Abbott is the last person anyone should quote to support an argument. He wasn't voted in; the other party was voted out. His policy for everything was "No!", and once in power, found out that "No!" didn't cut it anymore. He did do a lot of damage, but his leadership was so bad that he was ejected by his own party in his first term despite them using that 'they ejected in first term!' argument in their election campaign to win power. That's kind've promising, actually... the party was worried about the public enough that they'd eject a lunatic leader.

The leadership here isn't dire, it's just boring (in global terms) and a bit of a soap opera. The country is still a great place to live. If you look beyond the media, there is leadership - for example, in Gillard's tenure, more articles of legislation were passed than in any previous government, including some key items, despite the media loudly claiming (with plenty of misogyny) that the minority government was hamstrung and paralysed.

Turnbull is not the guy I want in right now, but his leadership is hardly 'dire'. Besides, if you use 'dire' for something as beige as Turnbull, what have you got left for something like Erdogan's latest activities in Turkey?