Kevin Rudd has revealed he offered to make a wounded Malcolm Turnbull his personal envoy on climate change, in the aftermath of the 2009 Liberal leadership spill.

The former Labor prime minister said the former member for Wentworth did not accept the offer but said it was one of the kindest gestures made to him in politics and kinder than anything said to him from his colleagues on his own side.

Former prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Mr Rudd reveals their conversation in his new book The PM Years in which he argues the 2010 coup in which Julia Gillard toppled him for the leadership in the middle of the night with the backing of the party's union bosses was the coup that killed Australian politics and set off the never-ending revolving door of prime ministers.

Mr Turnbull's prime ministership came to an end in similar fashion in August when right-wing forces within the Liberal Party attempted to replace him with the conservative Peter Dutton. Ultimately the job went to Scott Morrison.