"That was a high-risk strategy. And with Russia as a permanent member there was a real question of whether it would succeed. It did and it did because of Minister Bishop and her alone. "For her first year in the job, she's had an amazing debut on the world stage and she's taken the world by storm." In the same week, an opinion pollster asked voters to name Australia's best treasurer of the last 30 years from a shortlist of four. Joe Hockey was ranked last. Especially bitter for Hockey is that he placed beneath the man he has derided so much for so long, Wayne Swan. Peter Costello was the top choice with 30 per cent in the poll by Essential Media, Paul Keating next with 23, followed by Swan with eight per cent. Hockey was chosen by 5 per cent. Another awkward fact of the poll is that even his party's own support base shunned him. Among people identifying as Coalition voters, 10 per cent named Hockey. Twenty-one per cent preferred "don't know".

This poll is unfair to Hockey. The other three had a minimum of six years as treasurer, have finished their terms and can have their records judged in full. Hockey is still negotiating passage of his budget. If a treasurer is popular in his first year, then he really isn't doing his job. In Opposition, Hockey sometimes contemplated the size of the budget task ahead and prophesied: "If we win the election, I'm going to be the most unpopular politician in Australia." Still, it can't give him any joy to discover his prophesy fulfilled. But a treasurer should be able to expect the support of his most important constituent, his prime minister. The Opposition's manager of business in the House, Tony Burke, on Friday sent this message in Labor's weekly report to its supporters: "There wouldn't be many occasions in living memory when a Prime Minister was asked to defend his Treasurer in Question Time and sat silent. That said it all about this Prime Minister who doesn't want to be near his Treasurer or his Budget. That stood apart from everything else this week." It was a poor showing. Bill Shorten threw this challenge to Abbott in the House on Wednesday: "Is the only reason the Prime Minister is holding on to this hopeless and incompetent Treasurer to make him a human shield for this unfair budget? Isn't it time for the Prime Minister to either dump his Treasurer or dump the budget?"

Labor had been baiting Hockey for two days. It was an opportunity for Abbott to defend his treasurer. He didn't take it. The Speaker, Bronwyn Bishop, gave Abbott an out: "It is technically, I think, out of order," as a piece of rhetoric not an exercise in seeking facts, "but if anyone wishes to address it they may." Abbott took the out rather than the opportunity. He shook his head and stayed in his seat. Shorten clapped his hands and whooped with glee. This tale of two ministers illustrates the dichotomy that has opened up for the federal government. Domestic politics was supposed to be Abbott's great strength. Foreign policy was supposed to be beyond his grasp. Instead, the government's budget performance has become a political liability. Foreign affairs has become its great asset. With Abbott confronting Islamic State terrorism, standing up to Russia's Putin and joining Obama's Iraq mission, we are seeing the transformation of Abbott from domestic scrapper to wartime statesman.

In an interesting metric of Abbott's transformation into a foreign policy prime minister, the Financial Review's Phillip Coorey this week pointed out that, when Abbott returns from his trip next week to India and Malaysia, he will have made exactly the same number of overseas trips in his first year as Kevin Rudd. Eleven. From Opposition, Abbott liked to taunt Rudd as Kevin 747. Now he finds himself doing the same number of airmiles. Four factors created the dichotomy. Partly it's because of the Coalition's political misjudgment of its budget measures. Partly it's because of the turn of events in the world. Partly it's because of the government's adept handling of them. It's also got a lot to do with the other side of politics – opposition strategy. Shorten has decided to wage full onslaught against the budget, and to join full accord on national security. You will not hear Shorten criticise Abbott on anything to do with national security. When one of his neophyte senators, Sue Lines, did this week, she was promptly silenced. Shorten described himself this week as offering "sensible leadership from the centre of Australian politics". His formula is to flay the government for unfairness at home while supporting its quest for security abroad.

The dichotomy between matters home and away was on stark display in parliamentary question time on Tuesday and Wednesday. It was as if the parties inhabited parallel universes. Labor concentrated all its questions on Hockey and his budget. The government scrupulously avoided talking about its own budget. It concentrated all the questions it gets to ask itself – Dorothy Dix questions – on national security. Abbott can try to avoid talking about the budget but he cannot distance himself from it. It is at least as much his as Hockey's. The inner workings of a government's budget are conducted in the expenditure review committee of the Cabinet. In the customary media parlance this is usually the "razor gang", although in the late Howard years and the Rudd and Gillard years it was more like the Santa and the Elves gifts committee. Who chaired the Abbott government's razor gang? Tony Abbott. The prime minister opened each meeting of the committee with an outline of the ideological, political and economic guideposts that would apply, according to people present. He was firm in enforcing them. When Abbott this week conspicuously failed to endorse Hockey, Labor's Tony Burke tried to portray it as a fatal rift. It was the moment when Hockey started scheming to take the leadership. That's a movie we've all seen before, a power struggle between prime minister and treasurer, and Labor hopes we'll all buy tickets to the sequel. But there's nothing to see here, not now at least. Abbott shares responsibility for misjudging the budget just as surely as he shares credit for Australia's successes in foreign affairs. OK, Abbott didn't say that poor people don't drive. He didn't sign the statement of understanding with Indonesia this week. But the prime minister has been central to all major policy in both portfolios.

Indeed, Labor and the Greens salivated at the prospect of Abbott humiliating himself in his White House meeting with Barack Obama. Their differences over climate change were supposed to produce an epic confrontation. Instead, Abbott is already working closely with the Obama administration. He has, pretty seamlessly, taken over management of the US alliance. Australia is now deeply immersed in discussions with the US over the next shared mission in Iraq. The last one was a profound misjudgment. George W. Bush was aided and abetted by his British and Australian allies in invading a stable country and leaving it an unstable one. Indeed, Iraq became one of the biggest sources of instability in the world. The invasion unseated Saddam Hussein, who operated a brutal regime but a stable country. It enthroned Nouri Al-Maliki, who operated a brutal regime and a deeply unstable country. It was American-occupied Iraq that incubated the movement now known as ISIS or Islamic State. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi formed Al Qaeda in Iraq, which became Islamic State. The group moved into Syria. Maliki spent years conducting a low-intensity civil war against the country's Sunnis. So when Sunni-based Islamic State fighters swept back from Syria into Iraq, the Sunnis in Iraq's army were not about to fight them. The Sunnis in the ranks quietly walked away. Four divisions in Iraq's army simply collapsed. Islamic State took over.

The US under Obama and Australia under Abbott now confront the task of trying to cauterise the flow of bloodlust and bloodshed bequeathed them by their predecessors. They need to emphasise politics over kinetics and a regional solution rather than an Anglophone invasion. The short life of the Abbott government shows how quickly events can turn. Today national security is a political asset for Abbott. He needs to exercise great judgement to keep it that way. Peter Hartcher is the political editor.