MALCOLM Turnbull won the lottery this week with a Newspoll that hinted for the first time he could lose the election.
It worked wonders for his discipline, with the PM finally grasping it is best not to wing every press conference with pollywaffle and a smile. The bad Newspoll - it was 51:49 with Labor in front - was good news for his backers, too. They have long believed the PM's good polls were bad news for the Coalition.
Riding high in the polls, they feared Turnbull would be lulled into a sense of complacency. That is the only logical interpretation of his inexplicable decision to fiddle around on what his tax policy is for too long. Suddenly, he started sounding like a man who wanted to get his lines right. 
The Prime Minister's greatest selling point remains that he actually looks like one. Arguably, he's the first to look like one in a very long time. Bill Shorten does not. And his greatest hope is that Labor can ride that pony all the way to a hung parliament or a surprise win. Newspoll dented that hope just a little, too.
Sure, voters are still in the dark about the Prime Minister's plans for tax and families beyond mugging pregnant women for their maternity pay. But getting your lines right does actually matter.
The Coalition's family policy is emblematic, however, of the PM's failure to date to develop policies that will actually connect with middle Australia. It can't all be high art, talk of innovation and the new economy. Yesterday we learned the budget would not be about a "fistful of dollars" but about living within our means.
But consider for a moment the genuine grievances of female swinging votes and families who voted for Tony Abbott on the basis of his Rolls Royce paid parental leave maternity scheme.
What did they get? He dumped it amid howls of protest. That is one hell of a broken promise.
But wait, there's more. Not content to stiff the families who voted for Abbott in good faith, the Liberals slashed the remaining PPL policies on the table.
Enter Joe Hockey and his double-dipping nonsense. Women in Australia can currently access both a workplace PPL scheme and a taxpayer-funded scheme. On Mother's Day, he decided to tell mums who were claiming both schemes that they were "double dipping". On Mother's Day. Just roll that concept around once again in your head.
"This is basically fraud, isn't it?" he was asked.
"Well, it is," Mr Hockey agreed.
Scott Morrison called it a "rort" before it was revealed plenty of Liberal ministers' wives were in on it because guess what? It's legal.
Not only was it legal, women were instructed to claim both schemes together so they could stay at home longer to breastfeed (and defraud the Commonwealth, as mums are wont to do).
This week, we learned the double-dipping legislation will not pass the Senate before the election.
That means Malcolm Turnbull will fight the next election on a plan to strip 80,000 women of paid maternity leave entitlements.
You will be able to claim one scheme and not the other.
The Liberal Party thinks this is good politics because many of the women are public servants. Some are but their ranks inconveniently include nurses, teachers and defence force personnel. Many of them earn less than $50,000 a year.
That's an interesting election policy and we wish the PM the best of luck. He's doing the right thing by actually seeking a mandate but as they say in Yes, Prime Minister, "very courageous".
SAMANTHA MAIDEN IS NATIONAL POLITICAL EDITOR samantha.maiden@news.com.au@samanthamaiden