Gillard was wrong, but we don't care

The opposition has failed to demonstrate that the prime minister's behaviour has any bearing on the current policy or performance of her government and voters want to know why they wasted a week for no return.

At another level while the public is prepared to accept that Julia Gillard did the wrong thing as a solicitor, the opposition is trying to make out a case beyond that, as evidenced by Brandis's allegation of criminality. The disjunction between the two is another problem for them.

I have only ever once seen a government brought down for criminality, and that was the government of Joh Bjelke-Petersen.

I'm sure it's not the only government in Australia's history where there was bribery and corruption, and despite strong allegations that it was corrupt it not only survived elections, but thrived.

What brought Bjelke-Petersen down ultimately was not allegations pursued with forensic vigour in parliament by the opposition, but the Fitzgerald Commission of Inquiry that the government itself set up and which, over the course of two years, spelled out in detail wrongdoing leading to the jailing of three former ministers and a police commissioner.

Even then it took some time before the dam broke and voters moved from the National Party right across to Labor.

I have seen lesser allegations do damage, but it has generally not been the charge itself that does the damage, but the context in which it is wielded.

In 2006 Victorian Liberal leader Ted Baillieu was targeted as "Ted the Toff from Toorak" and allegations made about conflicts of interest.

The ALP campaign succeeded not because the allegations were true, or because voters thought they mattered in themselves, but because they reinforced perceptions that already existed that Baillieu wasn't really interested in the average voter.

A similar campaign in 2012 in Queensland against Campbell Newman didn't work, and he won in an unprecedented landslide, because he stuck to the things that mattered to voters.

Indeed, making allegations and failing to substantiate them can blow-back on the accuser, as Liberal Peter Debnam found in the 2006 NSW election.

Polling by Newspoll and others suggests that there may be an element of blow-back in the AQU affair. The pressure on Gillard has at last forced the "real Julia" to come out, and her approval rating rose at the same time that Abbott's fell.