With as few as five sitting weeks until the next budget is handed down, concerned Liberals note that central aspects of the current budget are still being discussed amid political gridlock. One minister said he expected the Prime Minister to cut the government's losses regarding some unwanted problems. In the gun according to sources, is the proposed $7 GP-copayment, but other options before Mr Abbott include benching his widely disparaged "paid parental leave" scheme, dropping the proposed fuel tax indexation measure, scaling back the higher education deregulation reforms, or dropping the planned restrictions on access to the dole for young job-seekers in their first six months in the labour market. However some ministers also believe a reshuffle of the Abbott frontbench is being scoped out, sparking discussion of who would be winners or losers out of a team change. According to one government insider, some ministers believe a shake-up of the front bench will happen within a fortnight, allowing Mr Abbott to reward and "re-task" strong performers such as Immigration Minister Scott Morrison, while stripping out those who would be unlikely to recontest their seats or make the cut after the next election assuming the Coalition survives in office.

Another Cabinet veteran dismissed reshuffle talk as fanciful. Speaking to the penultimate coalition party-room meeting of the year, Mr Abbott fielded direct criticism over his refusal in recent days to concede that he had expressly promised no cuts to the ABC and SBS on election-eve 2013 but was now cutting $254 million from the public broadcaster's five-year funding deal. The refusal had led to farcical scenes in parliament on Monday as the opposition hammered away with successive questions quoting Mr Abbott's words back to him. By Tuesday, and with the government hemorrhaging support in the face of a clear broken promise, Mr Abbott finally relented declaring "of course I made that statement," to ironic applause and jeers from across the chamber. Earlier in the day, Mr Abbott had told colleagues he was pleased with the year in politics, but was aware that some problems needed resolving before the summer break.

With the government languishing in the polls for the past ten months, some Liberals and Nationals MPs believe changes must be made to the approach before year's end in order to start 2015 with a clean slate. Mr Abbott has been urged in private conversations and in government forums to square up to those policies which voters see as breaches of promises made from opposition to restore integrity and trust by being "a government that says what it means and does what it says". One senior MP told Fairfax Media he had urged Mr Abbott to state openly that the ABC decision was a funding cut and therefore a broken promise in order to explain why it was necessary given the budget situation. "It was like I farted in a lift," the MP said, describing the silence. Loading

In an afternoon interview with Sky News, Mr Turnbull clearly decided there was no point pretending the ABC decision was other than a cut, irrespective of his leader's reluctance on the subject. "Well look, I'll leave it," he began, "certainly there are cuts, he (Mr Abbott) said no cuts to the ABC or SBS, there are cuts to the ABC or SBS."