On Monday, the Herald Sun and other News Ltd papers carried a story suggesting that Paul Keating might be the face of a new “G’day UK” campaign to attract trade and tourism to Australia. The idea of the Placido Domingo of politics singing our praises to the Poms – where the tabloids dubbed him “Lizard of Oz” after the Queen-groping incident – had lots of people checking that the date on the paper wasn’t April 1st.

I was approached by a few media outlets to give a marketing perspective and, in response to those comments, I received an email late on Monday afternoon from Matt Francis, Manager of Government Relations at Tourism Australia.

“We, too, were surprised at the idea of Paul Keating being included in a tourism promotion in the UK,” he wrote. “Of course, we have no such plans … the involvement of Paul Keating is just rather wild media speculation.”

Concerned that I had been caught up in “wild media speculation”, I went back to the original article to check it. There they were – quotes from Bill Muirhead, described as the “architect of the campaign”, which seemed fairly unequivocal:

“(The) objective behind G’day UK … (is) promoting every aspect of Australia from tourism to trade” and “Paul Keating is on the short list to be the face of the campaign”.

When it comes to how Australia promotes itself to the world, if anyone knows what the bloody hell’s going on, it should be Bill Muirhead. Adelaide-born but London-based, Muirhead is a founding partner in global advertising agency M&C Saatchi. He is also South Australia’s Agent General in London, having been appointed by Premier Mike Rann in 2007. 

The connections between Muirhead and Tourism Australia should be strong. The $180 million “Where the bloody hell are you?” Tourism Australia advertising campaign fronted by Lara Bingle was the work of M&C Saatchi’s Sydney office.

And as Agent General, Muirhead this year commissioned the London HQ of M&C Saatchi, his own agency, to develop a controversial campaign designed to attract UK immigrants to South Australia, getting residents of a London suburb offside with the slogan “Screw working in Staines, I’m off to Adelaide!”. 

So how can this well-connected and eminently-credentialled architect of Australian tourism and awareness campaigns say Paul Keating is shortlisted when Tourism Australia is “surprised at the idea” and say they have “no such plans”?

Here’s a clue, perhaps. Last month, Tourism Australia announced that DDB Worldwide and Saatchi & Saatchi (not M&C Saatchi) were the two agencies selected to proceed to the final round of its new tender for global creative services. M&C Saatchi, the incumbent for the past three years, was effectively told “thanks but no thanks” and will depart the account on 30 June.

One reason why Tourism Australia may have been keen to divert attention away from the “wild speculation” about Paul Keating on Monday also became clearer on Tuesday. Tourism Australia has hitched our country’s brand for the next six months to director Baz Luhrmann’s sweeping historical outback drama Australia, due for release in November.

This opportunistic initiative, rather unimaginatively entitled “See the movie, see the country”, was announced by Tourism Minister Martin Ferguson last Saturday. But it wasn’t until Tuesday – the day after the crazy Keating story ran – that the Herald Sun picked up the Luhrmann launch with a picture of rugged-1930s-stockman-type Hugh Jackman patting English-aristocrat-transplanted-to-the-bush Nicole Kidman on the head, an image some commentators have suggested is inappropriate to promote a contemporary Australian tourism experience.

The timing of Bill Muirhead’s comments about Keating seems surprising and unfortunate, given that they overshadowed the Jackman-Kidman story for a full day before Tourism Australia was able to get back “on message”. That they have been effectively denied by Tourism Australia makes one wonder even further just who’s calling the shots on our tourism campaigns.

And it’s all even stranger when you consider that the source of the Keating “speculation” was Tourism Australia’s own global advertising agency … even if it is only for two more weeks.