The credibility gap

There is a myth in the press gallery that Tony Abbott had a deep and abiding concern about Indigenous people. There was never any evidence of it, but it has become the stuff of unshakeable press gallery myth.

Another myth in the press gallery is that Malcolm Turnbull might be more moderate and accommodating than Abbott.

It's worth examining this to work out how these myths form, what effects they have, and how impervious they are to proof and reason - which goes to the question of what the press gallery is for, and what its members mean when they insist that they respect their audience.

Abbott and Indigenous people

Unlike Whitlam, and even Fraser, Abbott had a long record as a minister in areas affecting Indigenous people directly (Employment, then Health), where evidence of commitment to Indigenous people and issues might have been evident. Not much to see there, and a genuine surprise that none of the experienced press gallery journalists went looking for it.

Tony Abbott doesn't have a deep and abiding concern about Indigenous people. Actual Indigenous people never rated Abbott they way they did for politicians who actually listened to them and came through for them, like Gough Whitlam or Malcolm Fraser or Fred Chaney. They did not vote Coalition in greater numbers when Abbott was leader than they had when Howard was leader, and apart from Pearson there are no spontaneous outpourings of thanks or support from Indigenous people, as there might have been for someone who made a real difference or who really gave a damn and did his best.

He might have a deep and abiding concern about Noel Pearson, but that isn't quite the same thing as a commitment to Indigenous issues and people.

If The Australian had decided, say, Marcia Langton or Gary Johns rather than Pearson as the tribune of all things Indigenous, perhaps Abbott would have hung out with them instead. Pearson can churn out variations of the same article about how white elites ensure Aboriginal kids get an inferior education, and The Australian will give it a run every time; but they can neither dismiss nor laud something like his oration at Whitlam's funeral (e.g. "The Whitlam government is the textbook case of reform trumping management"). This should leave them with no option but subtle and nuanced analysis, delivered gently and respectfully; but they lack the ability to do that, and so, therefore, did Abbott. He could dismiss and he could laud, but Indigenous affairs require more and better and reward even ardent advocates with heartbreak: Abbott was nowhere to be found.

Nobody has had more of an effect on the education of Indigenous people in far northern Queensland than Noel Pearson: no education bureaucrat, no Minister, no Premier or PM. People in that area should be among the best-educated in the country: if any group of Indigenous people were to come close to non-Indigenous education levels, that's where you'd look. Sadly, statistics are hard to find, and the normally forthright culture warriors of The Australian equivocate on the issue. Tony Abbott has himself had a fine education (St Ignatius' Riverview, Universities of Sydney and Oxford), and not much of it devoted to considering Indigenous issues.

Luke Pearson outlined Abbott's record in what was to be his final days as Prime Minister, and it rewards a read. Notions like Sydney being "nothing but bush" before 1788 or the litany of what Luke Pearson calls "oddly patronising" comments (what a press gallery journalist might call "gaffes" or "Tony being Tony") reveal a mind that is simply not engaged with these issues and these people. His dismantling of Abbott's three-point slogan on Indigenous issues is masterful, the sort of thing press gallery journalists and established media outlets are meant to do.

On what basis, then, do press gallery journalists insist Abbott's interest in Indigenous issues was strong and genuine? Well, before he won government, he took a bunch of press gallery journalists (none of whom had much background in complicated Indigenous policy) deep into the bush and professed his concern for Indigenous issues. Yep, that's it. They actually took him at his word, and continue doing so.

When he didn't spend his first week as PM in an Aboriginal community, they should have been suspicious rather than tossing it onto the pile of broken promises. When he eventually spent a week near an Indigenous community not really engaging with them, engaging in vacuous picfacs and puny announceables, proper journalists would have felt insulted, and started to dig for stories.

Long after he had trashed his word and his reputation, press gallery journalists kept insisting that Abbott was a clever and sensitive man. In policy area after policy area people pointed to the desolation that comes from refusal to engage in informed and considered thinking, and eventually journalists stopped with the magical thinking about Rhodes Scholars and started seeing Abbott as a wrecker, a man who used his intellect to bamboozle and mislead rather than elucidate and lead.

In Indigenous affairs, however, they still cleave to the old fiction that Abbott really was serious, that some work of noble note might yet be done, hoping that nobody will call them on it. Luke Pearson was far too polite about it, and they have ignored him: tell me again how being polite to press gallery journalists gets your message across, go on.

As journalism seeps into history, such as in the rushed and lightweight confections of Aaron Patrick, we see Abbott's deep interest in Indigenous affairs asserted but not evidenced, let alone examined.

Turnbull and Indigenous people

Like most Australians, Malcolm Turnbull had little contact with Indigenous people. There are relatively few in his electorate, he didn't encounter many at Sydney Grammar or in Kerry Packer's office, nor at Ozemail or Goldman Sachs. On what basis, then, did a supposedly experienced press gallery journalist like Michael Gordon seem to believe Turnbull would take to Indigenous issues like a duck to water?

There was more than one gap on display when the nation's MPs gathered to hear the Prime Minister deliver his annual Closing the Gap report on Indigenous disadvantage.

As you might expect, Gordon nowhere considers his own role in this, nor that of his equally obtuse press gallery colleagues.

Look at the targets for Closing the Gap. All of them are complex issues that resist easy political measures like press releases or three-word slogans. All of them require skills in working with diverse, often rebarbative people, and getting them to focus on a common cause over more immediate priorities and prejudices. Turnbull is doing badly on Closing the Gap not only because Abbott left him with nothing to build upon, but because working with diverse and often rebarbative people is not a core Turnbull skill. Never has been. He might learn on the job, or he might not; but Gordon, amongst others, looks like a patsy for giving him the benefit of the doubt.

There was the gap between Malcolm Turnbull and a section of his backbench, who chose not to take their seats in the House of Representatives to hear their leader's first substantive speech on Indigenous affairs.

"Where is everybody?" one Liberal MP asked another, as Turnbull rose to his feet to become the first Prime Minister to begin an address to the Parliament in the language of the traditional owners of the land on which it is built.

There is a convention that when the PM addresses the chamber, his troops are there in force to demonstrate solidarity. It went by the board on Wednesday morning.

There is also a convention that when a subject of national importance that goes to questions of national identity or national security is broached by the nation's leaders, all MPs take their seats. That, too, was waived on the Coalition side.

Whenever a journalist lapses into the passive voice, they are up to no good. Why was it waived, Michael, by whom and for what purpose? As ever, some journalism from the press gallery would be nice. It would beat the hell out of cliches and puzzlement at the all-too-familiar.

Look at other occasions where that convention has been breached - and by whom. The Liberal MPs who disrespected Kevin Rudd's apology to the Stolen Generations in February 2008, Sophie Mirabella and Peter Dutton, have since proven themselves so misanthropic that it was probably for the best they were not there.

Was it lack of interest in the issue? Or lack of respect for the leader? Either way, it was conduct unbecoming.

It was to be expected. Your experience should tell us what is to be expected and why, not airless nonsense about keeping up appearances.

Then there was the gap between Turnbull and the man he replaced, Tony Abbott, whose passion for this area of policy was sadly not matched by achievement during his two years in office.

What gap? What passion? What nonsense, Michael Gordon. You want to see something that isn't there.

Abbott was there to hear Turnbull's speech, but there was no room in the Prime Minister's remarks to acknowledge the efforts of his predecessor. That was an unfortunate oversight.

There was nothing to be said, so he said nothing. For a man often accused of being verbose this must have been a relief. What did you expect him to say: "a good government had lost its way", perhaps.

Then there was the gap between the government and the opposition, with Bill Shorten backing a referendum on recognition next year, arguing the case for a new target to reduce Indigenous incarceration and asserting: "You cannot cut your way to closing the gap."

Here, the differences were ones of emphasis, not direction, with Turnbull expressing strong support for recognition, outlining action to tackle rising imprisonment rates and determined not to "sugar-coat the enormity of the job that remains".

So there's a gap between government and opposition, but it's only rhetorical? Luke Pearson said that the proposed targets on justice in Closing the Gap were important, that Labor is proposing while the government is not necessarily disposing; and Michael Gordon of The Age regards this as just a difference of emphasis?

Next year is significant because it will be 50 years since the referendum to recognise Indigenous people in the census. That referendum passed with 90% in favour. Where has all that public goodwill gone? What makes an experienced press gallery journalist think Turnbull and/or Shorten can arouse, or even tap into, that level of support?

Look at that picture of Abbott leaving the House as Shorten spoke. The bearded guy watching him leave is Senator Nigel Scullion, the Indigenous Affairs minister who owns the failures set out in the Closing the Gap report, and who's had more experience in Indigenous issues than Abbott, Turnbull, Shorten, and most of the rest of Parliament put together. Do you think Tony Abbott will ever get over himself (a necessary precondition to reaching out to people who aren't plentiful in his electorate either)?

Do you think Gordon (or anyone else in the supposedly diverse and competitive press gallery) noticed Scullion, or is calling for his job over his failings in executing his portfolio? Again, no - but still he plods along:

Turnbull's speech was replete with good intentions, empathy, optimism and commitments to engage with those who have devoted their lives to finding answers and improving the circumstances of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Just like Tony Abbott, and Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd before him.

Ten years after the closing the gap project was conceived, the voice of country's peak Indigenous body is ignored; a landmark report on empowering communities is awaiting a considered response, 12 months after it was delivered to government; racism persists and the recognition campaign desperately needs an injection of momentum.

Turnbull made an impressive start ...

Did he? Why the jaded response to his three predecessors and measures that could have been addressed over recent months, if he was genuinely "impressive"? Is empty rhetoric "impressive" now?

Why does the recognition campaign need momentum (which can't really be "injected")? Doesn't it need to be scrapped? Is it a Good Thing that needs Bipartisan Support (like, say, tax minimisation or refugee detention, or any one of a number of bad policies), or is it the waste of time many commentators see it as?

I hunt around the web for different perspectives: traditional media like The Age only hold up experienced journalists like Michael Gordon, claiming they can lead us through big complex political issues like that - but once again, all they do is rehash assumptions that simply fall apart once you examine them.

... but, when it comes to righting history's wrongs, he will be judged by the gap between his words and his actions, his intentions and what he actually delivers.

But press gallery journalists will only quote his words, and not weigh them against any actions. It's hard to tell what Turnbull's intentions are on Indigenous issues, and if he leaves office without having achieved anything in that area do you think it will bother him? Do you think anything he pulls together will be half as productive as a copper-wire NBN? It doesn't bother do-nothing Nige, it doesn't bother the press gallery.

The press gallery can't investigate government on these issues, and they can't explain why either Abbott or Turnbull deserve the benefit of the doubt they (and not actual Indigenous people) seem so willing to give them. Why am I listening to these people? Why must I accept the unexamined assumption that their experience is worth more than the pinch of conditioned air I prize it at? Michael Gordon and the press gallery disgrace themselves when they do business-as-usual reports on political and policy failures like this. You have to go beyond the press gallery to find the best reporting on policy and politics.

Once again, the whole point of the press gallery could not be less clear. Your guess is as good as theirs. Decades of experience in not doing investigative journalism counts for much less than those people might hope.

Losing it 1: The spearhead

Traditionally, an issue has popped up in the media, squadrons of journalists rush out with pre-prepared cliches to smother any public interest, and the issue dies and is replaced by another one. They may be weighty issues, they may not; but you can be sure that the media will churn through them.

In recent years, editors and news directors have lost control of this media churn. The decline in consumption of traditional broadcast media means there's a strong correlation between social media users and the remaining readers/ listeners/ viewers of the broadcasters. The smarter people in the broadcast media realise this, while the less smart ones - disproportionately found in the press gallery, and "media management" roles in the political class - persist with the view that social media are somewhere between annoyances and competitors. They can't dismiss us out of hand (the old saws about cats or breakfast pics have had their day) but they dare not admit we keep them up at night.

Adam Goodes' Indigenous dance celebration at scoring a goal didn't seem so strange to those of us from northeastern Australia, as Preston Towers observes in his masterful account of the controversy. Rugby league player Greg Inglis does a goanna move after he scores tries, which is just Inglis being Inglis; it is not worthy of booing even by fans of teams Inglis pays against, or by those who (for whatever reason) don't like him.

It's true that New Zealand's rugby union team, the All Blacks, do a Maori war dance (haka) before every match, facing their opponents at close range, sometimes including a genuinely menacing throat-slitting move. It's also true that the Australian team, the Wallabies, did a half-hearted Aboriginal-derived response, but that they haven't done it for decades. Because this guy doesn't realise that he isn't quite as Proud Of Our Aussie Heritage as he might imagine.

It also makes this whole debate beside the point. Rugby fans are no more/less Australian than AFL fans, no more/less uncouth or passionate, and no more/less across issues of structural racism.

Goodes is not, as one cranky fan pointed out, the first Aboriginal AFL player; he's not the first prominent Aborigine who uses his public profile to help young people. What makes him different to those who came before, like Nicky Winmar or Graham "Polly" Farmer, is that prominent Aborigines these days can mix it in public debates. Prominent Aborigines like Goodes, Rachael Perkins, Larissa Behrendt, Noel Pearson, or Marcia Langton are central to public debates involving indigenous people unlike previous generations of leaders like Harold Blair, or Bennelong.

The idea that Goodes ought not express pride in his heritage, or that he's being aggressive in doing so, is rubbish. Ron Barassi has spoken of his Italian heritage, including the harassment his father suffered during World War II when Australia was at war with Italy. Dermott Brereton's hardscrabble upbringing is not unlike the disadvantage suffered by many Indigenous people. He has spoken of his Irish heritage and the threats he received as a result.

Did Brereton really never offer any support to the terrorist organisation IRA? Has Goodes ever supported terrorism, openly or otherwise? Brereton's criticism of Goodes is curious. He looks like an old stager who doesn't get it. Mind you, that puts him firmly in line with the gutless all-about-the-money AFL Commission.

When he was called an "ape" showed a deft touch in raising the issue, then defusing the anger that arose from it. He insisted the child be protected from the ravages of tabloid (broadcast, "professional") media, and kept the focus on structural, endemic racism. Accepting his Australian of the Year accolade last year he did much the same thing: raised harsh truths squarely, and then called on everyone to face them together.

I wish we had a Prime Minister who could do that.

The man who has not handled Goodes' comments at all well was racial discrimination offender Andrew Bolt:

People who loathe Bolt will show that image for the rest of his life, and probably beyond it. Bolt has to keep up his persona of the disappointed conservative. Even after his conviction he was "disappointed" and, like Goodes yesterday, took time away from his job. Bolt finds accusations of racism directed at him to be "chilling", as the young people say.

Appearing calm and measured is essential to keeping onside well-meaning conservatives who don't pay close attention to media controversies, but who want a respectable champion of their values in the media when they do dip into it.

If Bolt blows his cool he loses those people. The idea that he's a hate-filled, seething bigot will turn advertisers away, and NewsCorp will drop him. James Packer, a major shareholder of the TV network that broadcasts Bolt, has already shirtfronted him. If there is a "war" over "race hate" between Goodes and Bolt, then Bolt has already lost it.

Spittle-flecked partisans aside, pragmatic and experienced media professionals like Jo Hall expected this to blow over:

I agree with Carol Duncan and Paul Daley: we do need a discussion, one that doesn't end with recriminations and moving-on-to-the-next-story but to somewhere productive, the "brave and fine" conversation we've always been promised but could never quite manage by ourselves.

The AFL had only planned to have one Indigenous Round but has effectively been forced to have a second this past weekend - without Goodes present, and with the possibility that he might retire rather than continue as a lightning-rod for the country's worst instincts. The AFL Commission has not done the leading when it comes to this issue, it has been led. But this goes beyond one sport, which bears more responsibility for the nation than it can reasonably bear.

Again, I wish we had a Prime Minister capable of leading such a discussion. The press gallery promised us that Abbott was both sincere and capable when it came to Indigenous policy issues, and they acted all surprised when neither turned out to be true.

Abbott has gone to ground, which he usually does when the going gets tough. He could have leavened his clearly difficult experience with Bronwyn Bishop by stepping up with even some noble words on this issue - that would have been enough for the mugs in the press gallery. He's not going to talk about on-piste matters. He might not understand AFL or race relations, but he's in that job because he knows how to fool the broadcast media. If he absents himself from the media, the thinking goes, the broadcast media will run out of new angles and the story will die. All that's happened for him and his office is he's been left behind. The broadcast media promised us he was "Prime Ministerial", when he was never anything of the sort.

The broadcast media have now been abandoned at the very point where social media is running rings around them, and they need to borrow Authority from external sources. They're just there to be used and abused by this government, a realisation everyone has come to except them.

They still believe that an endemic issue will just churn through and Good Old Tony will come through for them once more. He'll play them, and they think they play him too, bless them. When they do start focusing on another issue, they might find less public engagement than traditional broadcasters are enjoying now. They become less adept at picking the right issue for their One Daily Story, and their Access Privileges count for less and less with a smaller, more engaged audience.

The worst thing journalists can be is not biased, or even shallow, but obtuse. On Indigenous issues generally, and on Goodes in particular, the media sure have been obtuse. This can't end well for traditional access-oriented broadcast journalism.

The gap

It was a relief to read a report about Australian politics that actually identifies and even quotes real people with names. However, it slumps back into press gallery sludge by covering important policy issues (matters of life and death, literally) as though they're somehow beside the point. The whole framing of this article is wrong.

Because newspapers don't really have subeditors any more, it falls to me to note the second paragraph in that article should have been the first. The fact that the first, or lede, was as follows is telling:

Bipartisan consensus on Indigenous policy ruptured on Wednesday when several Coalition MPs walked out on a speech by Labor leader Bill Shorten calling on the government to reverse $500 million in budget cuts.

Bipartisan consensus on Indigenous policy created the gaps in health, education and other life outcomes represented in the Close the Gap report. This is not to say that such consensus should be smashed but it is not to overstate the importance of bipartisan agreement.

Many good and worthwhile ideas are held by one of the major political parties, or by neither. Michael Gordon in particular is a serial offender in insisting upon bipartisan consensus where none is warranted or likely. He regularly misrepresents lively, opinionated and well-researched input as the work of a nutty fringe, or of splitters.

Lamenting that there were too many "backward steps" in the report, Mr Abbott said this was not because of any lack of goodwill or effort by successive governments.

That is the story, right there.

Tony Abbott is not, and never was, entitled to be taken at his word. Abbott professes concern but his actions belie them, which diminish our ability to take him at his word. The press gallery has been culpable over the past five years of doing exactly that: taking a politician at his word.

Here it is happening again: Abbott wants to escape any linkage between his government's policies and actual policy outcomes. Superjournos Gordon and Harrison are happy to comply. They are placing their lust for bipartisanship ahead of the closing of disadvantage between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

It is possible that cutting $500m out of particular services to Indigenous people made no material difference. It may even be that the government did Indigenous people a favour by cutting bad policies, and either the gaps are diminished or they cannot be attributed to those cuts in any meaningful way. Gordon and Harrison haven't looked into that, and their article is poorer for it.

[Abbott] pointed to the likely achievement of a new target of closing the gap on school attendance within five years as evidence of progress.

Only two of the original seven targets ñ on Indigenous mortality rates for children under five and year 12 attainment ñ were on track to be met.

This is the nearest this article actually gets to policy analysis. Again, the superjournos let Abbott set his own target and accept his own assessment.

While Mr Shorten said this was an area where "every opposition wants the government to succeed", he said he felt compelled to highlight what cuts to services would mean.

"Right now, a host of vital organisations don't know whether their funding will be continued or withdrawn," he said, prompting the walkout by several government MPs.

"When people fleeing family violence need a safe place to stay, cuts mean that shelters close," Mr Shorten said. "When having a lawyer can determine whether a first-time offender gets a second chance or a prison sentence, these cuts will rob Indigenous Australians of legal aid."

Shorten, like superjournos Gordon and Harrison and everyone really, was not obliged to engage in bipartisan arse-covering like Abbott.

The government MPs who walked out know their funding will be continued. Earlier this week they took a vote on the Prime Minister's continuation in office because they were worried about their continuation after 2016.

Shorten was right not to focus on the organisations, because ongoing funding implies that the problems will be ongoing and not closed. Instead, he gave concrete examples - people fleeing family violence, first-time offenders before the dock - that are so rare but so important when discussing policy. Any fool can ladle on the pleasantries and plenty more fools can simply quote them, but getting down to practical examples is the very stuff that both Parliament and press gallery exist to scrutinise.

Victorian Liberal MP Russell Broadbent was first to show his anger by leaving the chamber and later said he believed the partisan comments belittled an occasion that should have been above point-scoring.

"The people of Australia are calling out for leaders who can rise above the fray," he told Fairfax Media.

Others who walked out included Andrew Nikolic, Russell Broadbent, Angus Taylor, John Cobb, Ken O'Dowd and Melissa Price.

Oh, piss off.

Tony Abbott has been leader of the Liberal Party for almost five years. Everyone, friend and foe, knows what he's like. Nikolic, Taylor, O'Dowd and Price have spent their entire parliamentary careers with Abbott as leader. He doesn't do bipartisanship at big occasions or small and was not entitled to be taken at his word here.

All of those people voted for the cuts. All of them should be held to account. None of them have any right to be surprised that the leader of the alternative government might call them on it.

Apart from O'Dowd and Cobb, all those Liberals met on Monday and insisted that the Prime Minister and his staff listen to them more. As soon as someone said something they didn't want to hear, they fled. Gordon and Harrison were too busy practising goldfish journalism to make that link.

Shorten didn't call them liars or impugn them personally. He didn't even blame them for ongoing Indigenous disadvantage. He gave concrete examples of consequences that follow from their own actions.

Labor's Indigenous senator, Nova Peris, who was observing from the floor of the Parliament, described the walkout as a disgrace. "If we are fair dinkum about this we've got to stop playing political football with Aboriginal people's lives."

That description of Peris makes her sound like a token. She's a Senator from the Northern Territory. It makes it sound as though they can only have one at a time, and understates the period when they (and, indeed, the Senate) had none at all.

Peris has directly rebutted the thrust of Gordon and Harrison, namely that the walkout - not Shorten's comments - is the point of political failure. Those MPs could have had a quiet word with Shorten, in the spirit of bipartisanship; but by walking out they show that they can't bear that a) their actions have consequences and b) that the Leader of the Opposition called them out.

Mr Shorten also backed the calls from Indigenous leaders for new target to close the gap between the incarceration rates of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

"The rate of jailing Indigenous Australians has almost doubled in the last decade. It is time to speak out against this silent emergency," he said.

The reference to "Indigenous leaders" illustrates the importance of something other than bipartisanship in tracking disadvantage in people's lives. Again, Shorten is concrete in his criticism if not in offering a solution ("time to speak out" indeed).

Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion said it was unfortunate that Mr Shorten had used the occasion for "political point-scoring". He described the $500 million figure as "a furphy" and insisted programs that were effective had no reason to fear their funding would be cut.

He would say that, wouldn't he.

No comment about what constitutes effectiveness. He-said-he-said journalism. Not worth writing.

It's neither here nor there that a journalist might get a quote from a government minister. The insider-savvy thing that you have to be in the game to get a direct and timely (and exclusive!) quote like that is bullshit. Can a service be both 'vital' (Shorten) yet not 'effective' (Scullion)? The quote itself is bullshit, fact-free and does not help Indigenous people one jot.

Simple question, indispensable to this article and the issues arising from it: did the government cut $500 million from programs contributing to Close the Gap outcomes, or not? Ability to answer that question should be what separates press gallery professionals from sensationalist blow-ins.

"The only ones who need to be a bit fearful about their future are those who are not delivering a service that is decent and proper," he told Fairfax Media.

There are many people to whom those services are directed who are in the same position. Can Scullion tell who's providing good service and who isn't? Can Gordon or Harrison?

[Scullion] reaffirmed the government's rejection of a target to reduce Indigenous incarceration, but said he was working on a number of initiatives with state and territory governments he believed would reduce incarceration rates.

Vague. Waffle. Never mind the subeditors, Gordon is at editorial level - has he no pride in his work? Is this what The Age confuses with compelling, high-quality content? Both superjournos missed Scullion sliding around whether or not incarceration rates should be included in Close the Gap metrics.

Readers owe no loyalty to such sloppy journalism. Senior media figures who deny this are sleepwalking their companies to disaster. You lose more than six readers by pumping out drivel like that, day after day, and leaving big important issues to go begging.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commission[er] Mick Gooda, who is also co-chair of the Close the Gap campaign, said he was not concerned by the lack on consensus [sic] in the Parliament.

This whole article has been fretting about exactly that. The whole article by Gordon and Harrison would be better for having been informed by such wisdom.

"I think bipartisanship will be pretty safe. I gotta say, within that bipartisanship, we still need tension. We still need oppositions to hold government to account. It doesn't mean we don't have any debate around it, either outside or inside the parliament."

Imagine: debates outside the parliament being as important as those inside. Gordon and Harrison just can't even begin to make that leap.

Gordon and Harrison honour Gooda and good sense by giving him the last word, however unwittingly. The fact that there was a partisan kerfuffle among non-Indigenous people using Indigenous issues is of no consequence. It makes you wonder why Gordon and Harrison even bother with this stuff.

The debate, and what they're debating about, and what issues they're raising in the debate - that's what is interesting, and what's newsworthy. Penny-ante breaches of protocol and he-said-he-said bullshit is the stuff that excites Gordon and Harrison, and most of the rest of the press gallery - but there's no future in it.

Pieces like these, by Virginia Trioli and Jenna Price, arise from stories like the above debacle but fail for the same reason. They nod to Big Issues and a flick to Both Sides for Failing To Address The Real Issues - but give media coverage of said issues a free pass. They get circulated among journalists as Must Read and make exactly no difference to anyone or anything.

People want to help close the gap, but we don't know where to start; any effort seems to be patronising, or counterproductive, or misplaced, or otherwise inadequate. I can stand being called a bleeding heart if I know my actions make a real difference. Concrete policy and a focus on outcomes helps build understanding. It helps us assess whether governments are doing well or badly. A focus on personalities, a pose of 'balance', and 'he-said-he-said' doesn't even help the journalists who write such crap - let alone anyone else.

Is Abbott a worse PM than McMahon?

Baby-boomer journalists have created the unshakeable impression that Billy McMahon was the worst Prime Minister ever.

They do his piping old-man voice involuntarily these days. He used to leak, they say - as though journalists hate it when pollies do that. Part of it is old-school homophobia; they were young blades then, and McMahon was a queer old irrelevance delaying the coming of Gough. For all their experience of politics they can't quite explain why, in modern parlance, McMahon 'saved the furniture': he went into the 1972 election with a surplus of seven seats and out with a deficit of only nine, which is why the Coalition were back in office under three years rather than waiting out the decade.

Because they don't do policy, they really can't explain why McMahon was so terrible. He didn't divide the country while at war, like Hughes, and nor did he faff around in the face of economic emergency and geopolitical threat like Lyons.

Even more embarrassingly, they can't explain why they thought so highly of Tony Abbott, and why all the evidence shows they were so so wrong to do so. This isn't some sudden development; Abbott was never good enough to become Prime Minister. The more experience you have covering politics, the greater your professional negligence in failing to notice that.

The comparison is stronger than you realise. The alternatives available, much less so.

Issue	McMahon	Abbott
Tertiary education	LLB BEc, University of Sydney	BEc LLB, University of Sydney
‘Cheerful, rowdy extravert’ while at uni	Yes	Yes
Threatened by homosexuality	Not necessarily	Yes (except for own sibling); voted against same-sex marriage
Number of children	3	3
Year entered House of Representatives	1949	1994
Number of years in Parliament before first appointed to frontbench	2	2
Role of John Howard	NSW Liberal State Executive member; manually operated teleprompter at public speeches in 1972	Mentor, appointed him to several ministries
Leaked against Liberal leaders under whom he served	Yes	Yes
Minister responsible for workplace relations system	Yes	Yes
Criticised by Victorian colleague for lack of economics knowledge	Yes (McEwen)	Yes (Costello)
Became leader only after critical colleague left Parliament	Yes	Yes
Became leader in party-room spill	Yes	Yes
Narrow party-room victory	Tied vote; incumbent (Gorton) voted against himself	Won by one vote with supporter of incumbent (Turnbull) absent
Strong orator and parliamentary performer	Ahh, no	Ahh, no
Labor opponent a strong orator and parliamentary performer	Yes	No
Labor opponent more popular	Yes	Yes
Became Prime Minister after general election	No	Yes
Length of service as Prime Minister	21 months	16 months so far
Came to office with strong approval rating	No	No
Women in cabinet	0	1, then 2
Wartime leader	Yes (Vietnam)	Yes (Afghanistan)
Withdrew troops from conflict	Yes	Yes
Appointed predecessor to ministry	Yes	Yes
High Commissioner to the UK	Alexander Downer (Sr)	Alexander Downer (Jr)
Supported by Rupert Murdoch	No	Yes, then no
Relationship with Packer family	Leaked to journalist Alan Reid, who was employed by Sir Frank Packer	Employed by Kerry Packer as a journalist
Criticised in book by Susan Mitchell	Stand by your man	Tony Abbott: A man’s man
Public appearances with wife wearing white	Yes	Yes
Wrong-footed by US President over China	Criticised Whitlam for recognising and visiting People’s Republic of China, just before President Nixon did	After removing carbon pricing scheme, President Obama signed carbon pricing arrangement with PRC
Aboriginal tent embassy protest	Yes (was set up under his Prime Ministership)	Yes (protest at the site in 2011 targeted an event he attended nearby)
Brief, pointless visit to Aboriginal settlement in Northern Territory	Yes	Yes
Immigration policy	Watered down but did not end the White Australia Policy	Watered down but did not withdraw from UN Convention on Refugees
Unemployment rose during term	Yes	Yes
Relationship with Secretary of Treasury	Sir Roland Wilson resigned rather than work with him	Sacked Dr Martin Parkinson
Actions against civil liberties	Voted to ban Communist Party	Detention and refoulement of refugees; legislated to imprison journalists and whistleblowers with unauthorised material; data retention; proposed banning verbal advocacy of Islamist organisations
Child care	Child Care Act 1972	Vague talk about childcare after dumping of paid parental leave scheme; wife manager of daycare centre
Cut university funding	Yes	Yes
Cut government support for non-fossil-fuel energy	Nuclear	Renewables
Cut other areas of science	Yes	Yes
Hostile Senate	No	Not necessarily, then yes
Liberal Party performance in state elections during tenure	WA (lost) NSW (won) Tasmania (lost)	Tasmania (won) SA (lost) Victoria (lost) Queensland (lost) NSW (tbd)
Denied lying	Yes	Yes
Big ears	Yes (looked like a Volkswagen with both doors open)	Yes (what’s a Volkswagen?)
Accused of not listening	Yes	Yes