Coalition of the Craven

THERE are times, quite a few of them over the past two years, when the business of politics can only leave the observer mystified. Not the horse-trading  and compromises, which are no less than the brush and palette of what is accurately described as the art of the possible, but the folly of valuing  tactics above strategy. As a case study, let us take the problem of the ABC and the Coalition’s limp confusion in how to cure it.

Begin the examination late on the evening of September 7, 2013, when the ballots had been tallied and those who voted to banish the clowns of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd circus were buoyant with good cheer, the broadest smiles perhaps worn by those savouring with grim delight the prospect of seeing the national broadcaster thoroughly flushed and sanitised. Surely, with a comfortable parliamentary majority in hand, Prime Minister Abbott understood that he was in the happy position to do well by doing good — enjoy the satisfaction of settling a few scores…