It was a political rivalry so utterly self-destructive that one cabinet minister compared it to being "strapped to a suicide bomber".

"The Turnbull-Abbott tussle was very torrid, not just for the Liberal Party internally, but for the government more generally for years and years and years," says former Coalition minister Bridget McKenzie. "You knew something horrific and catastrophic was going to happen."

In interviews for the ABC political docuseries Nemesis, dozens of former Coalition ministers and MPs have spoken of the toxic rivalry between Liberal giants Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull, and how their relentless internecine conflict crippled both men's governments and helped destroy each other's political careers.