Here is a quick snapshot of Malcolm Turnbull’s year:

His personal approval rating crashed a jaw-dropping 45 points. He started losing Newspolls – six in a row since September. He announced the biggest reform to the tax system “in generations” on the side of a rugby league field. He dumped the idea two days later. His #IdeasBoom, the centrepiece of his personal agenda, announced at the end of last year, has largely disappeared and become a national laughing stock. He was rolled in cabinet on negative gearing. He toyed with and then didn’t reform the GST. He moved the Budget forward a week. He called a historic double dissolution election to get rid of a “feral” cross bench. He won a one-seat majority. His closest moderate allies were turfed. He was left with a worse cross bench. He got Pauline Hanson, who brought with her three extra senators. He was forced to introduce a marriage equality plebiscite that he personally opposes. It then failed to pass parliament, leaving Australia as one of the only English-speaking Western democracies without equal marriage rights. His Coalition partners threatened to dissolve the government if he tried to hold a free vote on same-sex marriage. He gutted the Safe Schools program. His new government was the first in 50 years to lose a vote in the House of Representatives. His scandal-prone attorney general busted up with the government’s solicitor over a $300 million legal case and is expected to be off to London any day now. His defence minister doesn’t know if she’s the most senior defence voice in the cabinet. His assistant treasurer accidentally voted against the government. His Indigenous affairs minister’s interest was not “piqued” by the abuse of teen boys at a Northern Territory detention centre. He’s been forced to call a review of the Racial Discrimination Act to quieten angry conservatives. His environment minister called for a review into emissions trading that lasted 33 hours before it was dropped. His party’s right wing openly lobbied for Tony Abbott to return to cabinet and the former PM warned he would keep speaking his mind in the media. He oversaw the economy's steepest decline since the global financial crisis. And finally, his signature legislation, the ABCC, scraped through the Senate with an amendment that left unions free from key parts of the new laws for two years.



On any measure, it looks like a rough year for Turnbull.

But when BuzzFeed News spoke to one of the Australia’s most respected economists, Saul Eslake, he said it was “unfair” to argue Turnbull has achieved nothing of substance this year. Asked for Turnbull’s biggest achievements, Eslake pointed to the cutting back of generous superannuation concessions and the passage of unpopular “zombie tax cuts” trapped in the Senate.