Annabel Crabb: PM Turnbull will need moderation and compromise.

The events of last night could signal the end of a bloody era, but the challenges aren’t over.

As Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull must tread a careful path between what is expected of him, what is right, and what is feasible, writes Annabel Crabb…

What happened last night is hard to write about concisely.

The events are so momentous; the removal of the third serving Australian Prime Minister inside five years, the defection of a deputy leader, the likely end of a Treasurer, the election of history’s first prime minister for whom elevation to the nation’s highest office will involve downsizing to a smaller house… Honestly, I could go on indefinitely.

And today will no doubt bring plenty of aftershocks.

But in the small hours, it’s worth noting that of the three leaders who formed the cast for Australia’s ugliest and most vicious three-pointed scrabble for power in recent memory – Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott – Mr Abbott last night became the third and final to meet a violent political end.

Of all the aphorisms that have sprung to mind in recent years, perhaps the most powerful is: “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.”

And of that mad period between 2010 and 2013 – when Mr Abbott barely slept, nerves a-twanging for the opportunity to annexe one or two extra votes to become prime minister, and Mr Rudd stalked the landscape like a headless horseman, and Ms Gillard clung on for dear life – none of the protagonists now remain. All of them – Abbott, Gillard and Rudd – have been both victims and perpetrators at different points, and each of them is now finished.

It is, or could be, the end of a bloody era.

The new Prime Minister is someone who authored the closest thing we’ve had in a decade to a grand bipartisan bargain between the major parties; don’t forget that in 2009, seconds before he was dumped as leader by one vote, Mr Turnbull was ready to sign a deal with Mr Rudd to legislate an emissions trading scheme.

That handful of days in 2009 is, in hindsight, the most significant turning point in Australia’s recent political history.

Can Mr Turnbull now reverse it?

Well, there’s only one way to find out.

To say there is suspicion about Mr Turnbull within the Coalition is to be guilty of extreme understatement.

This is a man who warned grandly when threatened in 2009 that the Liberal Party was in danger of becoming “a fringe party of the far right”.

It is said of him within the Coalition that he is the preferred Liberal leader among Labor voters.

This is a perennially frustrating distinction to possess if you are a Liberal.

It’s also frustrating for Labor; certainly Bill Shorten, launching an unconvincing argument last night that Mr Turnbull was no different from Mr Abbott – before the ballot had even taken place – betrayed the depth of Labor’s own anxiety on this point.

The task Mr Turnbull faces is bigger than all of that, however. It’s to tread a careful path between what is expected of him, and what is right, and what is feasible.

The need to keep his party together will oblige him to disappoint those outside it on some fronts.

The need to win an election will oblige him to disappoint those inside his party to some extent, too.

Moderation, balance, compromise. If these qualities can replace the vituperative churn of politics as we know it, that’s not a bad start.

Annabel Crabb is the ABC’s chief online political writer. She tweets at @annabelcrabb.

This post originally appeared on ABC News.