Yet as his first calendar year begins, promise and reality are straining apart. Labor's refrain that Turnbull was merely Abbott in a better suit, had glanced off in the heady atmosphere of the time, appearing faintly desperate. "All their policies are the same," Bill Shorten had protested lamely.

Illustration: Ron Tandberg

But there was something to this. Turnbull may have replaced nope with hope, but he had expressly traded away his wish to accelerate the same-sex marriage timetable, and had surrendered his signature emissions trading ambitions, in the quest for a conservative majority.

Even within these constraints however, Turnbull somehow managed to cloak his new leadership in the rhetorical garb of optimism. It was as if his reputation as a forward leaner on global warming, marriage equality, the republic, and the internet, cut more ice with voters than the pesky details and squalid compromises necessary to secure the leadership.

As things stand, in January, 2016, support for the government remains high, and for Turnbull, stratospheric. Yet danger looms. Conservative Liberals are on the warpath, hitting back at attempts by moderates to remake their party, and reminding voters that Turnbull's internal authority, especially in the absence of his own mandate, is a matter of perspective.