Governance and Honest Disagreement

Annabel Crabb has an excellent article at The Drum that suggests that an outcome of the new parliament is that disagreement will no longer be "news" but an everyday occurrence - but that is not a bad thing, for politics and for the reporting of politics.

A Gillard policy being "in peril", or an independent being "at odds" will not be unusual.

What will be newsworthy is when a Government minister finds an innovative way to secure support. Or when an Opposition successfully proposes an alternative approach. Or when an obvious policy compromise is actually agreed upon, rather than being ignored for the sake of political "strategy" or pride or high-handedness, which is altogether too regularly the case in Canberra.

In this environment, in this glut of disagreement, perhaps we in the media can wean ourselves off the quick headline, and MPs can free themselves of the fear of speaking plainly.