IN-DEPTH: No, the Turnbull "coup" is not Rudd-Gillard all over again.

When everyone is saying, “We’ve been here before”, they’re wrong.

Watching the events unfold in Canberra on Monday and Tuesday I didn’t get a sense of de ja vu. Of course, there are parallels between Malcolm Turnbull ousting Tony Abbott as Prime Minister and Julia Gillard ousting Kevin Rudd back in 2010. And, again, when Rudd returned the favour to usurp Gillard in 2013.

Of course, the hurt being endured by Tony Abbott this week will mirror the pain that Rudd felt, the pain that Gillard felt.

The foreign minister and deputy leader Julie Bishop described Monday night as some of the toughest hours of her life. “I am not enjoying this at all,” she told The Today Show host Karl Stefanovic yesterday, with the raw emotion clearly visible.

Unseating a Prime Minister is brutal. Always. In that respect, of course, Turnbull’s move on Abbott is the same, but the circumstances are different. Let’s not pretend that isn’t so. Turnbull’s challenge was different.

It was not a knifing that took place in the dead of the night. It was not a challenge without warning. Malcolm Turnbull did not depose a popular political leader.

In February, the party room gave Tony Abbott six months to change and regain their support. In that time, Tony Abbott was not undermined. His frontbench and the backbench were willing to give him the opportunity to turn things around. To cut down on his ‘captain pick’s, to restore due process to Cabinet, to be more consultative, to pursue reform, to turn around the polls.

On almost every measure, Abbott let them down.

“My frustration is this,” Arthur Sinodinos told Leigh Sales on ABC 7.30 on Monday. “People have said to Tony Abbott for a while, “Can you change X, Y or Z?” He promised to change them in February, and then, old issues, old habits have returned and that’s been frustrating. After the spill, I among other people offered to help. But none of us have been allowed to help.

“I was hopeful after the last budget and going into the winter break that we were improving. But, unfortunately, since the winter break, it seems that old habits have returned and there’s been a lack of consultation and a lack of the Prime Minister appearing to trust even his own colleagues and that’s been very disappointing.”

The captain’s picks continued. Cabinet members were left out of deliberations. The economy has stagnated. Unemployment is on the rise. Missteps were common. There were 30 consecutive negative Newspolls in a row.

“We did break promises and we lost that trust and we need a change of leader to begin the process of regaining the trust of the Australian people,” Sinodinos said in a refreshing show of honesty. “If we have that trust, why are we lagging in 30 polls?”

The polls were problematic but Abbott’s demise as PM was not a knee-jerk reaction to poor polling. Poor polling reflected widespread discontent with Tony Abbott. Discontent that he seemed incapable of articulating a vision to the Australian people. Discontent that he had no bold reform agenda to pursue. Discontent that, even if he had a bold agenda or vision to pursue, he had rapidly depleted any political capital he began with, to execute it.

As Arthur Sinodinos put it on Monday night: “If we’d had a more measured approach, if we’d been less cavalier about breaking our promises, we would not have lost the trust of the Australian people and then had to spend nearly nine months, 10 months picking up the pieces from that budget.”

Malcolm Turnbull said as much, in no uncertain terms, on Monday afternoon. He laid his cards on the table and none of those cards were surprising.

 “Ultimately, the Prime Minister has not been capable of providing the economic leadership our nation needs… We need a different style of leadership. We need a style of leadership that explains those challenges and opportunities, explains the challenges and how to seize the opportunities. A style of leadership that respects the people’s intelligence, that explains these complex issues and then sets out the course of action we believe we should take and makes a case for it. We need advocacy, not slogans. We need to respect the intelligence of the Australian people.”

He’s right. It has been impossiible to shake the feeling that the PM hasn’t respected our intelligence. He treated voters with something akin to contempt. By denying that he’d broken any promises, when it was patently clear he had. By insisting we were in the midst of “good government”, when it was patently clear we weren’t. By continuing in his position as the Minister for Women, when it was patently clear it was a farce.

By clinging to three word slogans and notions like “on-water matters” to justify unprecedented secrecy. By being pushed – rather than rising of his own accord – to address issues like Bronwyn Bishop’s expense scandal and a response to the humanitarian crisis enveloping Syria and its surrounds.

In so many ways, on so many days, Tony Abbott insulted the intelligence of his colleagues, his peers and us, the Australian public. But it seems, the temptation to continue this remains. Not by him, but by us. By the media.

Too many reports are resorting to the conclusion that this leadership spill is exactly like Labor deposing Rudd and then Gillard.  It isn’t. In Rudd’s case, the problems we learned about in hindsight, weren’t played out in clear view. Rudd was not given an opportunity by his party room to turn his performance around.

We have watched Tony Abbott’s demise with our eyes wide open: even the most hardened Liberal stalwarts have been saying this for seven months.

But if we pretend we didn’t see that, if we feign ignorance about the trigger for the change, if we cling to the false premise that this is an act of unforgiveable treason, we will ensure the outcome is the same. We will ensure that Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership is stifled and undermined before it begins.

In Australia we do not directly elect our leaders. There are two checks on Federal government in Australia: general elections and the party room. We vote for the party, the party votes for their leader. That is the way our Westminster system works: as brutal as it is, that is the system we have.

Yesterday the former Prime Minister John Howard conceded that Tony Abbott’s position in the polls was “entrenched”. It was, and he had lost the trust of many of his colleagues. He failed to heed the warning calls or accept offers for help. The party room acted on that, as they are entitled to do.

If our new Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is willing to respect the intelligence of Australians, let’s start by respecting our own intelligence too. Let’s not pretend we don’t know why this happened.

The only hope for Australia to emerge from five years of vicious and destructive politics, is if we are willing to recognise what has been, accept it and look forward.

Malcolm Turnbull’s ascension to Prime Minister doesn’t have to be the beginning of another chapter in political bastardry. But it will be if we let it.

Are you concerned about the way the new Prime Minister has come to power?