Campbell Newman’s political masterstroke/death wish is all very entertaining. It’s fascinating for the Queensland press gallery, a smorgasbord of logistical dilemmas for wonks and a great play at personality politics. After all, the public don’t care for little details like being a member of parliament in order to lead an opposition. And they can’t get enough of Can Do.
But as Benjamin Law points out in Crikey today, there’s one minor matter: the LNP currently has no policies. Somehow that’s in danger of getting lost in the colourful Campbell coverage.
Remember the press gallery soul searching way post federal election? Can someone remind the press as they feed off the latest Rudd/Gillard plot point and try to devise explanations of why Labor’s vote surged one fortnight and dropped the next, rather than accepting that opinion polls occasionally throw out implausible results?
What opinion polls and leadership stories have in common is that they’re the easiest political stories to write. If there were no major policy issues on the boil in Canberra, it would be understandable. But there’s the carbon price, welfare reform from both sides of politics, a tough budget, a mining tax, Andrew Wilkie’s pokies crusade, Labor’s crippling incompetence and foreign investment issues to pick from, just for starters.
Gallery journalists hate the perennial criticism that they focus on personalities and polls rather than policy. They see it as unfair and unreflective of their individual work, and that’s certainly true. It’s not the fault of individual journalists, but when you read the gallery’s coverage as a whole, examples of group think can become painfully apparent. Like right now.
7 thoughts on “Of plot points, polls and (no) policies”
shepherdmarilyn
April 7, 2011 at 1:44 pmIt’s even worse than that – the PG all wrote the exact same editorial this week about Rudd’s “comeback” and “admission”.
Joe Hoogland
April 7, 2011 at 2:06 pmAnyone who watched Chris Uhlmann’s interview last night on 7.30 Report and who agrees with the above editorial must cringe in their seats. What an atrocious interview by a supposedly serious journalist on a supposedly serious current affairs program. It was as rude as Alan Jones with constant interruptions. It was a meaningless focus on Mr Rudd when there is an urgent need to address issues such as falling productivity, a tax system which is in a mess, companies which are massively profitable not paying their fair share of tax, a badly unbalanced economy, a defence force in crisis, a question on the long term impact on public policy formulation of the mining lobby’s expenditure of $20m on an anti government campaign and the template this has provided to anti gambling lobby, and the list goes on. The most voluble critics of the anti ALP/LNP lack of policy development and exposition are now the most nit picking small picture commentators, searching desperately for a gothca moment, totally failing their responsibility to be serious journalists. It’s all the media’s fault? Maybe not but they have have a lot to answer for and THEY ARE IN THE BEST POSITION TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
klewso
April 7, 2011 at 2:49 pmYou mean that interview with “Julia Thatcher”?
Pdaddy
April 7, 2011 at 5:31 pmExcellent piece. These clowns are the first to moan about a lack of policies but then the first to ignore them when they are there. Today’s journos seem to busy looking for some “gossip” rather than getting something which might add to an actual policy debate.
klewso
April 7, 2011 at 5:36 pmThese days “news” seems 60% presenter.
michael crook
April 7, 2011 at 10:21 pmSadly “can do” didn’t. Those who remember his promise to fix gridlock by the american failed “solution” of more roads, bridges and tunnels will not be surprised to hear that he is deserting very much a “sinking ship” with massive redundancies planned and large numbers of demotions amdong council staff. Councils social programmes are under serious threat and Brisbane is on the verge of bankruptcy and has been for almost 12 months. Nothing to do with the floods and everything to do with failed adventures in building more stupid and unnecessary roads, tunnels and bridges.
leone
April 8, 2011 at 10:28 amSince when has having no policies been a problem? John Howard won election after election without having any – apart from that Great Big New Tax and the odd war. Fatty O’Barrell has just won NSW without having any policies.
Running on the theme ‘Vote For Us Because We Aren’t Labor’ gets the votes. Oddly enough Labor is always required to have detailed, costed, logical policies and has to ‘stand for’ something. Or that seems to be the way the PG likes to play things.
The PG will deluge us with sugary puff pieces about Newman until our eyes and ears bleed, but they will never ask him what his policies are and will always forget to ask ‘what do you stand for?’ At the same time they’ll go on and on and on about Anna Bligh’s lack of policies and will ask ‘what does Bligh stand for’ at every opportunity. They work on the principle ‘say something often enough and people will believe it’. It’s a shame that pretty much all they say is rubbish.