Australia's Malcolm Turnbull: the failure of success

Turnbull has done his cosmetic best with the thinned team he has to work with. With fewer sitting members, his decision has been to overcompensate: inflate the ministry, bulk it and bulge it in the hope that no one will notice the fewer chairs and voices.

Australia's government now has the largest cabinet since 1975, with an assortment of positions split like a meal amongst a parsimonious family. Victorian Kelly O'Dwyer found her position on small business removed, with assistant treasurer responsibilities renamed.

The defence portfolio was split, with Christopher Pyne essentially taking over the meaty aspects of shipbuilding and the defence industry more broadly, while the erstwhile Defence Minister Marise Payne finds a somewhat lesser portion of the pie left. With Pyne busying himself, she won't have much to play with.

The division is significant in pushing the Turnbull government into a more military frame of mind. Think defence, think business. This is hardly endearing in a peaceful context, but it certainly will tickle parts of the electorate intoxicated by the link between armaments and money. Pyne certainly thinks so, seeing defence as "an economic and innovation driver as we shift from the post mining construction boom period into a new age of innovation."

The gesture of creating a grander front bench was not fooling certain Coalition government members. The faces were bright enough for the swearing in ceremony, but the ceremony could only go so far. The ever dyed-in-the-wool conservative Eric Abetz noted the lack of any frontbencher from Tasmania. The opposition leader noted the prevailing issues of female representation and the lack of a tourism portfolio. Turnbull remains one tainted by the sweet smell of failing success.