This was on display this week as various Labor candidates, particularly from the Left, were outed for being at protests against the treatment of asylum-seekers in our overseas concentration camps.

Shorten has done everything he can to try to neutralise the issue. He doesn't even think reference to concentration camps is helpful or polite.

He even does things for which he is not exactly politically famous, such as take some risks. He took a policy to the ALP conference which effectively bound Labor to the Coalition's policy, especially with tow-backs and the determination that no boat person would be allowed to settle in Australia. As importantly, he has made frank admissions that the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments got their boat people policies wrong. Tony Abbott had it right.

It was open to Labor to promise that it, nonetheless, would be more compassionate and humane in administering the camps it had set up in client states, but even then fears of being thought ambivalent or lily-livered prevented that.

A good many Labor folk, particularly of the Left, opposed the Shorten policy. They hate themselves for paying lip service to it and tell critics this, off the record of course. Showing guts would only be suicidal. They are bound, because majority rules, at least when Shorten has the numbers.

Shorten has allowed no wriggle room. The policy is as close as anything to something he actually believes in and counts as a conviction. That's because it is supported by opinion polls. Others are agonised but pragmatic. Perhaps Shorten cannot win votes by his policy, but there are voters out there who will vote against Labor if they think that Labor is going to be significantly softer on the issue. So long as they think that Labor won't revert, they might vote on other issues, such as Labor's health or welfare policies.

Such voters know that a significant minority in the party hate the Coalition policy. But while they believe that a majority is chastened by Labor's past failures and is determined to atone, they might think Labor simply less better. The obvious determination of Shorten to hold firm may be reassurance enough, particularly given that the issue is hardly in their face every day. That's the beauty of having the asylum-seekers rotting on islands thousands of kilometres away, only occasionally nagging our consciences when there is some act of self-harm, or cruelty or mismanagement by the authorities.

Labor does not expect that anyone will convert to Labor because of its boat-people policies. At best, it hopes that the fact there is not a cigarette paper's difference between Labor and Liberal on the subject means it will not actuate anti-Labor votes.

The chances are that there are at least as many Australians who would vote for Labor if it had a more compassionate policy, as there are who would vote against Labor unless its policy mirrored the Coalition. More than anything, that is the source of the voting strength of the Greens.

But, Labor realists think, those who vote Greens must end up preferencing Labor before the Coalition. Why? In part because Labor stands ideologically between them and the Coalition. But they recognise too that at least some Labor people would like to be more compassionate, even if they lack the guts to say so, or to rebel against their party's policy.

While Shorten is leader, this sentimentality is misplaced. Voting for, or preferencing Labor, is no less likely to cause a continuation of refugee policy than voting for the Coalition. If the lily-livered types that Malcolm Turnbull or the Coalition claim will seek to undermine the policy were in the least bit effectual, they would have succeeded by now.

Actually one thing which could further assist Shorten on the issue is by capitalising on a strong feeling, on both sides of politics, that Turnbull, given his druthers, would be rather less gung-ho on refugee policy than he pretends to be.

While Turnbull did nothing disloyal on refugee policy while Abbott was prime minister, an impression was created that on this, as well as national security policy, one could expect to see a more tolerant, liberal and humane approach under a Turnbull government.

But any such hope was dashed almost immediately after the party turned to Turnbull when it despaired of Abbott. Turnbull agreed that the policy was drastic, and perhaps distasteful. But he argued that it was absolutely necessary, if only to save people from drowning. He has tended to portray himself as the humanitarian, saving foolish boat people from themselves, rather than as the person responding to those who simply hate uninvited guests, or Muslims, or people not like us.

This is a later-found justification for the Coalition's policy – it began with simple opposition to uncontrolled entry of strangers. But it has become a handy refuge for those (not including Abbott) on both sides of politics for whom the moral considerations about ill-treatment of refugees weigh heavily.

Turnbull's hard line on refugees is all of a one with other unexpected hard lines, including the continuation of policies on same-sex marriage, appeasement of moral conservatives on school bullying programs, climate change and the republic. As even the man he vanquished has commented, Turnbull has changed few Abbott-era policies and has, so far at least, done little to impose policies rather more consistent with his moral and economic liberalism.

Always an object of suspicion to his own party's right wing, he has squandered much of the goodwill from the centre and left that he had enjoyed up to the time he took power, by his efforts to appease people he can never hope to please.

Turnbull and Shorten will be working hard to maintain voter interest over a long, drawn-out campaign. But it is with issues such as refugee policy – and perhaps same-sex marriage and action on climate change – that there are already clear signs of why this is as much an election about character as about policy or philosophies.

Turnbull is a quite different character and personality from Abbott. He is less divisive, more serene, and, if by personality transplant, more consultative, steady and more open to argument, more likely to listen. He promised to treat the electorate with respect, and with argument rather than slogans. But he has clearly disappointed many of those who were initially delirious when he replaced Abbott.

First there was the failure to change unpopular policies and styles. Just as big a problem was a style of appearing to dither on economic policy, particularly over taxation options and, it seemed, a tendency to run away from hard decisions. His Treasurer, Scott Morrison, has struggled in any event, but, on a number of occasions, has worked hard to put hard policy options on to the public agenda, only to see Turnbull frightened off by immediate reaction from the public or the lobbies.

Turnbull, like Donald Trump, has commanded a certain respect for having become richer during his business career, but this has not seemed to make him more self-confident in economic management. Moreover, he has at times seemed merely the crude politician, using arguments he knows to be specious (for example over the impact of reverse gearing proposals).

His very taking of power seemed to act as an economic stimulus. But actual economic management has seemed more patchy, particularly when a good deal of economic commentary, particularly from the Reserve Bank, has put the focus on a more activist fiscal policy. Talk of adapting the economy towards innovation and the new economy has seemed to come up short against CSIRO cuts, continuing problems with education funding, and a failure to deliver on infrastructure funding. NBN, his own responsibility as communications minister, is a negative for the government.

Turnbull had a big reputation even before he went into politics. He was a successful lawyer and businessman, and the leading proponent for the republic. There, and later as a Howard minister, he exuded calm self-confidence, but also passionate belief in matters such as water policy, the environment and climate change. People came to believe in him. Few do now, because he does not seem to stand for anything. At most they respect him.

People then thought that they knew him. Even when he messed up, as he did spectacularly over Godwin Grech, he retained respect. He has fostered the legend that his demise, to Abbott, as opposition leader, involved high principle, particularly over climate change.

At this early stage of the election campaign Turnbull's problems are not about particular policies or programs, of style, the state of the economy or whether the Coalition is thought to have delivered. More important is his very authenticity.

Is this the real Turnbull on display? Or is it merely a wax cut-out, parroting Abbott policies if in a slightly more competent way? If the latter, was the changeover worth the effort, and the grief?

Does the failure to impose his own personality and philosophy on his government reflect some sort of Faustian bargain, whereby he achieved status by promising to change nothing? Or is it a courage matter? Does it reflect an actual want of ideas – an unexpected and disappointing incapacity to be the sort of leader he seemed to be?

It's not merely a matter of who the "real" Malcolm is. It's also a question of whether he has abiding ideas, ideals and philosophy. Whether, indeed, he still has passion for the things that once seemed to matter.

If voters come to see him as a fake, perhaps as someone who sold his soul to get into the Lodge, he can neither hope to maintain the support of his party nor of the electorate.

There are role models for such failure. There's Harold Holt who wanted everyone to like him. There's Billy McMahon, duplicitous, conspiratorial and incapable of inspiring. There's Andrew Peacock and Brendan Nelson, politicians who tried to be all things to all people, chameleons who ultimately departed the scene without leaving any lasting impression at all.

Turnbull is already campaigning rather more for conservative than middle ground, in effect against a suspicious and unfriendly right in his own party. His supporters will argue, no doubt, that he can be "himself" only after he has won an election in his own right, and that he must "respect" the achievements and programs of Abbott. But a Turnbull who wins election on that basis has no licence to change, and won't be allowed to.

Shorten himself has substance and authenticity problems. He too had a career before politics, and has wielded great power. But unlike Turnbull, his rise occurred without the public's gaining much feel for him, for his character, philosophy, ideas, ideals or instincts. What they know, particularly about how he used his union leadership to advance his own interests, hardly inspires confidence. Shorten can mouth zingers, slogans, thoughts for the day, and off-the-stump declarations of how he is a champion of the working class, but is not much for faking sincerity or for inspiring. Doggedness is his highest virtue.

There's no doubt that Shorten is, like Turnbull, competent enough for the routine administration of government, for rationing resources, at helping draw up budgets, and in chairing meetings. He was an able enough minister, and, as Leader of the Opposition has done a fairly good job in drafting policies for the campaign, and, significantly, in out-flanking the Coalition on economic management.

The real question is whether either Turnbull or Shorten can chart a course for 10 years hence, for a time when, perhaps, they are still prime minister.

Like Turnbull, Shorten is fine on his feet, even if he too is a poor speech reader and is better off the cuff. Like Turnbull, Shorten is actively disliked by most of his colleagues, not least for a long history of ruthless and remorseless self-interest, betrayals and abuse of friendships. When he falls, which may be long off, it will be far and he will not be much mourned by colleagues.

He is not so actively disliked by the public – although Coalition campaigning on his union record will not help. But he has yet to develop the confidence or the rapport that Bob Hawke did, and Paul Keating, and Kim Beazley– heavens, even Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard did. He's been Leader of the Opposition for three years. But no one yet could associate him with any abiding idea or explain what he's really about. All we sense is that he is not really passionate about anything he says he is passionate about.

If Shorten or Turnbull are destined to be great, it is not yet apparent. It should have been by now. The poem for the election, so far, is about two apparently hollowed-out men.

We are the hollow men

We are the stuffed men

Leaning together

Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

Our dried voices, when

We whisper together

Are quiet and meaningless

As wind in dry grass

Or rats' feet over broken glass

In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,

Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed

With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom

Remember us– if at all– not as lost

Violent souls, but only

As the hollow men

The stuffed men [T.S. Eliot].

Come early July, at least one of them is stuffed.