Oh to have been a fly on the wall yesterday as the Prime Minister and his boyish team of advisers scenario-played their mea culpa strategy, which culminated in the PM appearing live on The 7.30 Report last night to deliver these words:
“Well, let’s not try and sugar-coat this, Kerry, and I don’t begin to for one minute. This program has created real problems on the ground; it has resulted in a lot of difficulty for a lot of people. As Prime Minister of the country I accept responsibility for that. My job now is to fix it up.”
“Problems”. “Difficulty”. “I accept responsibility”. Since when do political leaders caught in the glare of the headlights of controversy ever admit they are wrong? John (“I can’t comprehend how genuine refugees would throw their children overboard”) Howard never did. Paul (“this is the recession Australia had to have”) Keating never did.
But let’s not try and sugar-coat this unprecedented approach to political crisis management. If the PM and his boys try to deploy yesterday’s tactic whenever the government makes a big mistake, the result will be a lot of difficulty for a lot of people.
Telling the unvarnished truth in politics is an appealing idea in theory, but the reality is that it can only work in the most extreme, most unusual circumstances. Savour the moment.
This is straight from the Peter Beattie playbook. Look (briefly) concerned, take full responsibility, move on. Let’s not sugar coat it — it’s spin. Good spin. Effective spin. But spin.
Its naive to think this constitutes ‘telling the truth’. Behind the scenes there is a collective disgust for the kind of bandwagon media reporting that has completely blown this issue out of any context.
The fact is, Rudd has never really been passionate about content – he’s not going to argue for the truth of something if his pimple faced advisors are feeding him the PR line that its more electorally rewarding to cut his losses, roll over and pant for forgiveness.
Thats why Rudd’s advisors are barely out of braces. He’s an arch bureaucrat – a manager of processes – you don’t need the wisdom of age and experience to ‘play the system’. A kid that can navigate himself around a playstation is good enough.
To suggest he’s being ‘honest’ though is just plain ridiculous. This is the kind of strategy that emerges when you call in the media management people. The 7;30 report interview last night was cringeworthy.
Well I think as Michael Bachelard said above, Peter Beattie might disagree with you that this approach works in only the most extreme circumstances. He used the mea culpa strategy regularly and very effectively. Queenslanders just loved the “I dropped a bollock – I’m only human” form of spin and reponded very well to the idea of a politician admitting shortcomings. This is a conscious replication of Beattie’s style and I’ve always wondered why other politicians haven’t used this approach when it so obviously appeals the the australian psyche.
For goodness sake- it is time politicians spoke the “unvarnished truth” – even if others stil talk about spin. I have had 50 years of bulls–t from pollies of all sorts and now it is refreshing to hear someone take the responsibility, especially when it is the PM. Any more talk about pollies MUST have spin, or they MUST not tell the unvarnished truth is treating people as if they were kids. We will only grow up as a mature voting community when our leaders DO stand up and acknowledge short comings, respnsibility, people are facing difficulty, we are out to correct it. To have some nameless “editor” making disparaging remarks about a pollie telling it like it is is bloody infuriating. Please STOP IT
When all else fails, apologise.