Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, popularly, and even affectionately, referred to by Malaysians as Pak Lah, talks a good game. His low-key, moderate stance is in striking contrast to, and to many a welcome change, from the provocative style of his predecessor.

Pak Lah's message seems to be different too. He talks about the need to combat corruption, for example. His statements on the subject though have yet to be followed by anything particularly dramatic in the form of investigations or convictions, especially of high-level offenders, and the much-vaunted ACA is sadly lacking in powers.

But at least he has officially acknowledged that the corruption problem exists, which is more than some former prime ministers of Malaysia have elected to do.

Another problem he has decried is the catastrophic road carnage in Malaysia, and inspired the creation of an ambitious plan to combat it.

Implementation of this programme will take time, no doubt. Here now in these early stages, there seems to be no sign whatever of abatement in the homicidal lawlessness, arrogance, ignorance and incompetence of a great many Malaysian drivers; no glimmer of improvement in the tragically terrible traffic engineering; and no evident efforts by the police to improve on their pathetic previous efforts to enforce the rules of the road, let alone do it energetically, efficiently and honestly.

Besides being a crucial critical voice on some issues, Pak Lah has also spoken-up for criticism itself, allowing that both the public and the media be permitted to voice a certain amount of criticism, especially, if I recall his words correctly, of government servants who are uncivil, inefficient, dishonest or lazy. But I don't recall him advocating criticism of himself, his government, his political party or the eternally-entrenched ruling coalition.

Nor, since he decreed limited criticism permissible and even desirable, have I witnessed any critical reporting or comment in the Malaysian media about anything beyond the usual, obviously 'safe' or officially-sanctioned targets. And public criticism of the fuel price rises some time ago, in the form of a peaceful demonstrations outside the Petronas Twin Towers, was not only firmly, if not harshly, repressed by the authorities, as I witnessed on BBC World TV, but shamefully played down by some Malaysian 'news' media and utterly unreported by others.

Huge responsibility

Which brings us to what Pak Lah has to say about the media themselves. Having neither read nor heard him on the subject, I found his keynote to the recent Asian Media Summit 2006 (as reported on May 30 in the in the MCA-owned The Star newspaper) to be quite a revelation.

Under the heading Let moderation rule, The Star ran a story quoting the PM as saying that, "It seems, for the media, moderation is not interesting enough to report. It prefers attention-grabbing headlines promoting violence and confrontation," citing "the lack of publicity given by the media to certain voices in both the West and the Muslim world that preached peace, tolerance and moderation."

This seemed fair enough comment to me, though given a somewhat ironic edge by the coincidence that the same issue of The Star carried the aggressive and confronting front-page headline: 'Terror group busted' and a massive 12-page 'naming and shaming' supplement courtesy of Khidmat Negara, headed: 'Name list of 'Return to Sender' mails and shirkers of the National Service Training Programme 2004 and 2005 Series." So much, I thought, for peace, tolerance and moderation.

The PM reportedly then went on to make the point that the media have pervasive and persuasive power to change peoples' minds and attitudes, and that power came with a huge responsibility to inform and educate.

I can't disagree with that. Just as nobody can justly disagree with the fact that the vast majority of the Malaysian news media, government-censored and even owned as the main ones are, have shirked this 'huge responsibility' for at least 20 years, continue to do so today, and unless the PM is serious and sincere in his comments, will continue to shirk their huge responsibility until further notice.

So what is the improvement in this situation, if any, can we expect?

It's a bit hard to tell from the next piece of the speech, which apparently made the point that, as the story continues, "He said that the media should play the role of bridge builders, just as the voices of moderation that opposed hegemony and rejected violence were bridge builders for world peace."

'Bridge building', it seems to me, was an unfortunate choice of phrase by Pak Lah or his speechwriters, as the 'crooked bridge' fiasco is far too fresh in the public mind, and unpleasantly evocative of other embarrassingly crooked or, at least, crackpot projects on which taxpayer funds have been squandered - like the Matrade building, the inmate-free jail and too many more to list here. All of which were scandals, by the way, the Malaysian media have failed to act as bridge builders between the truth, the whole truth and the public.

Utter disappointment

But maybe there's a new, straight link about to be constructed between the Malaysian media and their audiences, as Pak Lah reportedly expanded on the bridge building theme by saying that the media must present different sides to a story, dismiss half-truths and unfounded allegations, and foster critical thinking so that people would be more informed in their daily lives.

He expanded on this thought by adding that, "The temptations offered by vested interests - be they commercial, political or religious - can lead to misinformation, miscommunication, confusion and even violence", and lamented the tendency of the media to be selective in its reports by allowing sales and what editors felt appealed to their particular market segments to dictate their decisions.

That sounds to me as though he was advocating the very media freedoms for which Malaysian civil libertarians have so long been pressing for.

But can we really take him at his word? Can Malaysia really look forward to a media free of pressure from commercial, political and religious interests? Media that are free, in fact, obliged to report the news and propound their views without fear or favour?

I very much doubt it. In fact, I suspect it will turn out to be another case of all talk and very little action, like the eagerly-anticipated cabinet 'reshuffle' earlier this year. An utter disappointment to advocates of transparency and good governance in Malaysia, thanks to the survival of almost every minister, even those flagrantly responsible for, if not beneficiaries of, massive mismanagement - or worse - of public funds.

So let's not hold our breaths waiting for any of Pak Lah's rhetoric to become reality. However good and able a man he might be, and however warm and likeable his manner, and however genuine his desire to do better for Malaysia, it looks very much to me as though with relatives trading on his name in 'business', vested commercial and political interests of every kind conspiring against reform and the sheer momentum of the Mahathir era to contend with he may end up going down in history as not Pak Lah, but Pak Blah. A PM with best of intentions or at least image, but not much achievement beyond lots and lots of hot air.

DEAN JOHNS is an Australian freelance journalist now living in Kuala Lumpur and a former occasional columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald.