There's a joke doing the rounds of Liberal MPs at the moment that neatly sums up the challenge facing Malcolm Turnbull, and the mood in his partyroom.

Who would want to be the Prime Minister's speechwriter?

On Tuesday, Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove will step into the Senate chamber and deliver a speech to Australia's 226 federal MPs that opens the 45th Parliament.

Written in the Prime Minister's office, it will set out the Turnbull government's second-term agenda.

But, in the view of many Liberals – including those who voted for Turnbull nearly a year ago, and those who voted for Tony Abbott, that agenda appears to be, to put it politely, threadbare.

"It would be an exercise in writer's block," jokes a Liberal MP, "can you imagine it? You'd get five minutes in and be back in his office. Is that all, Malcolm?"

If the Prime Minister has a grand plan to seize the momentum and set a broad, bold agenda for his second term, he needs to reveal it – soon.

The view from the inside

To report this piece, Fairfax Media spoke to a dozen current and former Liberal MPs, ranging from cabinet ministers to backbenchers to those who lost their seat on July 2.

The overwhelming – though not unanimous – view among Turnbull and Abbott supporters was that the government was "shell-shocked" by the close election result, and is only now getting into gear.

Anecdotes about dysfunction and disorganisation, big and small, were freely offered, as were larger concerns about drift in Team Turnbull.

Since the election, there have been staff clear-outs and big changes in ministerial offices including Turnbull's, as well as cabinet ministers George Brandis, Michaelia Cash, Sussan Ley and Barnaby Joyce; there has been a delay of at least a month-and-a-half in issuing of "charter letters" that set out specific ministerial responsibilities; ministerial media advisers have not yet had a post-election meeting; even the (often derided) morning talking points, which cover issues of the day, are no longer being sent out to the backbench, replaced by a more ad-hoc system.

As one MP, who backed Turnbull last September, put it, "we are drifting and it's very disappointing".

"He [Turnbull] needs to do an address to the nation. We are borrowing $100 million a day, we need to hold an intelligent conversation with the whole country about the budget. And we need a summit, with the welfare lobby, unions and business, and to say this is the goal – to cut this many billion off the bottom line, how are we going to do it?"

Another MP, who did not back Turnbull in last year's leadership contest, concurs: "We are entirely reactive. Malcolm had a plan to become PM, but not for what he wanted to do as PM.

" When you take no mandate to the people at an election, you have nothing to prosecute immediately afterwards. That's our problem."

While concern is growing in Liberal ranks about the government's direction and policy program, these MPs asked not to be identified for the purposes of this story.

Liberal senator Cory Bernardi, a factional foe of the Prime Minister, has no qualms about putting his name to criticism.

In his email newsletter, Bernardi blasted "a stupendously boring eight-week election campaign" that led to the government holding "the barest of majorities in the House of Representatives and fac[ing] a significant crossbench holding the balance of power in the Senate".

Bernardi's critical comments could be filed in the "well he would say that, wouldn't he?" category.

But doing so would be a mistake.

Fifty thousand people have registered support for his Australian Conservative movement – and many of those same supporters are pushing for the Turnbull government to revisit the repeal of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act and more significantly, to redesign or even dump the $6 billion package of superannuation changes.

Turnbull, Morrison and co. are not going to do that, but steering the package past a backbench that wants it watered down and a Senate that wants it toughened up is shaping as a nightmare task.

The challenge for Turnbull

In addition to a restive conservative base, Turnbull confronts a diverse Senate crossbench and a populist Labor Party that threatens to block the same-sex marriage plebiscite and try to ram through a motion calling for a royal commission on Australia's banks.

He is captive to a partyroom – or what is left of it – still smarting from a command and control Prime Minister's office, a tendency towards captain's picks, and his own promise to be more consultative than his predecessor, Abbott.

A third MP, another backer of Turnbull, says this promise now has Turnbull in a bind.

"His promise of no more captain's calls was the right one, but it has become his Achilles heel. It is now stopping him from being decisive."

The first few items of business are clear; they include bills to re-establish the construction industry watchdog, setting up a registered organisations commission, changing Commonwealth workplace laws to protect volunteers in Victoria's Country Fire Authority and the so-called omnibus savings bill, worth about $6.5 billion.

The 10-year company tax cut plan, and legislation for modest income tax cuts will also be presented, but the company tax plan is all but certain to be picked apart in the Senate and the "jobs and growth" mantra has barely survived the election campaign.

Meanwhile, the plebiscite on same-sex marriage legislation is a ticking timebomb; Labor, the Greens and some on the crossbench are threatening to block the plebiscite; but if Turnbull were to back away from the pledge – there is no sign he will – and move to hold a vote in Parliament the right of his party will, in the words of one Liberal, "explode".

Instead, Turnbull leads from the back and is buffeted by events, rather than defining them.

The census debacle, the decision to block Kevin Rudd's bid to be UN secretary-general and even his decisive move to call a royal commission on the youth detention scandal in the Northern Territory are all cases in point.

As a Labor strategist puts it: "People know where we stand on our issues but they have no solid foundation, which is why we can exploit issues like Rudd and the census.

"Turnbull doesn't have the patience to deal with [the] partyroom, which pulls him one way on an issue like super, and then the Parliament, which wants to pull him the other way."

So Bill Shorten runs rampant; one minute wedging the government with a superannuation reform proposal at the National Press Club that looked like a smart policy compromise, while tightening the screws on the government; the next doubling down on his so-effective election campaign "Mediscare", all the while acting like he plans to govern from opposition.

Greens shoots

But there are signs of life.

Turnbull delivered a speech to the Committee for the Economic Development of Australia, on the economy last week; the Prime Minister pressed Shorten to back the omnibus savings bill, which contains a swag of savings measures Labor either said it would back, or would likely back, during the election campaign and attempted to re-start the conversation about the budget.

In keeping with the recent run of outs, his speech was disrupted by protesters calling for Australia's offshore detention centres to be closed.

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann and Treasurer Scott Morrison have followed up with speeches that warned about debt and deficit and the need to further trim spending.

But for all the heightened rhetoric, Labor has easily fended off the calls for it to back the omnibus savings bill because, more than a week after it was announced, the government has not released the actual legislation; again, this has been a tactical failing on the part of the government.

When Parliament resumes on Tuesday pressure will begin to rise on Labor to finally say where it stands on the omnibus bill and on other matters such as the same-sex marriage plebiscite.

Shorten gave his clearest signal yet this week Labor would block the plebiscite; it is a high-risk move for Labor, and there may be some blow-back for the opposition.

As a cabinet minister told Fairfax Media on Thursday, "the media is desperate for colour and movement. Once Parliament resumes, and we deliver on the ABCC, on the savings measures and on other parts of our agenda, people will see us in action."

That minister dismissed suggestions that the Prime Minister had been driven by events, rather than driving them, since the election.

"A lot of work goes on behind the scenes. It goes publicly unnoticed – but the benefits will be derived in the next 12 months," the minister says.

And Shorten?

"He is where we were in 2010 at the moment, but the reality of opposition will dawn on him about three questions into question time. He has skeletons in his closet and we need people to see that. It will be gloves off – if he reminded us of anything in the campaign, it's that negative tactics work."

A Liberal strategist promises that while "Labor will try to distract and destabilise us, we will be making our priorities clear".

And there will be more to come in the weeks and months ahead, with Morrison set to deliver two more major economic speeches and Turnbull to step up his appearances and speech making too.

"There is a clear and consistent message," the strategist says, adding the months ahead will be "about defining who we are and what our values are, such as credible economic management".

After a Seinfeld-like election campaign about nothing, Turnbull and co. cannot afford to delay this definition a moment longer and to do otherwise would be to invite peril.

As a Liberal hard-head puts it: "We have a purpose but we don't know how to get there. That has to change."

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