It was generally received here as something of a compliment, even if it was also recognised that the prime minister was perfectly serious. The ABC was consistently the biggest platform for criticism of the government he led, and of himself personally. What was most especially irritating about it was not the mere fact that it published criticism, but that the greater majority of ABC reporters and commentators seemed to share a common left-liberal mindset, if anything from somewhat to the left of the ALP.

This mindset was not, in his view, only a pointer to what public views would be thought noteworthy, what thought highly newsworthy, and what seemed so bleeding obvious that even commentators would adopt what was being said, but it also tended to set a good deal of the news agenda, focusing much more attention than the Howard government would have liked on issues such as refugee rights, Aboriginal welfare and then, the question of an apology, and environmental issues.

Howard thought that often the bias of people from this mindset, as common in Canberra as generally in the ABC, was so obvious that it often hurt the cause the journalists thought they were promoting. This happened, he thought, with the republican plebiscite, where the media was also entirely republican. The public had a great capacity to filter out the bias shown by journalists, he thought.

But Howard took ABC reportage and commentary far more seriously than information from other media sources. He had his own genius in recognising political issues, in shaping arguments for debate, in sidestepping attempts to verbal him, and in reaching over the head of journalists. But that did not mean that he did not share the grimace of many on his side of politics that the ABC was institutionally prejudiced against it, tending to see even positive stories for the government through its own lens.

That many ALP politicians were equally critical of the ABC did not persuade conservatives that these things balanced out. As many conservatives see it, Labor tends to be criticised from its left, rather the centre. In US-speak, the ABC was a prime part of the "liberal media" undermining the national values, God and institutions; in more modern criticism too many of the media, particularly in the ABC, are part of a squadron of Green-left luvvies from the inner suburbs, the cafe latte set, the basket weavers, what some called the "chattering classes", and Howard usually called "the usual suspects".

Others have put it differently. The problem of the ABC, one conservative once said, was that it was "their people" talking to "our people". ABC listeners – or at least those who listen to ABC news, current affairs and chat shows – are on average older, wealthier, more settled and more conservative than the average. And here were these likely or potential conservative voters being hectored all day by journalists who, wittingly or unwittingly, saw everything from the other side of the fence.

That was sharpened by Tony Abbott in recent times when he, in effect, accused the ABC of being unpatriotic – seemingly suggesting that it should slant its reportage to serve Australia's interests. [Though, in the very next sentence, he was asking not for bias (towards Australia) but "straight news gathering and reporting".

"A lot of people feel at the moment that the ABC instinctively takes everyone's side but Australia's," he said in an interview with Ray Hadley on Sydney radio station 2GB. "I think it dismays Australians when the national broadcaster appears to take everyone's side but its own and I think it is a problem."

The problem for the politician, however, is that the argument is not primarily one about competing world views, or the injection of views, or general assumptions into reporting, and discussion.

It is, rather that the credibility of some institutions of modern society is markedly declining, with fewer and fewer likely to attach ready credit to anything being said. The reputation of politicians has plummeted. Abbott himself has said and done more than most to damage the credibility and reputation of his trade.

But if politicians are the modern moral lepers, are, if to a lesser extent, many of those once rated automatically as great and good, including church leaders, judges, bankers, and many leaders of business? The general reputation of trade union leaders, scout leaders, and financial advisers have been trashed by endless public exposures of chicanery within their fields. Even conservative politicians seem engaged in efforts to belittle judges, university academics, scientists and professionals – while often, at the same time, wondering what once happened to common respect, dignity, and civility.

The ABC is, of course, a civil institution in the same sense as the banks or the bureaucracy. But while its reputation and its credibility has been under sustained assault – at least since Bob Hawke began a crusade 25 years ago – it shows every sign of surviving in popular estimation.

It has been starved, and, at times held hostage. Overt political agents have been inserted in an effort to "change its culture" and have either "gone native" or simply failed. It has been stridently criticised, not least by commercial media companies who regard it as some sort of affront that the taxpayer is providing a serious and substantial – indeed immeasurably better – service. Perhaps Malcolm Turnbull is the most liberal and civilised political guardian it has enjoyed over the past 25 years, but even he has more of an ear to Coalition complaint than defence of a bastion of the national culture. Whatever, an ABC will probably be around long after even Turnbull is forgotten.

The ABC is perhaps the more revered in rural and regional areas. Successive ministers for communications have abjectly failed to maintain commercial broadcasting there, and have supervised also the drying up of newspaper and internet sources of information. Increasingly, the ABC is the only serious source of local news and local information in three-quarters of the continent, even as almost all of that area is now providing commercial TV and the internet.

If there's a failing business model, it's with capitalism, not public provision. Bringing the world, and the nation, to one's door does not seem to rouse the neighbours. Or necessarily, cope with the bushfire or community function.

National Party and rural Liberal representatives are quick to realise the risks of interference with the ABC. But it is not a mere matter of fiddling up regionalism or localism, at a cost to, say, coverage of New Zealand. It's about interfering with a good deal of the smorgasbord of ideas and events around which many of their constituents frame their daily chatter and their opinions.

Many see newspapers in decline, have yet to recognise or adopt some of the possibilities of social media, and, anyway, feel a general unease about how the world is turning topsy turvey.

An ABC, in this sense, has remained a constant in people's lives, even as it has changed almost as much as the world has.

Deflating this balloon runs the risk of tapping into that community discomfort that soon reflectors itself in indices of community well-being, civic engagement, employment and education, not to mention, to use, the latest nonce words, the "flexibility", "resilience" and robustness of our communities. It's hard to cope with jihardists through the red phone to Alan Jones. Or to Boris Whittaker. They start bushfires, not, as the ABC does, help put them out.