Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten have offered mea culpas for their involvement in some of Australia's most dramatic political controversies, each telling ABC TV's Sarah Ferguson they are better leaders because of their past mistakes.
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In wide ranging interviews for Monday's Four Corners, Mr Shorten discussed his central role in party room coups against Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, while Mr Turnbull defended his actions in the 2009 Godwin Grech affair, which contributed to his loss of the Liberal leadership.
Mr Shorten said he was no longer "a factional man" and had sought to act in the national interest in helping remove Labor's two most recent prime ministers.
Asked if he regretted his move against Mr Rudd in 2010, he conceded helping Labor's factional powerbrokers roll a first term prime minister "wasn't the right way to go".
"I think in hindsight it all happened too quickly," Mr Shorten said.
"I think it wasn't properly explained to people. I think it showed a Labor Party which was more interested in its own arguments than the people.
"I believed in Julia Gillard... but I do accept that the conventional wisdom that parties can change leaders hasn't kept pace with the public expectation."
Mr Shorten said he had worked as Opposition Leader to promote unity over "rampant factionalism and personality politics".
"It's been an evolving thing. Unity is the prerequisite - it's the green fee you pay to get on the golf course of national government," he said.
Mr Turnbull said he had learnt from his mistakes, such as using information provided by disgraced public servant Godwin Grech to attack Mr Rudd, including emails later revealed to be forgeries.
"The answer is yes. You learn all the time," Mr Turnbull said.
"You've got you've got to be.... self-aware enough to recognise when you haven't, you haven't done things as well as you should and learn from it.
"I learnt that you should not you should not be perhaps, perhaps be less rash and less trusting of things that appear, things are not always as what they appear to be."
Other key moments
Rolling Tony Abbott
Ferguson: One of the reasons you gave for replacing your predecessor was that he was going to be beaten by Bill Shorten. Do you still think that Bill Shorten would have beaten Abbott?
Turnbull: I think if if there had not been a change of leadership then we would've lost the election very resoundingly.
Labor's deficit projections
Ferguson: Did you feel sick that day at that press conference when you had to concede that you would have higher deficits in the forward estimates?
Shorten: No. What I know is that we've got the better plan, both in the medium term and the long term. I don't have any regret that we're not backing in a fifty billion dollar corporate tax cut
Ferguson: Is that the moment you lost the election?
Shorten: No not at all. What we've said is that we will get the budget back to balance at the same time as our opponents and over the longer term we'll make real changes which you can pay down government debt without sacrificing our healthcare and Medicare systems, without sacrificing childcare funding or schools or universities.
Their leadership attributes
Ferguson: What qualities do you think you possess that makes you fit and the right person to be the leader of the country?
Turnbull: Endurance. Resilience. Openness to new ideas. That's very important.
Shorten: I never give up. I respect people to my core. I'm a listener. My view of leadership is to be the coach. I don't have to be the full forward or the ruckman. My job is to coach a team to get the best out of people.
On Bob Hawke's calls for the CFMEU to be kicked out of the Labor Party
Ferguson: Bob Hawke said that he wouldn't tolerate it. He said I'd throw them out I'd be happy for not to be affiliated. Bob Hawke got it wrong?
Shorten: Well I don't think you judge everyone by the actions of a few.
Ferguson: So Bob Hawke's got it wrong?
Shorten: Well he's entitled to his opinion.
On protests by refugees being held in Australian detention on Nauru
Ferguson: How did you feel personally when you learnt that two people on Nauru had self-immolated?
Turnbull: I was horrified, naturally. You would have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by that... that's a terrible abandonment of hope.
On faith and politics
Ferguson: What did it mean to you to become a Catholic?
Turnbull: It wasn't strictly speaking a conversion because it turned out that having thought all my life that I'd been christened or baptised in the Presbyterian church, it turned out in fact I hadn't been baptised at all.
Ferguson: You were raised as Catholic but you've converted to Anglicanism. What was the appeal?
Shorten: One is that's my wife's faith. And when we got married that was the faith she wanted to be married in and I respect her very much. Also the Anglican Church and the priests who I dealt with they seemed in my opinion have a bit more smaller liberal sort of view of the world and you know, that was attractive.
