Easter convinced a martyr there'd be no resurrection

MALCOLM Turnbull used the Easter long weekend to consider his political future. He had decided at the beginning of this year after a trip overseas that he probably wouldn't contest the next election; but after parliament resumed he started to think that hanging around to see which way the political winds blew might not be such a bad idea.

His wife, Lucy, had been urging him to walk away from politics for some time, but Turnbull wanted to be sure any option of a return to the political front line was out of the question before announcing his departure.

The rebuff by Tony Abbott when he expressed an interest in the shadow finance role after the opposition Senate leader Nick Minchin announced his retirement confirmed to him how long the road to political redemption would need to be.

Turnbull had taken the time in the months before the Easter break to talk to key one-time supporters, as well as one or two of his internal Liberal Party critics.

In particular, he craved to know whether his colleagues thought he had any chance of resuming the leadership in the aftermath of the next election, assuming Abbott were to lead the Coalition to defeat.

Niceties aside, Turnbull would have been disappointed by the cautionary responses he received.

Immigration spokesman Scott Morrison told Turnbull that he shouldn't underestimate the depth of resentment towards him among party members over his stand on the emissions trading scheme. He would need to find a way to deliver a mea culpa for his actions without compromising his image as a conviction politician - a tough double act to pull off.

Joe Hockey told colleagues that he didn't see how Turnbull could reinvent himself after the damage inflicted on him politically late last year.

More importantly, Turnbull's difficulty would be that any reinvention would take time, and the former leader is nothing if not impatient. The relationship between the two men hasn't been the same since Turnbull ran for the leadership after the spill motion last year. Hockey was under the impression they had an agreement that Turnbull would not run.

Christopher Pyne got the sense that among many Liberal MPs the ill-fated attempt by Turnbull to use the media to pressure Abbott into appointing him into the shadow finance portfolio confirmed in their minds that Turnbull had no antenna for politics.

Morrison, Hockey and Pyne were three of Turnbull's closest lieutenants when he was leader, yet none of them saw a viable short-term path back to power for the man they once loyally served, and they weren't alone.

Their reactions left Turnbull deflated and inching closer to his departure announcement.

Family friends of the Turnbulls wondered aloud in his company why he would want to stay in the fray after the way he was "mistreated" by Liberal MPs, with the series of frontbench resignations ahead of the vote on the ETS.

The Turnbulls expressed their enjoyment to friends at not having to endure the daily scrutiny that they once did when Malcolm was a leader under siege. But knowing Turnbull's personality, his friends warned him to be sure the time to depart was now, because once he made the decision to go, there would be no coming back.

In the end, the combination of Lucy's desire for him to refocus his attention on their significant business interests and the rebuff by Abbott when he put his hand up for the finance portfolio, convinced Turnbull that there was little point in recontesting his seat of Wentworth in Sydney's eastern suburbs.