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Spare the politics………puh-lease.

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Phew, well I’m glad that’s over.

9-weeks of excruciatingly numbing political meandering that delivered………… well, not much.

One of the aspects of the campaign that we have been discussing internally has been if we learnt anything. The answer is a general ‘Yes,’ however the content you could treat on a take it or leave it basis.

Polls

Dare I say it, they were one of the highlights of the Aussie campaign.

Despite the general twitterings of the media, the polls were pretty much on a consistent ‘knife-edge’ across the campaign; the end result? A cliff-hanger.

Based on the musings of our esteemed daily papers one could have been excused for thinking that our pollsters were as reliable as their British counterparts (or the BoM forecasting Melbourne weather) with their ‘forget the numbers, Turnbull’s got it’ commentary.

Messages

It helps to have them.

Attempting to bore your target audience in to submission clearly doesn’t work.

Hopefully the last couple of months’ acts as the lethal injection that obsolete sloganeering without substance needs.

It could have been worse I guess: Cheap Cheap anyone?

The Greens

Surprising? Not really.

Well performed? Not really.

Going places? Most likely.

I would have thought that in the absence of discussion void of any real substance regarding a pragmatic (forget about visionary) forward-looking agenda for the nation, that there was a huge opportunity for The Greens to appeal to the abiding Australian sense of egalitarianism.

This ‘third force’ in Australian politics also appears to have been sucked in to a narrow (and narrowcast) script, despite the ample areas of opportunity (climate change, asylum seekers, homelessness, re-balancing Commonwealth infrastructure spending to include more public transport, the cost of living etc etc) for the further ‘Left’ of pour political landscape to carve out more ground.

The Greens campaign I would describe as overlooking the bigger picture; bicycle super highways have cool renders tho.

Our preferential voting system

Is it time to give it the boot?

As it stands all seats in the House of Reps come down to a two-horse race. Why is it that the jockey of every beaten horse then gets a say in the eventual winner, even though their mount dropped out before the home straight?

The ‘One Vote, One Value’ principle seems to be undermined when a vote for one set of values (or whatever substitutes for them these days) ends up in a camp with a different set of principles.

Preferences don’t even seem to make much difference. As a case in point, the ALP received its second lowest primary vote in history and was a kick of the footy from winning this election.

Which leads me to the……

AEC

I read earlier this week that India can count 800 million votes in a day.

Brexit was confirmed in 7-hours.

In Australia our measly 10 million votes are only approximately 70%. Sure we have the complexity of preferences and the use of the postal system etc, but surely we can speed things up a bit.

A move to first past the post voting, or maybe even using that futuristic thing called the internet could help?

Scare Campaigns

Work.

If, the target of said campaign permits them to.

With a week or more to go before the poll, a robust disaggregation of what was being considered for Medicare (and why), contrasted against the scaremongering may have enabled our soon to be re-sworn in PM to make a statesmanlike speech on election night.

Split the ‘Right’

Given the ‘conservative discontent’ within the broad church of the Liberal Party, will it be an ALP strategy over the course of this, and subsequent terms of government, to try and foment this unhappiness with the view to seeing ‘Team Cory Bernardi’ become to the Libs what The Greens are to them?

Perhaps, but unless we did away with preferential voting such an achievement wouldn’t make any tangible difference (based on where I presume preferences would flow).

What did we learn?

If you want to bring people with you, one needs to understand who they are, what’s relevant to them, and speak to them in their language. Ideally, this process won’t take any longer than necessary.

If you have an opportunity, take it. Never expect that it will exist forever.

Keep things simple, clear and efficient. No one has time, nor are interested in reasons/excuses why the apparently simple is actually not simple. In short, understand and meet expectations.

If, and when something incorrect is said; correct the record. Keep correcting the record until the record is correct. If you don’t do the work you don’t have anyone to blame but yourself.

Strategy. A lot of strategies look great on paper and over sound great over a cup of coffee, but said strategy is going to deliver the same result as would have been the case prior to developing, investing in, and implementing it why bother? Better to spend the time identifying what you want to achieve and develop a plan that will actually deliver difference rather than same same.

So………

As things stand today, let’s hope that Sir Peter Cosgrove extends his French sojourn a little longer to allow the dust to settle, and for us innocent Australians to focus on the important stuff in life like football, kids going back to school, and paying bills. You know, the things that need to be considered by every Australian, every day (and yes, that includes football).

 

 

The first Turnbull Ministry

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The composition of Prime Minister Turnbull’s refreshed and reinvigorated Ministry has been sliced and diced by pundits aplenty.

The important thing for business is to understand who is responsible for what and the changes in responsibilities that have taken place.

The full Ministry, inner and outer, plus Parliamentary Secretaries now known as Assistant Ministers, is available at:

http://www.aph.gov.au/about_parliament/parliamentary_departments/parliamentary_library/parliamentary_handbook/current_ministry_list

There have been some changes in responsibilities and even in departmental names and they are listed in the following two documents:

AAO_amendment_21_Sep_2015

renamed_depts-21_Sep_2015

The full list of responsibilities (for those with insomnia) is also below:

AAO_9_July_2015

It is not a safe assumption that a new broom will sweep away any controversial or sticky items on the predecessor’s agenda or that the new Ministry will immediately change the agenda on operational matters.

The business of government has a certain inertia and a change of administration, particularly one within the same party and one that has to rely on the loyalty of those who may not have supported the change, does not necessarily halt matters that are in-train. Where there has not been a change of Minister expect little immediate change. Where there has, expect that it will take some time before the new Minister’s influence, on anything other than matters that drive headline news, will become obvious.

For all the media excitement at a new era, it is still a Coalition Government with a clear eye on the need to get re-elected, probably sooner rather than later. The motivation to avoid conflict and mistakes is high. Worth remembering if you need to engage with our new Federal executive level of Government.

Tony Abbott: Architect of his own Demise

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It is impossible not to feel for Tony Abbott after the events of Monday this week. There is no doubt that he is a well-intentioned man with, what he considered to be, the nation’s best interests at heart.

It must be acknowledged how devastatingly effective he was as an Opposition Leader; albeit using his core strengths (dogged determination, a boxing blue, and, yes, three word slogans) to lower the tone of Parliament, and the approach to national politics in general. In this endeavour he had many willing co-conspirators from both sides of the Chamber and beyond.

During that period one could argue that he effectively took down three Prime Ministers (Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd – twice), no easy task. What no one recognised during what appeared to be his ‘Howitzer’ phase was that he was also drawing up the plans for his own downfall.

He wasn’t a mere draftsman; he was an architect.

He demonstrated how to exploit a broken promise with a zeal unlikely seen anywhere outside a relationship on the rocks. It would be almost impossible to calculate the number of times a high-vis Abbott reminded us about the carbon tax that should never have been.

He was a pathfinder, illuminating the way for future Oppositions.

That’s what makes the Budget of 2014 so mystifying.

A litany of broken promises that drained the pool of credibility, which had been partially filled during the long years he had led the Opposition (granted, it was not terribly deep).

Compounded by the perception that it was highly inequitable, that Budget triggered a response from our collective reptilian brain that fairness was still an Australian trait. Assault fairness – insult the nation.

The sales job was carried out via the echo chamber. Yell an idea in; hear a slogan echoed back. It worked, but only on those doing the yelling. No one had considered informing the electorate of the need for action, let alone contemplating taking it along for the ride.

The appalling politics and communication of Budget 2014 made our former PM (and his fledgling government) an easy target; transforming him from a man of whom the nation was wary but willing to give a go; to another promise-breaking, untrustworthy, administratively inept leader.

Tony Abbott had morphed into what he had previously destroyed.

It is this aspect that generates an increased level of empathy in me for how Mr Abbott must be feeling today. The galling knowledge that in attempting to emulate one of his political heroes, that he had executed his plan so poorly he found himself at the trailhead of destruction. Ironically, he was the cartographer responsible for the map that identified his position so precisely.

It is impossible to gloss over the fact that every time he managed to give his hunters the slip, he, or one of his coterie would send up a flare alerting them to his whereabouts. From Sir Philip, to Bronwyn, to Peter Dutton’s trés hilarious joke – he was Canberra’s Tantalus, almost reaching his goal but not quite being able to reach it.

I hope that history remembers former Prime Minister Abbott with more than just a PutYourOnionsOut hash tag. He deserves better than that.

I also hope that the team of Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop go forward to deliver on their commitment of communicating with the nation, as opposed to treating us as mere tax-paying minions. After all, their decisions will likely have fairly substantial impacts on the lives of us tax-paying minions.

Finally, there’s a chance that the tenor of our national debate will improve and that we will witness some non-poll/focus group driven leadership and policy development.

Who knows, good government might have even started yesterday.

The gentle art of working with Local Government in Victoria

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By Angus Nicholls

Recently we have had occasion to provide some strategic advice on interacting with Local Government in Victoria. As a former Councillor, it gave me pause to reflect on my time in Local Government and to question why more organisations do not adopt a similar approach to engaging at the local level to that used when dealing with State and Federal Governments.

The sensible conclusion I can reach is that there is a symbiotic relationship of disappointment (applicant) and inaction (Local Government), culminating in a lack of respect (mutual).

Let me explain.

Having sat on both sides of the fence, so to speak, I have experienced first-hand both the political play to the lowest common denominator (i.e. taking the populist approach to decision making with the view that “it will end up in VCAT anyway”); as well as the “What’s the point in engaging? These people (Councillors) don’t give a damn about making the right decision.”

The root cause of this malaise I attribute to Local Government being able to “outsource” unpopular decisions to another responsible authority (generally VCAT). That said, I do not think that those seeking positive results from local council’s have sufficiently engaged with Councillors.

My experience to date has generally seen Council interaction laid off to “paid professionals” and left at that. This is only half the job done. These professionals may be subject matter experts, however they only operate at an official’s level and are rarely tuned in to the local political subtleties that exist in all Councils. They also miss the reality that there is usually a lack of information sharing between officials and Councillors in the lead up to a decision. This effectively means that the preliminary work is being carried out in a vacuum, and if Councillors do not agree with the path that is being followed they are most likely to kill the decision.

It is our opinion therefore that it is of paramount importance to get good advice about what is going on within Local Government, and to ensure that there is appropriate political engagement. This could be as simple as having a cup of coffee with Councillors to make them aware, and keep them informed, of where any given proposal is at over the course of its life (updates should occur after Councils have made their decision to build deeper and more meaningful relationships).

Most importantly such engagement provides the opportunity to understand where local sensitivities are and to develop measures that can mitigate them. By adopting such an approach and demonstrating a willingness to adapt to the local environment, it generates a partnership in the enterprise, with the associated benefit of making rejection all the more unlikely.

In summary, we here at ICG believe that sound professional advice combined with decision-maker-to-decision-maker interaction is a critical element in properly engaging with Local Government and achieving the goals you seek in a timely and straightforward manner.

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