By ABC's Barrie Cassidy Friday 13 March 2015
Photo: Tony Abbott's gaffes are now distracting from the important discussions that need to take place. (AAP: Lukas Coch)
Between Tony Abbott's ill-chosen words and Joe Hockey's thought bubbles, the Government is throwing away opportunities for the sensible public discussions it needs to be having, writes Barrie Cassidy.
Tony Abbott doesn't have a way with words. Words have their way with him.
In his own self-deprecating way, he has often conceded the point, most spectacularly when he told 7.30 to trust only "the considered, prepared, scripted remark".
In 2010, at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, UK, the then opposition leader told reporters he had passed up prime minister Julia Gillard's offer to join her on a trip to Afghanistan to meet the troops.
Why? Because he said he didn't want to be jetlagged when he met with the UK prime minister, David Cameron.
The comment caused many heads to shake back home, and seemingly Abbott knew that would happen the moment he said it.
Covering the story, our then Europe correspondent, Rachael Brown, asked him for a walking shot for the cameras. He obliged. Then when she thanked him, he said, "no worries, walking's easy. It's when I open my mouth that the problems start."
Now that's refreshing self-awareness!
However, his choice of words this week suggesting that those Aboriginal people who live in remote communities had made "lifestyle choices" is the latest example of allowing ill-chosen words to stymie a profoundly important discussion.
The issue of whether people who are so distant from jobs and services, and yet who are grounded by historical and cultural links to the land, can ever be afforded a reasonable quality of life is a debate well worth having. The debate will probably happen anyway, but the contribution from the person who should lead it - the Prime Minister of the country - was negated from the outset.
Instead of framing the discussion in a sensible way, he blew it off course by exposing an apparent ignorance of why Aboriginal people live where they do.
The gaffe caused his own chief adviser on Aboriginal issues, Warren Mundine, to lament on the ABC's AM program that "in regard to his language ... yes he does need to lift his game. He's got to be very careful ... how he says things and not have these brain explosions."
"He's got to actually use the right words when he's talking to people."
Now that's why you have advisers.
If only it was a one off, but it wasn't.
Just days ago he declared the country was sick of being lectured to by the United Nations. Imagine that; a nation resistant to international law. That would put us in good company.
The use of the word "shirtfront" to illustrate his determination to take on Vladimir Putin over Ukraine was another classic case in point. He didn't properly understand what the word meant, and so he grossly exaggerated his intentions in global diplomacy.
Sometimes his simplistic use of language works. Sometimes.
His description of the conflict in Syria for example - "baddies versus baddies" - was derided by some and yet it neatly summarised the difficulties facing western nations as they grapple with that quagmire.
But too often it backfires and sound sensible public discussion is lost.
The same can happen when ill judged thought bubbles take off into the atmosphere, like the Treasurer's option to allow young people to access superannuation to finance a first home.
That is not going to happen. Few people rate it as an idea. It is a superfluous and ultimately useless discussion to have because it will go nowhere. But worse, it took off as the key topic inspired by the Intergenerational Report, a document that - in the words of Malcolm Turnbull - was an opportunity to "set a solid platform from which to reboot the budget debate and educate the public about the need for action".
He has a point. The next budget is just eight weeks away. The detail is yet to be decided, but surely the Government has in place a general framework, a strategy. By now they should know where it's headed. Now is the time to start preparing the electorate for what is around the corner.
As Turnbull said in his Brisbane speech this week: "We need an evidence based, spin free, fair dinkum debate about the budget."
He made the now widely accepted point that the Government last year failed to persuade the public of why tough measures were needed in the first place; they did not do a good enough job of explaining the extent of the problem; and that as a result there was a deeply felt sense in the community that the budget was unfair to those on lower incomes.
Important lessons - you would have thought - learned along the way. And yet another week has gone by with the pre-2015 budget narrative still a mystery.
Barrie Cassidy is the presenter of the ABC program Insiders. He writes a weekly column for The Drum.
My word, Abbott needs to get his rhetoric right - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
