Prime Minister Tony Abbott has called on the media to be ready to give his government "more credit where it is due", in a speech on Wednesday night to mark the 50th year of the National Press Club.
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In the speech, Mr Abbott said there would always be an "element of tension in the relationship between members of Parliament and members of the media" because both are "deeply interested" in policies affecting people's lives, adding that while politicians "must put up" with media judgment, Australia and the world are "stronger thanks to a media that speaks truth to power".
"So I wholeheartedly acknowledge the media's role in our national life and in our polity," he said.
"Yet the media's job is to improve our country as well as to report it, and the best contribution, if I may say so, that the media could make right now is not to be more right-wing, or to be more left-wing but to be more ready to give credit where its due.
Mr Abbott began by reviving a well-used joke that canvassed his various careers, including his time as a journalist.
"I've often said that as a journalist I was a frustrated politician, as a politician I'm a frustrated journalist, and while a trainee priest I was just frustrated," he said to laughter and applause.
Mr Abbott reflected on how Australia and his own views had changed over the 50 years since the Press Club's inception and said he had been willing to change on two fundamental issues.
"For my part I will admit to two significant policy areas where I am now different, I've shifted from being a critic to a supporter of multiculturalism because it eventually dawned on me that migrants were coming to Australia, not to change us but to join us," he said.
He said the second area where he had changed his views was on paid parental leave because it had "dawned on" him that modern working women "needed encouragement" to be "both mothers and workers".
"There were good conservative reasons, Liberal, conservative reasons for changing a traditional position," he told the audience.
But the Prime Minister may need to spend some time convincing some of colleagues.
Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi has been an outspoken critic of multiculturalism and told Fairfax Media he still opposes what he terms a "social experiment".
"Unfortunately the doctrine of multiculturalism suggests that integration is not important and like a lot of other Western nations, we are now seeing the negative consequences of this social experiment," he said.
Senator Bernardi quoted cabinet Minister Andrew Robb who said in 2006: "A community of separate cultures fosters a rights mentality rather than a responsibilities mentality. It is divisive. It works against quick and effective integration."
And in a clear rebuke of the Prime Minister's claim that "conservative Liberal" reasons had guided his own change of heart on the issue, Senator Bernardi said "as a conservative, culture is the glue that binds a community together".
"Successive waves of migrants to Australia have added to Australia culture and not sought to replace it or live parallel to it. That is the historical success of immigration to this country," he said.
