What a legend that would be for the books. What a humiliation for the array of critics and commentators, myself included, who have suggested that the government's position was terminal, barring some unlikely Labor own goal.

It would be a tale of how Turnbull, like John Howard of old, remained calm as others around him were inclined to panic. Remained confident that the government's measures to push the economy along, and to focus, in particular, on creating jobs, would bear fruit. Serenely sure that deliberate, if low-key, helmsmanship had kept the economy on course. Reinforced a reputation for being sound on national security, and not become distracted by events beyond Australia's control, such as erratic behaviour by Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un and tensions in the South China Sea. Steadily progressed the nation's strategic objectives, including recreating a deal of a Pacific trading bloc, albeit one, alas so far, without the United States.

And if this all came to pass, how much of a hitherto missing sense of authority, legitimacy and freedom of action Turnbull would have. Authority particularly within his party, even or especially among people who had previously distrusted his instincts or detested what they had thought to be his philosophy. People prepared to suffer him only because he had seemed the only person who was capable of keeping the Coalition in power, and only because he had made a Faustian bargain by which they had largely called the shots.

If Turnbull is returned to power (and one would think that this can't happen without his winning more seats), he could at last stare down these bullies, if only because he had a popular endorsement from the electorate at large.

Authority, too, in Parliament, including among a crossbench all too used to defying him. Respect around the world, even from Trump's press secretaries.

And he could at last be himself, if he could remember who he is, or was, after humiliating years of pandering to both the conservatives in the party. There would, of course, be no hubris, arrogance or retaliation, other than perhaps the easing-out of some of the more rabid and disloyal, or ambitious, of those foisted upon him while he had to make perpetual compromises simply to keep his head above water.

Now he would be potent. The new and liberated Turnbull would be relaxed and comfortable, above the hurley burley, and focused on the destination: developing a magical rapport, of Bob Hawke proportions, with voters, particularly young, female and elderly voters. A living breathing symbol of stability, competence, confidence and leadership, with a bit of a tendency to let 100 flowers bloom.

It's a nice pipe dream, the sort prime ministers often have after a summer holiday without much in the way of natural disasters, scandals or evidence of fresh attempts to put knives in his back. Sometimes, the silly season is broken by floods, bushfires or cyclones. But Christmas and January, usually up to the week after Australia Day, is a slow time for politics. On the eve of Australia Day, for example, there was not a single sharp political story on the evening ABC news.

The week after Australia Day, usually marking the end of a summer holiday for many Australians – the return of children to school, adults to work and politicians from refreshing trips abroad – signals resumed hostilities. There is no reason to think Labor is cowed, or on the back foot.

Both sides, naturally will have used the break to rehearse a few new lines, to clear a few barnacles or to address some third-order issues that matter to a few key constituencies but won't affect their overall standing in the wider electorate. The success of such shadowboxing is rarely a good predictor of the political battles during the working year, though it does, for a while, affect confidence among followers.

The converse is not true. A leader who squanders the break with more unforced errors, ridiculous statements or further incapacity to read the mind or mood of the electorate – think Tony Abbott and Prince Phillip – will worsen his situation and incline his party to despair. For all but the most devoted or blind of Abbott's followers, the January holidays of 2015 made it clear that he couldn't help himself, was incapable of changing himself, and that his tin ear for public opinion, and tendency to incendiarism, was congenital. (Turnbull is probably fortunate he gave Abbott another six months, given the rate at which Turnbull squandered any goodwill and sense of relief that his accession bought. In the next election, he only just squeaked in; most likely the Coalition would have lost had it been even a week later.)

If Turnbull intends to capitalise on any signs that luck and events could be turning his way, he had best move quickly both to establish the political agenda and to widen it. It is quite true that the economic – or at least the employment – news is fairly good. What's less clear is whether it can be sustained and whether it owes much to his government's decisions, rather than to events over which the government has little control.

Nor is it clear that the direction and pace of infrastructure spending is finely attuned to areas where there is a slack to be taken up, or whether there is a neat fit between the jobs being created and the skills that are available. And it is by no means clear that the government has the will or capacity to push for modest wage increases, even as there is ample evidence that subdued wage rates are holding back consumer demand and growth.

The government can point to continuing efforts on free-trade deals, and the development of trading blocs, as evidence that it is looking to expand markets for Australian goods and reduce the cost of access to our own sources of supply. Perhaps, but as the Productivity Commission has repeatedly pointed out, the evidence is slim about any serious effect on broad growth. Neither the government nor the Australian Bureau of Statistics has shown that any free-trade deals have genuinely affected trade data. Demand, terms of trade and practical obstacles to free access to markets have been much more affected by the general state of the world and regional economies than by relaxing or tightening protectionism. Some of the cynicism about the benefits is shared by the public – whether because of a populism and nationalism, or because it has yet to be established that even the undoubted benefits to some traders always benefit the economy.

The government cannot depend on the economy. Even less can it depend on a popular perception that the Coalition is intrinsically better than Labor at managing the economy, in moving towards balanced or surplus budgets, in reducing the size and burden of government, or in reducing public debt, assuming that all of these are highly desirable, and that there is some race as to which party of government would be more likely to reach it first.

It is clear, first, that both sides broadly agree about the general size of government. While Abbott was remarkably successful in propagating the line that the Rudd and Gillard governments were wildly profligate, those with a memory will recall tight management of spending. The economic problems of the past decade were not generally ones of a want of discipline. Just as importantly, the controls imposed by both Abbott and Turnbull were no more successful in reining in debt. Treasury's forecasting has been as lamentable. Since the second Abbott budget, moreover, it has been clear that the government accepts the need for deficit spending to prop up demand, growth and sectors of the economy. The power of governments of either stripe to significantly affect economic outcomes has been much reduced in recent time.

It is conventional wisdom that political fortunes are closely tied to the fortunes of the economy. But the Turnbull government has worked hard to maintain political tension on national security – essentially by suggesting that a slack Labor will make life easier for terrorists, drug dealers and feral Africans. It maintains a sense of crisis about how an invasion of refugees can be prevented only by remote incarceration of asylum seekers and the most conspicuous brutality towards them. It has made defence policy and defence purchases a form of industry policy to prop up the South Australian economy, it has a number of high-profile but low-content policies to maintain and develop energy supplies, and it tries to foster the idea that Labor stands for disinvestment, ideological wars against coal, and airy-fairy greenie ideas that will destroy agriculture and manufacturing.

Whether the public is convinced is unclear. Labor generally has better articulated policies, and spends more time promoting and defending them. Even when some Coalition minister has an idea of substance, it is rarely in evidence within a month. Some of the public's cynicism no doubt flows from general disappointment – a good deal of it focused directly at Turnbull – over the national broadband network.

Now, as ever, Turnbull's biggest problem is a want of a coherent narrative explaining what he is doing, why and where he means to go.

What's missing is not detailed and eye-glazing explanation of the benefits of hydro-electricity schemes, or of why Australia needs and deserves only a third-rate NBN. Nor repeated slogans about jobs and growth, or unconvincing mantras about how the economy is at risk from rampaging unionists. Nor commentaries about innovation and agility.

It is, rather, an outline of the Australia that Turnbull and the Coalition wants to create, and an explanation of how present policies are organised to move towards it. It is about policies and programs rather than mere politics and point-scoring against the alternative government. It's about better positioning on things that actually matter.

Most importantly, it is in showing that efforts in education – including vocational and university education – are investments in the nation's future, that health spending expenditure is focused on outcomes rather than appeasing interests, and that welfare and social-security programs are about enhancing and changing lives, not exercises in social control, punishment and separation from the community.

The Turnbull government seems unable to articulate goals or directions in Indigenous affairs, to describe what it is doing with the nation's social infrastructure, or to show how its efforts on tertiary-education spending are equipping people for the decades ahead rather than merely saving money.

Turnbull might well study some recent research by which Australians, asked to nominate significant things that happened in their lifetime, referred to social matters such as the same-sex marriage plebiscite, the apology to the stolen generation, the Port Arthur massacre and the Sydney Olympics. One does not hear much about the success or failures of governments in delivering a generally prosperous economy, or jobs or growth. It may be true that this is the basis on which dreams can be delivered, but it is also clear that, for a big section of the population, including the Coalition's natural constituencies, the environment matters, water policies matter and actual achievements, rather than slogans, in Indigenous affairs matter. It is, for example, becoming clear that smart politicians will make decisions on the Great Barrier Reef and fracking based on national sentiment rather than regional or sectoral needs.

If Turnbull has an agenda, he may as well share it before it's too late. Because it will be too little, too late if he doesn't let us in on his secret.

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