Ten months ago, Defence Minister Marise Payne was lauded as one of the big "winners" in Malcolm Turnbull's first ministry.

However now in the Prime Minister's newly revamped frontbench, she is apparently one of the "losers".

Defence is regarded as one of the toughest jobs in government, but now Senator Payne will be fulfilling her ministerial duties without the extra responsibility of Defence Industry.

Instead, the task of overseeing Australia's biggest expansion of naval power since World War II will fall to Cabinet colleague Christopher Pyne, who takes over the newly created Defence Industry Ministry.

While some commentators consider this a demotion for one of Cabinet's most senior women, it should actually liberate the long-serving Senator.

It should free her up for the challenging task of managing Australia's military commitments in the Middle East, as well as responding to the growing maritime tensions with China in the South China Sea.

During her first few months in the job Senator Payne impressed defence officials, military leaders and Government colleagues with her sharp grasp of the job, but in more recent times there have been growing grumblings with workings of the minister's office and her low public profile in an important national security portfolio.

Senator Payne notably absent during Iraq visits

Members of the military community, Defence companies and others regularly complain how difficult it is to get access to Senator Payne, and report it is much easier dealing with junior colleagues such as Veterans' Minister Dan Tehan.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, diggers are also increasingly frustrated their Defence Minister has not yet managed to visit, despite being a regular to the Middle East when she was a diligent member of the Parliament's Committee on Defence and Foreign Affairs.

Last month at the National Press Club, Senator Payne also acknowledged her failure to visit was an "infinite frustration", but blamed the Senate's unpredictable sitting timetable and Mr Turnbull for gatecrashing one of her two planned, but subsequently aborted, visits

At that appearance at the National Press Club, for an election debate with Stephen Conroy, Senator Payne greatly impressed the audience and even won praise from Labor's Defence spokesman for being "on top of the issues".

The appearance also served to highlight that one of the Government's strongest performers had not bothered to once appear at the National Press Club, not even to help sell the Government's long-awaited Defence White Paper released earlier in the year.

In fact, since being appointed to the Defence role, Senator Payne has done very few national media appearances compared to her immediate predecessors, apart from occasional joint press conferences with Mr Turnbull and other senior frontbench colleagues.

For much of the two month election campaign the Minister appeared to take on the role of a self-appointed "Minister for Western Sydney", promoting community grant announcements rather than talk about the Government's important defence projects.

With the second Turnbull Ministry finally sworn in, the hope of the military community is that a minister liberated from the complex responsibilities of overseeing Defence Industry may now have more time to engage and explain Australia's $32 billion defence budget, and how its forces will navigate a region bristling with military rivalries and tensions.