The Hyperbole is a Canberra institution. Not because it's the biggest place to shop in Tuggeranong but because it's the lifeblood of the political day.

The movers, shakers and candlestick makers would be totally and utterly lost if they couldn't overstate their case, like all the time. No one would pay them any attention otherwise.

Just close your peepers and imagine: if the Coalition stood up and said, ''We hope the government has been doing something untoward with Fair Work Australia but we don't have any specific dirt,'' would anyone so much as turn the TV up? So instead, we are left with the likes of Julie ''I'm just a vowel away from being PM'' Bishop demanding Gillard come into the chamber and justify why she should keep her job. Or Monsieur Pyne calling on Labor MPs to sack the Prime Minister.

Or the likes of Tony Abbott demanding that Gillard calls an election so he can be the big leader ASAP. On the face of it, the government seems a skerrick better. Yesterday, it even appeared to be tackling some serious issues.

Gillard gave her statement on Closing the Gap and the private health insurance legislation passed through the lower house. If this isn't governing, then what is? But of course, being of the political persuasion, Labor are just as guilty of hooking up with hyperbole.

If Gillard said: ''Look, we're doing OK on the fundamentals - most people have a job and the country's not being invaded. Though, everyone knows the public servants really run the country, so the opposition probably wouldn't do any worse,'' Kevin Rudd's dream would come true sooner than even he could hope for. That's why in question time yesterday Gillard confused parliament with a Politburo convention, arguing that the opposition has ''never seen a tax dollar they didn't want to give to a billionaire'' and that Abbott views workers as a ''football to kick around the chamber''.

The urge to blow things out of all proportion also explains why question time stopped dead yesterday so MPs could debate the difference between ''muck'' and ''muckraking'' (if it's just muck, is that more offensive?)

And why Wayne Swan keeps getting pulled up by the Coalition for referring to their economic team as Moe, Larry and Curly (the hide of him to use the Three Stooges' names in vain!)

Away from the chamber, however, Gillard wasn't mucking around. With talk swirling that she'd been dancing about with sneaky polls before she killed Kevin, it was clear she needed less attention, not more.

So, despite the serious announceables going on (prime hyperbole fodder), the Prime Minister went to ground.

The rumours that she would appear either in public or in a situation where she might be questioned came to naught. Indeed, apart from popping up for official business in the House, Gillard was so quiet, for all anybody knew, she could have been in Tuggeranong.

Pollies' Hyperbole Is No Small Matter