When I was young and in a suburban primary school, we would all get terribly upset and scandalised if someone left their pencil case at home or didn’t do their homework.
Guess what? In Grade 2 that might be important but like most normal people I realised by the time I was about 10 that it didn’t matter all that much and in the scheme of things what mattered was the big picture.
Politics is a bit like that. Media and political junkies are addicted to drama. They are used to it. They expect it. Many political writers feel if they don’t give their readers and viewers drama and intrigue, they won't be interested. Well I think they are wrong and here is why.
There actually isn’t that much drama in Australian politics right now. Yes, a Minister may fall but that happens from time to time.
Currently the big picture in Australian politics is that Malcolm Turnbull is popular. The electorate likes him, business in general likes him and his opinion poll ratings are high.
Minister for Veterans Affairs Stuart Robert during Question Time at Parliament House in Canberra. Source: AAP
Labor, on the other hand, is in all sorts of trouble. Leader Bill Shorten has struggled to develop a convincing narrative.
He had all the credentials for a successful leadership period as a high profile union leader before entering politics, but he hasn’t been able to fulfil the promise. That is despite the fact that he has been touring the country for the last 14 months or so talking about innovation and the digital economy much in the way that Malcolm Turnbull has been lately.
Mr Shorten has made a feature of policies aimed at modernising the education system to deal with the new digital landscape. He hasn’t got a lot of voter credit for that.
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Labor MPs are fairly despondent about their electoral prospects because they feel voters have written them off already. As one said to me recently, ‘There isn’t much that can be done, it isn’t looking very good.’ Labor MPs and Bill Shorten are trying to make the best of it.
Popularity isn’t everything and Malcolm Turnbull has a lot of challenges to deal with. Number one right now it's Stuart Robert. It looks as though Mr Robert has broken the ministerial code of conduct through his travel to China with a donor friend while on private leave, especially as the visit was promoted from the Chinese side as an official visit. He looks like he is gone for all money. That would take to three the number of ministers Mr Turnbull has lost.
He has also has difficulty as he faces a ministerial reshuffle.
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull during Question Time at Parliament House in Canberra. Source: AAP
Then there is tax. It looks as though he got cold feet over a GST. This “popular” PM has to come up with some policies fast or his credibility will be questioned. But for now the big picture is still: Government stronger and popular, Labor weaker and less popular. The Greens are getting more attention than they have for a long time. Opinion polls have them are around 10 per cent of the primary vote, causing even more problems for Labor in inner-city seats.
Labor is doing its best to grab headlines where it can. Take the Medicare “Back office privatisation” story this week. Of course Labor was on the front foot on this issue. It plays to their strengths and mantra that “only Labor will protect Medicare”.
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The Government claims it wants to modernise payments and that does not amount to privatisation. So it is a good debate. Let’s have it. Let’s talk about this. How can we protect Medicare for all Australians and at the same time discuss effective ways to make the system work?
Instead the media go straight into drama mode. Suddenly this is a scandal; a secret plan with the government under pressure.
But guess what? It isn’t that dramatic. It isn’t a scandal, so we shouldn’t treat it like one. This is not reality TV.
It is time we in the media got over ourselves.
