At the start of every new government, prime ministers imagine themselves the tamers of chaos. They attempt to reset the operational tempo of politics. This process is invariably interesting because everybody has their own objectives and methodology.
Readers with long memories will recall Tony Abbott coming to the job with a mantra of getting politics off the front page. This was always pretty ironic, given he’d unleashed pure bedlam to delegitimise Julia Gillard, the stoic, who had implored the media to not write crap. Abbott rode the pandemonium to the Lodge, but once unleashed, it proved impossible to subdue. Politics remained on the front page and his prime ministership was over in two years.
