Turnbull's preemptive strike against an attempt by Morrison to save the hardline Kelly from losing his preselection as the “worst and weakest response” to Kelly's threat to huff off to the crossbenches looks particularly on-target now. Morrison has indeed managed to face down moderates who wanted Kelly gone, and thus Kelly's threats have been rewarded. And for what end? Kelly could not have brought down Morrison's government, whatever fanciful claims might have been made. Five other crossbenches have provided guarantees of confidence and supply, making a vote of no confidence in Morrison's government, with or without Kelly, a mathematical impossibility. Morrison looks spooked for no worthwhile reason. It didn't help that he denied to parliament on Monday that Kelly had ever threatened to move to the crossbench anyway. If that's so, why did Morrison expend so much political capital on the matter? It makes no sense at all. Even more of an own-goal is that Morrison's efforts to protect Kelly have come at the expense of democratic reforms agreed by the NSW Liberals just a few months ago, giving depth to Turnbull's warning about the "worst and weakest response".

Turnbull, thus, can argue he was doing no more than stating the obvious about the Morrison government’s disarray and lack of direction. But his protest that he is out of Parliament and therefore entitled to offer the sort of advice that any Liberal Party member might proffer is less convincing. Coming just three-months fresh from the prime ministership, Turnbull is not just any other party member. In truth, he couldn’t make his desire for revenge any clearer, any more public, or more damaging, even if he was driven to it by leakers. Turnbull, through his Radio National interview, followed by a “doorstop” in the street in Sydney, made it clear he is perfectly happy for his old Liberal parliamentary colleagues to stew in the bitter juices he maintains they released by tossing him aside as prime minister.

Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull speaking to reporters in Sydney on Monday morning. Credit:AAP “I mean,” he told Fran Kelly on RN, “the government’s electoral woes, if that’s the right term, are a consequence of the decision made to change the leadership on the 24th of August. “I mean, the polls – whether it’s the opinion polls or the [Victorian] election results – tell that story. It was, as I said at the time, a destructive, mad, pointless exercise and the Australian people have been appalled by it.” And so, he publicly advised the current Prime Minister to stand up to the likes of the angry Kelly, rather than try to mollify him; allowed to stand a claim that he had said a May election was simply an attempt by Morrison to keep his “arse” in the prime minister’s car seat for as long as possible and claimed that he and Morrison had planned a March 2 election to try to give the NSW Liberal government a chance. Liberal MP Craig Kelly in the House of Representatives on Monday morning. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer

And if anyone was in any doubt about his contentment at watching Morrison’s government blowing itself to more smithereens than it has already achieved itself - Turnbull acceded to a media interview in the street to reiterate his main points. One of those implicit points was that the Morrison government was so on the nose that the decision to remain in government until May would put the NSW Coalition government - “a very good state government” - in peril when it goes to the polls in late March. The corollary, unstated, was that the federal government wasn’t worth saving. And how had the federal government got to such a point that it should be put out of its misery as soon as possible, or as Turnbull put it, slightly more diplomatically, during his RN interview: it was "manifestly in the best interest of the Morrison government to go to the polls as soon as possible after the summer break"? Why, the Liberal Party’s brand had been destroyed by both the coup that ended with Turnbull losing his leadership to Morrison and/or "the internal machinations of the Liberal Party”. “But there’s no point being mealy-mouthed about it or pretending that that damage hasn’t been done,” he said.