In Canberra, when able to escape Parliament House, the politician’s regular precinct is Manuka and Kingston.

Manuka is more; let’s go have a meal at the end of the sitting week or a place to take your staffers for that fireside chat. But Kingston is slightly more rowdy and, at times, aspirationally Bacchanalian. Especially with the pubs and clubs around Green Square.

It is funny how children grow into their names, and perhaps suburbs do to.

Kingston was named after our first Minister for Trade and Customs and former Premier of South Australia, Charles Kingston.

One would have to say he was a colourful politician. He once challenged a fellow politician to a duel. In another blue he was horsewhipped. Even today he remains controversial, they are digging up his bones because there is a wing of Adelaide that believe they are related to him, but not in the 19th century sense of the word legitimate.

How would the modern media treat a politician like Charles Kingston? They would crucify him, yet, despite all of Kingston’s character flaws, he drove the introduction of universal suffrage in South Australia, coming only second in a global context to New Zealand.

So back to the suburb of Kingston. On infrequent occasions in Canberra you get dragged around the corner for a quiet beer. You know full well that it is not going to be quiet nor will it be a beer. You know as soon as you get to Green Square that you might end up on YouTube. Every punter with a mobile phone has the capacity to undo your political career.

The responsible colleague’s job is to get you out of there ASAP before you find that excuse for the fourth beer. It is the clash between the Australian idiom and the person in public life’s reality.

The media expects that a person that is graced with a certain attribute of proficiency should be above question in all aspects of their life. We want Tiger Woods to be not only an exceptional golfer, but exceptional in every facet.

This week I was lucky enough to launch Laurie Oakes new book, On the Record. Laurie’s book paints the colourful tapestry of the last 40 years of Australian politics.

Things are now different than they were 40 years ago, because you are merely seconds away from being on the internet, or the 24/7 news, and this is now lending itself to the major players becoming totally media managed and scripted.

The media says the politicians lack colour, the politicians media advisers say colour will kill you.

What in one aspect of your life may be a flaw, might be in the political game be the same aspect that gives you the strength to stand up against the prevailing wind. That colour may give you strength to say damn the consequences, in this instance, I will do what I think is right for our nation. The media manager can just deal with the grey hairs at their leisure.

We need a fourth estate that can deal with the colour that was expressed by former Prime Minister George Reid.

George, a rotund gentleman, was heckled by an interjector at a public meeting once. The interjector cast the aspersion that George's girth suggested he was with child and was inquiring on what he might call it. George faced his accuser and said if it's a boy I will name it after myself, if it's a girl I think I will call it Victoria, but I think it is all piss and wind so I will name it after you.

We have to realise that our colour is our strength and it gives us the honesty and authenticity to express who we are. If we dwell on the minutiae of a defect, we sterilise the greater character, which is required to lead the country.

Bob Hawke was no saint but I don’t think he was a bad Prime Minister.

Tony Abbott at times calls it the way he personally sees it, but we want to hold him accountable for a specific view to overshadow every other thing he does.

We don’t want our politicians to lie, but we don’t want them to tell the truth either.

I’ve always protested that some of the art around Parliament House and its precincts bears no relation to the job that a politician does. I think a statue of Charles Kingston would be a very apt inclusion in Green Square, and would mean more to most than the eclectic trinkets that adorn the corners of Parliament House.