Forget the small print. Just look at the headlines

THE Gillard government's announcement of a royal commission into child abuse rates as political perfection. Immediately, the decision received bipartisan support federally, all states support the establishment of a royal commission and, most importantly, a Nielsen poll conducted a few days later revealed a record 95 per cent approval rating.

Even better, the government will never be held accountable for this decision. The Gillard government gets the benefit of a big sugar hit upfront while the policy pains of inevitable problems are deferred until ministers are writing their political memoirs.

Certainly, a royal commission into institutional responses to child abuse is long overdue. But given the human tragedies involved, establishing a commission demands the highest standard of care. It requires careful analysis, deliberation and a very thorough consideration of the commission's parameters and its purpose.

The Gillard government did none of this hard, prudent work. Instead, the PM's need to dominate the headlines as moral champion trumped the need to tread carefully with the expectations of traumatised victims.

Released on Monday, the government's consultation paper sets down a ludicrously short consultation period that ends next Monday. The government wants the terms of reference settled by the end of the year.

That's one week to make submissions about awfully complicated questions. What should the terms of reference be? To suggest policy reforms? Or to conduct investigations, as some people clearly prefer? Should the royal commission be a platform for victims to tell their story? How many will do so? If a sample, then how to choose who gets to air their shocking abuse? Which institutions will it cover? All religious ones? All secular ones? Or a sample? Should the commission suggest compensation for past victims? Should it recommend a change of longstanding laws to remove legal obstacles so victims can pursue legal claims? Will the commission recommend a reversal of the onus of proof in line with this worrying trend on other fields of the law? Have we considered the unintended consequences of these transformative changes to our legal system?

It is a sign of policy recklessness, and political cunning, that the Gillard government considered none of this before making its announcement. Yet, smart lawyers keen to feast on a compensation cash cow are already advertising for victims of sexual abuse. And victim advocacy groups have reported unprecedented numbers of new claims. Has the government opened a door it cannot close?

Even after settling the terms of reference, the potential for difficulties and dilemmas is rife. Will a royal commission name alleged perpetrators of abuse? Making unproven allegations may destroy careers, reputations and the lives of innocent people. What about the commissioners? Grandstanding commissioners keen on the media spotlight may give rise to another set of problems.

Some sections of the media have already put journalistic curiosity on hold, giving the PM's announcement automatic, uncritical support.

Instead of investigating the legal, jurisdictional and ethical miasma engulfing Gillard's hasty announcement of a royal commission, our national broadcaster's premier current affairs program spent Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of last week conducting a one-sided interrogation of the Catholic Church and the Archbishop of Sydney, George Pell. Was The 7.30 Report's Leigh Sales auditioning for a job of royal commissioner when day after day she used Gillard's announcement to attack the Catholic Church?

As the Sydney Institute's Gerard Henderson pointed out, it took four days for The 7.30 Report to return to a story that Labor could surely do without -- the Operation Jasper hearings at the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption into allegations of breathtaking corruption by former NSW Labor minister Eddie Obeid and others.

Gillard's announcement is a political masterstroke.

It has already managed to push Labor's policy headaches such as boatpeople and hunger strikes off the front page of newspapers. She must surely hope that future reports of pesky matters such as union corruption at the Health Services Union will likewise be buried.

The PM has grown adept at diversionary tactics. Her orchestrated "misogyny" attack against Opposition Leader Tony Abbott cleverly diverted attention from her own misjudgment in appointing Liberal (and liberal texter) Peter Slipper as Speaker. Now the Prime Minister and Attorney-General Nicola Roxon are moving with unseemly haste to set up a royal commission into child abuse.

As this newspaper's editorial stated on Monday, with a population a quarter the size of Australia's and only one dominant church, Ireland's inquiry into child abuse lasted almost a decade. Will Australia's royal commission that encompasses yet undefined religious and secular institutions take almost 40 years?

By any measure, Gillard and her ministers will be out of office before real problems with this royal commission emerge. As bad as that is, what matters more is what happens to the victims of abuse. Do they deserve to be let down again by yet another institutional failure?

As Deputy Leader under the former Rudd government and now as PM, Gillard has a tainted record of rushing out big policy announcements without careful analysis of what the problem is, how to fix it, how to fund it and how to implement a solution. Think the pink batts fiasco, the mismanaged Building the Education Revolution, the absence of a cost-benefit analysis for the national broadband network, the still-born East Timor Solution, the equally stalled Malaysian Solution, the hasty ban on beef exports and so on.

A prudent prime minister concerned with good policy would learn from previous mistakes and realise that rushing out to front the excitable media pack without doing the hard yakka, the brain work will only end up hurting the very people the government is trying to help.

A different sort of PM might opt for clever politics over careful policy. Gillard's rush to establish a royal commission into child abuse bears all the hallmarks of a big promise that delivers the government a political sugar hit while the policy pain arising from unfunded promises and ill-conceived policies is deferred until long after she has left the Lodge. Think the national disability insurance scheme, the federal dental scheme and the Gonski education reforms. The final question is whether the media will assist the PM or hold her to account while it can?