KARMA’S CATCHING UP WITH TURNBULL

MALCOLM Turnbull would never had dreamed that Bennelong — the seat once held by Liberal great John Howard — could become his Waterloo.

But the December 16 by-election looms as a massive challenge to the Prime Minister’s tottering leadership.

Lose this seat and he doesn’t just lose his majority in parliament, guaranteeing next year will become one crisis after another. It will also terrify his backbenchers, who’ll know few seats will be safe if even Bennelong can fall.

This by-election was forced by the resignation of Liberal John Alexander, who discovered he was British through his father.

Alexander has since renounced his British citizenship and is standing again in a seat he should hold, given he won it last year with a 9.7 per cent margin.

But then Labor chose as its candidate Kristina Keneally, the former NSW premier, who has turned this contest into a referendum on Turnbull — “an opportunity … to stand up and say to Malcolm Turnbull, ‘Your government is awful’.”

Two new polls show markedly different results, but both suggest the pitch is biting.

Keneally in one poll had slashed Alexander’s lead to 53 per cent to 47. But a smaller Galaxy poll had them at 50-50, a result that should shock the Liberals, especially after days of pounding Keneally on her links as premier to corrupt Labor powerbrokers.

For a start, it confirms the same-sex marriage vote cannot save Turnbull. Flat wages and soaring energy prices count far more to voters.

For Turnbull’s Liberal enemies there is also karma. Two years ago, Turnbull’s camp talked up a challenge to Tony Abbott when one rogue poll tipped a similar swing in a by-election.

As News Corp papers reported: “Frontbench plotters pushing for Malcolm Turnbull’s return to the leadership have declared a challenge inevitable as a new poll predicts the Prime Minister faces a savage 10 per cent swing in the Canning by-election.”

Turnbull didn’t even wait for the election to topple Abbott.

So if fear of a 10 per cent swing in a by-election was enough for the Liberals to sack Abbott, why isn’t it enough for them to now sack Turnbull?

Still, Turnbull will take comfort from parliament not sitting after the by-election until February.

If he can survive until Bennelong, he should make it to Christmas. And the way he’s going, that’s a huge gift.