Peter Dutton quoted in Niki Savva’s book as saying he and Pyne had national energy guarantee bill killed off to avoid ‘disaster’

Malcolm Turnbull planned to bring on legislation giving effect to the national energy guarantee to stare down opposition from conservative dissidents in the Coalition party room, but pulled back after Peter Dutton and Christopher Pyne “went nuts”.

Fresh details about the internal brawl over the fate of Turnbull’s signature energy policy are recorded in a new book about the Liberal leadership implosion last August by journalist and former political staffer Niki Savva, Plots and Prayers: Malcolm Turnbull’s Demise and Scott Morrison’s Ascension, which will be in bookshops on Monday.

The in-depth account of the brutal power struggle that saw Scott Morrison take the prime ministership coincides with the return of MPs to Canberra for the first sitting of federal parliament since the May election.

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While the coming week will be dominated by ceremonial events to mark the opening of the 46th parliament, and condolences after Bob Hawke’s death last month, the Coalition will push ahead with its $158bn income tax cut package on Tuesday, with Senate debate expected Thursday.

The Labor caucus will gather on Monday to thrash out internal divisions about whether to pass all three stages of the proposal. Thus far, Labor has declined to support stage three, which is targeted at high-income earners, and the shadow finance minister said Sunday the opposition would be influenced by where the crossbench landed.

Pre-publicity for the Savva book has focused on revelations that Turnbull clashed with the attorney general, Christian Porter, over whether the governor general could refuse to appoint Dutton because of the doubts over the home affairs minister’s eligibility to sit in parliament, and the early activity of Morrison’s numbers men in helping their candidate thwart Dutton’s bid for the leadership.

But there is also a chapter laying out the frantic manoeuvring around the energy policy pursued by the then prime minister and the then energy minister, Josh Frydenberg – a policy that was a catalyst for the end of Turnbull’s prime ministership because of an internal brawl about the proposed emissions reduction target for the electricity sector.

Dutton is quoted in the book decrying the policy as “noodle nation Neg” and saying Turnbull planned to bring on the legislation in parliament even though the policy was resisted by a group of party conservatives who were threatening to vote against it.

The home affairs minister is said to have believed that Turnbull’s strategy of trying to isolate internal dissenters by proceeding to court Labor’s support for the necessary legislation would only lead to disaster.

“Turnbull’s plan was to bring the Neg on [in parliament],” Dutton is quoted as saying by Savva. “Pyne and I went nuts.”

Dutton is quoted as saying: “Malcolm’s plan with the Neg was to get the states to agree through Coag, then have the states pressure Bill Shorten to support the legislation, and from there what he thought would happen was on one side would be the Liberal party and the Nationals and Labor. Sitting on the other side would be Tony Abbott and fringe-dwellers.

“It was never going to happen. There were 20 people on our side who were not going back to their electorates with photos of them sitting next to Tanya Plibersek voting on a motion supporting climate change.

“It would have been a complete disaster for the government. We effectively had the bill pulled.”

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The author says Dutton’s account of dissuading Turnbull was confirmed subsequently by Pyne, the then manager of government business. Pyne says he and Dutton convinced Turnbull not to go down the path of splitting the government and not proceed with the legislation until MPs were on the same page.

Even though the Coalition party room had given the proposal in-principle backing despite the lingering dissent, leading Frydenberg to lodge the legislation with the tabling office, Pyne intervened and removed the legislation.

The internal crisis over the Neg continued to escalate, with a Turnbull adviser proposing a regulatory option for the emissions reduction target, which was then leaked, causing more internal angst.

During a cabinet meeting on the Sunday night before the week Turnbull lost the prime ministership, Pyne advocated putting the policy on ice. Pyne is quoted telling colleagues at the meeting: “We can keep dragging our bloodied stump across the political firmament, leaving a trail of gore behind us, or we can cut our losses and move on.”

With the government plunged into the leadership crisis that would play out over the next five days, Pyne is said to have challenged Dutton at that cabinet meeting to articulate his position on what should happen with the energy policy.

Dutton agreed the Neg should be effectively abandoned, a decision that was outlined by Turnbull the following day.