Sydney: Australia’s election campaign took a personal turn Monday, with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull telling voters how his father raised him alone after his mother walked out.
The multi-millionaire from Sydney’s wealthy eastern suburbs posted an emotional online video tribute to his late father Bruce, saying: “I wouldn’t be where I am today without my dad.” Turnbull said most of his childhood was spent with his father after his mother left them while he was still in primary school.
“We didn't have much money, he was a hotel broker and for most of that time he was battling,” he said in the video released Sunday. Asked whether the posting was designed to counter opposition claims that he was out of touch with ordinary Australians ahead of July 2 polls, the prime minister tugged further on the heart strings. “When my mother left us, we had nowhere to live,” he told reporters in Melbourne.
“Dad rented a flat and didn't have any furniture. I think the only bit of furniture we had left was my bed so he had every reason to be a bit unhappy, to say the least.
“He never uttered a critical word of my mother in all of those years.” Turnbull said after both his parents died — his father was killed at age 56 in a plane crash and his mother died in 1991 — he found letters the pair sent each other over the years.
“The letters, they were filled with sadness and reproach and you know, ‘How could you do this?’ and ‘Why did you do that?’ and the back and forth,” he said.
