Mal has jumped the gun

If Costello remains in parliament beyond the new year, we can reasonably infer he still covets the leadership but is waiting in the hope that it becomes something worth having.

In which case, he may be the big winner out of yesterday's vote.

There is one condition that would create a real chance of a Coalition victory in 2010, and that's a flattened economy. The odds of that happening look pretty good at the moment, and better with every piece of news from the US.

The last one-term Australian federal government came to office in a landslide in 1929. A week later, Wall Street crashed, and the consequent Depression buried it, as it did governments around the world.

So there is a small chance the Rudd Government will lose the next election. Unfortunately for Turnbull, if this gift does come, the lap it falls into is unlikely to be his.

Yes, a recession would give the Coalition a real chance of victory. But only an early election could deliver this result to Turnbull. Otherwise it would pass to his successor.

Which may just be Costello.