“If you compromise with zealots all you do is encourage them to keep threatening to blow up the joint. And don’t worry: Turnbull is learning that at great cost. ”

“Curiously, Scott Morrison says ‘you can’t tax your way to surplus’. Tell that to Peter Costello. The revenue that gave him his surpluses was just that: revenue. ”

“Labor’s senate strategists are scathing of Turnbull’s use of the constitutional ploy. Just how far the opposition is willing to drag “the Crown” into the political fray remains to be seen. ”

“Why would a treasurer invest so much time and capital softening up the electorate for big tax changes only to ditch them, not once but three times?”

“The mere spectacle of the leader who took the party from opposition to government sitting on the backbench puts up in neon lights failure and division.”

“Abbott and his acolytes have seized on the vacuum created by the government’s protracted consideration of its tax plans to wage a proxy war on Turnbull. ”

“In parliament Turnbull gave weight to Labor’s taunts that he was ‘rattled’. Gone was the equilibrium and humour in evidence since he grabbed the nation’s top job.”

“Turnbull is about winning a mandate in his own right. The time for bravery is year one after an election victory, providing you haven’t done a Tony Abbott and ruled out everything you want or need to do.”

“Tinkering with Medicare, or at least appearing to, is almost as dangerous for a conservative government as wanting to raise the GST. ”