There’s a moment in Lindsay Tanner’s Sideshow when he refers — merely in passing, without making anything of it — to the fact that politicians now frequently give speeches that have already been reported. The practice of giving press journalists previews or whole advance copies of speeches to ensure additional coverage is now a venerable Gallery tradition.
Frequently, the only coverage a speech gets is the morning before it is given. The politician concerned could very well have simply not bothered to give the speech, but merely sent out copies to selected journalists.
So when Wayne Swan rose at the Press Club at 12.30 today to discuss carbon pricing, the guts of his speech, including some key quotes and some highlights from Treasury modelling on the impact on economic growth of a carbon price, had already been revealed. Indeed, there’d already been a debate in response to it, with both Christine Milne and Tony Windsor complaining that the modelling should have been made available to the Multi-Party Climate Change Committee first. The Opposition demanded that all the modelling be released at once.
That’s a fair call by the Opposition, actually. If the modelling is good enough for Wayne Swan to cherry pick from, it’s good enough to be released in full so we can see the context and assumptions that underlie Treasury’s conclusions. However, apparently the modelling isn’t actually finished, according to Greg Combet.
How convenient. Perhaps the “completed” modelling can be the basis for another trip to the Press Club in July.
Swan’s effort today follows that of Combet in April, when he spoke at the Press Club for apparently the sole purposes of being able to use the phrase “millions will get compensation” (carefully leaked the night before, naturally) and to suggest the starting carbon price would be $20 a tonne (some journalists at The Australian still seemed to think this was news last week — presumably they don’t read The West Australian).
The context for all this of course is that when the CPRS was being developed and introduced into Parliament by the Rudd Government, nary a word was said in its defence by Labor — certainly not by the Prime Minister or the Treasurer, and rarely by the relevant Minister, Senator Wong. Senator Wong showed last week she was capable of communicating effectively and clearly when provoked; in defence of the CPRS, she was nothing more than a strained collection of “can I say”, “we got the balance right” and steely look that said nothing short of dynamite was going to blast her off her entirely anodyne talking points.
Meantime, climate denialists, rentseekers, whingers and Labor’s opponents in the media were running lie after lie, unchallenged except by the occasional NGO.
This time around, even without a policy to defend, Labor has been rather more active in communicating about its carbon pricing plan. And Swan’s argument that a carbon price is a key reform of the significance of those of the Hawke-Keating years is a valid one, particularly if the Government embraces the sort of framework advanced by Ross Garnaut last week.
Still, there remains no evidence of any planning or strategy behind Labor’s communication about the carbon price. Today’s revelations that a carbon price would have a miniscule impact on long-term economic growth (“revelations” in the sense that the bleeding obvious has been comprehensively proven and detailed down to two decimal points) have thus been partially overshadowed by complaints from the Government’s partners in the carbon price process, and during a week mostly given over to asylum seekers and live cattle exports and, better for the Government, the belated discovery that Tony Abbott used to be an enthusiastic advocate of a carbon tax (we told them so).
Like the Rudd Government, this Government gives the impression it knows all the rituals and incantations about communicating effectively but doesn’t understand their purpose or how they work.
Two years ago, Abbott supported a price on Carbon. Why does no one hold him to account? Here is how the conversation should go:
To Mr A: 2 years ago you were in support of the carbon tax. Are you still in support of it?
Mr A: no: it is a bad thing that will hurt the working families the forgotten white generations of Australians.
To Mr A: So when you use to support it – you were mistaken? Wrong?
Mr A – misinformed. It is worse than we initially thought.
To Mr A: so you are saying that sometimes your position on things is actually wrong: you can be misinformed and publically support things that are stupid?
Mr A: I would not say it that way – we grow and learn more as time goes by
To Mr A: So: there was a policy you supported, but now say is stupid, but that must mean there was a time when your public opinion and policy was wrong and stupid. Is that what we are to take from this?
Mr A. No – dont that that from this!
To Mr A: But if you have flip-flopped on this issue in just two years, how can any Australian be sure you wont flip-flop on issues in two years from now, compared to what you are saying right now?
Mr A: please dont use the word “flip-flop” That is only used when talking about Labor.
To Mr. A: But are we able to have confidence in anything you say, if you can change your view on something as big as this?
Mr A: Of course you can. I will stand by my promises!
To Mr. A: But how can we be sure – your track record does not engender confidence.
Mr A: You have to learn to hear me right now, today. And each day that I speak. Don’t confuse yourself by comparing what I say today, with what I said yesterday, or two years ago, and dont worry about 2 years from now – when the time comes, just hear what I say on each day, and dont remember what we are saying today! It works fine if you can approach it that way. People actually feel good when they “get it” – they vote for me and they believe I will keep my word. And i will keep my words – those bits that I want to, on any particular day, if it helps me get and hold onto power.
To Mr. A: and why do you want to be the PM Mr Abbott? What is your vision for Australia?
Mr Abbott: …. did you say something? ….. Oh look at the time… I have to go….
To Mr A: thanks for your time today.
Mr A. It has been a pleasure.
To be fair to Ms Milne, she did add she would not let her displeasure with Swan, stall or disrupt the work of the Multi-Party Climate Change Committee . Good for you Christine, better the devil you know huh?
Also, well done Jim, well written.
Jim,
I have a feeling the exchange would be more like:
To Mr A: 2 years ago you were in support of the carbon tax. Are you still in support of it?
Mr A: [utter silence, walks out on interview]
And with no sound bite for the evening news, the subject doesn’t see the light of day.
Let’s face it, Labor does not have anyone within a bull’s roar of a good communicator (nor a real toiler, willing to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty), let alone a great one, they’re more “grate whiners and diners”, more inclined to present their backs for “slapping”.
If they did have a “designated hitter” they’d be tasting roast r’Abbott regularly (admittedly with it’s own dietary deficiencies), instead of only every “Blue Monday”.
Mark: you are probably right!