Voters might experience it like a recurring wave of nausea. A faltering government is lashing out, blaming others as the accounts of its own dysfunction pile up.

This seems too familiar. And too rich an irony. Limping towards its desultory end, the divided Labor government of Julia Gillard did the same, launching an ill-judged assault on the press, proposing a new public interest media advocate, and a new test of fairness in reporting — both aimed at taming media correctly reporting on internal dissent.

Gillard's minority government was in freefall and its response was to shoot the messenger — through its own foot if necessary.

Scroll forward a couple of years and the dynamics are uncannily similar. Bereft of goodwill, a directionless Abbott government has fallen prey to the siege it has invited. Ministers grumble of a raw deal from Fairfax Media (this publisher) and the ABC. Actually, that understates it dramatically. No less than a "jihad" is being waged according to Border Protection Minister Peter Dutton. Abbott refused to be drawn, calling it Canberra insider stuff, but it was his own senior ministers talking.

Touching all this off, Dutton effectively blamed Fairfax for reporting a story that any but the most sycophantic reporter would have run. It cited two cabinet ministers (one in corroboration of the other) who had revealed internal dissatisfaction with Treasurer Joe Hockey's performance, discussion of his possible replacement, and an early election option in March, subject to the results of the forthcoming Canning byelection. The story was uncomfortable but factually correct in every detail.

Seven's Mark Riley had reported similar talk last Friday and News Corp's Samantha Maiden had weighed in far more caustically in the News Corp Sundays. She had described certain ministers in very unflattering terms and reported on widespread discussion about installing Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison in the roles of Abbott and Hockey respectively.

However, Maiden's scornful critique was mild compared to recent scarifying editorials and opinion pieces in that stable's flagship, The Australian. The broadsheet has frequently lamented the government's woeful performance, lashing Hockey and bemoaning a mystifying absence of political wit within the Abbott brains-trust.

The common denominator between observers, friend or foe, is a poorly performing government. Like it or not, many within the show admit this privately.

And how's this for a final irony? Dutton wants reporters to leave such matters alone and focus more attention on policy. Presumably that excludes health (where he went missing as a minister), his super-secretive Operation Sovereign Borders, and last Friday's spectacularly botched Operation Fortitude in Melbourne.

Follow us on Twitter