AT the start of last week, a serious political commentator told me he was convinced that Australia as we knew it was gone, and we were now merely managing our long term decline.

I said I wanted to believe he was wrong but in the pit of my stomach I had to quietly admit my own fear that the coming decade would be less prosperous, less safe and less certain than the last.

At the end of the week, speaking at a large event in Sydney, one of the guests asked me why I thought our political class was failing us.

A very tough question and the answer doesn’t reflect much credit on anyone. But it needs to be considered honestly because Australia can’t afford to let the politics of the last ten years become the ‘new normal’.

There’s no doubt most Australians were blindsided by the removal of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard’s failure to justify the coup — and the imposition of a carbon tax she had explicitly ruled out meant she never recovered. The jostling for Rudd’s return was a sorry feature of the hung parliament, as was his repudiation by fellow Labor colleagues who swore ‘never ever’ until self-interest in holding their seats saw convictions evaporate.

Removing the prime minister was wrong the first time, and when Labor did it again, it was wrong the second time too. That the Liberal party is in the very same mess for the same act of electoral suicide should surprise no-one. Nor am I surprised that Malcolm Turnbull, who was such a disappointment as opposition leader, turned out to be just as disappointing as prime minister too.

Is it any wonder people have lost faith in politics?

media_camera Dumping Tony Abbott as prime minister was the wrong move by the Coalition. Dumping Malcolm Turnbull would be just as wrong. (Pic: Mick Tsikas/AAP)

Right now, the only conversation anyone is having in Canberra centres on the prime minister’s future: can he survive? If not him, who? Are people even listening anymore? Two years on and the Liberals are back to where they started when they chose to mimic Labor and remove a first term leader. I’ve spoken to a lot of rank and file supporters at Liberal events over the past 12 months and whatever their views of Tony Abbott, then or now, this issue lies at the heart of their ongoing anger and diminishing support that’s evident in poll after poll. That Malcolm Turnbull still fails to acknowledge the damage he caused is a key reason the base remains wounded.

Unlike those who barracked for Turnbull to remove a prime minister, and there were plenty of Abbott haters in the media class who crossed a line to become participants, I don’t support doing to Turnbull what he did to Abbott. To change leaders would make the Coalition a mere facsimile of Labor and I still hold on to the hope we’re better than that. But I also know that unless the prime minister urgently regains ground by changing his policy on energy, and arguing for it with authenticity, he will sign his own death warrant.

media_camera Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and former prime minister Tony Abbott at the NSW Liberal Party Futures convention in July. (Pic: Dan Himbrechts/AAP)

Right now, things are very fluid. The prime minister remains in his job only because key senior conservatives have not shifted support. How long that continues is anyone’s guess but conversations are being had. Newspoll is stagnant because the base now has somewhere to go, and they’re going. Backbenchers have stopped campaigning because they don’t know how to defend the government’s poor standing, and there’s no real plan to fight back. Ironically it’s the moderates Malcolm Turnbull needs to watch. They’ve been meeting recently and “what has he done for us lately” is a common refrain, with many feeling Julie Bishop has delivered more than Turnbull. Such is the lot of a leader.

I’ve been on the inside of three Liberal leadership challenges and circumstances change by the hour. The only thing that’s certain is anyone who tells you they know how it will play out is lying: no-one yet knows. What is clear is that most MPs are now hedging their bets with the various contenders, at the same time as feeding their own version of the truth to their media favourites.

So goes the war of spin.

Having worked with most of the players for 16 years, I hear their verbal signatures repeated by some journalists on air or read their lines in print. I don’t know who is more responsible for the current lack of faith in our political leadership — the ambitious political player who spins the lines or the lazy journalist who regurgitates them. By replacing considered analysis with mere gossip we’ve diminished our political discourse. Is it any wonder that ordinary people have lost faith in the political class?

To a growing number of Canberra’s players, it’s all a game; the factionalism in both major parties, searing personal ambition and the press gallery’s desire to look for conflict rather than consensus are all part of the disease of mistrust. Add to this the frequency of published polls — made worse by Malcolm Turnbull’s own lack of judgment in setting this as his benchmark for success — and you can see why my commentator friend is pessimistic about the future.