It’s a bracing old book – one that concludes that the profession you watch for a living has become fundamentally disconnected from the needs of the citizenry, and the profession in which you are privileged to earn your living is comprehensively failing the voters in different yet related ways.

Canberra is now a toxic morass. Every now and then there’s a glimmer of light, but largely, it’s just busted. That’s Jonathan Green’s thesis in his terrifically readable book, The Year My Politics Broke. That conclusion is perhaps not brilliant for the ego of a long time Canberra political journalist, but a more than worthy contribution to the public discussion about the health of our politics and the efficacy of the political journalism that scurries after it, ever more frenetically, on ever more platforms.

Green - like a lot of intelligent people - fears the loss of the big, bold idea in politics. Where’s the solution to climate change, the great existential threat to humanity? Why can’t we build sustainable, liveable cities? Why is the health system a lottery? How about mental health, homelessness? These are the issues people actually care about, and it’s people who vote – so why the consistent public policy failure?

He also fears the structural adjustment in the media landscape, the drain of talent and experience from newsrooms, the roiling 24/7 cycle and the seemingly insatiable appetite for celebrity tattle. Australian political journalism reached a terrible nadir in the coverage of the "Kevin versus Julia" soap opera of the past four years, he contends. Coverage by commentators who were undeclared players and shallow updates by conflict addicts crowded out more meaningful issues. In other words, the gag-inducing "insiders" culture of Canberra is clubbing the citizens agenda.

These things need to be said. Politics has not covered itself in glory. We who cover it have not covered ourselves in glory either. I’m not afraid of the blunt force of Green's critique, and I think if the response to it is reflexively defensive, then we only serve to reinforce the general contention that we are trapped inside the hubris bubble – a bubble that will not only fundamentally fail the readers we serve, but serve as the enduring emblem of our unhinging.

That said, I’m significantly more optimistic than Green about politics - and about political journalism. Politics first. Labor over the past two terms in government did not actually lack a progressive policy agenda. What it lacked was a coherent strategy for governing. Kevin Rudd had a plethora of ideas – thought bubbles exploded out of the man like a cartoon character – he just lacked the steadiness to actually implement them. Julia Gillard diligently closed a number of Rudd’s policy ideas, wrote the list, did the deals in that difficult minority parliament, and got the transactions done. But too often she fumbled the politics, with dire consequences for both her and the government.

Enough has been written about Labor’s civil war. It was what it was: a function of poor decisions, and pathological personalities, a self indulgence that aged and killed a government in the most extraordinary fashion. Excising that terrible and unfulfilling mess, and trying to get above it to some more durable conclusions, as a government they were more Whitlam than Hawke/Keating. Big ideas, chaotic governance.

Possibly that’s a cyclical thing. Hawke/Keating wasn’t Whitlam because the negative lessons of the Whitlam period had been branded on their collective consciousness during opposition. Perhaps these things just require constant re-learning in politics. Perhaps all governments are fighting the shadow of the governments that precede them. If Labor fails to re-learn that lesson during this period in opposition, and fails to find a governing mojo, then I will join Green in his pessimism. I’m not quite ready to join him yet.

As for Abbott, he’s not the first opposition leader in history to plot and profit from a populist, almost exclusively cynical, tactical pathway into The Lodge. We can be sure he won’t be the last opposition leader to follow the "tear it down" playbook. The proof of his pudding is government: what he makes of it. Will he be values-Tony, or risk-averse Tony? Will he actually follow through with some of the nonsensical policy prescriptions of opposition, or will he evolve into the more nuanced demands of governing? Will he do anything that’s unpopular just because it’s right? Will he have the courage of his own ideas, or will it all be about crippling Labor’s progressive legacy and whipping up the white picket fence, (a bit battered and cobwebbed since the Howard years, but still in circulation)?

Abbott’s instinct is to stand still in the moment, but events don’t let you stand still. Let’s see what he makes of governing. Let’s also see him account for what he’s made of it, rather than erecting straw men and scapegoats. Let’s see if the account Abbott makes is worthy and makes sense, before concluding the only rational response is to avert our eyes.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tony Abbott claims victory in the 2013 Federal election. Photograph: Penny Bradfield

Now to us, the loathed scribes of the parliamentary press gallery. Yes, it’s bad. There are lots of reasons to despair. Like politicians, we are too inclined to let the urgent crowd dictate what's important. We preen too much and listen too little. We are in the middle of a revolution, a profound structural adjustment reinventing our industry and the practice of our journalism that will either kill us or save us, no-one knows which. Revolutions are rarely elegant, and linear and orderly – and ours is certainly no exception.

We are filing too much and not adding enough value. At our worst, we are captured, manipulated, shallow, partisan, skittish, clubbish, transactional. We’ve been mugged by the politicians we are supposed to be keeping in check, conforming to their stupid rules of engagement, regurgitating their silly talking points, passing off spoon feeding as “scoops”, frightened by the now incredibly rapid and irreversible diminution of our influence, chasing the old certainties that are long since gone. Our collective pomposity is the only remaining artifact of a time where we controlled the discourse, and had the grace to share our "wisdom" with the audience. In the epic battle in political journalism between independence and access, access too often wins.

But good things are happening too. Innovative things. Journalism, and political journalism, is fighting for its life. Despite all the obstacles to good work, young Canberra journalists are covering their beats, breaking stories. They're tenacious – just bloody going for it – when mentoring and leadership is intermittent because we are so stretched. The values of good journalism appear to be eternal and able to be intuited: the basic instinct to tell truths, to explain, and to find out new facts. I see it every day, in every publication. The buds of persistence, peaking through the sometimes cluttered agendas of editors and proprietors and sources.

Live coverage is gradually becoming more dense and steady as we learn the art of it. We are learning to tell stories in whatever medium suits the audience, not clinging to the stultifying demarcations of old. Many of us are looking for ways to connect with our audiences, and persisting even when the experience is bracing. Quality commentary is produced by political journalists with the corporate memory and the policy grunt to be able to call rubbish when required. It’s there, the good work, plugging on. Ripping up page six and page 10. It just might be overshadowed by the churnalism and the gotchas of any given political news cycle. Our failures are always so much more memorable and resonant than our triumphs.

I don’t think Green is wrong, in fact, fundamentally, I think he’s right. I just think we are not yet at the point of despair. Not yet. Not when there is an important job to do, and when we are so privileged to be able to do it, and to fight for it.

The worst we can offer our audience right now is institutionalised weariness, and defeat. The best we can offer our readers and viewers is the sincere desire to serve them and their interests; and to rise courageously to the challenges of our uncertain age.