Despite Tony Abbott's protestations to the contrary, there is no golden rule in Australian politics damning a governing party that changes leaders mid-stream to eternal political opprobrium, writes Paula Matthewson.

Only days since returning from a short summer break, Prime Minister Tony Abbott is struggling with the issue he left unresolved before Christmas - the Government's litany of policy disasters, its rejected budget, and his own failure to deal with his increasingly alarmed ministers and backbenchers.

Admittedly, the PM made some half-hearted attempts to 'reset' matters at the end of last year. He reshuffled the ministry without offloading most of the dead wood, held a press conference in which he failed to nominate any policy for resetting, and then went on to 'give ground' on policies such as the Medicare rebate and the paid parental leave scheme without actually giving any real ground.

Not surprisingly, this fooled no one, leaving ABC 730's Leigh Sales to be the first to ask the PM whether he would consider stepping aside in order to give the Coalition the best chance of holding on to power. Abbott's response was to evoke the deposing of Rudd as justification for his retention, arguing "the one fundamental lesson of the last catastrophic government was that you don't lightly change leaders".

This rationale has become almost an invocation, most recently uttered by the PM today in response to questions about the viability of his leadership:

"If there is one lesson to be learned from the fate of the former government in Canberra - maybe even the former government in Victoria - is you do not change leaders. You rally behind someone and you stick to the plan, and we've got a good plan."

To make matters worse, the PM was then treated to a serve by a talkback caller describing himself as a Liberal voter, who said Abbott was "on the nose with Liberal voters" and "the world's worst salesman", and that "people don't know where you are going and business is saying there are roadblocks because there is no direction and no leadership".

Once one gets past the irony of Prime Minister Tony Abbott citing the coup against Kevin Rudd as the main reason not to dispense with him, it's worth examining whether it's actually true that voters don't like parties who change leaders midstream.

In fact, several Australian governments have changed leaders and gone on to win the following election.

After stalking and then knocking off Australia's once most popular PM Bob Hawke, Paul Keating went on to beat Opposition Leader John Hewson at the 1993 federal election.

At the state level, a leadership transition was made from Queensland Premier Peter Beattie to Anna Bligh, who despite losing seats at the next state election still retained government. And after losing the confidence of his party room, South Australia's Premier Mike Rann stood aside for Jay Weatherill, who scraped through the following election to form a minority government.

Sure, each of the governments took a hit in the polls, but they still managed to retain office.

And let's not forget that despite PM Abbott using Rudd's political demise as a cautionary tale, Julia Gillard actually managed to form government after the subsequent election, albeit a minority one, despite Rudd's best efforts to sabotage Labor's election campaign.

That's not to say Labor voters weren't unhappy with the way Rudd was treated. Firstly, they were shocked at the seeming swiftness of the rebellion, and then mystified when it became clear neither Gillard nor those who backed her would give a valid explanation for the coup.

That emotion later intensified to anger when Gillard failed to deliver on the fresh start she had promised voters, demonstrating the same political tin-ear and poor judgement that had plagued Rudd. Gillard's perceived broken oath on the carbon tax combined with her various political mishaps and pratfalls had more influence on her poor electoral standing than the way she became prime minister.

Despite PM Abbott's protestations to the contrary, there is no golden rule in Australia politics damning a governing party that changes leaders mid-stream to eternal political opprobrium.

Most of those that did manage to retain office after a leadership change occurred late in the life of long-running governments looking to extend their incumbency. And while some of the changes were orderly handovers, a couple were so well telegraphed they became inevitable.

There are messages in these facts for the current prime minister: governments that have an orderly transition of leadership can survive to fight and win another election. And the removal of a prime minister will generate less voter anger if it's clear why the change is being made.

If there is a lesson for anyone in the Rudd-Gillard saga, it is actually for Abbott. Voters are more concerned about political disunity, incompetency and unmet expectations than they are about changes in the Government's leadership.

Paula Matthewson is a freelance communications adviser and corporate writer. She was media advisor to John Howard in the early 1990s. She tweets and blogs as @Drag0nista.