In a move of stunning incompetence, Pyne trashed a carefully wrought student-funding model without any idea of what's going to replace it. It was a slapstick performance so incompetently carried out it would have drawn laughs in a music hall.

In just 100 days he's managed to unify the sector against him. Even his own state Liberal colleagues have wandered in from the outfield to publicly and humiliatingly sledge him.

Perhaps there's a reason. He's apparently been too busy making points-of-order to get across the detail of the education portfolio he's been shadowing since 2008. Or maybe Pyne's been around the green carpets and wood panelling of Parliament for a bit too long. Perhaps he needs to get out more.

The last time I spoke to Pyne (at a Thai embassy function), he was quite agreeable. But that was while he was in opposition - power reveals new dimensions even in the shallowest personality. Thus, although Pyne's previously held senior positions, from parliamentary secretary, assistant minister and, eventually, (and most implausibly given his perpetually juvenile approach to life) the minister for ageing, Pyne has never actually been allowed to do anything.

Pyne has successfully managed to portray himself as the most incompetent joker in the pack. And don't mistake the degree of difficulty here. It takes a good deal of talent to make a state education minister appear statesmanlike. Nevertheless, at their combined press conference the other day, Pyne managed all this and more. He stood off to one side while every minister in the country took turns to ruthlessly demolish his ''reform'', which simply turns the clocks back to a world of privilege and favouritism.

Then he boorishly charged in to assert - despite all the evidence to the contrary - that he's right and they're wrong. And why? What better plan is he proposing to introduce? Well, he can't tell us that now, we'll just have to wait and see. Trust me, says Pyne, claiming he can still trump the experts and come up with something better. You can almost picture him standing in front of a dartboard with some arrows, confident that providence will guide him to the correct answer. Now it turns out we had the right answer all along and we're presented with all the startling idiocy of yet another volte-face.

Pyne appears incapable of perceiving how ridiculous his assertions of superior process actually are. When even the thinnest twig hits a calm pool, it sets off ripples. That's Pyne. The perception that he's shallow, superficial and trivial has now become political reality. Everything that's occurred since he became minister simply reinforces this perception. It actually doesn't matter if he's very, very clever; many people already suspect he's not.

What's more surprising - and worrying from the perspective of Tony Abbott - is that two polls last week put beyond doubt the reality that the government's going backwards. It's the reverse of what happened after the election of John Howard and Kevin Rudd. The feel-good factor's evaporating. Any advice Abbott's receiving is obviously hopeless. The team and tactics that got him to the Lodge won't be able to keep him there.