Without even a John McTernan to guide them, the Liberal Party of Australia has generated a communications debacle which would have made the Scotsman proud. The media lock-down with which the government began its term looked like a strategy. But like McTernan’s capers, it turned out to be a one-trick wonder; a tactic in a void. Predictably, the little senators moved into the vacuum and soon began to lead the news cycle. Jolly old Palmer delighted many interviewers by ripping out his ear piece and granting them a headline without the tedium of an interview. Following the arrival of his delightfully quirky team, Senator Leyonhjelm rollicked into the headlines with a wicked turn of phrase.

Meanwhile the government was flying kites. They flew the Medicare copayment kite, but failed to use the public reaction to refine their messaging and build in exceptions. They flew the tough budget kite, found it resonated, but then produced a budget full of squidgy bits that undermined the message of fiscal prudence. Unfortunately, though kite-flying is a canny way to finesse messaging ahead of a political sales job, Tony’s kites turned out to be entirely recreational.

The opposition naturally argues that the government’s problem is the product, not the pitch. It’s true. The government product is an incoherent mess of inexplicable, almost contradictory, policies without an organising principle.

The organising principle behind a visionary but untimely PPL scheme, Knight- and Damehoods from another era, and a burnt porridge of economically dry and wet budget measures is, of course, Tony Abbott. But for fear of offending the Australian people, he has been withdrawn from the field. Until we get our Prime Minister back, the porridge will not come good; Australians will never be able to make sense of this government.

It’s time for a Real Tony moment.

Political campaign directors seem to be terrified that the public might find out what terrible people party leaders are. Latham, Rudd, Gillard and Abbott have all suffered from a level of control which stripped them of personality while they led their parties. Of these only one was actually a sociopath. But following the process, they all presented that way. It took the knock-about out of Latham, the warmth from Gillard and, while it may have cured Abbott’s foot-in-mouth disease, it has come at the cost of his ability to connect with human beings.

It is a no-win strategy for him. On the few times when he has ventured off-script, the starving media have descended on the most innocuous comments like a pack of wolves. Presumed upon by Paul Kelly at the Economic and Social Outlook dinner in June, he did agree to answer three questions. His response to a Property Council of Australia question regarding Chinese foreign direct investment (he said that Australia as we know it wouldn’t have been possible without FDI) was twisted by the Guardian into a ‘terra nullius’ statement. No doubt Abbott’s communications team read this as a vindication of their plan to keep Abbott gagged. This is wrong; the impact of his words, and the outcry of the left-wing media, were merely amplified by the surrounding silence.

This doesn’t mean the government should resume an endless round of Ruddy announceables. The principle they articulated early on, of only speaking when there is something to say, is an excellent one. Right now, there is a lot to say. Abbott needs to start talking from the heart, in spite of the critics. He can start with an explanation of what he feels is the right vision for Australia. He can be honest that he keenly feels his own fallibility and doesn’t believe there are always absolute right and wrong answers. That at least would go some way to explaining the kites and unfinished policy laundry we’re being offered a glimpse of. He needs to muse and argue and defend, ideally not just in the controlled form of an opinion piece or a friendly feature, but in broadcast format, where sincerity shines through.

Australians might not always like what they hear. Of course there will be anger and mockery and scandalized editorialising when Abbott reveals his particular liberal-conservative mix. But it is the key to the sludge of wet and dry policies we are currently being offered and will reveal the future they represent. Abbott does not need to be liked. But he does need to connect, to earn people’s respect and eventually their trust. Perhaps, if he can succeed in this, he will one day attract the wide-spread affection which John Howard commands.

Of course, tightly controlled communication is not the only reason the most strategic and disciplined of oppositions morphed into a dithering mob.

Another is the accident of the Liberal Democratic Party’s election to the Senate, which has awoken the libertarian instincts of some of the Liberal Party’s ministers. The LDP’s recent success has made these aspirants yearn disruptively for a purer, more liberal, less coalesced party. Secretly, no doubt, they are briefing each other that, come the revolution, they will take over the Party. That the Party will be worth two eighths of Rand Paul without the conservative wing and the Nationals does not seem to have occurred to these starry-eyed romantics.

Then there is the fact that Abbott’s great strength is not in fact as a pugilist, though he’s made a good show of it throughout his career, but as a compassionate conservative, a philosophy which sits uncomfortably with the hardline brand of objectivist libertarianism peddled by a vocal majority of Australian LDPers.

The clash of philosophies results in stupid contradictions; some measures looked too harsh, others too soft. Abbott reportedly planted his own mines by tying the GP copayment to a medical research fund rather than channeling it back into budget. Even his hypothecation lacks narrative; money matters must make sense.

The government claimed on winning the election that the Australian people had put the grown-ups back in charge. It’s time to prove that statement true by approaching Australians on an adult-to-adult basis. Very likely many people won’t like what Abbott believes in. But they sensed that already and voted accordingly. Others will, or will argue with him to modify his stance. He may find that other grown-ups don’t believe in ideological purity either. Don’t announce yourself, Tony, just start telling us what you think.