By ABC's Jonathan Green

Photo: Tony Abbott stands for the idea that in government, less is more. (AAP: Julian Smith, file photo)

These culture war fights and flourishes - rights for bigots, knighthoods, etc - allow the Coalition to show its personality without increasing the footprint of government, writes Jonathan Green.

Could it be that they're really not all that sure what exactly it is that they want to do?

Getting in to government ... that's comparatively simple, a task with a clear objective and an obvious game plan: to attack, undermine and oppose. Shred the credibility of the opponent.

The emphasis in this phase need never be on what it is that you might do differently in power. The emphasis is all but entirely on how poorly your opponent is performing. All that is required as a point of both difference and electability is a succinct series of memorable propositions that both lay down a minimal framework for future action and also illuminate the deficiencies and underachievements of the other side.

"Stop the boats." "End the waste." "Axe the tax." That kind of thing.

Where this comes crashing to earth is in office. The Australian people, having elected team Coalition on the assumption that they were a group of predominantly male adults with an instinct for parsimony and a good feel for the location of our maritime borders, were confronted by a ruling reality that might have been just a little underwhelming.

For those who had bothered to take an interest, there must have been a vague sense of deflation when they realised they had elected a government led by a man who could offer no greater ambition for his term at the apex of our gathered hopes and dreams other than to be remembered as "an Infrastructure Prime Minister".

Not quite a vaulting ambition, but at least the freeways will run on time.

Winning is where it gets hard. Government makes demands; a subtle but growing pressure to be seen to be delivering on a pre-conceived and well-considered program, or at least a demonstrated capacity to deal with issues as they arise. A set of transformative ideas to enhance our Commonwealth is presumably what any government worth its salt brings to the table ... otherwise, why bother?

The Whitlam government is often reviled, but in three years managed, among other things, to:

• End conscription
• Withdraw troops from Vietnam
• Begin to work toward equal pay for women
• Establish a single department of Defence
• Grant independence to Papua New Guinea
• Abolish tertiary education fees
• Raise the age pension to 25 per cent of average male weekly earnings
• Establish Medibank
• Introduce no-fault divorce
• Pass a series of laws banning racial and sexual discrimination
• Extend maternity leave and benefits to single mothers
• Establish the Legal Aid Office
• Establish the National Film and Television School
• Launch construction of the National Gallery of Australia
• Reopen diplomatic ties with China
• Establish the Trades Practices Commission
• Establish the National Parks and Wildlife Service
• Establish the Law Reform Commission
• Establish the Australian Film Commission, the Australia Council and the Australian Heritage Commission
• Create Telecom and Australia Post from the Postmaster-Generals Department.
• Devise the Order of Australia to replace the British Honours system
• Abolish appeals to the Privy Council in the UK
• Change the national anthem to Advance Australia Fair
• Institute Aboriginal land rights

And so on. If nothing else it went into power with a sense of agenda and spent its short term in office obsessed, perhaps fatally, by its execution.

The Abbott Government will never want to create a shopping list of change, innovation and social infrastructure to rival Whitlam's ... by instinct it is an unraveller of government influence and activity, not an instigator. This week's bonfire of red tape and regulation is ample proof of that deep ideological commitment to a diminished hand for government in the broadest possible range of Australian affairs. 

But there is an inherent paradox for a government whose main ideologically-driven purpose is to work assiduously for a diminished role for ... government. This eats away at the sort of activity that traditionally would give a new government presence and a sense of itself it could sell. Instead, we have a government busying itself with the business of becoming diminished.

All of which might explain the attraction of the culture war agenda ... that series of high-profile fights and reversals that together give some cumulative sense of the administration's political personality without increasing its footprint on society or the economy.

A government committed to little more than reducing the presence of government might reasonably reintroduce a quaintly colonial honours system without adding to the mound of red tape or state interference. It might create a convincing sense of a schools policy "reform" by stamping down on perceived political correctness rather than fiddling with anything that might reek of social engineering. Media policy ... that's best left to the market, though that said a strong public broadcaster presents a distortion that ought to be diminished rather than nurtured. Freedom of speech? Why not let bigotry ring.

For a government scratching to define its personality and purpose, these culture war fights and flourishes offer both low-hanging fruit that might be eaten without adding to the bulk of government, and the irresistible temptation to finally resolve the ideological resentments of adolescence.

Senior politicians now in government whose first sense of grave political injustice was stirred by Whitlam's appetite for intervention, can at long last set the record straight and begin the long unwinding of all that was left standing in the dust of crashing idols in 1975.

Because, if they stand for anything, Tony Abbott and team stand for the idea that in government, less is more.

That's their purpose, even if, in terms of self-definition and a retail narrative, it may also be their curse. Either way, the Australia Council should be nervous.

Jonathan Green hosts Sunday Extra on Radio National and is the former editor of The Drum. View his full profile here.

Culture wars distract from the Abbott non-agenda - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)