Intelligence is important but overrated. Smart people do dumb things. All the time. This includes, with surprising frequency, prime ministers.
According to a quote sometimes attributed to the great Albert Einstein: "It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer."
![Illustration: John Shakespeare](http://web.archive.org./web/20170610062540im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/w/o/h/k/6/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gwoe10.png/1497043971870.jpg)
It's taken some time, but the Turnbull government is now engaged seriously in trying to solve some big problems that touch the lives of most of the people.
It's taken some time, partly because Turnbull took the post of leader but didn't take the leadership.
![Malcolm Turnbull has moved to a new phase in his leadership.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170610062540im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/w/m/6/m/t/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gwoe10.png/1497003433504.jpg)
He shoved Tony Abbott from the bridge of the ship of state, but was unable to take control of the wheel. The helm was fixed and the course set.
Even in areas where Turnbull would have loved to make change, he was obliged by his colleagues to preserve key Abbott policies on climate change, for instance.
Turnbull was "in office but not in power", as Abbott acidly observed at the time.
But he's moved into a new phase where new demands, new possibilities and the simple passage of time allow new solutions. He's also had the benefit of some very capable ministers.
![Education Minister Simon Birmingham dumped both the Gillard and Abbott funding plans.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170610062540im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/w/e/g/k/9/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gwoe10.png/1497067449392.jpg)
Last month we saw the government produce dramatic new approaches to schools funding, and to Medicare and the health system.
On Friday we saw the Turnbull government present the state premiers with new approaches to the problems of electricity supply and terrorism.
![Greg Hunt has increased funding for the health system by $10 billion over four years](http://web.archive.org./web/20170610062540im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/9/7/6/w/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gwoe10.png/1497003433504.jpg)
And then there's a matter that's less immediate to the wellbeing of the typical household but of great importance to the wellbeing of the national psyche - getting politicians' snouts out of the taxpayer-funded trough.
On each area, Turnbull is governing from what he once described as the "sensible centre".
It wasn't clear at the time, but in retrospect we can date the beginning of the new phase to the election last July. The near-loss galvanised the government. It didn't give the government a new mandate so much as it provided a great big fright.
Health and education were exposed anew as liabilities for the Coalition, areas of traditional Labor advantage.
On schools funding, Turnbull presented the largely untested Education Minister, Simon Birmingham, with a simple yet profound job description - to fix the endless controversies of school funding so that the country could move on to fixing student performance.
Schools funding had been growing inexorably for a decade yet student performance had been falling unstoppably.
Birmingham confronted a diverging dual legacy. Julia Gillard had promised unaffordably big increases to schools funding. Tony Abbott had promised unachievable schools funding cuts.
Neither approach would fix the unfairness that had become deeply entrenched in Australia's school system, where some of the richest schools got some of the biggest taxpayer subsidies. And the poorest got the least.
And neither, by itself, would solve the dismal downtrend of Australian students' performances compared to the rest of the world.
According to the conventional political wisdom, Birmingham shouldn't have even tried to fix the schools problem.
Two of the pieces of received political wisdom are that, first, a Liberal government can never win on education, that the voters will always prefer Labor to handle it, so they may as well not try.
And, second, that however ridiculously unfair the system may be, it's political suicide to tinker with it.
As Labor leader, Mark Latham proposed a fairer funding system. But the Liberals successfully framed it as a mere "schools hit list", a vendetta against the rich schools, driven by class envy. This was one of the reasons that he lost the 2004 election.
Birmingham gave it a shot regardless. He dumped both the Gillard and Abbott funding plans.
Abbott had offered to increase overall schools funding at the same rate as consumer price inflation. But about three-quarters of school costs comprise salaries, and salaries consistently have outstripped CPI inflation. So Birmingham invented a new formula.
Annual funding over the next 10 years would increase by a rate that was composed three-quarters by the rate of wage rises, and one-quarter by the CPI. Presto! This yielded an annual increase of 3.5 per cent.
And this translated into a total of an extra $2.2 billion over the first four years and $18.6 billion extra over the next decade. Birmingham then managed to extract this sum from the government's expenditure review committee.
This would be $22 billion less than the amount Gillard had promised, a sum that Labor had, misleadingly, badged as "Gonski" funding.
The review chaired by businessman David Gonski was essentially about fairer funding, according to student need, not about any particular set number of dollars.
Birmingham reasoned that the $18.6 billion was enough to be credible, and also enough to address the problem of unfairness.
Especially if the government were to apply the needs-based principles in the Gonski report. Labor would still attack the plan as a shocking assault on schools funding, of course.
But if David Gonski himself, a friend of Turnbull's for many years, were to explicitly endorse the government's plan, it would put a politically solid protective coating on a sane and sensible new funding policy.
The coup de grace was delivered when Gonski took the podium to announce the new policy together with the Prime Minister and the Education Minister.
Careful consultation, political skill, a fairer formula, a Gonski endorsement and an extra $18.6 billion did the trick. Labor will continue to carp. But, with two exceptions, the schools systems across the country have accepted this package.
The exceptions are the ACT, and a single Catholic archdiocese, NSW's Broken Bay, an area to Sydney's immediate north. When Broken Bay fumes about its allocation, Birmingham refers them to the Catholic Education Commission of NSW, the body that decides the distribution of funds within the Catholic system.
The unassuming Greg Hunt had already proved himself to be an especially capable minister. As environment minister, he'd managed to salvage some key elements of Labor's climate change policy and preserve them under Tony Abbott's prime ministership.
And he persuaded Abbott to commit Australia to a cut in carbon emissions of 26 to 28 per cent for the Paris Accord, not dramatic but enough to keep Australia as a credible contributor to the global effort.
Australia's climate change policy has been a dog's breakfast, but without Hunt there would have been no meal at all.
Turnbull gave Hunt another tricky assignment with the post of minister for health. Last year's election showed that the Coalition was vulnerable to a Labor scare campaign on Medicare. It nearly cost it the election.
Hunt's mandate was to restore public trust in the Coalition on health. He was given two overarching elements - to placate the angry doctors and the pharmaceutical companies and pharmacists with long-term agreements, and to make overall health spending sustainable.
In other words, Hunt was supposed to do deals with the doctors and the pharmaceutical sector to strengthen Medicare and the PBS, but wasn't allowed to break the budget to do it. So Hunt made policy promises that were key to these sectors but that had limited financial cost to the government.
He did promise to gradually thaw the frozen Medicare rebate that the government pays to doctors, and he did agree to increase spending on public hospitals. Altogether, Hunt increased total Commonwealth funding for the health system by $10 billion over four years.
Of course, these reforms to the schools and health sectors comes at a cost. Combined, it's an extra $12.2 billion over four years, to be met by rising tax collections.
On the national electricity crisis, Turnbull took a major step towards a systemic solution on Friday. He presented to the state premiers the policy report by the chief scientist, Alan Finkel, with a plea for national unity and national action.
The biggest recommendation is that Australia introduce a low emissions target, also called a clean energy target. It's not the first choice of industry or environmentalists, but all sectors have embraced it as the best hope for a rational guidepost for electricity investment.
Without a firm guidepost, there won't be enough investment and the lights will go out, and the jobs with them. Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg, a member of the Liberal conservative claque, is working hard to bring his fellow faction members along with him.
He has a very difficult task of political management. He has to keep the support of his own side even as Abbott tries to wrest back control of the helm. And Labor's Bill Shorten will take any opportunity to find a reason for a fight. And, if you look hard enough, you can always find one.
This is Frydenberg's big test. But he now has, at least, something sensible and specific to work with.
The Turnbull government, quietly and piece by piece, has also done more to reform politicians' entitlements than any recent government.
The Special Minister of State, Scott Ryan, has abolished the Life Gold Pass for former politicians, set up an independent parliamentary expenses authority, legislated a fix to travel expenses, and now is working to ban foreign political donations, among other things.
The question is whether anyone has noticed Turnbull's policy successes? And, if so, will they give the government any credit? You only get one chance to make a first impression, and Turnbull blew his when he first took the job. His attempt to redeem himself is under way.
Peter Hartcher is political editor.