Honour left the building some time ago

Having declared its CEO unfit to lead, Australia's self-proclaimed "business" party is now trading while politically insolvent, its legitimacy squandered and its stock price slashed to junk status.

A pernicious culture of careerism and entitlement has consumed its agenda elevating personal ambition, revenge, and mendacity over orderly process, and respect for the national interest.

It is, to borrow from Scott Morrison's recent warning about high tax levels, "like a snake eating itself from the tail ... an ugly and grotesque image".

The empty House of Representatives chamber at 2:05 pm after it adjourned.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Malcolm Turnbull, the man who Liberals said hand-on-heart, was the best option as prime minister in the 2016 election, is being torn down with not a moment's regard for that public contract.

Nor for that matter, the maintenance of confidence in the established institutions of governance. So much for conservatism.

Most pointedly, these brutal acts have been unleashed in Canberra without their authors feeling any burden of explanation in the public realm. The rationale, such as it has been outlined, is almost entirely internal.

It is moral bankruptcy compounded by democratic contempt. Unsurprisingly, Liberal MPs report being overwhelmed by email and telephone complaints from constituents lamenting the mid-term meltdown of yet another government.

Mainstream Australians will have gone off to work on an otherwise ordinary weekday with one prime minister, only to come home with another.

In that event the current incumbent has pledged to quit Parliament, causing a byelection for an already devastated government with just a single seat majority.

It is a desperate threat, the only escape from which appears to be the equally calamitous situation of the challenger's parliamentary eligibility being referred to the High Court, also risking a byelection.

Of course, events of this type have occurred before; yet, this is worse. The jarring arrival of Peter Dutton as prime minister would not be the same as the former treasurer Paul Keating taking over from Bob Hawke, nor even a then popular deputy prime minister Julia Gillard replacing Kevin Rudd (even though that ambush surprised everyone). Ditto Rudd's return, or even the high profile Turnbull’s long-foreshadowed rolling of Abbott.

To the extent Dutton has established any reputation at all outside Queensland, it is as a political partisan, an uncompromising hard man on border protection, and an unhesitating divider of the community as shown in his boycott of Kevin Rudd's apology to the Stolen Generations.

But this goes well beyond Dutton. The brazenness of the anti-Turnbull plotters’ contempt for the voters is eye-watering.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Peter Dutton leave the House of Representatives on Thursday morning.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Ministers who had lined up at the despatch box on Wednesday to pledge their unqualified loyalty to the Prime Minister, flipped on that promise within 24 hours, as they knew they would. These lions of individualism resigned en masse on Thursday morning, seeking the safety of numbers, and the assurance that their guy would give them back their jobs.

Their shameless betrayal was surpassed only by their disregard of the Parliament and therefore the voters to whom it is answerable.

From here, the only honourable course is an election. But honour left the building some time ago.