Blinded by the disbelief of another prime minister sworn in on the back of 54 party room votes I almost missed the real political change last week. After 5 attempts in as many years Australia has an optimist in charge.

Once the claimer of moral heights Kevin Rudd capitulated over climate policy and we realised that he could get things done for Kevin but not for everyone else, Australians have been led by negativity. Julia Gillard tried her best to be positive but the bloodied knife she carried was just too heavy for progress to prevail. Then she was knifed too.

Mr Abbott who squeaked past Mr Turnbull in 2009 by one vote to become party leader is supposed to be a nice guy. He works for charity on his time off and is loyal to a fault but every phrase he uttered in the top job came from a place of fear.

Stop can be a positive word but from Tony Abbot it was never really clear why things had to stop. They just had to. Anything that should be positive —more jobs, more growth, less deficit — came across as a justification. As if proof were always needed that the government was doing well, when they were just scared.

Then yesterday for the first time in many a year a prime minister of Australia stood up at parliamentary question time and said that the country has a great opportunity and that times are exciting for the nation. Mr Turnbull was positive. He almost led a rendition of ‘yes we can’ and it felt like he wanted to.

This is momentous.

If he can keep it going, and admittedly that is a big if, we could see some confidence return. We might actually join the many other countries with far worse economic outlooks and social challenges than Australia who are finding solutions because of a belief in the best of their people.

As a social centrist myself I would rather this breath of fresh air to have come from the left side of politics. Mr Turnbull may look trendy but he is still a brown. But the labour party are mired in their own brand of negativity that cannot hide the fact that they spend too much time playing with knives.

So instead I will take Mr Turnbull at his word for confidence has great power to do good. And we really need that.