This past week came the news that Australia’s unemployment rate reached 5.3% – the lowest point since 2012. Now of course unemployment rates can disguise a lot of problems but in August an equal record level of participation in the workforce was also recorded. So it is not a case that the unemployment rate is low because people are giving up looking for work and thus producing a distorted low number. Yes, full-time employment is not growing as strong as is part-time, but it is still growing solidly.

Yes, the underemployment rate of 8.3% remains very high – and the gap between it and the unemployment rate is larger than it has ever been. But despite this there is little argument that the labour force is doing well – certainly doing better than at any point in the LNP term of office.

And this news came after figures released two weeks ago that show the economy grew faster in the past year than it has since 2012.

Now of course wages growth is weak and real household incomes are flat, but any government would gladly have the current GDP and unemployment numbers at its disposal six or seven months out from an election.

Last year I suggested that ALP supporters should hold their horses a bit when it came to picking out their election celebration party music playlists. While the government was behind in the polls, the labour force was growing strongly – stronger in many ways than it had ever done before. In 2017 the percentage of the adult population increased by 1% – the first time that had happened in a 12-month period since 2005.

I was also a bit wary of those from the left predicting a win for the ALP because despite the run of poll victories, the reality is the ALP was not that far in front. While the redistribution of seats did give the ALP an edge, the reality is winning an election from opposition is bloody hard.

In the past 50 years, which encompasses all of the post-Menzies period, government at the federal level has changed just six times. And each time the opposition won easily. Whitlam in 1972, Fraser in 1975, Hawke in 1983, Howard in 1996, Rudd in 2007, Abbott in 2013 – were all elections that saw the commentators on election night saying “the swing is on and its big” and had the government representatives present on the TV left to mumble about postal votes and keeping the furniture.

And yet even up to last month, while the ALP was ahead in the polls, it was nothing like what we saw in 2007 or 2013. The incumbent does tend to win the close elections, especially if the prime minister is not particularly disliked.

Malcolm Turnbull was certainly not hated in a way that had you thinking baseball bats were being readied around the nation. Sure, he was hardly a vote winner in Queensland or Western Australia but there was little vitriol. The view of the voters towards him was best described in a tweet by the Australian’s Jon Kudelka who noted early last year: “The thing with Malcolm is even though you know he is going to be disappointing, he still manages to disappoint, which is quite something.”

But it’s all history now. The good economic news, which the government should be able to trumpet from the rooftops, is just a bit of noise that can scarce be heard above the circus that is our federal government. And it is at the heart of why Scott Morrison is unable to come up with a decent reason why he is currently the prime minister, because the economy is pretty much running as the government hoped – growth and profits are up, wages are low, the budget is likely to be back in surplus faster than expected, possibly the current financial year.

So given things are going as planned, why did they need to change leaders?

Morrison could answer that a bunch of hard-right conservatives, who never trusted Turnbull because he believed in things like marriage equality and climate change, tore him down purely out of spite.

But such a line possibly wouldn’t play well, especially given Morrison seems very much in agreement with their views. He might say he has no blood on his hands but his actions on climate change and his absurd push for increased laws on religious freedom, despite his not being able to name to one problem with the current law, suggest he is very happy to do what the conservative forces want.

Over the next half a year we will have this bizarre performance from the government telling us how great things are, and how great they have been and yet with every word they serve to highlight the lunacy of their dumping Turnbull. All the advantage governments get from incumbency during good economic times is now diminished by their own actions.

Last year, when I was warning ALP supporters that the election was not in the bag I also suggested “we should not, however, underestimate the ability of this government to shoot itself in the foot”.

And so it has.

The old line is that oppositions don’t win election, governments lose them. I don’t think that is particularly true – there has been many a poor government that could have been turfed had the opposition not been so poor. But it appears the current LNP is doing its best to prove the adage correct.

• Greg Jericho is a Guardian Australia columnist