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.
Having steered the U.S. economy into a ditch that he created given his unfortunate reprise of big government spending and big regulation liberalism last in vogue in the 1930s, President Obama remarkably is asking voters for another term.
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.