oxford, he worked for The Sunday Times and contributed to newspapers and magazines in both the United States and Australia. During Turnbull’s time at Oxford, a university don wrote of him that he was “always going to enter life’s rooms without knocking”.

Turnbull is married to Lucy Turnbull (née Hughes), who was the Lord Mayor of Sydney from 2003 to 2004 and has held a number of other prominent positions. The couple were married on 22 March 1980 at Cumnor, Oxfordshire, by a Church of England priest while Turnbull was attending the University of Oxford. They live in the eastern suburbs of Sydney.

In 1981, Turnbull stood for Liberal Party preselection in the Division of Wentworth prior to the 1981 Wentworth by-election. He was defeated by Peter Coleman, who went on to win the seat. In 1982, following his retirement from politics, former prime minister William McMahon nominated Turnbull as his preferred successor in Lowe; the Liberals chose another candidate, and lost the by-election to Labor. Turnbull later attempted preselection in the safe state seat of Mosman in 1983, losing to Phillip Smiles. He let his membership of the Liberal Party lapse in 1986, before rejoining in 2000. Turnbull was made Federal Treasurer of the Liberal Party in 2000, and was a member of the party’s federal and New South Wales executives from 2002 to 2003. He also spent time as a director of the Menzies Research Centre, the Liberal Party’s research centre.

In 1987, Turnbull established an investment banking firm, Whitlam Turnbull & Co Ltd, in partnership with Neville Wran, the former Labor Premier of New South Wales, and Nicholas Whitlam, the former Chief Executive of the State Bank of New South Wales and the son of former Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. Whitlam parted company with the firm in 1990; it operated as Turnbull & Partners Ltd until 1997.

In 1993, Turnbull was appointed by Prime Minister Paul Keating as Chair of the Republic Advisory Committee, charged with exploring ways of moving Australia to a republican form of government by replacing the Queen of Australia with an elected Australian head of state. Later that year, Turnbull became Chair of the Australian Republican Movement, a position he would hold until 2000. He was an elected delegate at the 1998 Australian Constitutional Convention in Canberra. At the Convention, Turnbull cautioned against mixing the roles of President and Prime Minister, advocating a parliamentary republic, and supported the bi-partisan appointment republican model adopted by the convention.

Turnbull purchased a stake in the internet service provider OzEmail in 1994 for $500,000. He sold this stake several months before the dot com bubble burst in 1999 for $57 million to then-telecommunications giant MCI Worldcom.

Turnbull left the firm he co-founded in 1997 to become a managing director of Goldman Sachs Australia, eventually becoming a partner in Goldman Sachs and Co. Additionally, he worked as a director of Star Technology Systems from 1993 to 1995. During this time Turnbull was also the chairman of Axiom Forest Resources, which conducted logging in the Solomon Islands under the trading name Silvania Forest Products. The latter’s work was described by the Australian International Development Assistance Bureau as a “clear-felling operation”, and the then Solomon Islands Prime Minister Solomon Mamaloni reportedly threatened to close it down for “constant breaches of logging practices”, according to a critical article in the Solomon Times.

Turnbull was an active campaigner in the unsuccessful 1999 referendum to establish an Australian republic, serving as Chair of the Yes Committee. He published a book on the campaign, titled Fighting for the Republic. When the referendum failed, he accused incumbent Prime Minister and monarchist John Howard of “breaking the nation’s heart”. Turnbull retired from the Australian Republican Movement in 2000, having already left the board of Ausflag in 1994; he joined the Australian National Flag Association in 2004.

In 2000, Turnbull intended to seek Liberal preselection for Wentworth but did not eventually contest after concluding that preselection hopeful Peter King had the numbers in the branches. In 2003, Turnbull announced that he would challenge King for the seat and successfully defeated him to become the Liberal candidate. During what was a bitter preselection campaign, King accused Turnbull of branch stacking, by having local members transferring their membership to a branch that would decide the pre-selection, what King referred to as “branch stripping”.

On 1 January 2001, Turnbull received the Centenary Medal for services to the corporate sector.

In May 2002, Turnbull appeared before the HIH Insurance royal commission to be questioned on Goldman Sachs’s involvement in the possible privatisation of one of the acquisitions of the collapsed insurance company. The Royal Commissioner’s report made no adverse findings against him or Goldman Sachs, however, Turnbull was one of nine defendants who settled later litigation over the collapse in undisclosed payments, thought to be worth as much as $500m.

In 2005, the combined net worth of Malcolm and Lucy Turnbull was estimated at A$133 million, making him Australia’s richest parliamentarian until the election of billionaire Clive Palmer in the 2013 election.

Announcing a cabinet reshuffle on 24 January 2006, Prime Minister John Howard promoted Turnbull from the backbench to the role of parliamentary secretary, giving him special responsibility for water at the height of the 2000s Australian drought. On 26 September 2006, Howard announced the creation of a new Office of Water Resources, sitting within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, to address the problem of drought in Australia; Turnbull was given responsibility for this office.

In January 2007, Howard promoted Turnbull to the Cabinet as Minister for the Environment and Water. In this position, Turnbull approved a proposed A$1.7 billion Bell Bay Pulp Mill in north Tasmania, near Launceston. Turnbull’s approval of the Bell Bay Pulp Mill project of Gunns came on 4 October 2007 and followed a report by the Government’s chief scientist Jim Peacock on the project’s potential environmental impact, which required the project to meet 48 “strict environmental” conditions.

In February 2007, Turnbull was criticised for claiming a government allowance of A$175 a night and paying it to his wife as rent while living in a townhouse owned by her in Canberra.

During the 2007 federal election campaign, Turnbull announced that if re-elected the Government would contribute A$10 million to the investigation of an untried Russian technology that aims to trigger rainfall from the atmosphere, even when there are no clouds. The Australian Rain Corporation presented research documents written in Russian, explained by a Russian researcher who spoke to local experts in Russian. Although Turnbull claimed that the Australian Rain Corporation was Australian-based, investigations revealed that it was 75% Swiss-owned. It was also revealed that a prominent stakeholder in the Australian Rain Corporation, Matt Handbury, is a nephew of Rupert Murdoch. Turnbull refused to answer questions regarding Handbury’s contribution to the Wentworth Forum, the main fund-raising organisation for Turnbull’s 2007 election campaign.

Turnbull retained his seat at the 2007 federal election with a two-party vote 1.3% swing in Wentworth, despite a 5.6% swing away from the Coalition in the state, and a 5.4% swing against them nationwide. After John Howard lost his seat of Bennelong, on 25 November 2007 Peter Costello, who Howard stated publicly should succeed him, announced he would not seek the party leadership. Turnbull declared his candidacy later that same day, and was considered by the media as a favourite.

On 29 November he narrowly lost the leadership vote to Brendan Nelson by three votes; Nelson quickly appointed Turnbull Shadow Treasurer. Shortly after the vote, fellow Shadow Cabinet Minister Nick Minchin publicly suggested that Turnbull’s failure to consult with party colleagues before declaring his opinion to the media on issues such as an apology to the Stolen Generations was what had cost him the leadership. This led to a disagreement between the two and culminated in Minchin privately telling Turnbull that he was “too fucking sensitive.” In May 2008, Turnbull led the Coalition response to the 2008 Australian federal budget, criticising the increased taxes on luxury cars and certain alcoholic drinks, citing a possible increase in inflation as a concern.

After months of consistently poor opinion polling, Turnbull challenged Brendan Nelson for the leadership on 16 September 2008. He won the ballot by four votes and became Leader of the Opposition. Later that month, Turnbull confessed that he had smoked marijuana in his younger days, becoming the first Liberal Leader to make such an admission. In early 2009, Turnbull appointed Chris Kenny, a former staffer to Alexander Downer and an Advertiser journalist, as his chief of staff. In May 2009, Turnbull attacked the 2009 Australian federal budget which came amidst the fallout from the global financial crisis.

In June 2009, Godwin Grech, a Treasury civil servant, privately contacted Turnbull, alleging that a car dealer with links to the Labor Party had received preferential treatment under the OzCar program, sparking the ‘OzCar affair’. Turnbull later repeated these allegations in Parliament, stating that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Treasurer Wayne Swan had “used their offices and taxpayers’ resources to seek advantage for one of their mates and then lied about it to the Parliament” and that they needed to “either explain their actions or resign”. On 22 June, the email Grech had secretly provided to Turnbull supporting allegation was alleged to have been faked by Grech. Grech subsequently admitted the forgery, with an Australian National Audit Office inquiry on 4 August clearing both Rudd and Swan of any wrongdoing. The resulting embarrassment of having repeated false allegations, as well as Turnbull’s demeanour throughout the OzCar affair, was judged as the cause of a subsequent significant decline in his approval ratings in opinion polls.

On 24 November 2009, Liberal and National MPs and Senators met to discuss the Rudd Government’s proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS). Turnbull announced that his policy would be to support the CPRS, despite significant disagreement among his colleagues. In response, Liberal MPs Wilson Tuckey and Dennis Jensen looked to move a leadership spill motion, intending to nominate Kevin Andrews as a challenger to Turnbull. While this attempt failed, increasing numbers of MPs and Senators publicly criticised the position, with several resigning from the Shadow Cabinet, including Tony Abbott.

On 1 December 2009, just one week after Turnbull announced the policy on the CPRS, Abbott announced he would challenge Turnbull for the leadership. Though initially regarded as having little chance of success, with Turnbull stating in public that Abbott did not have the numbers to win, Abbott defeated Turnbull in the ballot by a single vote. After the shock result, Turnbull returned to the backbench and said he would serve out the remainder of his term as Member for Wentworth. On 6 April 2010, he announced he would not seek re-election to the Australian Parliament. However, on 1 May 2010 he reversed this decision saying that he had been convinced by former Prime Minister John Howard to not give up his political career.

At the 2010 federal election, Turnbull was re-elected with an 11.01% two-party swing towards him. After discussing the possibility of a return to the Shadow Cabinet with Tony Abbott, Turnbull was made Shadow Minister for Communications. In his first policy announcement in the role, Turnbull stated that a Coalition Government would “demolish” the recently introduced National Broadband Network.

Turnbull made the BRW Rich 200 list for the second year running in 2010, and although he slipped from 182 to 197, his estimated net worth increased to A$186 million, and he continued to be the only sitting politician to make the list. Turnbull was not listed in the 2014 list of the BRW Rich 200. As of 2015, his estimated net worth is in excess of A$200 million.

Delivering the 2012 Alfred Deakin Lecture on digital liberty, he spoke out strongly against the Gillard Government’s proposed two-year data retention law. In July 2012, Turnbull was criticised by some Liberal MPs for saying that civil unions should be introduced as a first step towards establishing same-sex marriage in Australia. Tony Abbott rejected Turnbull’s suggestion of holding a conscience vote on the issue.

On 9 April 2013, Turnbull and Tony Abbott presented their party’s alternative National Broadband Network (NBN) plan. The plan prioritised a modified and scaled-down NBN with “fibre to the node” (FTTN) and last-mile by copper cable. The new policy contrasted with the previous position which had called for the dismantling of the entire NBN.

After the Coalition victory in the 2013 federal election, Turnbull was appointed Minister for Communications and began implementing the alternative NBN strategy. In 2014, Turnbull announced that the Vertigan Report, a cost–benefit analysis of providing fast broadband to regional and rural Australia through wireless and satellite services, revealed that continuing the plan would cost nearly A$5 billion and was expected to produce only A$600 million in economic benefits – a return of just 10%. In spite of the economic cost, Turnbull stated that whilst subsidising broadband to regional areas is “fiendishly expensive”, there was no other option.

In December 2014, Turnbull brokered a deal between the Australian Government, NBN Co and Telstra whereby NBN Co acquired Telstra’s copper network and hybrid-fibre coaxial (HFC) to deliver the NBN. Telstra and NBN Co agreed to work together on the FTTN trial involving 200,000 premises. In August 2015, Turnbull revealed that the overall end cost of the network build would likely expand up to an additional $15 billion, with NBN Co likely to take on the additional expenditure as debt. Though still cheaper than the original Labor Party NBN policy, which aimed to deliver much faster connection speeds, the peak funding requirement under the Liberal model ran to between $46 billion and $56 billion.

Turnbull has had a long affiliation with the Liberal Party of Australia throughout his career. During his time in the Australian Republican Movement however, he considered running for preselection for the Australian Labor Party. In 2015, it was revealed that Turnbull had held talks with Labor state politician John Della Bosca during the 1990s on a possible party switch, and that he had harboured aspirations in his youth to head the Australian Workers’ Union, which is linked with the Labor Party. The accusation, made by former Labor Foreign Minister Bob Carr, was cited by Labor Leader Bill Shorten during the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption.

Following persistent leadership tensions amidst poor opinion polling, a leadership spill motion was moved against Tony Abbott on 9 February 2015. Although the spill motion was defeated 61 votes to 39, Turnbull had been reported as considering a run for the leadership if the spill motion had succeeded. Before the motion Turnbull had told reporters that “if, for whatever reason, the leadership of a political party is vacant then anyone, any member of the party can stand, whether they be a minister or a backbencher, without any disloyalty to the person whose leadership has been declared vacant.”

Despite the defeat of the February 2015 spill motion, questions over Abbott’s leadership did not abate, with the Government consistently performing poorly in opinion polls. On 14 September 2015, after 30 consecutive Newspolls had put the Liberals far behind Labor, Turnbull resigned from the Cabinet and announced he would challenge Abbott for the leadership of the Liberal Party. Turnbull stated that Abbott “was not capable of providing the economic leadership we need” and that the Liberal Party needs a “style of leadership that respects the people’s intelligence.” Turnbull defeated Abbott by 54 votes to 44 at the subsequent leadership ballot. He was sworn in as the 29th Prime Minister of Australia the following day.

Turnbull announced an extensive reshuffle of the Cabinet on 20 September 2015 to form the First Turnbull Ministry. Notably, he increased the number of female Cabinet Ministers from two to five and appointed Marise Payne as Australia’s first female Minister for Defence. The number of Cabinet Ministers rose from 19 to 21. On Turnbull’s key policy differences with Abbott, particularly climate change, republicanism and same-sex marriage, he stated that there would be no immediate change before any election. The Nationals successfully negotiated a total of $4 billion worth of deals from Turnbull, as well as control of the water portfolio, in exchange for a continued Coalition agreement. Turnbull stated that he would not lead a government that did not take climate change seriously.

On 21 March 2016, Turnbull announced that Parliament would consider bills to reinstate the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC), with the bills having previously been rejected twice before. Turnbull stated if the Senate rejected the bills a third time, he would advise the Governor-General to call a double dissolution of Parliament and a federal election for 2 July. Turnbull also brought forward the delivery of the federal budget from 10 May to 3 May to facilitate this. On 18 April, the Senate once again rejected the bills to reinstate the ABCC. On 8 May, Turnbull visited Government House to advise the Governor-General to issue the writs for a double dissolution on 9 May; this confirmed the date of the election as 2 July 2016.

During the 2016 federal election campaign, a ReachTEL opinion poll of 626 Wentworth voters conducted on 31 May predicted a two-party swing against Turnbull for the first time since his election to Wentworth, revealing a reduced 58% two-party vote from a large 10.9% two-party swing. A controversy occurred during the election campaign, when the president of the Australian National Imams Council, Sheikh Shady Alsuleiman participated in an Iftar dinner hosted by Turnbull at Kirribilli House. Turnbull said he would not have invited Alsuleiman if he had known of his position regarding homosexuals.

Asylum seeker policy is a contentious wedge issue in Australian politics, especially since the Tampa affair. Continuing the bipartisan stance of Operation Sovereign Borders has been at the forefront the Coalition’s asylum seeker policy. Around 1,250 asylum seekers remain in the offshore processing centres on Manus Island and Nauru. In August 2016, protestors called for the closure of camps on Manus and Nauru after The Guardian released leaked incident reports alleging “routine dysfunction and cruelty” on Nauru.

In July 2016, the Obama administration set up a refugee center in Costa Rica in response to a Central American migration crisis. In November, Turnbull and Peter Dutton announced that Australia would accept 1,250 refugees from Central America, in exchange for the U.S. accepting refugees on Nauru and Manus.

Since the 2016 election, the Turnbull government had followed prior Coalition government energy policies. This involved the wholesale dismissal of renewable energy targets and emissions intensity schemes. This had only hardened when South Australia faced large blackouts, which Turnbull had blamed on the state’s “ambitious” renewable energy target. In response to the gas and energy crisis that occurred in March 2017, Malcolm Turnbull announced a 50% increase in the capacity of Snowy Hydro through “pumped hydro” technology.

In February 2017, Turnbull confirmed he had donated $1.75 million to the Liberal Party’s election campaign.

Turnbull and President Donald Trump held a phone conversation on 28 January 2017, the transcript of which was later leaked to The Washington Post. On 2 February 2017, Trump tweeted that Obama’s deal was “dumb”. US Vice President Mike Pence later confirmed that the United States would honour the deal, subject to “extreme vetting” of asylum seekers. Australia began receiving Central American asylum seekers in July 2017.

In April 2017, Turnbull announced that he would use the Commonwealth government’s powers to place export restrictions on the nation’s liquified natural gas (“LNG”) industry. He announced that these changes were in response to the high wholesale gas prices that were a result of a shortage of gas in the domestic gas market, and that it was “unacceptable” that domestic prices were so high, indicating that a consequence of these restrictions would be a decrease in the wholesale gas price. The multinational gas companies and the gas industry association heavily criticised the policy, saying that it would neither increase supply nor reduce the wholesale price of gas.

Prior to Turnbull becoming Prime Minister, the parliamentary Liberal Party voted to resolve the issue of same-sex marriage by putting the question to Australians voters via a plebiscite. Enabling legislation was rejected twice by the Senate, and so the government decided to adopt a postal plebiscite option, which involved the Australian Bureau of Statistics conducting a nationwide survey asking voters whether they would like to see a change in the definition of marriage. Sending out of ballots began on 12 September 2017, as attempts to prevent the survey through a High Court challenge failed. The survey ended 7 November 2017 and results released 15 November the same year. It returned with a total of 7,817,247 (61.6%) “Yes” responses and 4,873,987 (38.4%) “No” responses.

Members of Turnbull’s government were among those embroiled in the parliamentary eligibility crisis that arose in 2017, which disqualified several parliamentarians who held dual citizenship in accordance with subsection 44(i) of the Australian Constitution. Three Cabinet members were among the “Citizenship Seven” whose cases were heard in the High Court of Australia: the leader and deputy leader of the co-governing National Party, Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, Senator Fiona Nash, and Resources Minister Matt Canavan, who resigned from Cabinet after discovering his potential dual citizenship. The High Court ruled that Canavan was eligible, but disqualified dual citizens Joyce and Nash from Parliament.

The Turnbull Government temporarily lost its one-seat majority in the House of Representatives after Joyce’s disqualification and the resignation of Liberal Party MP John Alexander, who also held dual citizenship. However, in December 2017 both Joyce and Alexander, having renounced their foreign citizenships, contested and won by-elections in their former seats of New England and Bennelong respectively, thereby retaining Turnbull’s governing majority in the House of Representatives.

On 21 August 2018, Turnbull survived a challenge to his leadership of the Liberal Party by Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, winning by 48 votes to 35. The spill highlighted ideological tensions within the Liberal Party, between the moderate wing led by Turnbull and the conservative wing represented by Dutton and Tony Abbott. From 21 to 23 August, tensions mounted and Dutton announced that he would seek a second spill. Turnbull responded that, pending a report from the Solicitor-General of Australia on the eligibility of Dutton to serve in Parliament and the receipt of a petition calling for a party room meeting that bore the signatures of at least half (43) of the parliamentary party, he would call such a meeting, vacate the leadership (regarding the petition as a vote of no confidence) and not stand in the subsequent leadership election. On the morning of 24 August, the Solicitor-General advised that Peter Dutton was “not ineligible” to serve. Later that morning, Dutton presented to Turnbull a document calling for a party room meeting that contained the minimum 43 signatures. A party meeting was then called and the leadership was spilled, with Scott Morrison elected as Turnbull’s successor by 45 votes over Dutton with 40. In his final press conference as Prime Minister, Turnbull denounced Dutton and Abbott as “wreckers”.

On 27 August Turnbull announced that he would resign from Parliament over the coming days. On 31 August 2018 he tendered a formal notice of resignation to the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

On 1 June 2019, Turnbull returned to the private sector as a senior advisor to major global private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR). Turnbull returned to Australia in December 2019 and appeared on the final episode of Q&A hosted by Tony Jones on 9 December 2019.

On 25 October 2020, Turnbull gave his support to former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s petition for a Royal Commission to ensure a strong, diverse Australian news media, tweeting that he had signed it and encouraging others to follow suit. The petition is now the most signed parliamentary e-petition in Australia, with more than 500,000 signatures. The petition was tabled in the House of Representatives by Labor MP Andrew Leigh on 9 November 2020.