A Flowering Discontent

This John Flowers saga keeps rolling on.


I wrote previously about the issue here and here.

The Man himself.  From the Telegraph

The Sydney Morning Herald has, so far, barely covered the issue.  The Telegraph, on the other hand, seems to be quite enjoying the chance to have a dig at the new kids in town.


On Monday the Tele published a long piece online about Flowers, essentially speculating that he suffered from agoraphobia.  The suggestion is not attributed, but I wonder whether it came from a source that was keen to "flush out" the true state of affairs, or was otehrwise keen to perpetuate the story.


A new story was published yesterday that explained that in fact he suffers from PTSD as a result of, amongst other things, seeing a teacher's hair set on fire and having his car rocked by students.


The interesting issue here, in my view, is the Coalition's failure to take control of the story and kill it.


This is the week that the new parliament is being opened, but instead Labor has been able distract Telegraph readers with this issue.


There was some discussion in yesterday's Telegraph article about how it is that Mr Flowers "could not go back to teaching" and that to do would have been medically unwise.


He goes on to say that teaching is different to dealing with parliament as he will be dealing with adults rather than children.


Clearly he has never seen question time in the Bearpit, but I suppose that is another issue.


The article goes on to say the following: "[Flowers] said a psychiatrist and doctor advised him to be medically retired and he has since received a "breakdown pension" involving him receiving compulsory superannuation payments he had made earlier as a teacher."


Prior to this article appearing it was my impression that Flowers was on some sort of disability pension, suggesting that he was medically unfit for work.


As I have said, I am no expert at Suerannuation, and I don't understand what "a "breakdown pension" involving him receiving compulsory superannuation payments" means.  No doubt 99% of the electorate doesn't either.


It may be that, as a result of his PTSD, he was simply given early access to his super.


On the other hand, he may have been in receipt of some centrelink type payment.


Either way, the issue is that the public have no information about what was actually going on, which means that Labor now has the opportunity to produce this.


The piece is a bit over the top in suggesting that "the fix was in" or that he is "unfit to sit in parliament". But nonetheless it is a piece that, in light of the Telegraph articles, has some traction.


The failure of the Telegraph article to fully explain what the true situation was may be more to do with the writer than the Liberal party.


But either way, this issue, which should have been stamped out before the election, is being allowed to fester.  Labor and the Tele (surprising bedfellows, to say the least) are controlling the narrative, and the narrative is damaging for the Liberal Party.


The Liberals are going to have to learn to deal with this stuff or else they are quickly going have the gloss taken off, and in a big way.


The new government's first "scandal".  Not a good reflection on them at a time when they should be winning plaudits for starting to fix stuff in NSW.

An Incriminating Photios

Apparently the Liberals can't see the problem here, although surely any idiot would be able to.


The SMH reported today that Michael Photios has not only registered as a lobbyist, but also has one particularly big client - the Australian Hotels Association. 

He's the one on the right.  Photo from news.com.au

Now this would all be unremarkable but for the fact that Photios also has a "day job" - vice president of the Liberal State Executive.


It is truly extraordinary that anyone in the Liberals could possibly think this is a good idea.


Photios is, to say the least, a high ranking Liberal member.  He's not just a party member, or a administrative employee - he is one step from being in charge of the "administrative wing" of the Liberals.


An "anonymous lobbyist" was quoted in the Herald article as saying that he "makes no secret of the fact that he has Barry's ear."  Whether the speaker is in the know or just speculating, it would certainly be bizarre if it was any other way.


And of course, as the expression goes, they wouldn't be paying for it if it wasn't worth something.


How can the Liberal rules allow this? Most government employees (at all levels) have a code of conduct that compels them to conduct themselves in a apolitical fashion.


Now of course Photios cannot conduct his role apolitically, given that his roles is intrinsically political, but one would have thought that he must compelled to act only in the Liberal party's interests. 


Presumably, of course, the Liberal party has no such rule.  He isn't a government employee, so he's not breaking any of those rules.


But the main question I have is how anyone the Liberal party cannot have a problem with the situation.


The Hotel Lobby is an disproportionately powerful lobby in NSW, to the detriment of the entire state. Sadly, it appears that their influence still runs deep in NSW.


The Liberal Party has already gotten off to a bad start on this front by opposing Gillard and Wilkie's pokie reforms.


On one hand, you can understand that the state Liberals need to be in song with the Federal counterparts on this issue.  O'Farrell may well have gotten the word from Abbott that his support is expected.


But surely he should know better than to think that no one would mind Photios being on the Hotel lobby's payroll.  Pokies and the hotel lobby generally are a sensitive topic in NSW.  


The old Labor government stank of corruption.  The two lobby groups most closely connected with that perceived corruption were development and hotels.


When the next election comes around, the Coalition surely wants to be seen as fundamentally different to the previous government.


I wrote previously that Coalition just needs to govern cautiously and avoid upsetting people, and they will probably be guaranteed at least 2 terms.


There is probably nothing that will make the Coalition government seem more like the government before than being seen to be cosying up to the Hotel lobby. 


And there is nothing that could make the Coalition seem corrupted to be more than having one of their highest ranking members on the Hotel lobby's payroll.


Surely O'Farrell is going to show some political common sense and deal with this issue before it becomes a millstone around his government's neck.

A Good One-Liner

Campaign slogans are an odd science. 

The 2010 Federal Election was a case in point. The Coalition went for the infamous "End the waste, repay the debt, stop the new taxes and stop the boats".  Whilst it was ruthlessly negative and devoid of any real content, people seemed pretty clear on where the Coalition stood.

Labor went for "Moving Forward" which was cryptic and ineffective. The slogan was the eternal proof that something that has been focus grouped to death and then repeated ad nauseum is going to grate within about 15 minutes, and that was exactly what occurred.

NSW elections have been no different.  In 2007, the Coalition went for the impossibly bland "Let's Fix NSW".  Labor's slogan was the endlessly derided "More to do, but we're heading in the right direction".

"Let's Fix NSW" seemed to be a pretty good summation of the Coalition campaign, and is a positive message that reminds the voter about the inadequacy of the opposition, but it's hard to imagine it drumming up any sort of emotional response.

The Labor slogan was, if memory serves, almost instantly mocked for its clumsiness and the fact that to any neutral observer it was flagrantly untrue.  It's impossible to know for sure unless you were in the room, but I wonder whether someone cobbled together 30 different slogans on this theme, sent them out to be tested, and this one came back as having the strongest positive reaction.

Having said that, history tells us that Labor won that election easily, so perhaps I'm being unkind.  Of course, I think most people would attribute that win more to the extremely effective attack ads on Debnam's business history rather than people favouring Labor.

Labor's election launch today had as its centrepiece their slogan "Fairness for Families", a slogan as bland as it is inscrutable.

At the Federal Level, the concept of "fairness for families" usually takes the form of middle-class welfare - a world where a family of three can earn an enormous sum of money before the amount they pay in tax exceeds the benefits they receive.

At the state level, it is a little difficult to relate such a slogan to concrete policies.  The Labor website says this: "If re-elected, I will introduce a new law – the Fairness for Families Act. This new law will cap increases in public transport fares and many taxes, fees and charges to the rate of inflation.  We will also provide a new $250 Energy Rebate to all households earning up to $150,000 – taking the sting out of rising energy prices.  We will also pass a new law to keep Sydney Water, Hunter Water and State Water in public hands."

Unsurprisingly, this has nothing to do with families at all - it's a cost-of-living policy.  But I suppose "We'll ease the cost of living" didn't test well.

On a sidetone, and as a lawyer who has to work with legislation every day, "Fairness for Families" Act is a ridiculous name for an Act - the fact that it fails to describe the contents of the act can actually make it incredibly difficult when you think "I know there is legislation on this issue, but I'm buggered if I can remember what act it was in."

Another great example of stupid names for a law is the GST legislation, which is still lumbered with the moniker "A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Act".

Ultimately, of course, it doesn't matter a bit that the slogan has little to do with the actual policies - my tip is that the people influenced by simplistic slogans are not the kind of people to have any detailed knowledge of the policies of a party.  

The Liberal Policy for this election is "Make NSW Number 1 Again".  Of course we aren't told who we are to be ranked against, on what criteria or indeed why it matters that we are number one, but again, those questions aren't really the point.

It's simple, it's a positive message, it has a good dose of parochialism.  All the boxes.

It's also easy to use well visually - have a look at the first page of the Liberal's "Action plan": http://bit.ly/h9gjVh

It's easy to deride overly-tested slogans.  They are usually plucked from a focus group, and are so light on detail. But as I have said above, the slogans are only going to have an impact with people who are light on detail anyway, so it's probably fairly canny politics.

If a voter is only going to vote based upon the slogan they have heard on TV, then there's probably some sense in picking the slogan based only on how they test.

It's another great example of the multiple layers that every campaign must possess to have any effect at all.