In responding to reporters' questions about the Human Rights Commission president, Gillian Triggs, Turnbull declined to take up Abbott's assault on her: The PM has taken on the character of a punchdrunk right-wing pugilist. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen "Debate about Gillian Triggs misses the main point," said the undeclared alternative Liberal leader. "The main point is the children. Children in detention is something nobody wants". In a few short words, Turnbull had taken the issue from partisan politics to common humanity.

And it was not an admission of the government's failure but an opportunity to proclaim its success. Malcolm Turnbull has effortlessly emerged to point to a way he described as the "sensible centre" of Australian politics. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen The Coalition government inherited detention camps with a little under 2000 children locked up in them; it has reduced this to a little under 200, a 90 per cent improvement. It is one of the great advantages of having stopped the boats. As Turnbull pointed out: "The best way for children not to be in detention is of course for them to not get onto smugglers boats and of course we have effectively ensured that by Scott Morrison stopping the boats."

Was Triggs guilty of playing partisan politics? It seems so. Why didn't she inquire into the problem of children in detention when they were being locked up at an increasing rate under Labor? Why wait until now? Abbott is probably right on this point. But so what? Triggs' report gave the government an opportunity to highlight its progress in solving the problem. Abbott missed it because he is too busy with the politics of protecting his position, shoring up the right wing of his party, his Praetorian guard against the horde of angry Liberal backbenchers who want to remove him. As he was when he criticised Muslim leaders for failing to denounce the so-called Islamic State. Yet these leaders are the same people that the former head of ASIO, David Irvine, saluted: "We should thank them and continue to work with them," he said. In contrast to Abbott, Turnbull said in September that people who attack the Muslim community were dividing the country and "are doing the terrorists' work".

So long as Abbott is preoccupied with appealing to the 30 per cent of the voters who live on the conservative side of the Liberal party, he will continue to antagonise the other 70 per cent of the country. It's about the shortest of short-term survival. It's no way to win an election. It's no way to run a country.