Replacing those failures with a great athlete lacking in political skills is fairly mind-boggling as well. We have gone from being one of the best-run countries in the world to an economy not much better than that of Greece, which is teetering on the edge of being kicked out of Europe.

We share our part of the world with three huge countries of vital importance to us and to world peace, and we have, over the past few years, got up the nostrils of them all.

It started when we decided, on the strength of a propaganda film, that the Indonesians were too barbaric to slaughter cattle they had imported from Australia. That was the ALP government.

Barbaric seems to be an OK word for Indonesia with Australians. We now consider it to be barbaric for the Indonesians to execute drug smugglers holding Australian citizenship who had planned to export $8 million worth of heroin to Australia, “we” being our government. Most Australians, according to a poll, consider the Indonesian law should take its course.

Our prime minister decided he should “shirt-front” the Russian president because Malaysian Airlines flew a passenger line through the Ukrainian war zone, where it was shot down.

We have spent 50 or 60 years cultivating relations with China. They consider us to be a friend. We have supported them in international dealings. Now we are talking to the US about containing them.

The cattle trade to Indonesia has still not righted itself, to the detriment of our balance of payments and of the cattle industry. Indonesians don’t like being called barbaric, and are burning Australians in effigy. Russia has stopped buying our agricultural exports.

Decades of diplomacy has been, or is being turned on its ear, for the sake of rhetoric that might be of value in domestic political debate, but in my view is not.

The move in the Liberal Party room against Tony Abbott was about the economy, and about the inability of the government to explain that it cannot get economic measures passed because the opposition parties control the Senate.

Liberal governments have now lost office in Victoria and in Queensland, with NSW going to the polls later this month. Abbott survived the spill motion because nobody was prepared to declare himself (or herself) a challenger.

Mike Baird’s coalition government in NSW is expected to survive. After that, in May, Abbott and Joe Hockey must produce a credible budget.