Tony Abbott's refusal to acknowledge his own pre-election promise to insulate the ABC from funding cuts got the ball rolling. A partial retreat came eventually where the original promise was conceded but the obvious breach was re-badged as an efficiency dividend (whatever nonsense that is). Under pressure: The Prime Minister Tony Abbott seems to have contradicted the Treasurer, Joe Hockey. Credit:Andrew Meares Meanwhile, the Defence Minister David Johnston had stopped deliberately short of saying "sorry", after attacking ASC's integrity and ship-building prowess – and yet the Prime Minister defended his minister's statement of "regret" as if the two words are synonymous. Then came the "barnacle" debacle which has left the entire political community scratching their heads. Tony Abbott owns this problem himself, telling coalition MPs mystified by their government's miserable ratings that he would scrape one or two barnacles away before the summer break. He refused to say what policies would be dumped.

Outwardly it seemed pretty obvious but Abbott's office affected a Delphic stance dancing around every suggestion before finally backgrounding correspondents on Wednesday that in the first instance, just one thing would go by the wayside: the GP-charge on bulk-billed patients. The unpopular measure cannot proceed in the current parliament, press gallery journalists from different organisations were told. Yet just 12 hours later, even that level of clarity was being deliberately re-clouded in a renewed assault on straight talking. Treasurer Joe Hockey told reporters the policy remained as central as it had been since the budget declaring "our policy stands". Reporter: "Why was the Prime Minister's office briefing that it was gone yesterday?"

Hockey: "I haven't heard that." Reporter: "Will you take it, next week, to the Parliament?" Hockey: "We will take it when we are able to take it. There's a lot of work before the Parliament at the moment." If the government's precise position on the GP-tax is now clear to you, you're doing better than most of its own MPs. Remember, just hours before, this was designated a "barnacle" by no less than the prime minister's own office.

All of which raises the question: if the GP tax is not the barnacle the PM had in mind, what is? Here's the Treasurer again. Reporter: "What are the barnacles then, if it's not the GP co-payment, what are the barnacles?" Hockey: "Barnacle Bill, Barnacle Bowen, if they give me a chance I'll talk about the barnacles in Parliament." Reporter: "So, there are no policy barnacles?"

Loading Hockey: "There are 28 billion barnacles on the Budget and they are the $28 billion of initiatives that Labor is blocking in the Senate". And this government wonders why people have stopped listening.