Melbourne, June 4 (ANI): Kerry Packer and Malcolm Turnbull threatened to kill each other over their joint bid in 1991 to take over the Fairfax Media group, reveals Turnbull, the Opposition Leader in the Australian Parliament.

Packer made the initial threat after Turnbull told the media magnate he was going to have him thrown out of the Tourang consortium by revealing Packer’s intention to play an interventionist role in the newspaper group.

“He told me he’d kill me, yeah,” Turnbull says in a profile by the Sydney Morning Herald’s political columnist Annabel Crabb.

“I didn’t think he was completely serious, but I didn’t think he was entirely joking either. Look, he could be pretty scary,” Turnbull said, adding that his father taught him to never succumb to threats of violence. So, he returned the threat in kind.

“He did threaten to kill me and I said to him: ‘Well, you’d better make sure that your assassin gets me first because, if he misses, you better know I won’t miss you.’

“He could be a complete pig, you know. He could charm the birds out of the trees, but he could be a brute,” he said.

Packer and Turnbull did not speak to each other for two years. The rift was fully healed only a year before Packer died when the Packers dined into the wee hours at the Turnbulls’ Point Piper mansion. (ANI)