As parliament rose on Thursday, the Prime Minister was being ebullient about same-sex marriage and about job-creation outcomes, as well as about some luck that cast some of Bill Shorten's deficiences in much the same light as his own.

But the heartiness could scarcely conceal a year that was virtually devoid of significant policy or political initiative or achievement. We enter the summer break with shrinking business and consumer confidence in the state of the economy, high tensions in the region accompanied by fear and uncertainty about the influence of China and the United States, and the promise that 2018 should produce more of the same faltering, cautious and spineless moral and political leadership.

The big outcome, apart from jobs, apparently, is that we won't have blackouts or brownouts in January. They are not something most of us anticipate or expect, though one could be sure we would blame Turnbull, now that he has taken ownership of whatever problem we have, if we do. For most Australians, however, the idea that the Coalition has rescued our power supply is about as convincing, or relieving, as the idea that its policies are saving us from brown snake bites.

On the ABC on Thursday night, after parliament rose, Turnbull spoke of great achievements during the year. It was noteworthy for what it didn't say.

For Aborigines, and with Aboriginal policy and programs, it was another dreadful year of blasted hopes and non-achievement, indeed, actually going backwards in most areas of health, education, welfare and the incidents of full membership of the Australian community.

To underline this, consider some of the year's events, or search the record desperately for a single national policy that could have been called an achievement. There was Turnbull's eventual rejection of constitutional recognition of Indigenous people. There was open denunciation of Turnbull by the small core of Indigenous leaders who had provided cover and pseudo-respectability for the dreadful policies, Labor and Liberal in Aboriginal affairs, over all of this century. There was further confirmation of appalling police, judicial, prison and welfare system management of vulnerable children – itself a subset of appalling police, judicial, prison and welfare system mismanagement of the lives of vulnerable Indigenous adults.

There were planned extensions of the faith-based policies designed to restrict the rights of Aborigines, compared with other Australians, to welfare, and the same use of confected evidence to suggest that such policies were effective and popular with Aboriginal communities. Things went further backwards in education. And health. The Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Nigel Scullion, finally established himself as yet a further proof of Waterford's law, as expounded by me 30 years ago: that every minister for Aboriginal affairs is worse than the last.

With wider welfare and social policies, the big items were not, as Turnbull pretended, supposed reforms to childcare, but robo-debt, mechanical, heartless and punitive administration, and the extension of public relations reforms designed to reassure middle Australians that scroungers, who apparently make up a high proportion of welfare beneficiaries, will be found and punished, even if a few innocents need to perish as well. Senior public servants who throw themselves into such policies can expect promotions, at least if 2017 is any guide.

Our refugee policies and human rights record continue to be a source of international disapproval and national shame, even if, for many of those that this worries, it is hardly an incentive to abandon the Coalition, given that Labor policies are much the same.

A mid-year Four Corners report on rorting of Murray-Darling water supplies confirmed extensive deviation of river flow towards upstream irrigators at the expense of downstream farmers, the environment and South Australians. It also confirmed that bureaucrats and politicians captured by the farming lobby have connived with, or consciously ignored, the rorting, and dismissed complaints as simply bleatings from the green lobby, implicitly bad. It confirmed, if it needed confirming, that the governance model for a federal-state authority to control and manage the river systems rendered the system unaccountable to anyone. It underlined the Faustian bargain Turnbull had made with National leaders Barnaby Joyce when he transferred federal power over water to the Agriculture Department, rather than the Environment Department.

Through the year, as during the year before it, the Prime Minister sought to appease critics within the Nationals and the conservative wing of his own Liberal Party, often to produce results he had himself earlier declared to be contrary to good public policy. There could perhaps be no better example of this than the recent government capitulation on a royal commission into banks, the more humiliating and embarrassing because Turnbull had vehemently disputed both the need for one, or any possibility that he might give ground, almost to the last. His decision will likely haunt him through until the election, perhaps with extra fuel added to the fire by the superannuation industry.

The outsider need not have a positive view, one way or another, about the wisdom of alternatives. What they will focus on instead is that neither the government nor the Prime Minister can be relied on to stick with most policies, especially if they are under attack from people to Turnbull's right. There is no guiding principle.

The Prime Minister, in particular, lacks the authority, personality and courage to force forward his own instincts. The initiative and the natural equilibrium is further and further in the hands of cabinet conservatives, such as Peter Dutton and Mathias Cormann. If Turnbull mark I was a Tony Abbott clone, Turnbull 2.0 is more like a cork in an ocean storm. He has lost authority, authenticity and legitimacy, and, inevitably, standing in the opinion polls.

It may well be true that no Liberal wants his place, but there is little sign that either his enemies, or the Nationals, have determined that, if he is the necessary leader, it is time to support him, or accord him some personality, some scope for independent action or initiative, or some respect.

The hope of such colleagues is that, sooner or later, Shorten will stumble and fall, and the Coalition will retrieve its position in the polls. Labor's lead – of such dimension and long standing that it appears the electorate has made up its mind about Turnbull – has not been a function of admiration for Shorten or Labor, or of conversion to its policies. It has reflected, instead, deep voter disappointment with Turnbull, and dismay at the indirection, indecision and chaos of his government.

What can be said about Labor, however, is that it has maintained discipline and unity – in marked contrast to the Coalition – since the last election. Shorten, if failing to inspire, has not frightened the horses. No one could be enthused about him personally, but he has seemed so bland and cautious that it seems difficult to be much frightened of him.

This week saw Turnbull, and the Coalition, make more successful attacks on Labor than it had all year. But we may well have forgotten by the time parliament resumes in February.

The attack that drew some blood involved Sam Dastyari, secret agent for Turnbull and, perhaps, China. Hardly anyone was bothering to go much further to underline what a complete liability Dastyari has always been to Labor. Rather, Turnbull was focusing on Shorten's unwillingness to take firm action against Dastyari, in spite of evidence suggesting Dastyari had compromised himself, his party and possibly Australia in his dealings with a Chinese businessman with close intelligence links to the communist Chinese government.

Shorten, it was suggested, was weak and spineless, either because Dastyari was a factional player and ally of Shorten's, or because Shorten was unwilling to do anything that might make him enemies among NSW Labor's right faction. In that tribal gathering, Dastyari's wickedness or folly is nothing compared with the demand for loyalty when a mate is under pressure. As Paul Keating once remarked, warmly, of such company, "true" loyalty involves more than support when a mate is right; it is shown when one supports a mate when he is wrong.

Presumably, Dastyari will himself see the need to staunch the bleeding, and will step down from the Senate of his own accord, leaving the seat vacant for some other Sussex Street mate and time-server. Perhaps he is waiting to see whether a few days of a parliamentary break and (he no doubt hopes) some unexpected event or new meat for the media can make the issue go away.

It is entirely typical of the man, and his actual devotion to the Labor cause, that he has allowed his conduct to do so much damage for so long, when it was so easily within his power to kill it dead. One can only wonder how he is being advised by his father-in-law, Peter Barron, who almost wrote the textbook (for Bob Hawke) on killing off embarrassments, finding distractions or making virtues of necessities. But then again, Dastyari's apparent imperviousness to public opinion and lack of concern for appearances is a characteristic of the NSW powerbrokers he served so faithfully. Surely James Packer has a job for him.

Now that it seems that Labor's assurances that it had no dual-citizenship problems may be wrong, Turnbull has also sought to suggest Shorten was both a hypocrite and a liar, given his grandstanding when the problems were among the Greens and the Coalition.

Turnbull may be right, but will push hard to suggest these were personal or moral failures on the part of Shorten or the opposition. Those with a memory will recall the arrogance and self-confidence with which Turnbull assured the parliament of what the High Court would think.

Turnbull is on better ground with Dastyari. His sudden zeal (itself a turnaround on previous policy) for banning foreign donations to political parties (and politicians personally) as well as security legislation to deal with Australians who are agents of foreign governments allows him room to try to keep the issue alive.

For perhaps the first time all year, Turnbull landed some blows on Shorten as he raised doubts about Shorten's guts or courage. Such doubts are genuine, widely shared, and deserve to be exploited.

Turnbull is, in certain respects, an effective prosecutor – probably the best the government has. His department, for once, has seemed ready to arrange for him some initiatives that allowed him to go beyond mere point-scoring to policy questions of loyalty and moral and political compromise. To the argument that Shorten was playing the pragmatist rather than the custodian of the national security interest, Turnbull has added, yet again, issues of Shorten's ultimate character.

All fair questions, too. And ones that will continue to nag the shift to Shorten, the more so as he seems more and more likely to end up in The Lodge. But alas for Turnbull, not least after such a disastrous year, raising issues of loyalty, guts and courage can serve only to turn the mirror against himself.

Jack Waterford is a former editor of The Canberra Times. jwaterfordcanberra@gmail.com