“The trouble is," he once said in self-deprecation to his party room, “I’m my own worst enemy."

“Not while I’m alive,’’ roared Jim Killen, restored by McMahon to the back bench after McMahon had displaced John Gorton.

It would probably take Scott Morrison more time than he has got to earn either accolade, but one thing that he must know for sure is that it all depends on him. He badly needs at least the appearance of unity in his party, and in his Cabinet. But victory, if it is possible, or the salvation of the Liberal Party furniture, will depend rather more on his personality than on mere teamwork, or sullen obedience, from a fractured and divided party. It does not even turn on mastering Bill Shorten, but in mastering the mood of the electorate.

It’s the electorate he is facing, not the ragbag of resentments, opinions and emotion among the MPs behind him. Or the ambitions of the alternative government in front of him. It’s an electorate which, based on opinion polls, has already judged the leaders and the members of the Coalition, including himself, and has found it wanting. First impressions can be default ones. They were not massively impressed by his performance as treasurer and have forgotten his short period in social security.

Some will remember, if dimly, his pioneering role in stopping the boats and making life a living hell for the children, and women, and men left languishing forever on Nauru and Manus. But that’s a two-edged sword, and not only because the face and personality of Peter Dutton, his successor at Immigration (and now Home Affairs) seems to have filled the role of pretending that the beginning (and the end) of national security is secure borders. In any event, the pair have carved out the “toughness” space, probably to the Coalition’s advantage. But Morrison must be aware that the public has become able to distinguish between the repelling of boats and the abandonment of people, including children, who begged for our help and our refuge.

Morrison is enjoying a honeymoon, of sorts, one in which he is getting an opportunity to portray himself as a very ordinary, if quite religious, guy from the suburbs, fond of his footie, morally conservative, if not obviously a prig, and with a somewhat homely conception of what politics is all about. And as one who has discarded casually an array of party baggage, some of his own making, including plans to extend corporate tax cuts to big business and to transnationals, to increase the age of entitlement to age pensions to 70. There is more expressed determination to do something about power prices, and some more determined efforts to appear agnostic about the sources of energy, especially since (according to him) we are comfortably meeting our emissions targets.

But the government must do a good deal more than neuter unpopular policies, most of which would not have made it through the senate. It is by no means clear to the public that it is living in a period of economic boom, because of which (provided it keeps returning coalition governments) job security is high, generous tax cuts are inevitable, and interest rates will remain low. The government struggles under the impression that it has been subservient to the banks and the top end of town, that it defanged the regulatory institutions and did the private sector’s bidding in significantly weakening consumer controls over superannuation advice.

The government, particularly Morrison himself, had to be dragged kicking and screaming to a royal commission into banks, and later, kicking and screaming into admissions that it had been wrong in resisting the inquiry. On this, the weakest advocate for the government’s position, other than Morrison himself, was Kelly O’Dwyer, the person that Morrison seems to think can make a public case that Labor, and Bill Shorten in particular, is hopelessly subservient to trade unions.

Creating an impression of a new sense of purpose, a replenishment of ideas and ideals, and of the government being “on your side” involves a good deal more than platitudes about the individual, love or folksy remarks about praying for rain. It suggests, indeed requires, new ideas, new policies, and running repairs to programs. It does not involve mere announcements: ones pulled from a hat or drawn from an apparently fresh and inexhaustible supply of funds. Rather, it involves proposals workshopped with the public as well as the special interests. It suggests some new and conscious focus on process and appearances, not least after a period in which various ministers (and former prime ministers) have looked distinctly grubby, or in the business of doing favours for a privileged caste of insiders, mates and cronies, as well as, all too often, rorting entitlements.

It is clear Peter Dutton’s interventions over nannies have damaged the government’s image during the week. There is no suggestion that he was acting beyond his powers or improperly, but the alacrity with which he and his office seem to have responded to representations from people with links to him, compared with the access enjoyed by ordinary folk, created an awful impression of favours for mates. The interventions of Roman Quaedvlieg obviously have their history in resentment about the dismissal of the former Border Force Commissioner for official misbehaviour. But even there, some will be reminded about the especial kindness shown by the minister and the department secretary over the dismissal, compared with their apparent indifference to the personal circumstances of others adversely affected by a general black letter approach to the application of rules.

Dutton has also left an intriguing statement on the record in relationship to the leadership crisis. His statement to the ABC that he was a "better person" and a "person of greater strength and integrity to lead the Liberal Party" than Malcolm Turnbull is curiously worded and seems to contain some innuendo of a lack of integrity on the part of Turnbull. One would search in vain during public comments on the crisis for what this was, unless it was sour grapes at being outmanoeuvred (if in an unremarkable and unexceptionable way) by Turnbull. That might seem to parallel the conviction, on the part of Matthias Cormann, that he was somehow justified in his treachery (as well as in his naiveté) by the supposed “ambush”.

This week saw the leaking of several Cabinet documents disclosing Turnbull-era Cabinet decisions, (mostly on infrastructure programs) which Turnbull had been saving up for the election campaign. There was also the leak of information on a potential deal with Catholic education offices over Gonski 2.0 funding. It is difficult to know who was paying out on which grudges, but it was plain that the leaker, whatever her or his grudges, was not intending to do the Morrison government any favours. It seems clear that one will not have to wait until after the next election for the full fallout of the mismanaged and miscounted coup.

Yet it seems unlikely that one could blame Dutton for continuing destabilisation. He has expressed confidence in Morrison: “I think people see a down-to-earth bloke, someone who is authentic and genuine, and I think he’s going to continue to go from strength to strength and fix up some of the policy mistakes of the past, make the investments into roads, get people’s electricity prices down. I mean that’s the only thing I’m focused on.” At this stage, Dutton’s political survival depends on Morrison’s success, not evidence of his incapacity or inadequacy.

In all the public discussion of a disastrous period of revolving prime ministerships since the electoral defeat, 11 years ago, of John Howard, it has been little remarked how few of the political problems were a consequence of bureaucratic disloyalty or leaking, or indeed, a breakdown of ordinary and routine government. Whether because of a bipartisan reign of terror because of “leak investigations” by the Australian Federal Police, or simple public service discipline, the government has not had much to suffer from unauthorised disclosure, or, for that matter, from unprogrammed media scoops.

Where there have been Cabinet leaks – for example when detailed Abbott cabinet discussions over citizenship were leaked, or inconvenient leaks against Gillard, it was clear that it came from the political class. Although such disclosures may have increased the political temperature, they were never the proximate cause of a revolt or a changeover, which seemed mostly precipitated by backbench panic about electoral prospects.

This tends to confirm that whatever the problem of modern Australian government is, it has been neither the idea of an out-of-control, or morally unfit leader, as it seems to be in the United States, or the idea of some “loyal resistance” of the sort revealed by The New York Times this week.

The anonymous US senior official commented that “many of the senior officials in [Trump’s] own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations. I know, because I am one of them.

“To be clear, ours is not the popular resistance of the left. We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous. But we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner detrimental to the health of our republic. That is why so many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office.

“The root of the problem is the president’s amorality. Anyone who works with him knows that he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making. Although he was elected as a Republican, the president shows little affinity for ideals long espoused by conservatives: free minds, free markets and free people. At best he has invoked these ideals in scripted settings. At worst he has attacked them outright ...’’

“From the White House to executive branch departments and agencies, senior officials will privately admit their daily disbelief at the commander-in-chief’s comments and actions. Most are working to insulate their operations from his whims. Meetings with him veer off topic and off the rails. He engages in repetitive rants and his impulsiveness results in half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions that have to be walked back.”

It has never got to anywhere like this in Australia. I have known times when senior officials, or even fellow ministers, have been more than disloyal in (unaccountably) describing the idiocies of ministers, or their prime ministers. Some governments have operated by kitchen cabinets and ignored established processes. There have been autocratic prime ministers, and ones who will not listen, even to counsels about illegality or stupidity. One can think of noble statements in moments of crisis, such as those of Treasury Secretary Fred Wheeler to Gough Whitlam when Whitlam said he was not interested in further Treasury advice about the Overseas Loans Affair. Wheeler said: Prime minister, you will listen to me. I am drawing to your attention facts, your ignorance of which will bring you down.’’

But there was never a suggestion of mutiny, deliberate sabotage, or of secret conspiracy to save politicians from the consequences of their own follies.

That is a good thing. There are mechanisms – not least publicity, wanted or unwanted, for bringing the misdeeds, misadventures, or even the mischief of politicians to public notice and to account. But the installation of secret administrations seems likely only to compound the activities of a leader unfit or unsuited for office. For an anxious party organisation, or backbench, the beauty contest occurs every day, not once every four years. If the party won’t police itself, the electorate will.

Jack Waterford is a former editor of The Canberra Times.