Apparently Tony Abbott's problem is that he's too negative. Given the Coalition's commanding lead in the polls, it's not a bad problem to have.
It's certainly true most of what Abbott says is negative, but then again he has a lot to be negative about. It would be good if all of those complaining about his negativity could identify which bits of the flood tax, the mining tax and the carbon tax Abbott should be positive about.
The real reason the Prime Minister and the Canberra press gallery are frustrated by Abbott is not necessarily because he's negative; it is because he refuses to support the sort of policies they personally believe in.
The barracking for a carbon tax, particularly from the economics correspondents for the nation's broadsheet newspapers, is obvious and almost embarrassing. Those correspondents find it inconceivable that anyone could doubt the science of climate change or the wisdom of imposing a price on emissions of carbon dioxide in the absence of other countries doing the same. Rather than engaging in a debate about the merits of the policy, they label anyone who disagrees with them negative.
In the coffee shop in Canberra's Parliament House there's no shortage of political journalists you could have a conversation with about the progenitors of postmodernism such as Derrida, Foucault or Habermas. That's who English and history students study at university.
But it would be practically impossible to find anyone in the press gallery who has heard of, let alone read anything of, the most important conservative philosopher of the 20th century, Michael Oakeshott.
To paraphrase Oakeshott, the first responsibility of an MP is not to stuff things up. For Oakeshott, if you are going to undertake ''reform'', it's essential to do so carefully and with an understanding of the law of unintended consequences.
A central thesis of Oakeshott's is that society is far more complicated than politicians understand; indeed the interactions and complexity of society are beyond the comprehension of politicians.
In their attempt to do good, it is just as likely that policymakers will do harm.
In Australia, the tragedy of the home insulation program demonstrates this. Oakeshott, like Edmund Burke, did not argue there never should be change. He argued that politicians should know what they're doing when they change things, and most of the time they don't.
Abbott's self-avowed conservatism (he lists Oakeshott as one of his major intellectual influences) is a reason for commentators' lack of understanding of him. Abbott is a conservative first and a liberal second. Malcolm Turnbull is a liberal first, and what conservative tendencies he has follow behind.
Commentators (and for that matter many Labor Party supporters) have no trouble coming to terms with Turnbull's position on the republic or on Bill Henson's photographs, for instance.
The media refuses to acknowledge that saying ''no'' to something can be just as principled and policy-driven as saying yes. Saying no to rushed and reckless decisions is the essence of conservatism.
Because so few journalists have an interest or affinity with conservatism, they can't understand why any politician would ever want to say no to anything.
The article about Australia in this week's Economist magazine illustrates this point perfectly. According to the writer, the Liberal Party ''seems to have no philosophical principles at all'' and Abbott is ''above all populist, saying no to almost everything proposed by his opponents and vowing to repeal almost everything they want to do''.
What the writer fails to understand is that the reason Abbott is saying no to his opponent's proposals is because he is the leader of the Liberal Party, not the Labor Party. If an ALP government regulates industrial relations, the task for Abbott is to reverse this. If the ALP makes government bigger, Abbott in power should attempt to make it smaller.
It's easy for Abbott to say no to more government spending in opposition. The, trick will be whether he can say no to the spending demands of his colleagues when they're ministers.
It's almost as if journalists will only take you seriously as a politician if you promise to change the world by lunchtime tomorrow. And if you're promising to change the world to confront ''the greatest moral Challenge of our time'', so much the better.
Moderation, care and competence is the opposite of what political commentators demand from our elected representatives. Yet, as judged by the polls, these are the very qualities that voters want.
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