The Prime Minister argues that voters want the world to move on from an argument about opinion polls that obsesses the political class but means nothing to those who want a better job or a wage increase. “What the Australian people want me to do is to get on with delivering and governing, and that’s what we’re doing,” he says. “People are frustrated by the inside-the-beltway political commentary. When they see a news story that’s about personalities or polls it disappoints them again because they’d rather be talking about the economy, about jobs.” Bill Shorten counters with a powerful rebuke about the “soap opera” of division within the government party room and an appeal to voters to reject the Liberals’ economic blueprint in favour of the “fairness” message that has shaped the Labor leader’s policies since the divisive 2014 budget. History is on Shorten’s side. Bob Hawke only failed eight Newspolls before Paul Keating replaced him at the end of 1991. John Howard lost ten Newspolls before staging a political turnaround in 2001 that Liberals mention today as a reason for not giving up. Julia Gillard lost 33 Newspolls in a row, a bleak tally that is now within Turnbull’s sights.

Turnbull has no reason to call it quits. The latest Fairfax/Ipsos poll shows the government has narrowed the gap against Labor. The next election is some time away but it will be a real contest, not a pushover for Shorten. In a result that will cheer Coalition MPs, the poll shows that the two major parties are 50:50 when voters are asked for their second preferences. Speaking to Fairfax Media before knowing these results, Turnbull says he can win the next election with a message to voters about economic growth. His theme: the “risk of Labor” to future jobs and wages. He believes one number matters more than any poll: the 420,700 jobs added to the economy over the past year. “It’s the risk of Labor that we have to make sure people understand, and I believe they will,” he says. Tony Abbott is preparing more public rebukes of Coalition policy. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen “The real question is do you want lower taxes, a stronger economy and more Australian jobs, or do you want a weak economy, higher taxes and higher unemployment? That’s what Labor would deliver.”

Talk of an imminent move against Turnbull is overblown when the party room does not meet until May and the budget must take priority over leadership squabbles. Yet there is no security for a leader who has trailed his opponent for so long. The speculation over alternatives never ends. The leadership options are narrow. Peter Dutton is constantly spoken of as a contender to replace Turnbull, but the factional allies of the Home Affairs Minister insist he is loyal to the leader. Dutton warned this week that Labor was “on track” to win the next election but he backed Turnbull in the same breath. Cynics see Dutton’s most recent media forays, on counter-terrorism and helping white South African farmers, as a sure sign he is positioning himself as a strong conservative leader. On the moderate side of the party room, some Liberals are disenchanted with Turnbull’s leadership but this does not mean there is a factional plan to make any change. Their obvious champion is Julie Bishop, but leading moderates say the Foreign Affairs Minister does not have support for a leadership spill and is unlikely to foment one. And what do voters think? The new Fairfax/Ipsos poll shows 62 per cent want to stay with Turnbull. The warning to the Coalition party room is that 74 per cent of their own voters do not want another spill. The rational response is for the party room to hold its nerve, keep its leader and stop making life so easy for Shorten. The fact that John Howard has to warn the Liberals to “bury your differences” tells voters just how grim things have become within government ranks. Even so, the former prime minister’s message may have an impact.

“Sure, Malcolm Turnbull has to give the lead – that can’t be disputed,” Howard told the ABC’s 7:30 program on Thursday night. “But he’s not the only person who’s got a responsibility. Every man and woman in the parliamentary party has one as well.” One of the ideas aired this week, to bring Peter Costello back to federal parliament to lead the government to the next election, has been quickly dismissed by those who know the former treasurer. Former Victorian Liberal premier Jeff Kennett, who made some sharp criticisms of Turnbull’s leadership style late last year, says a change at the top would be a mistake. “I would not support any move to change the leadership of the federal parliamentary party,” Kennett tells Fairfax Media. “I don’t believe changing leaders at the whim of opinion polls shows the maturity that is necessary to provide the leadership for the country. You’re not there to be popular. You’re there to actually do a job.

“I think there’s enough current history and evidence over the last 10 years to indicate that where people have allowed personalities to dominate their responsibility, such weighting has proven to be disastrous.” Kennett is right. The lesson of the last decade is convincing. A quick spill in June 2010 brought years of strife for Labor, while the Coalition still pays the “transaction costs” of replacing Abbott in September 2015. Whether this convinces individual MPs to avoid a repeat is another matter. Can Turnbull revive his fortunes if the party room gives him the time and support to do so? The challenge is enormous. Loading History shows just how hard it is to survive a trough in the opinion polls that lasts as long as this one. It is worth looking closely at the precedent of 2001, the example that today’s ministers cite so often.

Howard led the Liberals into a bog of bad polls in the early months of 2001 and there was no obvious way out. An old ally, John Moore, compounded the dangers by deciding to quit parliament, leading to a by-election in the Queensland electorate of Ryan, where the government suffered a 10 per cent swing against it on March 17. It lost the seat to Labor. The government tried to assuage an angry electorate. Two weeks before the by-election, Howard cut fuel excise by 1.5 cents a litre and abolished future indexation. This did not save Ryan but it began to counter talk that the prime minister had “stopped listening” to voters. (The cost to the budget was horrific: years later, the Australia Institute estimated the cumulative revenue foregone was worth more than $46 billion by the time indexation was restored by Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey). Howard reached a lower point than Turnbull is at now. In early March of 2001, the Coalition lagged Labor by an astonishing 43 to 57 per cent in two-party terms. In a Newspoll survey in early May, it was still behind by 44 to 56 per cent. The improvement in the government’s fortunes came in July, when the Liberals won the Aston by-election in Victoria despite an 8 per cent swing against them. By the last week of August, the government was only trailing by 49 to 51 per cent in Newspoll in two-party terms. John Howard celebrates his 2001 election victory. Credit:Dean Lewins

Howard’s hard-line approach to the Tampa affair built on this improvement. Within four weeks of crisis over asylum seekers, the government led by 57 to 43 per cent. The polls narrowed ahead of the election but the contest was over. So the experience is clear: success comes to those who hold their nerve, look for an issue to exploit and have the nous to throw their rivals on the defensive. Yet today’s Liberals parade their panic every day. This week’s exercise in self-destruction, the Monash Forum, put a small group of conservative agitators back in the news. Most of the group’s policy statement was unremarkable except for the extraordinary call to put taxpayer dollars into a new coal-fired power plant. The idea of a “Hazelwood 2.0” in regional Victoria was straight out of Abbott’s speaking notes. Ministers call this “Abbottian fantasy” a sure route to political ruin. The government’s own surveys of voter sentiment show that taxpayer aid for new coal power is political poison in Victoria and elsewhere, but this did not stop Abbott’s allies inside and outside the parliament, ranging from former defence minister Kevin Andrews to Sky News host Peta Credlin, trying to turn this flimsy idea into a new leadership test for Turnbull. The Nationals have shown the same talent for turning on themselves. The ministerial reshuffle last December, in which Barnaby Joyce sought to encourage rising stars like David Littleproud at the cost of demoting Darren Chester and Keith Pitt, split the federal party room. The division made it harder to deal with the drama over Joyce’s personal life.

The disunity disease is now endemic in both party rooms. This means a new sign of the sickness can emerge at any moment, over almost any issue. Energy is a constant source of trouble, reflecting more than a decade of philosophical differences across Australian politics on how to deal with climate change, but personal hatreds play their part. This party room would bicker over the speed of two raindrops sliding down a window. Is there a treatment for this disease? The outbreak has gone far beyond the point where one individual could halt the problem. Turnbull takes primary responsibility for the long slump in the polls, but the chronic disunity is a collective failure. For all the lessons of the past, Turnbull and his government are in a danger others have not seen. The Prime Minister cannot follow anyone else’s path out of this nightmare because no such path exists. First, no other leader in recent memory has had to fight their way back to political survival with a team so divided. This is the shared legacy from the leadership spill of September 2015, a crisis Howard never had to deal with.