Among the electorate as a whole, 62 per cent say that the Liberals should leave Turnbull in place. That's a pretty strong result too. Why is that important if they're people who aren't intending to vote for the Coalition? "Because elections are won by the the middle ground, not by the rusted-on supporters," Elgood points out. "About 20 to 25 per cent of voters move between parties." There are two reasons that Labor voters might be telling pollsters to leave Turnbull in place, she hypothesises - because they think he's easily beatable so good for Labor, or because they like him and would consider voting for him. In any case, it's hard to escape the overall message: "Clearly, the Australian public are tired of leadership changes." Indeed. We already have plenty of evidence of that. This latest poll is evidence updated. But will it make any difference to the scheming and muttering and destabilising within the government's ranks? Of course not. In a democracy, you might think that the people's wishes would weigh heavily on the elected representatives. But since 2010, the elected representatives have been much more interested in indulging their own ambitions and petty preoccupations.

"Talk of changing Malcolm Turnbull is in the Canberra bubble," says Elgood. Which is exactly where a good many of his MPs and senators dwell. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has ruled out calling a leadership spill once he hits the same polling result he used to topple Tony Abbott. Credit:Fairfax Media As the knives stabbing into Julius Caesar's back in playhouses around the world year in and year out attest, Australian politicians didn't invent internal rivalries and bitter feuds in politics.

The Monash University political psychologist James Walter remarks of the government's current condition: "When both leadership and a common cause fail, we should remember Churchill said in politics your greatest enemies are always behind you!" And that's the point. Regicide and fratricide are established norms in politics. It's just that they flourish under some conditions more than others. Australia seems to have had ideal conditions, Canberra winning the dismal distinction of being dubbed the "coup capital of the Western world".

The big picture is that a complacent and introspective political class, reigning over the world's longest running economic boom, has taken to indulging itself in parlour games. Loading

It began in Labor, with the destruction of a first term prime minister in 2010. Julia Gillard's coup against Kevin Rudd set off the cycle of vengeance. Rudd then brought her down. The Coalition, rather than seeing this as a shocking betrayal of the people's trust, thought it looked rather fun. It is now deep in its own cycle of vengeance. Tony Abbott today is every bit as angry at Malcolm Turnbull as Kevin Rudd was at Julia Gillard. Within that broader, eight-year pathology of coups and counter-coups and frenzied political fratricide, there is the specific picture of today's problem of the Turnbull government. As Walter says, leadership has failed and a common cause eludes the Coalition. How has leadership failed? Turnbull's critics in the conservative camp, Tony Abbott and his acolytes, will answer that he has failed to deliver on their agenda, the agenda of the party's "base". They will answer that he's too soft on the unions, that he's too committed to the makebelieve of man-made climate change, that he can't see the damage being done by runaway immigration, that he's failed to cut taxes and spending. The rest of the electorate will answer that he's been too straitjacketed by the demands of the conservatives. In focus groups of uncommitted voters in marginal electorates in Sydney and Melbourne last year, this was universally held.

Loading "If he just had the guts, the political will," said a younger voter from Melbourne. Said an older voter in western Sydney: "He just needs to grow, pardon me, balls." Another said: "We've switched off." Since then, he's presided over the success of the same-sex marriage plebiscite and has legislated a company tax cut for smaller businesses, with turnover up to $50 million a year. But whatever he does, he seems unable to win credit with an electorate that long ago lost interest and hope in his leadership. But what about the Fairfax/Ipsos poll result showing that people want him kept in place? Jess Elgood again: "We don't want change - we don't necessarily say we like Malcolm Turnbull. We don't have the evidence for that. I read it as 'we don't want change'." If the Prime Minister is to be removed, it's the voters who will do it, is the message. The people get their say once every three years. They don't want political schemers and factional apparatchiks to usurp their choice between times. As for unity of purpose, some among the Coalition's conservatives have demonstrated afresh that they cannot unify behind Turnbull. This week's launch of the so-called Monash Forum is a stark example. Its leading lights are Abbott and his veteran loyalists Kevin Andrews and Eric Abetz, plus the former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce. Members of the Monash Forum include Craig Kelly, Eric Abetz, Tony Abbott, Barnaby Joyce and Kevin Andrews. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

It is plainly a device to destabilise the government. Nothing less and nothing more. The forum, with half a dozen real members but claiming up to 20, purports to be a "ginger group" to mobilise support for the federal government to build a coal-fired power plant. As a campaigning device, this is not a stupid idea. It's akin to Donald Trump's highly successful campaign device of a wall across the Mexican border. It's not so much a realistic policy plan. Its power is symbolic. It is a symbol of a specific object designed to embody a political sentiment. And that sentiment is anger. It's anger at the left and its prized ideals. The symbol is designed to be as offensive as possible to the dearest beliefs of the ideological enemy. Trump's wall offends the concepts of immigration, immigrants and non-discrimination. Freshly built coal-fired power offends the concepts of man-made climate change, renewable energy and environmentalism. But instead of railing against concepts, the wall and power plant pose a specific hurt. If realised, they'd be an actual, physical agent of harm to the some of the dearest values and interests of the left. As powerful as it is a campaigning device for Coalition conservatives, the coal-fired power plant is even better as a destabilising device against their own leader.

The Turnbull government is tantalisingly close to winning the support of the states for its proposed electricity policy, the national energy guarantee. The federal and state ministers are to meet as the Council of Australian Governments in a couple of weeks to decide its fate. The Turnbull plan has no call for a new, government-built, coal-fired power plant. The Monash Forum won't meet before COAG - there are no parliamentary sittings till well after. Instead, if Turnbull succeeds with his policy, the group can be brought together afterwards to impose a new and impossible demand on Turnbull. You may think the group, which has been roundly abused for appropriating the name of an Australian war hero for its own aggrandisement, is just a few second-hand cranks. But a former prime minister and former deputy prime minister have guaranteed media platforms whenever they choose. The capacity to destabilise is infinite. All under the guise of a serious policy proposal. The government's polling position isn't great. On Monday we'll likely learn that Turnbull has failed his self-inflicted leadership test, losing 30 Newspolls in a row. Likewise, today's Fairfax-Ipsos poll has the government in an election-losing position, 48 per cent to Labor's 52.

But this is not a hopeless situation. A shift of just a few percentage points would reverse the government's standing. However, it becomes a hopeless situation when the government destroys itself from within, and when the people give up any hope that it can reform itself. This is increasingly the position the government cements for itself. That's why, in the Canberra bubble, talk of removing Turnbull is increasingly rife. The cycle of vengeance is still working itself through, and the Coalition is unable to short-circuit it. This doesn't mean that Abbott will emerge as the new prime minister, merely that Turnbull is his target. The party is more likely to choose a new leader, not a recycled one.