In going for "shock and awe" rhetoric at every opportunity, politicians have debased their own political currency and hindered their ability to lead under a democracy, writes David Forman.

There is, once again, no doubt who dominated the media coverage coming out of the last fortnight of parliamentary sittings.

And who will continue to dominate as the new Senate is sworn in.

There is really only one story in town - Clive Palmer - and it is drowning out any hope the Government has of getting its message back on track and through to the public.

Likewise, Labor is being increasingly sidelined as the voice of opposition.

Both sides should be asking themselves why it is that the public and media are so ready to get on board with Clive, and so unwilling to listen to the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition.

It seems there is a deep and persistent political credibility crisis that threatens to make Australia increasingly ungovernable.

This is a credibility crisis so severe and widespread that it might not be overstating matters to suggest that a dangerous malaise is now infecting the very heart of confidence in the democratic system of government.

It is also a crisis that politicians have made for themselves, with collaboration from the media.

In short, they have made themselves look like blowhards.

Paul Keating famously shocked Australians out of their complacency about our place in the world 28 years ago, when he warned that the country risked becoming a banana republic unless we embraced painful, economy-wide economic reform.

Australians were not used to hearing that type of intemperate language from political leaders.

Indeed, we were more used to hearing soothing, calming language as we struggled to overcome the trauma of the Vietnam War, the ructions of the oil crisis, and the constitutional crisis following the dismissal of the Whitlam Government.

But so profoundly did Keating's apparently unscripted remarks (and the following recession) focus the minds of Australians, that political leaders from all sides of politics were able to propose, advocate and implement nation-changing policies.

Further, it provided a template for the generations of politicians that have followed.

The recipe seems simple; if you want Australians to take tough medicine, convince them of a crisis that means the status quo is not an option.

Peter Costello did it with tremendous success by painting a convincing picture of "Beazley's Black Hole" to justify the deep cuts in his first budget.

Why, then, has the present Government's mantra that it has inherited a "budget crisis" and a "debt and deficit disaster" flopped?

Partly because the crisis is not immediate enough to mobilise third party experts to provide support; rather, they have mostly used more moderate language, arguing there is a very serious medium term problem that needs to be addressed, starting now.

And partly because politicians have, in the past five years, all but abandoned moderate language and gone for shock and awe at every opportunity.

They have, in doing so, debased their own currency and the value of their own strident statements.

This is evident not just in Australia, but also in other great democracies, most notably the United States.

The 2003 invasion of Iraq was based on the insistence of the most important democratic leader in the world, the US president, that there was no doubt that weapons of mass destruction would be found.

It was not true. This breach of trust has never been mended.

Indeed, the decision by commercial media companies to increasingly take political sides as advancing communication technologies erode their markets has levered even further apart the electorate from the political class.

This polarisation of debate has paved the way for shock outcomes such as the primary pre-selection defeat of US Republican House Leader Eric Cantor by an anti-government Tea Party-backed candidate.

These events point to a perverse outcome of the growing credibility crisis.

As the distance between politicians and the community has widened, politicians have used even more extreme language which has contributed to the rise of more extreme parties and personalities.

It is also a trend that runs at odds with the very nature of democracy as a successful system of government.

Democracy is about compromise, consensus, checks and balance, evolution not revolution.

It is a system where changes might be slower to effect than some other political models, but are more enduring because they are more representative of community views and aspirations. Governments are drawn toward the centre, away from extremes.

It seems that it has become the received political wisdom that calm, moderate and medium-term persuasion is out, and shock and awe is in.

But if no one is buying it because every statement is suspected of being exaggerated and can therefore be ignored, what tools are left to policy makers and leaders to bring about change? And if the system can't deliver change, how effective can it be?

Perhaps another way of looking at the situation is to ask, have successive generations of politicians effectively trained their populations to be ungovernable?

It is an uncomfortable thought, but perhaps one our leaders need to be asking themselves as they consider their communications techniques.

If they choose not to contemplate that, perhaps they can consider this: if there is an election of the House of Representatives and half Senate in two years, it is possible that we could see at least five PUP Senators and it's not impossible that Clive may lose his seat.

Five PUP Senators without their leader: What could that mean for a government and its ability to deliver change?

David Forman is managing director of government relations at issues management firm CPR Communications and Public Relations. View his full profile here.