Hoping to sell some books? Malcolm Turnbull does a birthday shoutout for 'Sabrina' and tells her father to buy her some 'Louis Vuitton'

  • Public relations worker Sabrina Damiano saw Malcolm Turnbull out on her walk
  •  She asked the former prime minister if he could record a birthday message
  • The message, for her father, saw Mr Turnbull with the man a happy birthday 
  • Mr Turnbull also joked that Ms Damiano's father should buy her 'Louis Vuitton' 
  • Here’s how to help people impacted by Covid-19

By Claudia Poposki For Daily Mail Australia

Published: | Updated:

Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull wished a woman's father a happy 60th birthday before encouraging him to buy her some 'Louis Vuitton'.

Public relations worker Sabrina Damiano was walking with her friend along the Bondi to Bronte walk on Thursday when she spotted the former Coalition leader.

She asked him to wish her father a happy birthday as a surprise as she couldn't be with him over the weekend to celebrate due to coronavirus rules.

'Happy birthday Angelo,' Mr Turnbull, who was dressed in a blue button up shirt and grey slacks, said.

Public relations worker Sabrina Damiano (pictured) was walking with her friend along the Bondi to Bronte walk on Thursday when she spotted the former Coalition leader

Public relations worker Sabrina Damiano (pictured) was walking with her friend along the Bondi to Bronte walk on Thursday when she spotted the former Coalition leader

'Tell him to buy me a Louis Vuitton,' Ms Damiano joked with Mr Turnbull.

The former politician laughed and asked for her name once again before continuing the video.

'Happy birthday Angelo, and you should buy Sabrina some Louis Vuitton,' he laughed.

Ms Damiano said Mr Turnbull was 'lovely and kind' when he agreed to record the video.

She told Daily Mail Australia she was walking with a friend when she noticed a nice Mercedes pull up and recognised the man driving as the former prime minister. 

'I am very loud so I said to my friend "Oh my God is That Malcolm Turnbull" and he looked at us, took off his sunglasses and said "yes, yes it is!",' she said.

'I was so excited I ran up to the car and he puts an arm out saying "woah, woah social distance there" and I told him I just brought his book the day before and showed him a photo of the book.'

Ms Damiano said she got chatting with Mr Turnbull and explained it was her dad's birthday on Monday but she couldn't see him so she was putting together a video of friends, family and celebrities she knew through work wishing him a happy birthday. 

'I asked if he could do one and he was so lovely and kind and obliged,' she said.

Ms Damiano asked Mr Turnbull (pictured) to wish her father a happy birthday as a surprise as she couldn't be with him over the weekend to celebrate due to coronavirus rules

Ms Damiano asked Mr Turnbull (pictured) to wish her father a happy birthday as a surprise as she couldn't be with him over the weekend to celebrate due to coronavirus rules

'Then I mentioned the Louis Vuitton, which is a running joke with my dad, and he did it! He was a such a lovely man! And I’m a Labor supporter!'

Ms Damiano revealed her father hasn't purchased her the Louis Vuitton bag yet - but she joked that she was now his favourite child.

She said she has received more than 100 messages about the video, which she shared to Instagram.  

'The most iconic video ever,' one social media user commented on the clip.

Another said: 'Oh my gosh I love this!'

A third said they found the video absolutely hilarious.  

Ms Damiano said Mr Turnbull was 'lovely and kind' when he agreed to record the video

Ms Damiano said Mr Turnbull was 'lovely and kind' when he agreed to record the video

Australia's 29th Prime Minister released his new book, A Bigger Picture, which focuses on his time in office and his thoughts on other members of the Liberal party last week.   

The new tell-all book was leaked ahead of its April 20 release - while Mr Turnbull appeared on ABC's 7.30 to promote the book. 

In 2015, Mr Turnbull deposed Tony Abbott as PM before winning an election the following year. 

But Mr Turnbull was himself dumped in a leadership spill in 2018, making way for Scott Morrison, who then had to campaign for a federal election just months later, before winning one Australia's greatest ever political upsets.  

But in his memoir Mr Turnbull said Mr Morrison should never have won. 

WHAT MALCOLM TURNBULL TOLD 7.30 ABOUT HIS STRUGGLES

TONY ABBOTT

Turnbull deposed Abbott as prime minister in a party coup in 2015 and blamed him and his supporters for orchestrating his ousting three years later. He said the Abbott-led government had been 'dangerous'.

'He basically abandoned cabinet government. It was erratic, his whole style of government was erratic and flaky.'

'From a national security point of view ... at a time when terrorism was our biggest domestic security issue, Abbott was determined to ramp up the rhetoric in a way that was calculated to inflame animosity against Muslims, right? And that was obviously lapped up and echoed by the Murdoch press, who were doing the same thing. That made Australia less safe. It was profoundly dangerous.'

In the book, Turnbull also says Abbott's chief of staff Peta Credlin was the one really wielding power and Abbott worshipped and feared her.

'You were really dealing with Peta and Peta was running the country and that was obvious, and dominating Abbott.'

'It was as though she felt, 'I've created you, you're my creation' and she felt she owned him. It was a truly bizarre relationship.

'Credlin and Abbott destroyed their own government due to their own follies and then set out to destroy mine.'

SCOTT MORRISON

Turnbull says he stood aside in the second leadership spill spearheaded by Peter Dutton, so Scott Morrison could win instead.

'Morrison and I are different men, we have different values in some respects, but while we had differences as PM and Treasurer, we're longstanding friends, we've worked closely together, I know him very well - he has got his limitations as we all have, right, he is not perfect. But he is a much safer pair of hands than Peter Dutton by far and I always regarded him as my most likely successor.'

Turnbull said Morrison had told him he supported him during the week before his downfall, but he believes he had been shoring up his own position to become leader.

'The bottom line is Scott, you know - when Abbott was defeated, Scott was saying publicly he was supporting Abbott, but he was working to get the numbers to vote for me. So, you know, that's his MO, right? I know Scott very well, and he is a lifelong political operator and he is a control freak.'

PETER DUTTON

'It was such an absurd proposition ... I didn't imagine that he was so deluded as to imagine that our political prospects would be advanced by a change of leadership, and especially to him,' he said.

'And it never occurred to me, frankly, that so many people would support him. If Dutton had become leader, not even (former Labor leader) Bill Shorten could have lost the election.'

'What was important to me was that I ensure that Dutton did not become Prime Minister above all.'

THE MURDOCH MEDIA

'During a conversation I had with (Rupert) Murdoch, (he) acknowledges that one of his most senior executives was part of the Abbott plan to bring down the government with the goal of sending us into opposition so that Abbott could come back as leader after the election and bring the party back to victory in 2022.

'Now, just describing that sounds unhinged, doesn't it? But that was Abbott's agenda and as Rupert acknowledged to me, it had the support of one of his most senior and most influential editorial executives and I think it went a lot further than that.

'These were people that were a foreign company, controlled by foreign nationals, was conspiring to overthrow the prime minister of Australia.'

MENTAL HEALTH

Turnbull admits entering a deep depression after the Utegate scandal in 2009 when he made false allegations about PM Kevin Rudd and his government's dealing with a car dealer based on evidence from treasury official Godwin Grech.

'I started to sink into a very, very deep depression. It was very deep and very dangerous.

'I felt these thoughts of death, of self-destruction, coming into my mind unbidden and unwanted. And I couldn't get them out of my mind and I got sicker and sicker and sicker. It was a terrible time.'

 

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Malcolm Turnbull does a birthday shoutout #and tells woman's father to buy her some 'Louis Vuitton'

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