Turnbull graduated from the University of Sydney with a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Laws, before attending Brasenose College, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, earning a Bachelor of Civil Law. For more than two decades, he worked as a journalist, lawyer, merchant banker, and venture capitalist. He served as Chair of the Australian Republican Movement from 1993 to 2000, and was one of the leaders of the unsuccessful "Yes" campaign in the 1999 republic referendum. He was first elected to the Australian House of Representatives for the Division of Wentworth in New South Wales at the 2004 election, and was Minister for the Environment and Water under John Howard from January 2007 until December 2007.