When he ousted Tony Abbott as prime minister, even many rusted-on Labor voters celebrated the change because despite his enormous personal wealth, Mr Turnbull never really looked or sounded like a traditional Liberal.

While he may have been an economic conservative, Mr Turnbull was seen as a social progressive and marked a major change in focus from the Abbott years.

At least, that's what the Left had hoped.

What they got instead, was a prime minister forced to abandon much of his own social agenda to appease conservative factions within his own party in order to hold on to the leadership.

And that meant that Mr Turnbull, against his own better judgment, rejected a push to have the issue of marriage quality decided on the floor of parliament and instead agreed to stand by the official Liberal position of first taking the issue to a plebiscite.

But that stance has left Mr Turnbull in the unenviable position of having betrayed whatever support he may have had from the Left while also remaining on the outer with many in his own party.

Now, as if to finally prove the political world has gone mad, into the breach has strode an an unlikely new hero of the Left.

Christopher Pyne generally represents everything Labor despises about conservative politics. He speaks with an [often shrill] Adelaide accent and is contemptuous of the unions, but he stands strongly with the Left – and, presumably, his leader – on the issue of marriage equality.

What’s more, leaked footage from a dinner of Mr Pyne’s factional supporters recorded him saying that marriage equality could be coming sooner than most thought – and that has been taken to mean Mr Pyne is actively working to bring the issue back to the floor of parliament.

If that was to happen, and Liberal MPs who support marriage equality were to cross the floor on the issue, then Mr Pyne would secure his position in Australian political history.

He would earn the wrath of many on his own side of the chamber while also earning the grudging gratitude of many who could never countenance actually voting for him.

And he would be seen as the man who finally did the work so many had expected from Mr Turnbull. Strange days, indeed.