With the imminent resignations of Defence Industry Minister Steve Ciobo and Defence Minister Christopher Pyne, the Morrison government is now holed below the waterline and listing heavily. Coming hard on the heels of former foreign minister Julie Bishop’s resignation, and the departure of ministers Kelly O’Dwyer, Michael Keenan and Nigel Scullion, the perception that the government is sinking is getting harder to dispel. Ciobo was demoted in the wake of the attempted coup against former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, in which he supported challenger Peter Dutton, and his resignation would indicate that the federal Liberal Party has not healed the wounds of August.

Ciobo’s departure comes at an inconvenient time – as Australia is poised to finally clinch the long-awaited free-trade agreement with Indonesia, which Ciobo helped negotiate when he was trade minister, taking over from Andrew Robb in early 2016. It is too early to start preparing the political obituaries, nonetheless a succession of free-trade agreements – with China, Korea, Japan, and followed up with the Trans Pacific Partnership – was one of the few policy achievements the government could credibly claim. Ciobo can hardly take all the credit, given his short tenure, but he can claim some. With his departure, the government’s ranks get thinner.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison attempted a daring rewrite of history in February, arguing that the big myth of the 2013 election was that Labor got thrown out because it was divided. No, Morrison argued, Labor lost because they were a terrible government on every score. The PM has a stake in this line of argument, because he wants to distinguish the last six years of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison turnstile from the six preceding years of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd turnstile.

It is easy to see, from Morrison’s point of view, having held the immigration portfolio both in Opposition and in government, how Labor’s track record looked disastrous. But in other policy areas, Labor did a lot: avoiding recession through the financial crisis (even if the Coalition will never give them credit for it); rolling back WorkChoices (which even the Coalition acknowledged had gone too far); setting up an economy-wide carbon price (a level of policy difficulty the Coalition cannot even come at); establishing a visionary, full-fibre NBN; setting up the NDIS and needs-based school funding; delivering a national apology … it goes on. Much of that work, either shunned or unravelled by the Coalition, now lies ruined or distorted beyond recognition.

By contrast, the Coalition’s policy failures on show, just this week, include: Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton scraping the bottom of the bottom of the barrel, warning that sick asylum seekers transferred here for medical attention will lead to Australians being “kicked off” waiting lists for healthcare and public housing, which the PM defended today as “simple math”; the PM’s gobbledegook in response to a question about why the independent panel process for board nominations established under the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act was ignored yet again: “So, the Labor Party set up a process, we have followed that process, but where I don’t believe that process actually meets the requirements, then the government of the day has the ability to make the right appointment and that’s what I have done today”; Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions continuing to rise, as the government relaunches the Abbott-era Emissions Reduction Fund to near-universal disdain; and the punitive ParentsNext [$] program, which has seen welfare payments cut off for desperately needy single parents, leaving them and their children with nothing at all. A budget surplus built off inflicting that sort of pain is something to be ashamed of, not campaigned on.

They’ve stopped things and axed things and cut things – even had a legislative bonfire in the parliament – but what has this government come up with for the good of the nation that will endure? Very, very little.