Michelle Grattan, Sydney Morning Herald, and Phillip Coorey, Adelaide Advertiser, with Cathy Van Extel, Radio National, 'Breakfast'

Fearful of multi-million dollar negligence claims, many of the country's doctors were showing no confidence in the Government's word that those affected by United Medical Protection's financial troubles would be protected. Despite verbal guarantees from the Prime Minister, the Treasurer, and the Assistant Treasurer, doubting doctors could only be convinced with a written guarantee.

So was this a clear example of how little we trust politicians, or a clash of medical and government politicos?

Michelle Grattan, Chief Political Correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald is with us as usual now from Canberra. So too Phillip Coorey, Chief Correspondent for Adelaide's Advertiser. And of course they're with Cathy Van Extel.

VAN EXTEL: Thanks Vivien. Good morning Phil.

COOREY: Morning Cathy.

VAN EXTEL: And good morning to you Michelle.

GRATTAN: Hi Cathy.

VAN EXTEL: Let's start with medical indemnity. The Government was forced to go to extraordinary lengths this week to convince doctors that they were in fact protected. Is this a sign of how little we trust our politicians, or is it a case of doctors knowing how to play politics as hard as our politicians?

GRATTAN: I think I'd probably say it's very much the latter, but the Government went into this extraordinarily ill prepared. It was predictable that the doctors would make a tremendous fuss once this happened with the company, and the Government should have had, the Prime Minister should have had a statement ready to put out immediately, giving the full guarantee and promising to back that with whatever legislation was necessary.

Instead of that the Government came out with statements. The Minister in charge of the matter - Helen Coonan - was somewhat all over the place. The Prime Minister had to promise legislation on the run. It was a mess.

VAN EXTEL: Well the problem for the Government was that after the Board meeting of United Medical Protection on Monday - where it was decided to look at provisional liquidation - Helen Coonan immediately did say to doctors that in fact they would be covered by the Government guarantee. The problem for the Coalition here was that the doctors refused to believe her.

COOREY: Yeah well there may be two issues there. Maybe because the press reported it, they probably trust us less than they do politicians. But you can't really blame the doctors. I mean you're talking about the potential to be sued and losing your entire assets etcetera.

So it's only fair to expect something in writing. I mean if the PM's going to go on the Today Show or whatever and give the guarantee there - although most doctors are at work anyhow and probably wouldn't have seen it - and how will that hold up in a court of law? I mean it's one thing just giving a guarantee, but you know, a verbal promise from a politician, you know, some months down the track in a court of law. I mean it's only understandable that they demanded something in writing.

VAN EXTEL: Apart from the fact that it took several days then for doctors to finally be reassured that they were in fact protected, looking at the handling of it, essentially it was in the hands of two rookie Ministers. Was that a mistake?

GRATTAN: I think it was a bad mistake, and it was very odd that this happened because all this has been coming for a long, long time. It's not as though it just suddenly blew up. There was a big Cabinet discussion on it the week before. So everyone knew that it was about to happen, that it would be very difficult, that it was a matter affecting essential services, and yet both the Prime Minister and the Treasurer - who is the senior minister to Senator Coonan - seemed to just make cameo appearances.

VAN EXTEL: And we certainly saw basically the bag left with the Assistant Treasurer. The Health Minister seemed to nowhere around for several days.

COOREY: No she was up north on a tour. Wasn't she at Alice Springs and Thursday Island?

VAN EXTEL: Those remote areas.

COOREY: Yes, yes.

GRATTAN: And the thing is that the area is in fact not really within Senator Coonan's portfolio directly. She handles insurance, and she was asked by the Prime Minister to extend that into the medical indemnity area, and then found herself with the baby, which was screaming.

VAN EXTEL: And we also had the situation, while in the heat of this crisis, the Government also moving into the blame game as well. I mean the Treasurer was blaming the doctors, and the courts are being blamed. It sort of added to the confusion.

GRATTAN: Well that's right, and I think the Government just had great difficulty getting its lines straight, even on something like whether it thought that this company eventually would be better to fall over entirely and everybody move out into other funds, or whether as the AMA wants, the company could be propped up.

Now I think that when there was the meeting between Senator Coonan and the AMA President Kerryn Phelps, Senator Coonan was cornered in a way into a joint statement which said the company might not inevitably go down the drain.

VAN EXTEL: Which is not what the Government believes.

GRATTAN: That's not what the Government believes. It led to stories of back-flips. It was another disaster.

Ends