Maybe there should be an election.

Tony Abbott says he will move a no-confidence motion against the government when Parliament resumes next month. He will say the government is a rabble, barely functional, governing in virtually name only.

And he will be right. So what are we waiting for?

This parrot is more than stunned. These aren’t flesh wounds. Labor will lose, and lose badly. The reshuffled deck chairs today, any policy announcements to come, won’t help. The only MP apparently capable of convincing the electorate Labor deserves another chance is an undiagnosed psychopath who now says he doesn’t want to run.

The spotlight should shine brightest on the opposition. What are we getting with this Coalition team? When will we find out? As Bernard Keane writes today:

“If we’ve reached some sort of watershed moment in the course of this hung Parliament, as the Coalition suggests, then it’s time the Coalition moved on from being the relentlessly negative opposition it has so successfully been, and demonstrate that it is an actual alternative government with a credible economic plan. In particular, how the Coalition resolves the tension between Joe Hockey’s insistence on fiscal rigour and Tony Abbott’s ‘everyone comes out ahead’ magic pudding approach to the budget is of critical importance in terms of economic growth over the next 24 months.”

It’s time to lead, Tony. Your time has come.

And maybe some of the Labor backbenchers — in utter despair about how the feckless leadership of their party could let a government that has by some measure been a success become such a mess — should cross the floor and support the no-confidence motion.

Give Labor the sort of spanking loss even those inside the party room recognise it needs to finally rebuild. A loss it has proved over the past week it so richly deserves.