When shit happens to Tony Abbott, as it has a lot lately, his first instinct is to run to the loving embrace of Alan Jones, the venerable broadcaster. So it was on Wednesday morning, after that now famous encounter on Seven News the night before. As ever, it was the Great Man - Jones, that is - who did most of the talking. ''If I could perhaps amplify and you might then just comment ...'' he began helpfully.

Abbott was only too pleased to accept this offer. When he could get a word in edgeways, it was in eager agreement with the Jones view that Channel Seven had behaved disgracefully, that terrible things happened in war, and that he - ''this bloke Tony'' - had been grievously misunderstood, blah blah. ''Yes Alan as you say, Alan ... that's correct ... that's right ... that's exactly right Alan ...'' It was like having warm you-know-what poured in your ear.

I have explained before that one of Abbott's problems is arrested development. There is a lot about him that is still only 16 years old. Give him some guns to fire in Afghanistan: phwoar, zap, blam, look at that! Show him a US Army colonel in combat fatigues and he's just gotta talk the talk, all Apocalypse Now and the smell of napalm in the morning. In fact, the ''shit happens'' remark turned out to be unremarkable, although Seven's Mark Riley was perfectly entitled to ask for an explanation. As the great US broadcaster Ed Murrow reputedly once said: ''There is no such thing as the injudicious question, only the injudicious answer''.

In this case there was no answer but worse, a catatonic silence. Abbott's cheerleaders later tried to paint this as dignified disdain, but you could tell he was just plain dumbstruck. He had nothing to say. He froze. It's so much easier when the ever-reliable Jones is there to put the words into your mouth.

Media moments like this can kill a political career. Another Liberal leader, John Hewson, never recovered from his television encounter with Mike Willesee in 1993 when he couldn't explain how his consumption tax would apply to a birthday cake. Kim Beazley, already holed and taking water, was finally sunk when he confused the TV host Rove McManus with Karl Rove, George Bush's Svengali. Abbott's silence will eventually cost him dearly.

Another load of whatsit hitting the Coalition fan is the row over Abbott's apparently unilateral demand for the government to cut foreign aid to Indonesian schools and give the $448 million saved to flood recovery. His deputy leader and foreign affairs spokeswoman, Julie Bishop, was reportedly incandescent when she found out about it, and well she might be. As domestic policy, it is redneck populism: what's all our money going to them Muzzy terrorists for? And as diplomacy it stinks, most especially when we learn that the Indonesian Foreign Minister, Marty Natalegawa, will be in Brisbane today to donate a neighbourly $US1 million to the Queensland Premier's flood relief appeal.

Unlike most people hollering from the cheap seats, I have visited one of these Indonesian schools paid for by Australia. It was the Ulee Lheue Islamic School in Banda Aceh, the capital of the north-western Aceh province ravaged by the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004. Of 312 students there when the sea swept in, all but 15 died.

The school was destroyed. All credit to the Howard government, which rebuilt it as part of Australia's $US1 billion package of aid to Aceh. The place was modern, clean and airy, in contrast to the devastation all around. Children's drawings pinned to the classroom walls showed scenes of unspeakable horror, stick figures of parents drowning and homes swept away, but the kids were bright-eyed and bubbly in that engaging Indonesian way. Their teachers were profoundly grateful for the help Australia had given. And questioning the children, eight- and 10-year-olds, I found they were too. ''Kangaroo!'' they cried. ''Koala, Bondi Beach!'' It was very moving. I was immensely proud of what my country had done.

This program is an attempt to counter the jihad extremism in schools run by the likes of Abu Bakar Bashir, the loathsome Jemaah Islamiyah fanatic. The plan is to build 2000 schools for about 300,000 pupils. Never did I think I would quote Lord Downer but he was entirely right to say at the time that this was a ''low profile but incredibly important way we contribute to the counter-terrorism effort''.

For Abbott to propose abandoning it now is myopic foreign policy vandalism.

The road safety industry is after us all again, this time with the idea of banning hands-free mobile phones in vehicles. There have been discussions, proposals, a national draft report. Bureaucrats have met, parliamentary secretaries have commented approvingly, the police are said to be in favour, ministers are considering, and the public is being softened up. The nanny state is once again in full cry.

A few people get very cranky when I write about the road safety industry but that's exactly what we have. It makes work for itself with conferences, seminars and workshops, learned papers, academic theories and blizzards of statistics, constantly devising new ways to coerce and punish the rest of us poor mugs behind the wheel. It is run by the sorts of busybodies who talk about ''behaviours'', plural. These were the geniuses who came up with the idea of every NSW learner doing 120 supervised hours' driving before getting P-plates, a regulation that hit poor or one-car families heavily. It was impossible to enforce and, as everyone knows, widely flouted. As will be the mobile phone ban, if it ever gets up.

No politician ever dares pull the industry into line because road safety has become a sacred cow and transport ministers like to be seen worshipping it. In fact, our road tolls are lower than ever. Safer cars and random breath testing have done it. Last year 421 people died on NSW roads, the second lowest figure since 1945, despite there being 13 times more vehicles now. Twice as many men die of prostate cancer each year, but there is not a national panic about that.

Mike Carlton