'Absolute arsehole' - explosive new book on leadership threatens to destabilise government

Michael Keenan, who served as justice minister when Scott Morrison was immigration minister, made the comments to colleagues at a lunch at the Garum Restaurant in Perth in April 2018, just months before Mr Morrison became leader.

According to Plots and Prayers, political commentator Niki Savva's new book about last year's leadership stoush, Mr Keenan told his West Australian colleagues, including Finance Minister Mathias Cormann, Attorney-General Christian Porter and Mr Morrison's chief ally Ben Morton, that Mr Morrison was an "absolute arsehole".

"Porter joined in, saying he did not think Morrison was a team player. Cormann said he had seen Morrison up close now, and, in his opinion, Dutton was better," Savva wrote in her book to be released on Tuesday.

The book's publication will reignite tensions in the Liberal Party just as the new Parliament is due to sit for the first time since the May 18 election.

In January 2019 Mr Keenan became the second in a string of cabinet ministers to quit the Morrison government citing family reasons.

The book also reveals that Mr Morrison and his fellow Pentecostal and close friend and numbers man Stuart Robert, prayed that "righteousness would exalt the nation," in the minutes before Mr Morrison was made prime minister by the Liberal party room.

Mr Morrison had asked his receptionist to text his wife to ask that his family pray for him as he headed into a prayer session with Mr Robert, now the Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

"We prayed that righteousness would exalt the nation ... righteousness would mean the right person had won," Mr Robert told Savva.

The book also reveals Mr Morrison described his May 18 election win as a "miracle" and that he texted deputy Liberal leader and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg the night before to say the result was "in God's hands" and that "I believe in miracles."

Plots and Prayers examines the behaviour of Mr Morrison and his numbers men as well as that of Finance Minister Mathias Cormann, whose defection from former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull to Peter Dutton was critical in Mr Turnbull losing the leadership.

On the morning of 21 August 2018, just after Mr Turnbull had declared the leadership vacant and only just survived a ballot against Peter Dutton, Mr Robert told Mr Morrison that he would begin asking MPs to vote for Mr Morrison. Scott Morrison did not try to stop him, Savva writes.

The next day, Mr Morrison threw his arm around Mr Turnbull at a joint press conference and said he was still supporting the prime minister, despite knowing his best friend was already canvassing MPs on his behalf.

The book also identifies backbenchers Lucy Wicks and Ben Morton as two of the handful of Morrison backers who deliberately voted against Malcolm Turnbull and in favour of Peter Dutton in the August 21 ballot, to artificially inflate the level of internal opposition to Mr Turnbull and trick Mr Dutton into thinking his level of support was higher than it actually was.

But although the 35 votes Mr Dutton won on the Tuesday were high enough to fatally wound Mr Turnbull, they were drastically below what Mr Dutton had claimed to his fellow Queensland cabinet colleague Steven Ciobo just three nights prior when Mr Dutton bragged he had 50 per cent of the party room ready to install him as leader.

"Dutton insisted to Ciobo that night and the next day that he and Cormann had 'gamed' the whole exercise, that he and Cormann had masterminded the campaign, and that together they had worked out who would go where and what would happen immediately after the coup," Savva writes.

Senator Cormann has always said he did not mastermind Peter Dutton's botched attempt for the leadership and did not agree to be interviewed for the book but is reported to have told friends in 2017 that his best friend in Parliament and walking buddy Peter Dutton would challenge in October 2018, by which point Mr Turnbull would have lost 40 straight Newspolls.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison also appeared unconvinced by Senator Cormann's denials and told Savva that while he took Mathias at "his word," he might also be "naive" to do so.

"Do I think that [Mathias Cormann] was plotting for months, and all of that? No, I don't. I take him at his word that none of this began for him until, at the very earliest, that spill on Tuesday," Mr Morrison said.

"I don't believe that he was either aware or involved up until that point. Now, I may have been naive, I may have believed him too much, I don't know."

Mr Turnbull's former deputy Julie Bishop also warned that Senator Cormann was the "most disloyal man in politics."

Senator Cormann denied he had been behind Mr Dutton's failed leadership attempt.

"That's just not accurate," he told ABC Radio National on Monday morning.

"The bits that relate to me are inaccurate, either inaccurate or one-sided. I'm not going to go into a blow by blow account forensic analysis of every aspect of that book. It's in the past."

Senator Cormann described the events of August 2018 as "a very difficult week".

"I can say that I made the decisions that I thought were necessary, in the interests of the government, the country and the Liberal Party."

The book also reveals Malcolm Turnbull ignored warnings from key allies about Peter Dutton and Mathias Cormann.

Former attorney-general George Brandis told Mr Turnbull early in 2017, "For God's sake, can't you see this guy is stalking you?", but Mr Turnbull laughed and said that Mr Dutton was loyal.

"Don't be ridiculous, George. As if Dutton is capable of being prime minister," Mr Turnbull is quoted as saying.