One of the most persuasive arguments for why Australian telecommunications companies should not be required by law to store their customers' data was delivered three years ago this month.

The speaker was Malcolm Turnbull - the man who, in a quirky twist of fate, ended up devising Tony Abbott's mandatory data retention regime and is Prime Minister as it comes into effect on Tuesday.

Then opposition spokesman for communications, Turnbull warned he had "very grave misgivings" about the Gillard government proposal, which "seems to be heading in precisely the wrong direction".

"Surely as we reflect on the consequences of the digital shift from a default of forgetting to one of perpetual memory we should be seeking to restore as far as possible the individual's right not simply to their privacy but to having the right to delete that which they have created in the same way as can be done in the analogue world," he said in his Deakin Lecture.

Not just wrong in principle, Turnbull argued the scheme would be of little practical use as tech-savvy criminals and terrorists could easily get around it.

A little over two years later, Turnbull learnt, via the front page of The Daily Telegraph, that he was to help create a data retention scheme for the Abbott government. The paper was briefed before the issue went to cabinet. Like it or not, the Communications Minister would have to make the scheme work.

While wary of the costs and hassle involved, the telecommunications sector praised Turnbull's role. Without his involvement, many said, the scheme would have been far broader and with fewer safeguards.

"He started to drive some sanity into the model, thank goodness," a senior telecommunications source said last year. "He has a good knowledge of the industry and isn't captured by the agencies."

In an interview ostensibly selling the scheme to Australians, Turnbull explained - in great deal - how they could get around it.

"If you have a device, and if I call you just through the mobile phone network, then there will be a record at my carrier that I've called your number," he told Sky News in March.

"If on the other hand I've called you by Skype, or a voice call on Viber, I send you a message on WhatsApp or Wickr or Threema or Signal, you know, Telegram, there's a gazillion of them...

"Or indeed, if we have a Facetime call, the telco can see that I have made a connection to a Skype server or a Whatsapp server, it doesn't see that I've had any connection with you."

On Monday, Turnbull didn't hold a flag-laden press conference to hype up the fact the laws were coming into force. He didn't say a word.

Follow us on Twitter