Strong premiers are a voice for the whole community, including on national issues, yet Ms Berejiklian said little memorable about the spill in Canberra during the byelection. She simply tried to ignore it. Ms Berejiklian still refuses to enter debates about representation of women and bullying in the Liberal Party or what she thinks of the Federal government's abandoning the National Energy Guarantee, which she endorsed.

Certainly Ms Berejiklian faces a difficult task fighting for a third-term for a government with a platform that basically amounts to more of the same.

In the bush she is playing catch-up after the debacle of the ban on greyhound racing in 2016. She reversed the ban after a thrashing at the Orange byelection at the hands of the Shooters and Fishers Party but has not learnt the lesson.

Whatever the environmental justification for her recent announcement of new state marine parks, pushing a plan guaranteed to annoy fisherman hands the Shooters another gift six months before an election. When she backs down, as now seems likely, she could offend both sides.

The long-term game plan was to campaign in 2019 on the new infrastructure paid for by the sale of the poles and wires but it now turns out that nothing will be open before the next election, partly because the government's timelines were always too ambitious. Ms Berejiklian, however, persists in a public strategy based on media events highlighting incremental milestones in these projects. Voters see only disruption.

Most surprisingly, Ms Berejiklian has failed to take the debate up to her free-spending and opportunistic opponent, ALP leader Luke Foley. The announcement today that no toll will be imposed on the new Sydney Airport Gateway freeway appears to be a belated response to a campaign against tolls by Mr Foley, who has promised to refund them on the M4 freeway. Ms Berejiklian has given Mr Foley months of clean air on the issue and it is still not clear whether she is for or against road tolls.

There is still time and money and a stock of goodwill to correct these flaws but Ms Berejiklian has to start to step up.