Turnbull seemed to be sitting back patiently, waiting for the party that rejected him only a few years earlier to beg him back to the leadership. He courted a protracted and finely executed campaign of public relations to woo the public to him, with leather jacketed Q&A appearances spouting moderation and doorstop interviews to the effect that he was the leader his country needed. All that was required for Turnbull to take the leadership, it seemed, was for him to sit back and let Abbott continue on his path toward complete political self-immolation.

Perhaps it was hubris or the resolution of a six year saudade but although Turnbull was victorious in taking over the prime ministership, he fatally misjudged the circumstances under which he won. At first glance, Turnbull’s numbers seemed solid at 56-45 in his favour, two party preferred polling in the following weeks reversed the fortunes of Labor and Liberal parties (somewhere in total wipe out territory at the time). There also seemed to be a sense that sanity was being restored to our highest offices. Australian politics had never seemed so embarrassing as during the two years of the Abbott Government.

Abbott has banned frontbenchers on #QandA. The ABC has instead approached Turnbull's leather jacket for an appearance pic.twitter.com/lApDZL7cOa

But if only six of those MP’s sworn to Turnbull’s cause has shifted allegiance to Abbott, we'd have had a result in Abbott’s favour. It seems less likely that the Liberal party was begging for Turnbull to return — rather that Turnbull had pulled the trigger at the first available opportunity. Despite public appearances of a man with all the time in the world, the parity of the Turnbull victory implied a different scene: one of quick tapping heels through long marble halls, quiet whispers behind closed doors and endless shoring up of support. Turnbull suffered from the Rudd "curse" — popular with the voters but despised or distrusted by his party.

https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/turnbull-the-ballad-of-the-small-government-and-the-big-nothing,9224