Scott Morrison is working hard at setting a new Australian political opinion poll record – squandering a seemingly insurmountable advantage in the shortest time.

In just 20 months, the prime minister has burnt a goldmine of taking a net satisfaction rating (those approving minus those disapproving) of plus 41 per cent into the mire of negativity.

At the end of January, after what was supposed to be a summer break reset for the standing of the PM and his now shop-soiled government, that standing was nudging minus 20 per cent.

That’s a 60 per cent turnaround. In simple terms six in every ten Australians, according to Newspoll, changed their opinion of Morrison in just over a year and a half and not in a good way. Those six in 10 went from being satisfied with the way he’s doing his job to being dissatisfied. That’s quite an effort.

He did pick up a few points in February this year but the last two weeks – with his “humanity devoid” response to the Queensland and New South Wales flood disaster (as the Mayor of Lismore called it) – has seen the downward trajectory resume its deadly path.

Not only that, Morrison is now sitting level with Labor’s Anthony Albanese as preferred prime minister. It’s another quite remarkable shift as this measurement is naturally skewed towards the incumbent – after all only one of the pair is actually doing the job of prime minister. In polling it’s called a head start.

In election contests, incumbents and opponents often get close on preferred PM but it usually happens toward the end of a campaign when a government is headed for defeat.

These quite telling movements in the latest polling are happening against the background of a brutally stubborn 10 point lead Labor holds over the Coalition. Labor’s primary vote has been in the election winning spot of “more than 40 per cent” for eight weeks.

No wonder some inside the Coalition are muttering about Morrison’s leadership and even raising the “what if” question.

The Liberal leadership has been mentioned in an essentially academic sense until now, framed in the context of who might be a contender and who might prevail in the event of a Morrison defeat.

This is predicated on the reasonable assumption the Liberals wouldn’t be crazy enough to go for the “in case of emergency, break glass” option and topple a prime minister in the shadow of an election.

After four middle-of-the-night, backroom prime ministerial putsch attacks in a dozen years – something that prompted former BBC journalist Nick Bryant to crown our nation the “the coup capital of the democratic world” where political reporting is akin to covering a triage of the wounded and slain – surely we wouldn’t do it again.

Labor and Liberal leaders sought to sandbag their leadership with high bars for an internal revolt – three quarters of MPs supporting a change in the ALP and two thirds for the Libs – but these are not out of reach and, at the end of the day, they’re just party caucus rules which can be changed by a 50 per cent plus one vote.

All this said, is the Liberal Party near the level of panic that might spark a leadership, hair-on-fire moment? Not quite but the MPs don’t meet for another fortnight – plenty of time for anxiety to turn to existential terror.

According to one seemingly well-sourced report, the man quietly stirring the leadership pot behind the scenes is Pine Rivers MP and Defence Minister Peter Dutton, someone who has never hidden his ambition and works assiduously at building and maintaining his public profile.

Dutton is supposed to be contacting “like-minded” MPs to check in and arrange catch-ups, all aimed at discussing the perilous state of the government’s (and prime minister’s) standing.

Dutton has form here. He banged the pots and pans in Malcolm Turnbull’s kitchen in 2018, leading to a failed move on a Tuesday which quickly accelerated to the downfall of the PM three days later.

That time, Dutton was out-smarted by the then Treasurer Scott Morrison who famously hugged Turnbull and professed his “ambition” for his leader to succeed. The smart observers didn’t believe that for one second.

It took a couple of calls on Monday to confirm Dutton is offering that loaded “how do you think things are going” question to one and all. He knows just what it means, as do those who are being quizzed.

So, now Dutton has another chance but there are some impediments to him taking the opportunity and risking utter failure again.

The two big roadblocks he has to navigate are Morrison and his Treasurer Josh Frydenberg.

Morrison is the most formidable obstacle. The prime minister didn’t get to the top of the greasy political pole by playing softball. He has all the attributes of an alley cat and the instincts of a junkyard dog.

If he’s challenged, he will fight like hell, deploying fear and favour. There’s no chance he would walk away “for the good of the party” as Labor’s Bill Hayden did almost 40 years ago when challenged by Bob Hawke on the eve of an election.

He would rather lay waste to the Liberal Party room than give up the prize he believes is his by some divine right.

Perhaps Morrison might survive because of any fear of mutually assured destruction – if anyone moves on the king, the king will blow up the whole shebang.

You can be sure Morrison would strike a mutually advantageous alliance with Frydenberg, who sees himself as the natural heir to the Liberal leadership. The Treasurer not only regards himself as the best to lead the party after Morrison, he also thinks he is a much better bet for attracting voters than Dutton, especially in the metropolitan electorates around Sydney and his home town of Melbourne.

Dutton had a solid base of Queensland LNP members when he launched his assault on Turnbull’s leadership in 2018. He can probably count on these same politicians who believe his tough guy persona plays well north of the Tweed River.

Those Liberals under asymmetrical attack from the emissions and integrity teal independent candidates have a very different view of a Dutton candidacy – they see it as toxic.

So if Dutton did move on Morrison – and it is very much in the still doubtful column today – he is going to struggle to get 51 per cent of the party room, let alone the two thirds mandated in the Liberal rules.

It has to be said, two weeks before the Liberal leadership exploded in September, 2018, almost no-one thought it would happen.

Whatever way things go, any sign of leadership restlessness or worse will be a further undermining of the government’s re-election chances. The coup days might not be over yet.