Malcolm Turnbull's pitch for the prime ministership 15 months ago spanned 900 words, but boiled down to just two propositions that, ever since, have been the prism through which his leadership is judged.
The first was that the voters had given up on Tony Abbott, largely because he failed to provide the economic leadership the nation required, and that this was reflected in the Coalition losing 30 Newspolls in a row.
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Not happy, Mal!
South Australia's Jay Weatherill and PM Malcolm Turnbull continue their dispute over electricity policy at the post-COAG press conference.
Turnbull's current run of Newspoll losses stands at just six, but the remark hangs around his neck like an albatross: a reference point for the internal critics and commentators every time there is a bad poll (and they have been bad for much of this year).
The second proposition was the promise of a new style of leadership, one that respected people's intelligence, explained complex issues, and laid out the course of action the country needed to take.
If Turnbull wants to know why he is in trouble in the polls, all he has to do is reflect on his failure to deliver on this promise. If he needs a case study, there is none better than the mess he found himself in on climate change policy this week.
The release of the terms of reference for a long-promised review of climate change policy, to be conducted by government officials over the course of next year, should not have been a contentious matter.
On one level, it became controversial because a few loose words by Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg provoked such a backlash from the Coalition's hard Right that Frydenberg was forced into a retreat that rendered the review almost meaningless.
In truth, all Frydenberg said was that the government would "look at" an Emissions Intensity Scheme (EIS) if this was recommended by the review, while re-stating the Coalition's long-standing opposition to an economy-wide Emissions Trading Scheme and a carbon tax.
![Illustration: Jim Pavlidis.](/web/20161210044932im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/8/0/v/l/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gt7o29.png/1481339684082.jpg)
Frydenberg could have, and should have, pointed out that, while many experts support a form of carbon pricing in the energy sector, which produces one third of emissions, there are strong and credible advocates of other approaches.
Among them is industrialist John White, who argues that the combination of smarter planning, engineering and delivery of energy infrastructure and agricultural soil carbon sequestration could result in zero net emissions by 2050 and lower real power prices.
![Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg face ructions within the Coalition.](/web/20161210044932im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/7/0/f/l/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gt7o29.png/1481339684082.jpg)
If Frydenberg's initial comments were measured and reflected a strong grasp of deeply complex issues, his dismount had the panache of a belly flop from the 10-metre diving tower. He denied even canvassing an EIS, said it would not be considered and split for Antarctica.
It was Turnbull's response, however, that told us more about why the Prime Minister is in such deep trouble.
Downplaying the review as "business as usual", asserting that the government was on track to meet its emission reduction target and vowing that the Coalition would do nothing to put upward pressure on electricity prices, he declared: "If you vote Labor at the next election and Labor wins, you will pay more for electricity."
The only problem here is that the election is more than two and a half years away and his comments did not address the view of experts, including his own chief scientist, Alan Finkel, that an EIS could be the best way of keeping downward pressure on prices and meeting the target of reducing emissions by 26 per cent to 28 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030.
Nor did they do anything to allay the concern, also addressed by Finkel's interim report on the security of Australia's energy market, that "policy instability and uncertainty" has stalled investment in the electricity sector.
This failure is all the more worrying against the backdrop of the latest national accounts, where a 3.2 per cent fall in new business investment was the dominant cause of real GDP going backwards in the September quarter.
Nor was there a convincing answer to Finkel's assessment that "current policy settings do not provide a clear pathway to the level of reduction required to meet Australia's Paris commitments" – aside from the bald assertion that we will get there.
Finally, Turnbull failed to rebut the view of experts, including the Grattan Institute's Tony Wood, that scuttling the idea of even looking at an EIS in the power sector could result in the very things he is determined to avoid: higher prices and less energy security.
So why was the conversation so limited, so disrespectful to the intelligence of the electorate?
One reason is that the Prime Minister thinks it more important to prosecute an energy price campaign against Labor. Another is that he is constrained by the hard-Right of his party room, led by the climate sceptic Cory Bernardi, who is now demanding a retreat from the Paris agreement that Turnbull ratified the day after Trump was elected.
"Some people want to get rid of Malcolm, no matter what," is how one insider characterised the forces ready to pounce at any opportunity.
The hope of many voters was that Turnbull would find his voice once he was elected in his own right, but the sad truth is that he is more constrained than he was before the election, thanks to the Coalition's one-seat majority.
Yes, there are hints that he is not simply Abbott in a better suit, as the critics assert, but they are just that: hints.
This week, for instance, Turnbull declined multiple invitations from 3AW's Neil Mitchell to comment on a seven-year sentence given to a teenager convicted of planning a terrorist attack in Melbourne in 2015. Can you imagine Abbott being so restrained?
More revealing is the deal with the United States to resettle those who are about to spend their fourth Christmas on Nauru and Manus, which Turnbull is convinced will hold even after Trump succeeds Barack Obama. Only Turnbull could have got it done.
But the picture this week was of a leader prepared to lose battles without even fighting them. It isn't a lack of courage that constrains him, as some suggest, but the pragmatic judgment that he will lose if he takes the ideologues on.
That is not a good omen, not for the nation, and not for Turnbull's standing in the polls.
Michael Gordon is The Age's political editor.
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