It’s the timeless sales pitch for joining a political party: A megaphone and bad hair will only get you so far, the real way to effect political change is from ‘inside the tent’.

But when it comes to politics, we’re not happy campers. Membership of mainstream political parties is on the slide, with Labor’s shrinking and disaffected base a key area of debate during the weekend’s National Conference.

Essential polling this week shows meeting the Prime Minister’s target of 8,000 new members this year will be a serious challenge for the party. In fact, to achieve the target will mean improving the current performance by a factor of about 8,000.

This week we asked about membership of all sorts of social, community, recreational and political organisations and of all these categories, it is the political parties that are suffering the most.

While much has been made of our lack of a tendency to join things – when you list out the options, 56 per cent of people say they are part of something today. Even more – 81 per cent – have been a member of something at some time.

It’s just that what they joining are not a political parties. In fact, new recruits to politics could not muster up a statistically relevant percentage point.

So in the spirit of a little Christmas bipartisan organisational development, perhaps we can share some learnings from groups that people do still join.

Sporting groups: the key to any sporting club is that members have something to do and a meaningful contest every weekend. Political parties are always being told to give their members something to do, but handing out how-to-votes once every three years is probably not sufficient action for most.

Churches, religious organisations: tied together by faith, beliefs that members can hold on to in an ever-changing world, with a sense of ritual that becomes a unifier based around an identifiable deity. While political parties have their Goughs and Mings and are built on a set of values, too often these are over-ridden for short-term gain.

Professional organisations: People join things to get ahead. Arguably the same applies to modern political parties. The difference is successful organisations focus on developing skills as well as building networks.

School P&Cs: Driven by a sense of obligation and the simple reality that if you don’t turn up your child’s education could materially suffer. Fundraising is a focus, but is pursued not as a pure financial goal but also a way of building ties amongst parents. Political parties arrange rubber chicken for corporate donors.

Unions: Seen by many as Labor’s biggest problem, the reality is that over the past decade unions have changed their focus and invested resources in reaching out to potential members through offering services and support relevant to them.

Book clubs: pure social capital driven by shared reading and mid-price Chardonnay. Party meetings could benefit from a bit of both.

Environment groups: Interesting to note that membership of groups focused on specific issues far out-number those linked to official party structures. The only obvious difference: focus.

Local community groups: People turn up when an issue affects their neighbourhood because the impacts of their action tend to be tangible. The discipline to localise party politics has always been the stuff of effective candidates.

Service organisations: Encourage the retired to give back to the community. Retired politicians get gold passes.

Special interest or hobby groups: Here’s a trick – get together to do something you actually enjoy.

We could go on, but the point is that the big political brands appear to be struggling where other forms of group activity are surviving.

Yes, the drop-out rates are high, the new recruits low, but people still join – and one can’t help thinking the secret to engagement is about more than electing candidates to a National Executive.

So let’s tally it up: meaningful action, training that builds life skills, a sense of community with tangible results and some half-decent wine.

Maybe that’s a reform agenda that no faceless man would stand in the way of.

*Total number of union members lower than official stats because of people surveyed not in workforce.

- Peter Lewis | Director, EMC
& Jackie Woods | Senior Account Manager, EMC

These numbers are absolutely fantastic – they show a growing movement committed to work to get the NDIS in place.  But the figures come second to the big win of the campaign so far – the Federal Government’s announcement in August that it ‘shared the vision’ for an NDIS.

The Government has dedicated $10 million to the groundwork recommended by the Productivity Commission and initial advisory committees have been established. The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) is also on board at this point.

Now, the hard slog begins.

The campaign’s priority now is to see the NDIS fully implemented. With a timeline of seven years recommended by the Productivity Commission, keeping people engaged with the campaign is a considerable challenge.

How can we do this? Campaigners talk about action a lot, but at Essential Media we know that a good communications strategy begins with sound information, and real voices. And we don’t always believe that we are the keepers of all knowledge when it comes to trying something new or learning more about a campaign’s supporter base.

We tried something new on Facebook just last week. A state campaign coordinator suggested we have Campaign Director John Della Bosca do a live ‘chat’ on Facebook for an hour on a Thursday – during lunch. We talked through how the activity fit with the overall campaign strategy and decided to give it a whirl.

The way it worked was simple. First, fans on the Facebook page were alerted that the live chat was happening – a couple of days before the event. Then, when the designated hour came around, fans were invited to post questions as a ‘comment’ on our wall post. John would answer the questions by posting comments to the same post. It was a lively discussion, and John at times had trouble keeping up! Here’s how it looked:

There are two important things to take into account when using any social media tool – be authentic and be responsive.

Yes, the comments had the odd typo and went through without any proofreading, but people got the information they needed, straight from the person at the centre of the campaign with the intimate knowledge of how the NDIS is progressing.

It was such a success that the campaign team is keen to do these “q and a” style chats as a regular feature of the ongoing campaign.

The NDIS is a colossal and complex reform with the prospect of truly revolutionising disability services in Australia and improving the lives of thousands of Australians. Increasing your interaction in social networking applications is a method campaigners can use to help supporters deepen their knowledge of the nuts and bolts of an issue that’s difficult to grasp. Increasing your interaction in a social media channel also helps promote the campaign in that channel, organically spreading the word among friends, and friends of friends.

Crucially, social media and social networking engages people so they are more likely to stay strong in their support of the campaign for the long haul, which is what will make all the difference in achieving the NDIS for all Australians.

Remember, social media and social networking applications are not ends in themselves – at EMC “tools not toys” is our mantra when considering these tactics. But when using these tools as part of an integrated communications strategy, your staff – and your supporters – can help your campaign sing.

- Claire O’Rourke | Senior Account Manager, EMC

You see it with almost every digital campaign – an action directed to government in which you are asked to “email your MP”.

These are usually campaigns initiated by political lobby groups, where many people are asked to write to one or more pollies about an issue. The letters may range from those actually composed by the writer, through to form letters and signed postcards.

Form letters and postcards use pre-generated content that in many instances you can edit, but generally you don’t.

The reason for this is it’s much quicker and easier to enter your details, click send and then be done. You can feel like you’ve taken part and made a stand, but for less time and effort – it’s the lazy-man’s activism.

These are low-barrier actions in every sense. It’s on par with signing an online petition, as far as usability is concerned. There is no additional work required and further engagement is not necessary.

Letters of this type are much less effective than spontaneous individual letters, as experienced pollies can usually tell when an orchestrated campaign is in progress.

Identical subject-lines and emails with identical, or very similar content, are the tell tale signs for pollies. These emails arrive in bulk and are either marked as spam or placed in a separate bin along with all the other campaign emails.

While form letters and postcards do have some value in demonstrating the level of community support or opposition to an issue, they don’t have the same impact as a well-crafted, passionate and personal letter.

Aside from pollies treating form letters and postcards with little to no interest, it can also become repetitive for supporters. Why does this happen? Because digital campaigns are over-saturated with “email your MP” actions. From Amnesty to Avaaz, and demonstrated by GetUp! continuously, these low-barrier MP actions are everywhere.

So – actions needs to be mixed up in order to keep up the interest.

Sending a letter to the editor of your local newspaper is a good one. You feel more engaged when your efforts have a recognisable end game, which plays on your vanity – publication. Now sure not every letter to the editor will see the light of day, but there is the possibility.

The issue with this type of action is the barrier, and it’s a pretty high one too.

A letter to the editor requires you to write your own content that is propelled by your own opinion. On top of this there is more ownership than a form letter or postcard action. A letter to the editor is your creation and will often require further communication with the newspaper. This communication will happen on your own grounds and will be external from the campaign that pushed you to act.

Despite this barrier, for those who do choose to step up their involvement and think outside the “email your MP” box, a letter to the edit can have an extended reach.

Politicians and/or their staff generally monitor the letters pages of newspapers. As well, published letters can raise awareness of an issue among readers who would not otherwise be aware of it. Even if not published, your letter can be instrumental in drawing to the newspaper’s attention that the issue is of public concern and should be reported on.

Writing a letter to the editor of your local newspaper is a three-pronged attack. It has the range and potential to influence politicians, spur discussion among the general public and generate free media on the issue.

The media can have a powerful influence on politicians if it is skilfully manipulated. Such methods are usually the province of political parties or professional interest groups, although individuals can also use them affectively.

With solid guidance from the campaign you are acting through this is achievable. Well thought-out creative and messaging can inform you about an issue clearly and concisely. It can spur your own opinion and really get you thinking.

I first became aware of this potential when producing the ETU campaign web site Stop The Sell Off. Stop The Sell Off is a simple splash page campaign which clearing communicates its problem and solution – http://stoptheselloff.org.au

Upon visiting the web site immediately you know that there is a need to “Stop the privatisation of NSW’s electricity!” because privatisation will result in “Higher electricity prices, a less reliable network, reduced public safety, massive job losses and less money for community organisations”.

The campaign gives you three avenues to respond – signing the petition, emailing your MP and sending a letter to the editor of your local newspaper.

It’s the later that spurred Chrissy from Bathurst to step up her involvement and write to her local newspaper…

Chrissy’s letter was published in The Western Advocate in September this year.

Oliver Woodley
Digital Campaign Coordinator
Essential Media Communications

It’s been a year of big political fights: about the future of the world; about the future of the nation; and then some that seem to be akin to war over a barren piece of rock in the middle of the Atlantic.

If carbon tax has been the battle for the planet and the mining tax the battle for the nation; then the fight over bringing the budget into surplus could well be the Gillard Government’s Falklands War.

Because while Tony Abbott huffs and puffs and Wayne Swan blows back over who has the littlest one, the presence of a budget deficit in 2012-13 is regarded as a matter of little consequence to most Australians.

Q. Do you think it is more important for the Government to return the budget to surplus by 2012/13 as planned – which may mean cutting services and raising taxes – OR should they delay the return to surplus and maintain services and invest in infrastructure?

Returning the budget to surplus in 2012-13 has become a mantra for a Labor Government determined to prove its economic credentials and a tired and predictable attack line for the Federal ‘Cut the Debt’ Opposition.

With the European debt crisis looming in the background, Labor is out spruiking the size of its own budget black hole and determination to plug it in the next budget cycle as though this single indicator will safeguard the nation’s future.

This will lead to an inevitable fight between the Government and Opposition about how to return to surplus and who would do it best – who would make the Toughest Decisions.

But neither side is likely to canvas the option most popular with the public: delaying a return to surplus in the interests of avoiding service cuts and tax hikes.

Indeed in the past six months the sentiment against returning to surplus in 2012-2013 has hardened – with a jump from 38 per cent to 58 per cent agreeing with the statement ‘it does not need to return to surplus so quickly’.

Q. In order to meet their commitment to return to surplus in 2012-13, which measures should the Government take?

In its determination to win the fight over being the best economic manager, the Government has failed to make the case for having the fight in the first place.

For those who have more than a passing interest in global economics a few contrary points seem obvious. First, Australia dodged the first GFC because it stimulated the economy and, second, the costs to the economy in sacking workers and cutting services as a downturn approaches should not under-estimated.

On baser political grounds, the fight for a surplus keeps the national political debate in the narrow corridor of economic management, an area where conservative parties are seen to be superior regardless of the merits of their policy.

Labor governments protect jobs and invest in services, pursuits made difficult when the focus is on meeting arbitrary budget targets in a contracting economic environment.

But if the Government is going to insist on balancing the books, the public is pretty clear any cuts should target high-income earners and large corporates.

Flagged tax deductions on corporate mergers fit the bill here, as does the plan to cut mushrooming taxpayer-funded ‘living-away-from-home’ allowances for foreign executives.

The mining tax that passed through the House of Representatives last week is, in the end, another measure that fits with public sentiment about how the Government should manage the economy.

We asked who does and who should benefit from the mining boom.

The groups the public thinks do benefit a lot – in order: mining company executives, mining company shareholders, foreign companies, the Federal Government, state governments, regional communities, down to All Australians; is in almost exact reverse order to those we think should benefit most.

The almighty barney over the mining tax, in which Tony Abbott piggy-backed the might of the resources industry to batter the Government over what was essentially a widely-supported principle – that mining companies should pay their fair share – is symptomatic of the way politics has played out this year.

A lot of fireworks, high drama and antagonism, resulting in some pretty reasonable and broadly supported outcomes: a modest impost on carbon emissions, onshore processing for boat arrivals, a mining tax that’s a reasonable start but probably doesn’t go far enough.

But when the annals of 2012-13 are recorded for prosperity, the presence or otherwise of a budget surplus is unlikely to be the Government’s enduring legacy.

- Peter Lewis | Director, EMC
& Jackie Woods | Senior Account Manager, EMC

For the recovering alcoholic, every day is defined by the decision not to have another drink. The Opposition leader should know how this feels as he attempts to swear himself off WorkChoices.

As the business lobby and former Coalition danger-men like Peter Reith urge him to take a tipple, Tony Abbott is attempting to stay off the juice even as every fibre in his being wants him to say ‘just a little one’.

And the public? They’re just waiting for him to fall off the wagon.

Q. If they won the next election, how likely do you think it would be that Tony Abbott and the Liberal Party would try to bring back industrial laws similar to WorkChoices?

The business lobby and sections of the Coalition frontbench are encouraging Abbott to embrace a new wave of industrial reforms, attacking in particular rights in the Fair Work Act that wind back the restrictive definitions of what constitutes legitimate industrial action and what unions may bargain over.

They argue this is just reform on its merits, that it has nothing to do with WorkChoices and that Abbott is being overly cautious and lacking political leadership (rhetorical code for refusing to commit political suicide).

But the problem for Abbott is that no matter how hard he protests and how much the reform advocates attempt to create technical difference between these proposals and the Howard era agenda, the majority of people still expect him to bring back WorkChoices.

That’s because the truth is that WorkChoices was never a particular policy or section of legislation. It was a brand that the former Howard government invested in heavily to support labour market deregulation.

The brand was market tested, promoted with more than $30 million in taxpayer-funded advertising and propagated in the free media, until it established itself as an easily understood frame for looking at the world.

The problem was the union movement and ALP then spent nearly as much trashing the brand, further reinforcing that this was the package that defined conservative political parties.

In marketing terms WorkChoices was a highly successful example of building brand recognition. In political terms it ended up a dead cat.

This is the problem for Tony Abbott; the minute talk turns to industrial relations, people remember the brand rather than any specific policy nuance – which makes any attempt at policy nuance incredibly dangerous.

If he endorses the reintroduction of statutory individual contracts – is that WorkChoices? If he suggests weakening unfair dismissal laws? If he tinkers with award structures?

Abbott has demonstrated he understands exactly how toxic the WorkChoices brand is; he’s shown impressive commitment to staying on the IR straight and narrow.

But one of the mantras of AA is that recovering alcoholics need to watch the company they keep. They need friends who will support them, who they can turn to at their moments of weakness, rather than those who sabotage their attempts at staying sober.

In this context the business lobby and chorus of former Howard-era ministers are not being good buddies.

The business lobby, supported by some sections of the media, is attempting to create a sense of crisis around Labor’s Fair Work Laws.

There’s a Battle for the Workplace going on, they’d have you believe. Australian industry is struggling under the chains of inflexible IR laws. The regime is unworkable. The unions have too much power. The country is in the grip of debilitating industrial disputes. Go on Tony, just one drink.

Business argues that unions now have too much power to negotiate over issues that affect the running of their operations – like off-shoring jobs at Qantas, or rostering and accommodation at BHP. They preferred the WorkChoices model where allowable content was strictly limited to issues of pay and work conditions.

But our polling this week shows the public isn’t buying the business argument – there’s broad support for the idea that workers should have a say in a range of issues that affect their jobs.

Q. How much say should employees have in the following issues in their workplace?

With Fair Work Australia the only body to emerge clean from the Qantas grounding, it seems the public is not buying into the phony war on IR.

The test for Tony Abbott is how long he can resist the chorus egging him on to have a drink for the good of the country. As they say – one day at a time.

- Peter Lewis | Director, EMC
& Jackie Woods | Senior Account Manager, EMC

If you thought coverage of the Queen’s hats and curtsey-gate was bad, just wait until Air Force One touches down in Australia this week.

There will be excruciating live crosses counting down the minutes until president Obama lands on Australian soil; describing in detail each element of the motorcade snaking through the roundabouts of Canberra.

It’s hard – make that impossible – to imagine an Asian head of state receiving such fanfare.

But it turns out media overkill is no guide to the way Australians understand our place in the world.

We might admire the Queen’s class and staying power, we might love the thrill of a POTUS visit; but we hold our cultural allegiances at arms length from our views on our future prosperity.

This week’s Essential Report shows Australians overwhelmingly see their future tied to Asia, rather than Europe or North America.

Q. To which region do you think Australia’s future is most closely tied?

With a new free trade pact linking Australia, the US and a number of other Asia-Pacific economies; and a US base for Darwin likely to be announced during president Obama’s tour – it looks like this visit to commemorate the 60-year alliance will be a renewal of vows between the two countries.

Yet public support for a close relationship with the United States, while still strong, is starting to wane.

Amidst a general drop in interest in international engagement, China is the only country that held its ground.

And in terms of countries we want to get closer to, China tops the table – up 3 per cent from March, while the interest in getting closer to the US dropped 6 per cent in that time.

These trends pose a number of challenges for a Prime Minister who is not just endeavouring to be a good host to a US president, but to maintain her current political momentum.

In short, how can the PM make the visit of the leader of a dwindling world power a political positive?

It’s nearly 20 years since Paul Keating strengthened APEC and unveiled his vision of an Australia confidently taking its place in Asia – an approach John Howard sought to reverse, famously casting Australia as the United States’ deputy sheriff in the region.  It makes sense to Australians that our future lays in our geographic and economically developing region.

The real leadership opportunity for Gillard this week is to articulate a vision for Australia’s future engagement with Asia, which also pays respect to our relationship with the USA. These numbers suggest this does not need to be done with a whisper…

- Peter Lewis | Director, EMC
& Jackie Woods | Senior Account Manager, EMC

Amidst the industrial carnage wrought by Qantas CEO Alan Joyce last week was a brief glimpse of what survival for the Gillard Government might look like.

It would start with a corporate leader arrogantly putting his commercial interests ahead of the national interest, to the cheers of his fellow CEOs.

It would move into a debate about whether loyal Australian workers had a right to expect any sort of say in the way their workplace was run; or whether they should be forced to cop whatever the latest management team cooked up.

It would give voice to the federal front bench, for once united on a matter of principle they truly believed in, providing a platform to speak up for the values of their movement.

And it would end with the Federal Opposition, stripped of any pretence of policy, in a tangle over the WorkChoices bogey, simply barracking for the big end of town because that is what they are conditioned to do.

First polling back since the Qantas lock-out and grounding show that Labor is picking up solid ground on the Coalition.

This equates to a two-party preferred vote of 54-46; although because Essential bases its polling on a two-week rolling average, the past week was actually sitting at 53-47 2PP. We’ll have to see if that stands firm for another week.

What we do know is that the general public and Labor voters in particular had a very clear view of the events of the past seven days.

Q. Do you approve or disapprove of Qantas’s decision to ground all planes last weekend?

Significantly, the handling of the dispute has rallied the Labor support base with two thirds disapproving of the Qantas play and, in a separate question blaming Qantas management over workers for the debacle.

That said, the improvements in Labor’s fortunes are not simply linked to the way they handled the dispute. In fact, most people spread the blame around to everyone including the Labor Government. The only institution given a pass mark was Labor’s industrial umpire Fair Work Australia.

Q. Did you approve or disapprove of the performance of each of the following in the Qantas dispute?

But this is an important anchor point. If Fair Work Australia is seen to have worked, then Labor’s industrial policies must be working too. And as the business community and elements of Abbott’s front bench clamour for another round of industrial relations reform, they are on shaky ground.

The bigger windfall for Labor is one of political agenda management; for once the political issue of the week was on workers’ rights and corporate excess, issues that they have struggled to stake out in a sustained way.

In simple terms, when these are the issues that dominate national debate Labor is playing on its home field; in contrast when the issue is asylum seekers or taxes, the Coalition is on its turf.

Incumbency has always been assumed to give the Government the advantage in determining the issues of the day. Howard was a master at it, but in the climate of minority Government and a hostile media Labor has floundered.

It’s probably just a moment of polling sunshine, but the past week shows that when the stars align, there is still hope for the ALP.

If only there were more people like Alan Joyce.

- Peter Lewis | Director, EMC

Protest about corporate giants holding the nation to ransom and you’ll get hauled away by police under cover of darkness.

Be a corporate giant and actually hold the nation to ransom and you’ll get a $2 million pay rise and a pat on the back from your mates.

Only slightly less bizarre than Qantas CEO Allan Joyce’s decision to ground his fleet over the weekend, stranding thousands of innocent punters, has been the muted response by the nation’s media.

Imagine a union leader taking wildcat industrial action and grounding an airline, with no thought of the implications. The tabloids would scream “industrial thuggery” and “un-Australian bastardry”; there would be calls for deregistration of the union, possibly jail for the rogue official.

Contrast this with the media coverage of Joyce’s weekend madness – The Australian and News Ltd tabloids did their best to cast him as a little Aussie battler, Sydney’s Daily Telegraph bizarrely trying to blame Gillard for the capital strike. Fairfax showered the blame around; the ABC as always trying to stay in the middle was nowhere.

The sentiment that “this chaos had to be brought to a head”, even though unions had already called off industrial action, has run consistently through media commentary.

And so, according to this script, the ends will justify the means when it comes to breaking unions and maximising profits; even if it means sending an Australian company offshore; sacking workers and shafting customers.

But the story being told in the traditional media bears little connection to the attitudes of the general public.

As we wrote last week, there is little public support for Qantas’s offshoring strategy; indeed the majority of people blame Qantas management for the industrial conflict.

These figures are backed by a more general examination in this week’s Essential Report of public attitudes to the growing power of corporates, embodied in the global Occupy movement.

Q. There have recently been protests held in some Australian cities – similar to the “Occupy Wall Street” protests in USA – against “corporate greed” and the power of major banks and multinational corporations. Which best describes your opinion of these protests?

While just 29 per cent back the protests, another 40 per cent – or 69 per cent of the public in total – support the sentiments behind them.

This is despite media coverage ranging from outright ridicule through to condescending puzzlement. What do these people even stand for? There’s no financial crisis here right, so why get worked up?

But the global Occupy movement, with its catch-all slogan “we are the 99 per cent”, does tap into local dismay and anxiety about the economy and in whose interests it is managed.

Qantas has proven a timely case in point. While Australian Occupy activists shift their attention from financial districts to airport terminals, the broader public are left to wonder how boosting Qantas’s share price by cutting local jobs and off-shoring whole areas of operation can possibly benefit the rest of us.

Interestingly, the partisan differences in attitudes to the Occupy movement are not significant, meaning you can describe the issue as a general consensus.

The disconnect comes when these consensus concerns are focussed on perceptions of the major political parties.

Despite Tony Abbott’s effort to be photographed in a high-vis vest in every workshop between Burnie and Mackay, people are crystal clear whose side the Coalition is on.

Q. Do you think the Federal Liberal/National Opposition favours the interests of businesses or workers?

What is less clear is where the ALP stands, the inevitable product of a two-decade drift to the political centre.

Q. Do you think the Federal Labor Government favours the interests of businesses or workers?

Labor is still ahead on favouring the interests of workers, but not by a convincing margin. These findings highlight the disconnect between the major parties and the general public – “who is looking out for us?” – which is particularly damaging for Labor. No-one seriously expects the Liberals will favour workers over business. But Labor? That’s their job.

This week’s numbers also highlight the disconnect between the general public and the traditional media, which still positions itself as the expert interpreter of Important National Events.

Twitter’s #qantas stream casts the weekend’s events in a different light. Some choice examples:

In the public’s interpretation of events like the Qantas grounding and the Occupy protests, there are bigger forces at play than the daily news cycle and the front page of the Daily Telegraph.

- Peter Lewis | Director, EMC

Every decent industrial dispute needs a villain, but it seems Qantas CEO Alan Joyce’s efforts to cast unions as corporate wreckers are backfiring badly.

With 30,000 workers, 11 unions, an iconic red and white kangaroo and the perennial headline-grabbers of aircraft safety, Aussie jobs and stranded holidaymakers, occasional high-profile industrial disputes are a fact of life at Qantas.

The airline has traditionally responded to union campaigning with a straight bat – make any claim and the airline would shut the issue down, convinced that responding would only inflame the situation.

But managing his first showdown, Joyce has opted for beat-up over hose-down. He’s grabbed the microphone off the unions, cranked up the amp and is ripping through his song-list at high volume – “A new spirit of Australia”, is followed by “Qantas pilots are greedy” with an encore of “I’m a really nice person and they’re trying to kill me”.

On any surface analysis of free and paid media coverage, Qantas is winning the PR war; the TV reports are sympathetic, talkback radio typically vitriolic and the company’s ‘exclusive’ drops have been running a dream in the tabloids.

But the verdict of this week’s Essential Report shows otherwise. The public is not singing along with Joyce because it turns out we like Qantas’s old stuff better than its new stuff.

Q. Qantas and its workers are currently in dispute over pay, conditions and jobs. Who do you think is most to blame for this dispute – Qantas management or the workers?

It’s been a fascinating war from a PR perspective.

Qantas, with its well-stocked team of flacks has taken on the role of aggressor: spurious death-threats, inflated wage estimates, planes withdrawn from service as ‘proof’ the union campaign was hurting, daily media conferences where the unions are given a whack, guerrilla websites attacking each union in detail, enthusiastic overstatement of the amount of disruption caused by industrial action. Meanwhile, full-page newspaper ads on almost a daily basis, soft-focus profiles on the airlines misunderstood genius and complimentary and apparently coordinated support from the tourism industry.

But despite all these well-resourced, well-planned and admittedly well-executed tactics, something is fundamentally flawed with the Qantas strategy.

Q. Do you agree or disagree with the following statements?

We tested this series of propositions that broadly characterise the unions’ and company’s public posturing.

At the heart of these numbers is a rejection of the business model underlying this dispute – people overwhelmingly reject Joyce’s strategy to move some of the airline’s operations to Asia.

And while the public may not have any love for disruptive industrial action, they also recognise the workers are in a corner fighting for an issue with which they sympathise.

That sympathy is about more than just a distaste at an Australian icon shifting jobs offshore; at its heart is a suspicion that corporate giants like Qantas are acting in nothing other than a narrow self interest.

When we asked the public in separate questions whether the decision to privatise Qantas in the first place had been a good thing just 23 per cent said yes, with 44 per cent taking the position the airline should never have been sold off.

This matched the lack of the support for privatisation of other entities like Telstra (20 per cent good, 53 per cent bad) and the Commonwealth Bank (26 per cent good, 42 per cent bad).

Indeed, 43 per cent of voters say they would support renationalising Qantas, similar to the numbers who would have the Government buyback the CBA (41 per cent) and Telstra (47 per cent).

These results suggest that the public resents their loss of control over institutions that were once theirs, a sense they no longer trust or identify with the corporate entities they have become.

In this context it’s no surprise that Qantas’s attempts to portray itself as a victim in what is effectively a dispute over sending the Flying Kangaroo offshore don’t win it many friends. Because when Joyce is speaking of Qantas’s interests, they are now very different form the public’s.

Q. Which of the following is likely to cause the most damage to Qantas’s reputation?

In PR speak, the airline is stuck in a frame where people don’t trust management, don’t accept their plans and question their basic legitimacy. In this environment, no amount of spin will win you the public’s support.

Disclosure: The authors of this piece have done work for a number of Qantas unions.

- Peter Lewis | Director, EMC
& Jackie Woods | Senior Account Manager, EMC

As our Prime Minister and Opposition Leader continue to struggle under the weight of negative approval ratings perhaps the time has come to draw guidance from the humble hagfish.

Tomorrow is official Hagfish Day, a day to celebrate the ‘beauty of ugly’ and make the point it’s not just cute and cuddly creatures that deserve our attention.

Haikus are written, songs are sung, school kids are encouraged to learn more about the slimy deep-sea scavengers.

It’s not that our political leaders are slimy scavengers. Hang on… it’s not that our political leaders bear any physical similarities that make Hagfish Day relevant; but their pursuit of popularity does end up reinforcing all the negatives that drive our disdain with politics.

Take the debate on asylum seekers. We have one party dedicated to towing boats back out to sea now using concern for human rights as a fig leaf for blocking a policy of offshore processing that they support.

On the other, we have a government steered by legal and political considerations into a more humane position in line with much of their support base, angrily blaming the Opposition for forcing them there.

Asylum-seekers have long been the piñata of Australian politics – whack them and you get showered with votes in outer metropolitan swinging electorates.

But in the pursuit of political approval, both sides have ended up with positions so at odds with their core values that no-one is giving either of them credit.

Q. Regardless of how you vote, what words would you use to describe the positions taken by Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott on the issue of asylum seekers, including the recent attempt at legislating the deal with Malaysia?

On the only option that attracted significant interest – ‘just playing politics’ – Abbott and Gillard are neck and neck.

What’s interesting to note is that both sides are dragging each other deeper and deeper into a mire of disapproval – and perversely it’s the pursuit of support through tricky tactical manoeuvring that is driving this self-destructive behaviour.

To put this in context; we currently have a Prime Minister with just 34 per cent approval and 59 per cent disapproval. Against her an Opposition Leader with numbers that would look dire in any other situation – 40 per cent approval and 51 per cent disapproval. When asked to choose a preferred leader, neither tracks more than 40 per cent.

Which brings us back to the hagfish. Rather than tying themselves in knots trying to play to the voters, maybe the time has come to celebrate the ugly.

For Gillard, it is clear her only salvation lies in standing firm in the face of the pressure of a coordinated campaign from industry and the Opposition; to push on and earn respect for bedding down action on climate change that may not be popular but is the right thing to do.

For Abbott, it’s a different but similar challenge – convince the public he is more than a leader who will just play to the punters, opposing anything the Government serves up, to sacrifice some easy hits to fill out a more substantial story.

Politics may be Hollywood for ugly people; but the time is approaching when the beauty contest for Australia’s preferred leader should be called off for lack of interest.

To get the ball rolling we start with our own haiku tribute to ugly leadership:

Brave the murky depths

Embrace your ugly virtue

Just like a hagfish

- Peter Lewis | Director, EMC

& Jackie Woods | Senior Account Manager, EMC