The first day of “good government” was a bit of a farce. The Coalition is in the process of winding back major policies but it hasn’t changed its talking points. So its messages are contradictory. And, while professing love and loyalty, some very senior figures managed to deliver some very pointed barbs.



The problem with the talking points becomes very obvious when you get the “daily notes” and read along while the politicians are talking.

Tuesday’s note began: “As of today, we’re back to work for the people of Australia.” Which does kind of raise the question of what they were doing before. Even deputy Liberal leader Julie Bishop didn’t seem able to take that line entirely seriously. She leapt to her feet in the party room and declared. “That’s it. People move on so quickly. Leadership spills are so yesterday.” Perhaps you had to be there.

The “debt and deficit disaster” lines are still there, under the heading: “If asked – pressure on budget revenues, returning budget to surplus.

“We know the budget is under pressure. The Abbott government was elected to fix Labor’s debt and deficit disaster and return the budget to surplus, and we won’t shirk our responsibility,” MPs are advised to say.

But the government is in the process of back-pedalling on its previous fiscal strategy, which was supposed to be about ending the aforementioned debt and deficit disaster. It isn’t looking for alternative, fairer budget savings to those it put forward in last year’s budget – or not that it’s telling us about anyway.

It is now proposing to return to surplus via the “New Zealand” road, by keeping expenditure growth very low. Cuts are needed only to offset new spending, like the upcoming small business tax cuts and the new childcare policy. Nothing will hurt household budgets. As social services minister Scott Morrison said on Tuesday, the government now has to “make incremental gains on the deficit and the debt”. Or, as Abbott said during question time, the government was “still doing what it can”.

Treasurer Joe Hockey told the party room the government could not throw out its existing (stalled) budget savings – including the (already-twice revised) Medicare copayment and the higher education changes – because otherwise Australia would “never get back to surplus”.

And Abbott was still telling parliament the copayment was essential because Medicare was “unsustainable”.

But he has also told the doctors and the Senate they have an effective veto on any Medicare changes – nothing will happen unless the doctors agree and the Senate signals support beforehand. Given the views of both the Senate and the doctors on the copayment, that seems almost the same as throwing it out.

Under the heading “If asked – Medicare changes”, MPs are advised to tell us “there will be no new proposals that don’t have the broad backing of the medical profession” and that “it is clear no one supports Labor’s policy of doing nothing. We will work constructively with health professionals and patients to deliver genuine Medicare reform”.

Former minister Mal Brough repeated his call to the party room that the copayment should be dumped because it is the wrong place to be looking for savings. But health minister Sussan Ley said part of the problem was the word “copayment”, which was seen by the public as a “dirty word”. She doesn’t even call it a “price signal” any more. Last month she said she now called it a “value signal” because it meant we “value the services our GPs provide”.

And the word “copayment” does not appear in the speaking notes. The subject is now referred to as “Medicare reform”.

Nor could the government explain how it would decide who will get the $20bn-plus tender to build the next generation of submarines. It could not reconcile promises made to South Australian Liberal backbenchers to have an open tender process for Australia’s new submarines, with the formulation of defence minister Kevin Andrews at a press conference with the same South Australian backbenchers that it was a “competitive evaluation process”.

The future of the prime minister’s chief of staff, Peta Credlin, being debated by senior ministers in public on Tuesday behind a veneer of civility and carefully chosen words, is a distraction for the government and gives the lie to the second talking point: “This Coalition government has shown that it will not go down Labor’s path of chaos and dysfunction.”

Communications minister Malcolm Turnbull’s line about it being the “greatest mistake” for politicians to allow themselves to be “bullied” by media figures such as Alan Jones was pretty pointed also.

But the fact that the talking points have not changed, even as the government recasts its strategy from “crash through” to “desperate survival” is an insult to the intelligence of the electorate.

Oh, and there’s no reference in the talking points to “good government starting today”.