The new prime minister brings with him a reputation for levelling with voters. But how frank will he be now he has the top job?

Malcolm Turnbull’s declared intention to commence a sincere dialogue with Australians – to replace Tony Abbott’s slogans with intelligent, honest discourse about the challenges and opportunities the nation faces – will be welcomed by many people. Politicians and politics are held in such low regard partly because their methods of communication have become progressively more contrived.

This is part of the “professionalisation” of politics, the increasing reliance on market research driven scripts. Complain about the state of Australian politics to any member of the professional political class and they will patiently, pityingly explain that voters have short attention spans and if you want to get your message across you have to repeat it, again and again, in simple terms…

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