Suddenly the question is everywhere: can Malcolm Turnbull survive? It's arisen before, of course, but was written off as Labor mischief-making, or as political hypersensitivity syndrome, after the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd-Abbott-Turnbull careen made constant change seem inevitable.

Now, for the first time, the question is real. Again.

Turnbull's cabinet leaks. Ministers position on policy such as a banking royal commission as ciphers in personal power struggles. Backbenchers freelance without admonishment on Sky News. Talk of crossing the floor abounds. All of this without the slightest regard for the Prime Minister's prestige.

Discipline has left the building. Turnbull is in danger of leaving too, having never fully been here.