Turnbull: Half of Parliament Drank to Cope With Depression

Malcolm Turnbull has spoken candidly about a mental health crisis he witnessed inside Australia's parliament, claiming close to half of his former colleagues were experiencing depression and turning to alcohol to cope with the pressures of political life.

"There was a very large percentage — I think it was close to half — of the people in the parliament who were depressed, many of them self-medicating with alcohol," the former prime minister said in a wide-ranging interview with ABC Australia.

Turnbull, who served as Australia's 29th prime minister from 2015 to 2018, reflected on the toll that Canberra's insular culture takes on those inside it, describing politics as "a very tough line of work" that can leave even senior figures profoundly isolated from the realities facing ordinary Australians.

The former leader also weighed in on the relationship between narcissism and political success, drawing a sharp distinction between electoral achievement and genuine public service. "Some of the most successful leaders in history are absolute narcissists," he said. "But are we talking about being a successful leader in the sense of being elected again and again? Or are we talking about being a good leader who is doing good things that are in the public interest?"

He compared Donald Trump's self-aggrandising style to history's less flattering rulers. "You have to compare him to some of the less appealing Roman emperors — the guy who wants to build golden statues of himself everywhere and name everything after himself. It is wild."

Turnbull credited his own financial independence as a shield against the influence of wealthy donors and corporate interests during his time in office. Having worked as a lawyer, Goldman Sachs partner and leader of the republican movement before entering parliament at 50, he said he was neither naive nor susceptible to the trappings extended to many politicians. "The amount of free stuff that politicians are given — most of it should be disclosed. I don't think all of it is."

On workplace conduct, Turnbull defended his controversial decision to ban ministers from having sexual relationships with their staff — a rule widely mocked in Canberra as the "Bonk Ban" after it was introduced in the wake of Barnaby Joyce's affair with a staffer. "Because I'd been in the private sector most of my life, I knew that managers having sexual affairs with younger employees is just out of order because of the power relationship," he said. "A lot of my colleagues thought I was being utterly unreasonable. Frankly, a lot of them thought it was okay."

He described the reaction as a telling sign of just how disconnected federal parliament had become from community standards — a disconnect he said had built over years, even decades.

Turnbull also touched briefly on his own mental health, acknowledging he entered "a very dark period of depression" after he was removed from the prime ministership in 2018's Liberal Party leadership coup — a subject he indicated he was willing to explore further.

The former prime minister urged future leaders to resist the temptation of political paranoia, citing Ronald Reagan's maxim of "trust but verify" as the healthier governing approach. "If you live in a bubble of paranoia in politics, you won't get anything done."