Illustration: Rocco Fazzari. So while the Key government was re-elected last year for a third term with an enlarged majority and an impressive reform record, the Abbott government is in survival mode, its reform plans in tatters. The Australian Prime Minister's office is a crucible of crisis, waging a full-time operation just to keep Abbott in his job for even a single term. Why? The collective analysis of Key and his ministers, which came together over glasses of red that evening in Sydney, was two-fold. First, they saw that the Abbott government had no reform narrative. It had slogans, but no persuasive case. Second, they concluded that it had no "political architecture" to manage the government. They were "puzzled about the absence of an architecture for conducting the business of government – how to take the backbench along with the executive, how to reach out to the crossbenches, how to connect with key constituencies", says a participant.

A glaring example the Kiwis remarked on – how could a political party whose support base is 50 per cent female have but one female member of cabinet? In sum, Abbott was not equipped to carry the people or manage the government. These fundamental failures fated the government to fail. It was obvious to an experienced overseas leadership team a year and a half ago, and it's now glaringly, distressingly plain to all. NZ's Deputy Prime Minister, Finance Minister Bill English, was able to say in a speech in Melbourne in June: "A guiding principle of the John Key-led government has been to take the public along with us as we make changes, explain the reasons for them well in advance, lay out the logic, adjust expectations and implement those changes competently. Over time, that builds up a popular support for our changes so they will stick." The Australian prime minister’s office is a crucible of crisis, waging a full-time operation just to keep Abbott in his job for even a single term.

Could any Abbott minister make this claim? Only if he wanted to get some laughs. In Australia we see a government disliked and disrespected, an ineffectual reform effort, and a chronically crisis-ridden administration. Abbott never set up a serious "political architecture" for government because his operation is essentially unchanged from his time as opposition leader. An all-powerful chief of staff, Peta Credlin, centralised all decision making in herself in close consultation with the political arm of the party, led by her husband, Brian Loughnane. But this was a campaigning team, not a structure for government.

The NZ conservatives started out well and each success increased their standing, which enlarged their opportunities for next steps, which led onto a virtuous cycle of success. The Australian counterparts started out poorly and each fumble shrank their standing, which reduced their opportunities for next steps, which led onto a vicious cycle of failure. The attempt to spill the leader's position in February was an attempt by the party's MPs to break the cycle. But when Abbott promised "good government starts today", the changes he made were minimal and superficial: Credlin disappeared from front-of-house to backstage; Abbott made the effort to talk to his backbench and outer ministry; he briefly made a point of taking all major decisions to his cabinet. That was it. The words "good government" have since become an ironic shorthand, a catch-all for the conga line of flubs, flare-outs and failures that the government flaunts shamelessly through the nation's life as if it were a proud achievement. In between this week's selection, the novelty was that we actually saw a moment that resembled good government. The announcement of Australia's carbon emissions target for 2020 to 2030 produced an inadequate result. The target is incompatible with arresting global warming at 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels, the avowed aim. Yet consider three points. First, the target of cutting Australia's carbon emissions by 26-28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 is inadequate to the task, yet "hardly any country's target is adequate", as ANU climate economist Frank Jotzo puts it.

"There will need to be a significant ratcheting up by all countries" in the post-Paris phase of international negotiations, he says. "Paris is not the end point, it's the starting point of next phase to step up efforts to make them compatible with the 2 degree goal." So Australia's new pledge, ahead of only Japan and South Korea among developed countries, puts it towards the back of the pack in a pack of irresponsible foot-draggers. This is no consolation. But in mitigation of this poor outcome, it's still a good deal better than Tony "absolute crap" Abbott's history might have suggested and that the rump of climate deniers in his caucus might have copped. This is the second point – it could have been worse. In fact, inside the government, the first tentative target proposed was 14-17 per cent, around half the final decision. This was gradually bid up in stages over months as Environment Minister Greg Hunt and Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop did careful legwork at home and abroad. The cabinet was kept abreast of developments and endorsed the final decision. When the final decision was announced to the Coalition party room on Tuesday, there might have been an insurrection. But with orderly process and a united cabinet, there was not. Cory Bernardi rose to his feet and began by saying that everyone in the room knew that "I don't buy into this hocus pocus" of climate change. But after asking one question to assure himself that the public spending component would be on "zero regrets" measures like planting trees, he said he would cop the decision. "Maybe it's the pills I'm on that're making me more amenable," he half-joked, a reference to the painkillers he's taking for a back problem.

Another sceptic, Dennis Jensen, mounted a token protest but let it pass. Because Abbott had his party's support on the policy, he was emboldened to go a little further in his press conference, keeping open the option of buying international carbon permits at a later point. This decision was insufficient yet necessary, necessary to keep Australia even remotely in the global effort, and might have been much worse. That it was not worse was the result of good process. This is the third point. This glimpse of order and unity was instantly lost in the next blast of chaotic internal politics. There was no due process on gay marriage. Abbott did not consult his cabinet, rode roughshod over the Liberal party room's sensibilities, rushed to a Coalition room discussion, and led the party to confused non-decisions on future process.

None of this mattered to Abbott. Why? Because all he wanted was to kill any prospect that same-sex marriage would come to a free vote on the floor of the Parliament. That done, to hell with the rest of it. That's why, two days later, his cabinet ministers were out in public arguing with each other on referendum versus plebiscites, George Brandis lecturing Scott Morrison, conducting government by Sky News. Did it seem odd that a Prime Minister would corral his party to block same-sex marriage, putting the government on the opposite side of two-thirds of the electorate? It is odd for a Prime Minister who wants to win an election to wilfully alienate most of the country. But winning the election is a second-order issue for Abbott. His first priority is surviving long enough to even make it to election day. The whole point of Abbott's gay marriage gambit was to appease the conservative side of his caucus. He sees this as vital to his survival as leader. Remember that the February spill motion was moved by two of the party's right-wing conservatives. The outcome on gay marriage this week may drive much of the public to despair, but it satisfies Abbott's right and protects his flank. That's the hard calculus that drove the process. This means that the next spill effort against Abbott won't come from the right. If it comes, it'll have to be from the left of the Liberal caucus.

Regardless of the government's internal winners and losers this week, all the government's members ended the week feeling battered and bewildered. The astonishing misjudgment that led the royal commissioner into trade union corruption, Dyson Heydon, to agree to speak at a Liberal Party fundraiser was the most unexpected blow to a punchdrunk party. Heydon is now fatally compromised. Bill Shorten is now politically immune to his findings. Shorten cements his position as the luckiest person in Australian federal politics. "We feel like stunned mullets," said a Liberal who spoke on the losing side of the gay marriage argument. "I just want to crawl into a hole in the ground and stay there for a few months," said one who had spoken on the winning side. Even the winners in Abbott's government feel like losers. When Abbott introduced John Key at a business lunch during that trans-Tasman bonding a year and a half ago, he quipped that he realised some of the Australians in the room would prefer John Key to be prime minister of Australia instead of himself. He got polite laughs but it was true. People are voting with their feet. For the first time in 30 years, the relentless flow of Kiwis to settle in Australia has stopped. And started to flow the other way. "Good government" doesn't have to be a joke.

Peter Hartcher is the political editor.