He said Mr Turnbull did “not have a political bone in his body”, took the Government’s message from three-word slogans to “3000”, and alienated rusted-on Liberal Party supporters. Mr Dutton predicted the Coalition would have lost 25 seats if Mr Turnbull remained prime minister.

Mr Turnbull has regularly denied wrongdoing, but has privately briefed some MPs on what he was planning as prime minister, reaffirming the views by some that he is trying to destabilise and kill off the Government.

“I am the first to defend the legacy of the Turnbull government. Malcolm was strong on economic management, borders and national security, but Malcolm will trash his own legacy if he believes his position is strengthened by seeing us lose under Scott,’’ Mr Dutton said.

“Walking away from (his seat of) Wentworth and not working to have (Liberal Wentworth candidate) Dave Sharma elected was worse than any behaviour we saw even under Rudd.

“In 2016, Malcolm ran the worst campaign in Liberal Party history, and we ended up losing 15 seats and were left with a one-seat majority which just made the Parliament unmanageable. We were paralysed.

“Countless opportunities to strengthen the Government or nail Shorten passed us by because Malcolm couldn’t make a decision.

“Malcolm is charming and affable but he doesn’t have a political bone in his body and it’s not a criticism, but without political judgment you can’t survive in politics and he didn’t.

“Malcolm had a plan to become Prime Minister but no plan to be Prime Minister.

“He didn’t have John Howard’s touch or judgment nor his ability to convey a message. We went from three-word slogans under Tony (Abbott) to 3000 under Malcolm and our achievements weren’t effectively communicated as a result.”

Malcolm said to me on two occasions, ‘This Government only survives because of Scott, Mathias, you and I’.

“The reality is along with a number of senior colleagues we all did everything possible to make the Turnbull government work — we did not leak or undermine and we backed him up at every turn, but there was only so much we could do.

“The Liberal Party had become unrecognisable to our supporters. People who had voted for us for years had switched off.

“Energy policy had effectively become the “greatest moral challenge of our time” and version after version just didn’t work.

“Marginal seat members across the country believed we would lose the election and in the end MP’s couldn’t walk down the street without people saying you have to get rid of him.

“People thought they had a good local member but wouldn’t vote for us whilst Malcolm was leader.

“It became clear after we had lost 38 Newspoll’s in a row the government was going to be wiped out under Malcolm and that was the view of many based on discussions with their constituents.

“I have no doubt Malcolm will rue the day he stormed in to the party room and declared the leadership open expecting to get a resounding vote.

“His low vote destroyed him without any challenge necessary. It was then only a matter of when, and he used every trick to delay the vote but it would have been untenable to leave Canberra that week without the leadership question being settled.

“I challenged Malcolm for a number of reasons - one was Bill Shorten was certain to be PM if Malcolm was still in his job, so I declared my support for Scott from day one because he is a better person than Bill Shorten.

“(Scott) is a good economic manager and strong on border protection and national security.”

There's plenty more in Renee Viellaris's story at the Courier Mail website.

Thank you Peter for speaking up, if not belatedly.  

It's insulting to be treated like an idiot by your colleagues, including Scott Morrison.  

https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2018/08/scott-morrison-piles-it-higher-and-deeper-in-this-statement-about-turnbull.html

But just having Peter Dutton tell us the truth about Turnbull isn't enough and I'm sure Peter knows that.  The party as a whole has to accept the fact that Turnbull was a disaster and tell the truth about the debacle.  It will wither and die if it doesn't.