In politics people like to talk about the narrative as though there is some magical story that needs to be told to keep voters onside and the government ship sailing strong. In reality, narratives are mostly post-event constructions. What governments really need to worry about is the what and the why: what are you doing and why.

Quite often the why question takes precedence, and given most voters really have much better things to do with their time than worry about the intricacies of policy, it’s rare that the ‘what question’ is fully investigated. But if voters don’t understand the why, they won’t give a stuff about the qualities of “the what”.

Last week the Abbott government struggled with the why.

Epitomising it all was the Prime Minister’s brain burp decision to re-install knighthoods and dames. The second question from journalists upon hearing the announcement was, “Why did you want to do this?” Pretty much all Tony Abbott could come up with was that he thought “pre-eminent” people needed special treatment compared to “eminent” people. Certainly he couldn’t demonstrate any pressing need for it.

No member of the government was able to explain it as being anything other than an example of why Tony Abbott shouldn’t be left alone in the policy cupboard.

The community meanwhile was left wondering why he bothered to think this was an issue that needed “fixing”. Even John Howard came out suggesting it was a retrograde step.

To make John Howard look more modern than yourself takes some doing.

But on more important matters the “why question” also went unanswered.

Amidst all its slashing of regulations, the government had been planning to significantly reduce the Future of Financial Advice measures.

Alas few people, let alone many in the financial planning and superannuation industry, could understand why the government wanted to remove consumer protections which were introduced after an inquiry into the collapse of Storm Financial.

After much media commentary questioning the changes and lobbying from seniors groups, the government realised “the why” had not been answered and they put the changes on hold. The Minister for Finance, Senator Cormann rather curiously suggested it was the industry’s fault for not understanding. He told the media that he wanted “to have further conversations with key stakeholders and remind them what they agreed to before the election”.

He might wish to remind voters why they don’t need protection from potential shonks while he’s at it.

The other “why question” that went unanswered last week related to the Attorney General, Senator George Brandis’ proposed amendments to the Racial Discrimination Act. His proposal is to remove section 18C of the act which currently makes it unlawful for a person to do an act which “is reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people” on the basis of their race. In place of this he wishes to only make it unlawful to vilify or intimidate a person in such a way.

He also seeks to change the exemptions to 18C. Currently you are exempt if you do it while making a “statement, publication, discussion or debate made or held for any genuine academic, artistic or scientific purpose or any other genuine purpose in the public interest” so long as it is done “in good faith” and is also a “a fair and accurate report of any event or matter of public interest”.

Senator Brandis proposes to amend it so as to exempt any “words, sounds, images or writing spoken, broadcast, published or otherwise communicated in the course of participating in the public discussion of any political, social, cultural, religious, artistic, academic or scientific matter.”

This exemption is transparently designed to allow commentators in the media the ability to write and say whatever they like without any need to be fair and accurate or to do it in good faith.

And yet why does this need to be done? Section 18C was introduced in 1995 in response to the National Inquiry into Racist Violence and the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. Senator Brandis has been very poor at explaining why a law that had been in place for nearly 20 years needed removing. Voters were left only with the sense that it was being done to allow privileged people in the media the ability to dump on those they don’t like.

Moreover the only cut-through explanation Senator Brandis was able to make last week was to suggest the law needs to be changed because people “have the right to be a bigot”. It’s a statement that might work well in a philosophy tutorial, but in the real world serves only to have bigots and racists feeling they have been given a nod and a wink from the top law man in the country.

Little wonder then that sections of the government are now leaking against the changes, and that in Question Time on Wednesday the Prime Minister was unable to provide one example of an ethnic community organisation which supported the changes.

Instead of giving a full defence on the policy Mr Abbot instead played up the fact it was just an “exposure draft of legislation”.

If the Prime Minister wants to change the Racial Discrimination Act or indeed introduce any other major policy changes he will need to do better at answering to the community the “why question” for the policy than he did last week.

Because when voters do not know the reason why, all that is left is for the policy to not do and die.

Greg Jericho is an economics and politics blogger and writes for The Guardian and The Drum.