Jim Reed is not a household name, nor is his company, Resolve Strategic.
Which is why it has raised more than a few eyebrows that his business, registered to a PO Box in Glebe, is running a million-dollar marketing campaign that is helping shape key parts of the Morrison government’s economic policy.
It’s all part of what analysts say is the Morrison government’s obsession with polling, market research and advertising to push its message to voters who will be crucial in the next federal election.
Reed, a veteran campaign strategist and an architect of Scott Morrison’s “quiet Australians”, is a former Liberal party pollster with a long history as a researcher with Crosby Textor (now C|T), the strategy group loved by conservative pollies around the world, including Boris Johnson.
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But his ability to win two huge contracts from Morrison’s office since February with a limited tender has led many to question his intimate role in crafting the government’s COVID-19 response.
Reed’s good fortune began in April when he was awarded a $541,750 limited-tender contract by Nev Power’s COVID-19 commission to conduct research “to inform whole-of-government communications on social and community responses to the COVID-19 pandemic — particularly during the period of social restrictions”.
This research was sent directly to the prime minister’s office, it emerged in estimates last week, prompting Labor to label it “thinly disguised political research” paid for by Australian taxpayers, rather than by the Liberal party, as would be the convention.
Reed’s luck doubled in May when he won another limited tender contract worth $554,675 from Treasury. This contract, it emerged on Monday, related to a $15 million taxpayer-funded ad campaign about economic recovery called “Our Comeback” that has appeared on billboards and in newspapers across the country. This research was also handed directly to the prime minister and the treasurer’s political offices.
It’s not unusual for governments on both sides of politics to run ads and conduct market research to test out certain policies, particularly ahead of elections (Kevin Rudd was particularly good at it). But it’s the size of Reed’s contracts — purely for market research, not the ad campaign itself — that has surprised experts.
“This is not some basic report being done about how people feel,” Australian National University marketing lecturer Andrew Hughes told Crikey. “Someone is doing some in-depth work here and it’s very targeted.”
So is Reed just running a secret polling outfit for the Liberal party, at taxpayers’ expense?
The research reports, which would reveal what questions are being asked in focus groups, would give some indication of that, but the government has refused to hand them over, including to the select committee that is monitoring the government’s response to the pandemic.
Officials from Treasury told estimates this week that Resolve Strategic ran 16 virtual focus groups and online surveys of 7000 randomly selected participants, and that it conducted 30 “in-depth” interviews with businesses about the efficacy of the government’s measures.
But Hughes said that the money still didn’t add up.
“A million dollars is a lot to spend on market research,” he said.
“A single focus group costs around $800 to $1000 … this is definitely up there in terms of market research contracts you would see in Australia all year. Particularly with the pandemic, that’s a large sum of cash.”
Reed, who did not return Crikey’s calls, is not the only C|T alumnus to have a prominent role in the government’s messaging. Morrison’s principal private secretary Yaron Finkelstein is the former chief executive of C|T, where he worked with Reed for several years. This has prompted Labor Senator Murray Watt to accuse the government of handing big contracts to mates.
Under government guidelines, commonwealth ads must be “objective” and “not directed at promoting party political interests”. A Treasury spokesperson said the “Our Comeback” campaign had followed the guidelines and approval processes.
Is this another case of the Coalition government helping itself? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication in Crikey’s Your Say section.
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If these ‘limited tenders’ were to occur that looked this dodgy in local government, in Qld, somebody would have contacted the Crime and Corruption Commission to investigate. It just sounds too much a jobs for mates kind of thing. Very dodgy. Smells fishy. Not acceptable.
No doubt. So it’s very mysterious there is no federal Crime and Corruption Commission. It’s almost as though the federal government does not want independent scrutiny of the way it does things. But why?
If we had a real parliament the need for such a Commission is reduced (but not eliminated). Every single member of parliament who is prepared to continue to support this rorting government is equally blameworthy as the worst minister. It seems to me that only independents are actually working; the rest are fake.
Yes, the theory of Parliament holding the executive to account is in reality a bad joke and getting worse. It’s been pretty much downhill for parliament since the English Revolution failed and monarchy was restored. The most obvious explanation is that ministers are selected from among MPs; the power of patronage and the payroll vote overrides any inclination an MP might have to serve the interests of either constituency or nation. However, the US constitution insists on separating legislature and executive, yet Congress performs just as badly if not worse in restraining the worst tendencies of the executive. So the rot must really be due to the dominance of two major parties, and as you say, the only MPs worth a damn are the independents, though some minor parties have their better moments too.
I’d like to see the influence of parties in parliament completely removed. One elected head of the executive – a president – would be quite sufficient. Parliament in contrast should be entirely made up of randomly selected adult citizens, like a jury. The executive would have to persuade a majority of ordinary Australians to pass its legislation, not a bunch of corrupt self-serving professional party politicians.
When Tony Fitzgerald, famous in Queensland for being brave enough to chair a Royal Commission into corruption of both the government and the police force and making a good fist of it, wrote to all sitting MP’s asking them to sign a code of conduct which he had published.
Most did not reply and certainly did not sign it. A couple of Greens senators were the only ones to sign other than Andrew Wilke.
What does this tell you?
all of the Greens, and some of the independents are actually working imo
The government still has a small army of paid trolls on Facebook, Instagram & Twitter.
And industry groups, as reported by The Saturday Paper:
‘Mining multinational Glencore bankrolled a global astroturfing campaign to spread pro-coal messaging on social media and collect intelligence on environmental organisations. Guardian Australia reported on Thursday that Glencore spent up to $13 million per year on “Project Caesar”, a campaign run by lobbying firm, the Crosby Textor Group.’
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/thebriefing/2019/03/08
Crony capitalism in Australia is getting to be as bad as the worst excesses of the Marcos regime in the Philippines. Defence spending sprees and over-runs, accountability-free rorts to NLP electorates and the fossil fuel subsidies all going to mates and mates of mates.
The siphoning off of our public funds to Liberal Party associates has become a daily occurrence. Their refusal to hand over documentation on research supposed to be Government Business paid by the taxpayer to the Senate Estimates simply indicates the Government has something to hide.How much longer can we endure what look like corrupt practices without accountability. Morrison appears to think he will continue to hand out funds to his mates as long as he can get away with it.
Georgia, there’s no doubt that this stuff matters, but you didn’t spend enough effort on researching your point to make it clearly.
Is it that:
If you don’t do the research and tell your readers what you know, how will your readers know? You’re spraying because you didn’t do the background research to focus your thinking.
Please, stop asking your readers to do your prep for you. They’re paying you to do the work they don’t have time to do.
On the other hand: it does still matter. Please do more here, rather than less.
Best o’ luck,
Teh Ruvvage.
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that things are usually far worse under a Coalition government-especially this one. Remember how many senior MP’s got axed from Howard’s Front Bench in his first term…..before he abandoned his own Ministerial Standards? Remember that Howard used taxpayers funds to completely bail out his brother’s textile mill-in spite of evidence that Stan had embezzled his workers’ entitlements?
Remember the Manildra debacle & AWB saga?
Now, can you point me to anything equally appalling during Rudd or Gillard’s tenure? I remember the conniption fit the Coalition & MSM had over the mere *suggestion* that someone in Wayne Swan’s electorate might have directly benefited from Labor policy-though that was later found out to be a phony scandal manufactured by a Liberal Party plant within the public service (for which Grech & Turnbull should have lost their jobs….but didn’t).
The current mob make Howard’s era look as pure as the driven snow, by comparison. So, yes, I do believe this is an issue most closely connected to the Liberal/National Party in government…..if only because the Mainstream media hold Labor to a ridiculously high standard by comparison.