The latest political excitements in Queensland and Canberra leave a lot more at stake than the future of Tony Abbott and the fortunes of the Coalition. They show the rules have changed in Australian politics, with lessons for politicians on both sides. What's important for the good government of the country and the economy, however, is that the pollies draw the right conclusions.

Abbott's ministers are right to conclude that politics has become quite volatile, with voters capable of swinging from one extreme to the other between one election and the next. That's what we saw in Queensland on Saturday, and what we may see - to a lesser extent - in NSW next month. It's what the polls say would happen federally if an election were held today.

The first implication of this volatility is that, across the nation, no party stays in the wilderness for long. In consequence, parties that indulge in blanket negativity in opposition, or vindictiveness towards their opponents when in government, won't have long to wait before the other side gives as good as it gets. Until that lesson is learnt, it will be a race to the bottom in standards of political behaviour, which will only heighten voters' willingness to throw out governments.

Another implication is the end of the fair go. With the defeat of Coalition governments in Victoria last year and Queensland last week, the comfortable assumption that voters invariably give first-term governments a second chance to prove themselves has gone. What's more, Julia Gillard's Labor government went within a whisker of defeat in 2010.