Former opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull has admitted he could have been destroyed by his political setbacks, but says he is a stronger and wiser person for surviving the ''furnace'' of life in Canberra.
In a frank admission on ABC's Q&A program on Monday night, Mr Turnbull said ''when you have these big collisions and cataclysms in your life . . . they either break you or they make you a wiser stronger person''.
Mr Turnbull lost the leadership of the opposition to Tony Abbott in 2009, and soon afterwards announced he wouldn't recontest his Sydney seat of Wentworth before changing his mind.
''There are a lot of people who have been destroyed by political setbacks and I could have been - it was very, very gut-wrenching, it was devastating,'' Mr Turnbull said.
''It's a devastating business, a terribly cruel business, politics. Because all of your mistakes and blunders are out there in the public arena. You've got nowhere to hide. There is not an ounce of privacy.''
The Coalition's communications spokesman said it was his family who ''miraculously'' got him through his political lows, and ''I am a stronger and wiser person as a result''.
''Believe me it is a furnace, politics is a furnace, and it either breaks you or it makes you,'' he said.
Mr Turnbull said there was now no chance of him leading the Liberal Party - ''probably ever'' - and predicted Mr Abbott would win the 2013 poll.
Commenting on a comeback by Kevin Rudd, he said the Labor Party appeared determined to keep the former PM out of the top job despite it being ''screamingly obvious'' he was more popular than Julia Gillard.
''It's quite interesting from a sort pathological point of view, that the hatred for Rudd among some quarters in the Labor Party is greater than the natural human instinct for survival,'' he quipped.
AAP
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