And I wouldn’t mind if the media said “yes, but you said that kind of thing last year and it turned out you were deliberately trying to mislead us, so why should we believe a word you say now?”

Unfortunately, though we pride ourselves on our lack of pomposity, it is pomposity that saves the pollies. They get to tell porkies again and again, and ‘form’ prevents the journalist from saying things that cut through it.

I admire the way in which the BBC often tries to summarise the essence of some announcement or piece of news rather than just get the juiciest grab from one spokesperson or another.

The “media” in Australia has long fallen for the “bottom-line” of ratings, profit and the lowest common denominator. Apart from the occasional biting question on the ABC, when did an interviewer last stop a politician in full flow and insist, “But I didn’t ask you that. I asked you….” Too many times have government members been allowed to wander off into obscurity instead of answering a question. The “media” should pull them up and insist on a direct answer to a question. If a politician doesn’t want to answer fine. Tell them the interview’s over. Finish it. They would soon learn that termination of an interview in this way would be loudly and broadly publicised to their detriment. The Westminster system also implies respect for the people in this case as represented by the media questioner.

Of course there is the inevitable one-upmanship, but compared to the farce of Abuse Time in our Parliament Parliamentary questions in the UK retain some utility. They’re not (yet) a disembodied relic of a past civilisation.

Sometimes it is necessary to edit the transcripts. This is either because in accordance with long-standing practice under the Ministerial and Civil Service codes, government websites cannot carry party political content, or because the audio quality has made it impossible to transcribe.

How lovely. I’d love a similar policy on party political content to be in force in our fair land.