It is one of the interesting social contradictions of Australia that a nation with such a laconic and carefree cultural brand is one that also demands a rarified precision in political image management. Perhaps it's because our custom of compulsory voting means that our politicians must not merely "get out" their own vote, but also be careful to snatch a larger percentage of other people's.

Presenting as an "everyman" is not entirely necessary for success in Australian politics, but where political reputation thrives and prospers is certainly in a consistent portrayal of virtuous character assuaging any kind of suspicions the electorate might have.

Within my own lifetime, Gough Whitlam's epoch-making, culture-shaking prime ministership may have struck forth for social equality – legislating women's rights, mocking the hoary knights and dames buffoonery and boldly fighting racial discrimination – but Gough was always careful to present himself in the tradition of a well-dressed, well-spoken and well-mannered statesman, rather than a filthy red.

Malcolm Fraser may have shafted Gough in the most brutal political act of then Australian history, but his "cultivated Australian" vowels portrayed him to the electorate as more of a tactical assassin than a constitutional berseker running amok with some steak knives. Fraser's refined manners no doubt calmed the conservative voters to his right as he maintained Gough's free education and equal rights provisions while going one further and letting all those boat people in.

Bob Hawke was a master of image management; that he was from an privileged Perth family and a Rhodes scholar was obscured by a croaky bogan nasality and much public laddish behaviour on the sauce: it won him the admiration of the Australian working class when he ran the ACTU and self-made, new-money mates up the "big end of town", like Alan Bond, who'd come from far poorer backgrounds than his.

The original working-class hero, Paul Keating, radically reconfigured the Australian economy in the boy-made-good stylings of shiny Italian suits and box seats at the opera - better than "bein' up the back, chewin' a Mars bar" as he famously opined.

Even John Howard knew that despite having the politics and world view of a conservative surburban bank manager, he couldn't win an election by looking like one. So he literally rolled up his sleeves, and who doesn't remember photographs of Howard without jackets, smiling inanely as if he was actually doing something apart from spending money?

It's precisely because successful Australian leaders have paid attention to a need for astute voter-friendly camouflage that Joe Hockey and Matthias Corman sucking down fat Cubans whilst preparing to cut pensions in the budget is such a spectacular own goal. To attack the poorest in society while subtly reconfiguring the economy to further privilege wealthy capitalists is one thing; to make yourself look like a fat cat George Grosz caricature whilst you're doing it really shouldn't look so deliberate.