Mark Kenny Chief political correspondent
October 3, 2013 - 7:30AM
In one of the lighter moments towards the end of the recent presidential-style election campaign, Labor's campaign headquarters issued a press statement configured as a faux police bulletin.
It said grave fears were held for the whereabouts of once high profile Liberals, Peter Dutton, Sophie Mirabella, and Eric Abetz.
The respective health, industry, and workplace relations shadow ministers had become almost invisible. Labor was desperate to draw them on to policy terrain usually judged as stronger for the ALP.
Advertisement
Unsurprisingly, the Coalition was just as desperate to keep them quiet.
Labor's press release probably achieved little more than some hearty laughter in a few newsrooms around the country.
It was funny because it turned on a central truth.
Even before the election, senior Coalition personnel were being told to obey a disciplined public relations strategy narrowly focused on the leader and a select few others including Joe Hockey, Julie Bishop, and Mathias Cormann.
What has surprised many observers since however, is the maintenance of that same ultra-conservative small target approach now that the Coalition is safely in office.
With the exception of a couple of outbreaks of unplanned interest, think Christopher Pyne's quickly slapped down thought bubbles on scrapping compulsory student fees and re-capping university funding, or Scott Morrison's rolling crisis area of border protection, the senior cabinet figures in this new Coalition government have been pretty backward in coming forward.
Abbott deliberately got things off to a slow start hoping to soften the pace and take politics off the front pages.
Pyne's policy musing brought a swift rebuke from the Prime Minister's Office.
All appearances and public statements must first be cleared through the PMO. There were to be no more surprises.
Abbott's aides bristle at the reporting of this insisting it is merely a continuation of past practice.
But that was opposition, which lends itself to such manipulations.
Bob Hawke's prime ministership, cited even by conservatives as a model cabinet operation, took the view that the government was strongest when ministers were given genuine space and authority to run their portfolios.
Labor's prediction was that Abbott would end up running a ''do-nothing'' government.
The danger is that in muzzling his ministers, that prediction will come true – almost of necessity.
Worse, ministers will be ill-prepared for the crises that track down all governments eventually, no matter how small they make themselves.
