Unquestionably, this is a moment. Labor had visited a withering, four-year blitzkrieg on the Coalition, pounding its dumb refusal to adopt David Gonski's model for needs-based schools funding.
The values difference was crucial in last year's knife-edge election and it was shaping as a first-order issue again in 2018.
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Government's Gonski coup
Malcolm Turnbull announces a new ten-year schools funding plan - and a new review by David Gonski. Labor brands the funding plan "an act of political bastardry".
Yet at just after 2pm on Tuesday, with Education Minister Simon Birmingham still on his feet, flanked by Malcolm Turnbull and Gonski himself, Shorten tweeted: "Australians will never trust the Liberals when it comes to properly funding schools. When they think they can get away with it, they'll cut."
That, right there, was Labor's first-blush reaction to the Turnbull government's new Gonski 2.0 funding model, which claims to fully honour the spirit of the reform plan by elevating low socio-economic status schools, protecting others, and cutting unsustainable subsidies to the most privileged.
Denied the open-and-shut evidence of a Liberal Party bias to private schools, Shorten had resorted to the much weaker "motive" argument, which amounted to "... but their heart's not in it".
The Liberals had even ditched Julia Gillard's nakedly political pledge to ensure that even the wealthiest, most elite schools kept their unnecessary subsidies.
Later, via a fulminating Tanya Plibersek, Labor toughened up claiming "smoke and mirrors" were obscuring a formula that ripped $22 billion out of schools over a decade
Of course, there has long been an argument over how Labor's 10-year pledge would be funded, so that debate is far from settled.
![David Gonski's name has become synonymous with education reform.](/web/20170506133913im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/v/x/f/d/2/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gvx8pd.png/1493781684043.jpg)
But in dumping the Coalition's past antipathy for Gonski, Turnbull has pulled off a surprising policy pirouette, wrong-footing his Labor/union critics, and charting a course to middle-Australian households.
It is a deft move and a credit to the moderate Birmingham, who has emerged as among the most effective figures in Canberra.
![Illustration: Matt Golding](/web/20170506133913im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/v/x/m/2/3/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.gvx8pd.png/1493781684043.jpg)
That political dimension is more important than mere job security for a vulnerable PM. After more than a decade of weak and dysfunctional governments stretching back to the final Howard days, the country needs competent, centrist leadership.
Turnbull had offered that when he arrived, but too often has appeared hostage to his party's right wing.
This not only breaks that unpopular pattern, it presents an interesting challenge. If Gonski's formula was so brilliant under Labor, then its faithful adoption - according to no less a figure than Gonski himself - is equally important under Turnbull. Perhaps more so, for the extra robustness that Coalition support provides.