As a student of history, Treasurer Jim Chalmers knows politics is played as a long game — but that same discipline teaches him short horizons can be as treacherous as anything that lies beyond the next news cycle.
When he was feeling more than a little under siege, the target of public and private slings and arrows from opponents — inside his government, across the political divide and in the know-it-all political commentariat — one thing he couldn’t claim to be was surprised. He had chronicled the malaise of modern politics in blunt terms in his 2013 book Glory Daze, his reflections on the years he spent working with former deputy prime minister and treasurer Wayne Swan.
Here’s his frank assessment of why having the kind of “sophisticated conversation” he’s been seeking is all but impossible:
[As well as right-wing commentators], the once-mainstream news outlets must also take some of the blame for the ways that the incentives in our politics have become misaligned in a way that rewards the hyper-partisans. Newspapers respond to commercial pressures by increasingly pitching to a narrower and narrower base of commercial readers, pushing their commentary out of the mainstream and into the realms of preaching to the converted.
If you look back on the way the putative serious national media — The Australian and The Australian Financial Review — covered the very modest (some might say timid) tax reform around high-end superannuation concessions, it’s not surprising Chalmers singled these newspapers out for special mention in his 2013 book.
He wrote that balanced and considered reporting had been replaced “with campaigning headlines and gotcha pieces and nasty captions”.
No doubt these and other observations he made in 2013 went through Chalmers’ mind as he was bounced around the sideshow alley of breakfast TV and its Whac-A-Mole approach to that serious conversation some people thought we were having.
“[A] preference for cheaper commentary and shallow reporting … [mostly] reflects a new set of incentives in the political system that diminish its capacity to properly apportion credit,” Chalmers wrote.
This is fine as far as it goes, but while it delivers a clear-sighted assessment of modern politics, today’s treasurer then walks into a more contentious part of the political woods: he chides senior commentators for placing story-telling on an equal par with reform achievements and macroeconomic outcomes.
Part of Chalmers’ point was to defend his former boss and friend Swan, who was criticised for not being as good a communicator as Paul Keating or Peter Costello. Chalmers says Australians should be able to pay on results: “Not on opinions, but on cold, hard realities of our economic performance, good and bad. On substance. And they need to look for those results and be able to read about them in the nation’s media.”
The problem with this — and perhaps why there was so much anxiety in government ranks last week — is that the narrative is important. It always has been.
There are fewer places where this is better discussed than in a 2020 book, The Art of Political Storytelling, by Philip Seargeant, a senior applied linguistics lecturer at Britain’s Open University. His thesis is that in political storytelling you need a monster, a seemingly unbeatable foe terrorising the population, and a hero who races in to save the day. As Robert Shrimsley of the Financial Times asks in his review of the book, is this Star Wars or everyday politics?
Founding editor of Private Eye Christopher Booker identified seven basic plots, all used by politicians through the ages: “overcoming the monster”; “rags to riches”; “the quest”; “voyage and return”; “comedy”; “tragedy” and “rebirth”. As they say in the once-smoke-filled rooms of politics, it ain’t rocket surgery.
In fact, in 1964 the American essayist Richard Hofstadter wrote a cover story for Harper’s Magazine examining what he called the paranoid style in US politics which he labelled an arena of angry minds. He was talking about the “heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy” which has a “greater affinity for bad causes than good”.
To prove his point there was nothing new in the political solar system, Hofstadter went back to the Joe McCarthy hearings of the early 1950s, the Populist Party manifesto of 1895, and anti-papal conspiracies of the 1850s.
Of course, as Chalmers suggests, the hollowing out of legacy media opens the way for a hyper-partisan reaction to any reform no matter how modest. As effective politicians everywhere have shown, you need a narrative, a story where the monster is identified and vanquished by good guys. Keating would always say good policy was good politics but the corollary of that is that good politics is good storytelling. Chalmers and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese might be pleased with — maybe even emboldened by — this week’s opinion polls showing a majority of Australians backing super reforms by two to one, with majorities across all demographic and political cohorts.
They will need to look seriously and carefully at how the last couple of weeks went; they were not fully prepared, there was no line of sight to the third and fourth move, let alone anything beyond. They got through it because it was a sensible reform that was always going to get strong public backing (anyone who didn’t anticipate Monday’s Newspoll should hand in their politics badge).
Where the government lost credit with voters was on trust — most people thought this was a broken promise and there’s some repair needed on that front.
What comes next will need a narrative, a story. Booker listed the most common plots and the government has the appropriate one sitting there: overcoming the monster.
If Chalmers can develop his plot lines from the first chapter to the last he will achieve the results he wants everyone to acknowledge. Wishing the kind of frenzied, irrational response from those “newspapers responding to commercial pressures” away is going to be much harder.
An even greater problem for any Labor government is that these legacy newspapers are led and owned by editors and chief executives with ideological opposition to any policies targeting inequality or inequity. That’s the unsentimental handicap Labor faces.
Jim Chalmers had a dream about civilised discourse. Do you share it? Let us know by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
Labor, doesn’t, nor has it mainly “never” has the traction, easy passage and free passes that the LNP always gets.
What I think Crikey and the other Online Media should be doing is labbying all Labor, Greens, Teals and Cross Bench Members of both Houses to get a Bill up that limits Australian Media ownership to Australian Citizens.
It would be interesting with an even playing field.
Unfortunately it is not as simple as that. Creditable, independent media is one of the most important thing democracy has. Most billionaires do not appreciate that a majority of readers do not want to read about their favored sponsorship, political point of view, or a press release from their business mates, and friendly government contacts. Billionaires buy media to gain power, it is a transaction. Media has to be independent, less sensational and balanced. Currently we have billionaire wars in Western Australia over one daring to buy trucks from a competitor of our tabloid morning paper proprietor, nothing hurts like bruised billionaires ego. Imagine if they both had media outlets. No takers here.
And in buying such influence those moguls then employ and army to prosecute that (PR) war, for them – while promoting those willing monotonous drones within those ranks, for doing the ‘right thing’, in advancing that agenda and narrative.
No need for such commanders to ‘interfere’ in the daily/editorial running of those political campaigns. The ranks know what is expected of them.
To curry favour and hence promotion : just as they know what will happen if they ‘desert’ (the cause) and go feral/independent, straying too far from that front line they’re paid to fight on.
…. “Just following orders”?
Yep an uphill struggle (in every generation) for Labor. Chalmers has the prescience to be able to tackle this, along with public goodwill. He needs to stamp down the Dutton/Taylor lies without appearing defensive. There’s no need to be apologetic about such a minimal nibble at the over-privileged.
‘… most people thought this was a broken promise…’
Most?? Where’s the evidence for this claim? The measly tax doesn’t even kick in until mid 2025 which means that, until it happens, nothing is broken.
Sadly, it’s the first accusation that Ferguson on 7.30 confronted Chalmers with.
Sadly, no surprise. For a long time now the ABC news/current affairs follows News Corp like a faithful puppy for its editorial priorities and the slant it puts on its stories. Probably ABC management has convinced itself News Corp might stop attacking it if it grovels and flatters enough .
Angus Taylor. Apparently, in this context, Angus Tayor is most people. Actually I’m being a bit unfair, Jane Hume and Peter Dutton too. So there you have it: most people.
Remember, in the world of Liberals, only Liberals are people. Nobody else is really human.
‘most people’ is code for parroting the LNP media bites.
Yes, this claim stood out to me too.
I was expecting a silly, partisan, anti-ALP article, judging by the headline, but was pleasantly surprised that it was far more balanced than that, excepting this line.
Everyone knows Labor took a small target strategy to the last election. Didn’t say much, didn’t promise much. I cannot recall any promises made to leave super as is…and the changes proposed don’t kick in until after the next election! Hardly a broken promise
Newspoll says 64% of the nation approve of the changes, and even a majority of coalition voters do. I’d say the sizzle of this sausage is alreadty sold.
But despite the NesPoll results, teh Murdoch media is still persisting with negative articles about the Super changes.
They simply seem unable to help themselves. It is staring them in the face, but they feel they must still oppose it as it is Labor policy.
And yet Atkins uses the throwaway line (without any evidence) ‘most people thought this was a broken promise’ – which is exactly the sort of made-up fairy-tale he would have used when he was serving his previous RWM masters to invalidate a policy with a dog-whistle (ie. don’t look at the policy, look at the narrative we want you to look at).
That must of hurt our friends at SAD
Which newspapers would that be?
The one’s like the Mudroch franchise’s Brisbane Curry or Maul – where Atkins worked for almost 25 years (1995 – 2019, ‘getting out’ as dogs were barking, a couple of months before Robodebt was pulled) as “national political/affairs editor” – doing such work as overseeing the selling ‘the efficacy of Robodebt’ from 2016 to 2019 – and otherwise running down Labor/Greens and mitigating on behalf of the Limited News Party?
Rather than as ‘divorced’ now – how about an insider’s view on how that worked then : as now?
Give it a rest, Klewso, your repetitive relentless recycled personal obsession with Atkins is tedious.
Then don’t read it.
… Now I’ve used “it” again…..
Sadly, I try to maintain the belief you might have posted something worthwhile, and, by the time I have tested my theory, of course it is too late to not read it. But yes, your advice is sound, not reading all your contributions has merit, and yet paradoxically had I not read what you just posted, I would be unaware you recommend not reading your comments.
Feb 20
“…. Is it any different here?”
…..
“If you’re feelng misunderstood and wondering why, think about posting comments where “it” is not trying to bear quite so much weight.
See what I mean?…..”
Perhaps you are only pretending to be dim. It seems unlikely you cannot see that the use of a pronoun without adequate context for interpretation must give rise to ambiguity and a high probability of confusion, as it did with that comment. But I am flattered that you recall our previous exchange, although it further confirms your fondness for indulging weird obsessions. I look forward to you being as petty, pointless, relentless and boring in pursuit of me as in your hounding of poor old Atkins.
“Obsession”? Check out the order of posts where you’ve had a go at mine …
Klewso, the Rat is right. I’ve said it before; I agree with most of what you write, but this obsession with Atkins is become predictable. He’s not the only News Corpse crossover; Carol Altman and Tory Shepherd (among others) served time with the Adelaide Advertiser, but they don’t seem to attract your ire in the same way. I do agree that an article from Atkins showing an insider’s view of News would be interesting, and would serve to see Atkins burn his boats with those ogres. Anyway, while you and the Rat continue your waltz, I’ll get back to the articles.
And, again, what makes Atkins’ history/c.v. of ‘no import’ : against anyone else’s that does?
“Poor old Atkins”? Reckon he took those sort of considerations into account when he was responsible for the years of outpourings of vilification under his responsibility?
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales :- “The Pardoner’s Tale – get a job with Crikey doing opinion pieces”?
For those of us not from Qld, can you give an example where he personally was responsible for outpourings of vilification?
As I’ve noted before, we live in a virtually one-paper state – there’s the Brisbane Curry or Maul, but also the regionals in Townsville, Gold Coast and Cairns, all owned and ran accordingly to the usual Limited News business m.o. Including the import of rubbish from other states – Herald Sun, Teletrash, The Oz, as ‘necessary’ – pushing the agenda and narrative – the usual Limited News luminaries such as the usual twice a week serve of Blot on the Political Landscape (boosting his ‘readership’?); there was a dose of Rowan Dean once week; The Credlin (after Rupert told Abbott to dump her when she became a negative PR election distraction), the likes of Benson, Steve “Utegate” Lewis, the odd serve of Panihi etc etc
From 1995 ’til he left in 2019 Atkins was doing not only what hacks do at Limited News, he was doing what they get promoted to editor for – to become national political editor from 2000-2005 and national affairs editor from 2007 ’til he left in June/July 2019- peddling and editing the usual Mudroch Ministry of Misinformation and Obfuscation political sludge, passing off opinion as news, to a state with access to SFA by way of alternate hard-copy news. Trying to sway voter opinion on “fitness to govern”, to try to win elections for Rupert’s preferred Coalition/Limited News Party.
The usual Limited News promotional m.o. such as :-
a) When the Coalition was being burned, digging out history of “Labor doing similar or worse”. And if that goose was burned past edible, trying to save the odd Coalition “parson’s nose member” from the coals.
But no reciprocation in cases when it was Labor at the stake – then it was “Let’s whoop it up around the bonfire”.
b) The usual stream of negativity aimed at Labor : against the boosting of the Coalition.
c) The vilification of The Greens – and anyone else who went public and gained an audience over something contrary to Mudroch dogma.
In a political pamphlet that never urged the election of a state Labor state government and only ever once (from 1993) a federal Labor – when Rudd could not be denied, and Howard lost his seat, but in the week preceding that election devoted two editorials to trying to save Brough in Longman (an editorial to the whole state) and Boswell’s senate arse, against a Green incursion = ‘2 out of three” – then resuming hostilities asap after Rudd won that election, to address that ‘electoral mistake’.
National affairs editor for all but the last four or five months of Robodebt.
When evidence was mounting of the scheme’s malfeasance, in other news outlets, his Curry or Maul was till playing “Coalition friendly media footsies” – doing Miller’s PR work. Selling the efficacy of the scheme – including reproducing the sort of interstate crap Benson was churning – for the edification of Queenslanders. While Viellaris was doing her hatchet job bit up here – against ‘dole bludgers’ and single mothers ripping off the ‘more than fair, but put-upon scheme’. That’s all but the last five months of the accumulation of evidence of malfeasance – in other balanced open news sources.
’95 was five or six computers ago – if I’d have known he was going to be springing up in Crikey I’d have kept my Letters to the Editor with their contrarian view of his personal reality – including the parts he’d ‘forgotten’ in his op-ed pieces, that would have undermined that narrative and agenda.
The likes of campaigning for coal and Adani how “(Adani) coal would lift India out of poverty”. The pimping of Newman for both elections – the one he won and the one he lost, with his seat. The campaigning for Newman-Bleijie’s “Bikie Laws” and the slotting of Carmody to Chief Justice – against a back drop of criticism and counseling against by the likes of Fitzgerald and the rest of the judiciary.
A treatise on “what’s gone wrong on the Middle East” – with no mention of the effect of the invasion of Iraq by the Coalition of the Willing – rather that was left to the one sentence referring to ‘the US invasion’.
A professional enabler and influencer.
You missed Madonna King?
Curry or Maul editor Dave Fagan’s wife? A Coalition press-agent rag with which I’ve had years of experience : unlike the Adelaide Advertiser.
Last year whenever she appeared on the The Drum she was billed as writing ‘for Crikey’ – as if that gave her some sort of ‘lefty history’ balance – no reference to her years at the Courier Mail (doing Limited News Party PR work).
Check out my posts on her Crikey op-ed pieces.
Of course you’re right – and I’m not. But I’ve been wrong for 72 years, so I’m used to it.
Just as an example, you may recall that back on Jan 31 – Atkins’ op-ed piece on ‘what Dutton was going to do, re the Voice’ – that when I commented “… Can a dog-whistler change his tune?” …. you seemed to automatically assume that I was referring to Atkins, and jumped to his defence?
I’m with you, Klewso. Atkins might be more palatable if he at least included a ‘mea culpa’ for his significant role in the degeneration of the Fourth Estate into an outrage confection machine promoting RW BS.
And this article smacks of victim-blaming. Instead of analysing the policy and criticising the state of policy analysis by the media, it treat it as a game of politics/story-telling and blames Chalmers for the media’s failings. This is straight out of the NewsCorpse playbook, which Atkins is no doubt well-practised in. The fact that most people (including most Coalition voters) support the policy is ignored in Atkins’ commentary and undermines his argument about the paramount importance of story-telling vs policy analysis.
Tell me about it.
In what is virtually a “one paper state”, almost 25 years of working at Rupert’s News Corp Qld franchise – as national political editor (2000- 2005) before national affairs editor (2007- June/July 2019), again, ”retiring” 4 months before Robodebt was “shut down” (and the Curry or Maul was pushing the Coalition government line), as the paper was still peddling their “reality” of Robodebt.
As the Coalition’s “friendly media” outlet to Qld, selling the efficacy of Robodebt : while other media was pointing out the growing evidence of it’s malfeasance, since 2017 at least.
Overseeing the import of ‘work’ from the likes of ‘Blot on the Political Landscape’, The Credlin (after Rupert had advocated Abbott get rid of her because she’d become a liability to his re-election chances?), David Penberthy, Simon Benson, Steve Lewis, Rowan Dean and any number of other out-of-state Mudroch muck peddlers. Des Houghton’s weekly one-eyed, one-sided partisan conservative rants.
The op-ed touting of the Coalition, including ‘riding instructions’ for Newman to win an election “…. Queenslanders, however, want some vision after 13 years of often disappointing – and worse – Labor….” March 4 2012..
The campaign waged backing Newman’s ‘Bikie Laws’ to go with the campaign waged in support of the appointment of Tim Carmody to Chief Justice – both against the criticisms from the likes of Tony Fitzgerald and the rest of the judiciary.
Overseeing the import of ‘work’ from the likes of ‘Blot on the Political Landscape’, The Credlin (after Rupert had advocated Abbott get rid of her because she’d become a liability to his re-election chances?), David Penberthy, Simon Benson, Steve Lewis, Rowan Dean and any number of other out-of-state Mudroch m-u-c-k peddlers. Des Houghton’s weekly one-eyed, one-sided partisan conservative r-a-n-t-s.
The op-eds t–o-u-t-i-n-g the Coalition, including ‘r-i-d-i-n-g instructions’ for Newman to win an election March 4 2012 “…. Queenslanders, however, want some vision after 13 years of often disappointing – and worse – Labor….”?
The campaign waged backing Newman’s ‘B-i-k-i-e Laws’ to go with the campaign waged in support of the appointment of Tim Carmody to Chief Justice – both against the criticisms from the likes of Tony Fitzgerald and the rest of the judiciary.
The campaign waged backing Newman’s ‘B-i-k-i-e Laws’ to go with the campaign waged in support of the appointment of Tim Carmody to Chief Justice – both against the criticisms from the likes of Tony Fitzgerald and the rest of the judiciary.
The op-eds touting Coalition, including ‘riding instructions’ for Newman to win an election “…. Queenslanders, however, want some vision after 13 years of often disappointing – and worse – Labor….” March 4 2012.
When the Limited News Party was in trouble :- digging up ‘similar Labor’ history to mitigate on behalf of the LNP.
Or when the Limited News Party was in really deep, diving in to save some of the political furniture – particularly the odd candidate/member…. a la his “honorable exception Karen Andrews” style, in the wake of the Morrison debacle.
But not reciprocating when Labor was in trouble, not digging up previous similar or worse Coalition transgressions?
Faulting the progressive side of politics : while selling the joys of Rupert’s Limited News Party.
“… As Prime Minister, Abbott is a thinker….” (Aug 29 2014)
“STAYING MUM” – Shorten “misleading voters” re his mother May 8 2019.
“…. Queenslanders, however, want some vision after 13 years of often disappointing – and worse – Labor….” March 4 2012.
T-h-e- op-eds t-o-u-t-i-n-g the C-o-a-l-i-t-i-o-n, including ‘riding instructions’ for Newman to win an election “…. Q-u-e-e-n-s-l-a-n-d-e-r-s, h-o-w-e-v-e-r, w-a-n-t s-o-m-e v-i-s-i-o-n a-f-t-e-r 13 y-e-a-r-s of o-f-t-e-n d-i-s-a-p-p-o-i-n-t-i-n-g – and w-o-r-s-e – L-a-b-o-r….” M-a-r-c-h 04 2012.
I’m in SA and regularly visit family in Qld. Interestingly, CM online has had reports on the recent revelations coming out of the Robodebt RC, whereas the hardcopy Adelaide Advertiser (which is usually slightly less feral than the CM) has had nothing. The only article this year on Robodebt in the Advertiser was a small (size of four postage stamps) article about some bureaucrat bursting into tears as she recounted being bullied over it. Absolutely nothing about anything else – the RC is not happening, nothing to see here. And then they bang on self-righteously about ‘Your right to know’ and (other people’s) cancel culture.
But I notice any online CM article bagging the Labor State government is always accompanied by 400 comments, mostly from feral RWNJ’s. The Robodebt articles have no place for comments. Clearly, the business model is outrage confection against Labor (but not LNP) governments. It’s so transparent.
Funny thing happened on the way to the forum.
Issues with Madbot – these pieces are part of a longer post that was “Awaiting fa”, so I refined that, and it sent them the same way, then ‘disappeared’ both. So now I’ve broken it up and fed most pieces, one at a time, with jigging.