Gladys Berejiklian Liberals
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian (Image: AAP/Dean Lewis)

The scenario of the federal Liberal chaos ending Australia's best government, the NSW Liberal government of Gladys Berejiklian, has moved from nightmare to likelihood as the Liberals' collapse into open civil war moved to centre stage following Malcolm Turnbull's spectacular intervention over the last 24 hours.

Two separate polls on the weekend -- one from Galaxy, one from Reachtel -- had the NSW Coalition trailing NSW Labor on a 2PP basis. The polls had wildly different primary vote levels, and quite different preferred premier outcomes, but the best case scenario for the Liberals has new Labor leader Michael Daley on level pegging with Berejiklian as preferred premier.