For a man who is, by far, Australia’s best political orator in generations, the Prime Minister has been getting into a lot of trouble over his words lately. There was his “and the court will so hold” pronouncement in parliament on Barnaby Joyce’s citizenship, which seemed to dare the High Court to say he was wrong, something the justices were happy to do. There was his forthright rejection of the proposal for an Indigenous voice in the constitution as “undesirable”, a specifically and very poorly chosen word that threw into sharp relief the fact that white Australia had asked Indigenous communities what they wanted through recognition, then told them to go jump when they got back an answer that some didn’t like. Then there he was on Friday, furiously (and correctly) defending Josh Frydenberg, attacking the idea of a citizenship audit and equating it to a “witchhunt”.

Not the sort of language it’s easy to row back from, shall we say.

After that media conference on Friday afternoon, Labor broke from the bipartisanship on the issue (everyone laments the loss of bipartisanship, but funny how there’s so much of it when it comes to the treatment of politicians themselves) to support some form of transparency process. Then more media reports circulated about the eligibility of Liberal MPs. With disgruntled Nationals (then again, is there any other kind?) and even some of Turnbull’s Liberal enemies talking about the need for an audit — not to mention Michael Kroger admitting the Victorian Liberals basically did nothing to check their candidates — something had to give. So now we are to have a witchhunt, after all, but a voluntary one, a sort of disclosure of witchcraft practices via the register of pecuniary interests.

“I just want to say this is not an audit, there is no auditor,” Turnbull was at pains to declare. ” I do not support an audit.”

Like George Brandis before him, Turnbull then averred that everything was fine on the Liberal side: “The Federal Director has told me that all of the Liberal Party Members believe that they are in compliance with the Constitution.” Like Brandis, his colleagues then made a fool of him. On cue, within hours, reports circulated about John Alexander, who has genially occupied the seat of Bennelong since 2010 without troubling the scorers a great deal. Turnbull must have a permanent migraine from banging his head on the prime ministerial desk.

The beauty of an audit — which, in case anyone was in any doubt, this isn’t — was that it would effectively rule a line under the whole issue politically. Alex Hawke a Greek? “We’re having an independent auditor examine all such issues.” John Alexander a Brit? “That’s a matter for the auditor.” It was a political fix for a government in which everything is falling apart, one that would deliver some breathing space even if it eventually delivered a few more MPs and senators to the High Court. Instead, we have a declaration process that is merely going to provide more ammunition for the media to go hunting for another scalp.

The muttering about Turnbull now has turned. For much of the year, the sentiment has been that no matter how poorly the government was travelling in the polls, they’d stick with Turnbull. They had no choice — they’d all seen what happened when Labor tried to reverse itself and restore Rudd. Now, amid the citizenship crisis and everything else, the talk is that Turnbull is terminal, that anything is better than this. And his enemies within the party may not have to lift a finger.