Early on, it did not help that her first policy pronouncements were to signal a retreat from Kevin Rudd's mining super profits tax, which made her look weak, and to ditch her predecessor's "Big Australia" policy, which went down well with the tabloids but seemed indicative of a lack of national ambition.
Stable exchange rates will be a hard habit to ditch, because having currencies linked to the dollar played a big part in the region's phenomenal decade-long boom.