There was something sad about the Prime Minister — a man in whom the nation invested such enthusiasm and expectation in September 2015 — last night. Having abandoned next week’s parliamentary sitting out of concern he would lose control of the House of Representatives, Malcolm Turnbull was attending the annual dinner of the Business Council of Australia (BCA). This is an august gathering for neoliberalism in Australia, and the international neoliberal movement had sent delegates too: ousted conservative Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper and ousted conservative New Zealand prime minister Bill English.

The symbolism was rich given that it’s hard to believe Turnbull won’t be joining them soon.

The BCA and Turnbull are engaged in a joint campaign to pull off what will be the greatest tax avoidance dodge in Australian history, a legally sanctioned $60+ billion tax win for large corporations, many of whom currently pay minimal tax anyway. No fights with the Australian Tax Office, no lengthy battles through the Federal Court and the High Court, no exorbitantly expensive tax lawyers, not even any tax havens. And no risk — this will be tax minimisation delivered via political, not legal means.

But Turnbull is in deep political trouble. So he turned to a different area of tax for a distraction. To the assembled throng of business lobbyists, he declared “I am actively working with the Treasurer and all my Cabinet colleagues to ease the burden on middle-income Australians”.

So, the PM is talking about tax cuts with his colleagues. No explanation of how they would be funded, given the budget remains in deep deficit, especially when his handout to corporations would also blow out the deficit and delay the return to surplus. It’s a thought bubble about a thought bubble. Luckily, though, so convinced is the media about the simple-minded avarice of voters, that they bought it, immediately running headlines about tax cuts.

Problem — or one of the problems — is, we’ve seen what happens before when Turnbull encourages tax speculation. In fact, the sudden decline of Turnbull into “fizzer” territory coincided with the farce of his early and public consideration of tax reform in late 2015 and early 2016 (remember all that stuff about not playing the old game of rule-in-rule-out because he was going to have an intelligent conversation with the electorate?). That eventually produced nothing except a handout to corporations — but not before Treasurer Scott Morrison had made the running on increasing the GST and fixing negative gearing.

Attendees at the BCA dinner who occasionally visit the real world would have been worried by Turnbull’s distraction. What’s more appealing to a politician — a tax cut for voters or a tax cut for a deeply unpopular section of the community like business? Particularly when the government clearly doesn’t have a clue about what to do about wage stagnation (caused, in the main, by the people attending the dinner).

But more vividly on display was, yet again, Malcolm Turnbull’s lack of judgement. Abandoning next week’s sitting was that rare thing, a universally condemned political tactic. Not even the government’s cheerleaders in the media could bring themselves to back it. So here we are, not even a week on from what might have been a sea-change moment for Turnbull last Wednesday, and we’re back to chaos, confusion and rotten judgement.

Given my history of dud political predictions, my declaring that it’s over for Turnbull might just be the kiss of life he needs. But the common theme of Turnbull’s prime ministership is his lack of judgement, every bit as much as Tony Abbott’s relentless undermining and the right’s attempt to keep Australia locked in the 19th century. The lack of judgement was on display again yesterday. It’s hard to avoid the sense that, like Tony Abbott’s Prince Philip moment, yesterday was not the end, but the end is now inevitable for a man who once seemed almost absurdly well suited to lead the country.