Former prime minister Scott Morrison (main picture) has admitted heading up a faction within the Liberal Party and controlling its numbers in party-room meetings to help tear down his predecessor Malcolm Turnbull.

The admission came in the second instalment of ABC TV’s three-party Nemesis series examining the rise and fall of prime ministers Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, and Morrison.

Political observers said it had long been speculated that Morrison controlled and manipulated a bloc of Liberal MPs who voted for Peter Dutton in his initial failed August 2018 challenge to the leadership of Turnbull, effectively falsely inflating Dutton’s support before switching to Morrison in a second ballot days later.

Morrison has always denied being responsible for any such tactics that delivered him the prime ministership.

However, in last night’s Nemesis episode Morrison confirmed the correctness of the past speculation when he said: “I don’t run a faction in the Liberal Party. I don’t control numbers.”

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Producers of the Nemesis series say they had “left on the cutting room floor” segments in which they asked Liberal Party federal MPs how they would describe Peter Dutton in one word.

The same question posed to MPs about ex-PMs Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, and Scott Morrison has generated controversial responses and has been a distinguishing feature of the three-part series.

But the same could not be said when the question was asked of MPs about Dutton.

“No, we were very disappointed in the responses, or more correctly the lack of responses when we asked them to describe Peter Dutton in one word,” an ABC producer told The Bug.

“No matter who we asked, their response came very quickly but was not useful for our purposes.

“Every single MP simply said ‘Can’t’ when asked if they would describe Dutton.

“So we were naturally disappointed that we couldn’t use all of that footage,” the producer said.

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Malcolm Turnbull has denied wrongly taking credit for same-sex marriage law reform after failing to give it sufficient personal and political backing when he was prime minister.

“That’s just rubbish,” Mr Turnbull told reporters outside his Sydney harbourside home this morning.

“Some people are simply out to get me and insist on rewriting history. I was always on the side of landmark reform during my time as prime minister.”

When asked if his response applied to the indigenous voice to federal parliament which he immediately denounced as “a third chamber of parliament” when it was first announced, effectively damaging from day one its chances of passing a referendum, Mr Turnbull thought deeply for several moments.

He then sombrely said: “On that note and before I answer I think it’s only appropriate that we all close our eyes, and bow our heads in silence for a few moments of reflection as a mark of respect for the recently passed Lowitja O’Donoghue.”

Reporters present agreed but their reflection was broken after just seconds by the sound of Mr Turnbull’s front gate and front door slamming shut behind him.

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