Malcolm Turnbull's new nemesis, Kevin Rudd. Credit:Andrew Meares ASM As foreshadowed soon after Turnbull put the sword into Rudd's hopes to be the next United Nations chief in July, both men roaming the corridors of the annual leaders summit in New York has presented the perfect backdrop for the mano-a-mano showdown. "Concocted" is how Rudd has bitterly dismissed Turnbull's excuse for not nominating him. "The biggest policy failure in the history of the Commonwealth" is Turnbull's savage review of the Rudd legacy. In separate media interviews overnight, both men have attacked the other in an effort to protect their own damaged egos.

Rudd, from Turnbull's claim he lacks the "temperament" to be the world's chief diplomat. And Turnbull, to deflect any personal blame for more than 1000 asylum seekers languishing in camps in the Pacific and with seemingly no hope of release. "Kevin Rudd put them there," Turnbull bristled while speaking to reporters at the UN headquarters. "The Labor Party put them there. We have been dealing with Labor's legacy, their legacy of shame on refugees and border protection." Just across First Avenue, Rudd was telling Sky News he had every reason to believe Turnbull was going to nominate him to be the UN Secretary General, but the pressure of Liberal hard right wing had become too much after a close election result.

"Good-old Malcolm Turnbull decided at one minute to midnight, that was not to be the case. He's go the authority to do that. He did it. He didn't do it terribly elegantly," Rudd declared. This is a battle to shape history that will never end. Rudd's latest intervention comes as he spruiks what might have been his manifesto to guide the global organisation, a report on the future of co-operative diplomacy. He dismissed as "off in la la land" the idea a newly elected US President Hillary Clinton might rescue his UN hopes and parachute him into the Secretary General job. And maybe he is also wanting to rebut the support for the Turnbull position this month from former Labor leader Kim Beazley – who Rudd deposed and later dispatched to be Australia's ambassador to Washington.

There are plenty of characters in this melodrama. But much as Turnbull would prefer Rudd didn't dominate another round in the media cycle, Turnbull also doesn't want to wear responsibility for the increasingly desperate plight of asylum seekers who travelled by boat to Australia in the Labor years. "Our government has closed 17 detention centres. There are no more children in detention. When the Labor Party lost office in 2013 there were several thousand. This is what we've had to deal with," he said. But Rudd feels scorned, by what he says are Turnbull's private pledges to support his Secretary General campaign. And Rudd wants people to remember Foreign Minister Julie Bishop backed his nomination right the way into cabinet, a fact that sits awkwardly with Turnbull's claim now that he decided months before that Rudd was not up to the job.

"We all know in the case of Malcolm Turnbull it is pretty simple. Malcolm felt the pressure of the hard-right wing of his party, having had a narrow win in the last election, and as a result of that lost the courage of his convictions." And that regular questioning of his convictions on a whole range of issues seems to rile up Turnbull. Roll credits? Not yet. Follow us on Twitter