Yeah well we all know 24 hours is a long time in politics, well the budgie smuggler Tony Abbott most certainly does.

Just the day before the daggers drove him out of office he was telling anyone who was prepared to listen that he'd once again see off the bunch of malcontents who wanted him on the outside looking in.

Now he's packing his bags at The Lodge in Canberra, probably reflecting what went wrong. For an answer to that he need look no further than the full length mirror that he looked so lovingly at every morning.

This man was like the Vladimir Putin of the South Pacific. Who can forget the bounding into the surf at Bondi in the smugglers? He swaggered like a cow poke, looking as though he was ready to draw from the holster at any moment. Everything about him seemed so contrived and it probably was.

It's easy to say all of this when you've observed him at close quarters when he, along with the new Australian political pinup politician Teflon John Key, are strutting the international catwalk.

One of the keys to political success is an understanding of the pesky media and an ability to grow several layers of skin. You'd think Abbott would be more than adept at that, given that he was once a journalist, the classic poacher turned political game keeper.

But he wasn't, he despised those practising the craft he was once part of.

Last year, being in the same room as him, watching him wait on Teflon John, he strutted up and down, completely ignoring those behind the bank of telly cameras as though he was in the room on his own. In the same circumstances, any other leader would engage in banter, as Key frequently does just like the last several Aussie leaders did, although Kevin Rudd's an exception to that.

So Abbott can now comfortably go on keeping his own counsel which he seems the most comfortable with while his successor Malcolm Turnbull sings the praises of our Prime Minister who received it in his usual awe shucks way.

But he did offer a few words of wisdom for Turnbull, who like Key's a former mega rich money market man.

He told him to trust in his own instincts with a warning that the camera never lies. People can tell whether you're speaking from the heart and whether you believe in what you're saying and will give you the benefit of the doubt he reckons.

Key believes the public has quite a low level of expectation of governments and Prime Ministers, they just want them to get on with the job.

Now surely the first contention's debatable and in his case, that frequent suck of air through the teeth, can be a bit confusing in the heart and belief department!