Bishop shut down the fun with a curt,"Thank you for that,John"and returned the discussion to the agenda for the meeting of the Asean Regional Forum ministerial meeting on August 6 in Kuala Lumpur.
The anecdote is told inpart four of Fairfax Media'sShirtfrontedseries on the life of the Abbott government,which also reveals that Malcolm Turnbull spent two years trying to be appointed to the Abbott cabinet's National Security Committee,but was blocked by his prime minister.
Abbott later explained that Turnbull would only"gum up the works"because all his instincts on national security were the opposite of his own.