Mike O’Connor: Palaszczuk’s answer to ministerial underperformance is to hire more staff to hide the truth
Instead of keeping Queenslanders informed of the workings of government, the Premier has surrounded herself with a propaganda team that tries to block the release of anything that casts her team in a poor light, writes Mike O’Connor.
Mike O'Connor
Don't miss out on the headlines from Mike O'Connor. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Given that we are paying for them, it is reasonable to wonder what the state government’s ever-expanding army of media people actually does.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has 30-odd on her team and last week it was revealed that the Queensland Police Service has a media team of 38, whereas the team charged with a strategic response to domestic and family violence numbers 27, an indictment of QPS priorities.
Does the police service seriously need 38 media workers, whose brief we can safely assume is to make them look good?
Another 50 police on the street would surely be of more public benefit.
We trust our police to serve and protect us.
They don’t need their image to be massaged and manipulated. Their actions speak for them.
Occasionally, however, the truth is revealed and we discovered last week that Commissioner Carroll had refused to appear before the Commission of Inquiry into Queensland Police Service
Responses to Domestic and Family Violence until being told that a subpoena would be issued to compel her to do so.
The public relations veil was suddenly lifted and no amount of message management could alter the perception the state’s most senior officer was reluctant – whether true or not – to be questioned and have her responses made public.
The Palaszczuk government has become one of the largest employers of journalists in the state, with electronic media persons particularly sought after, so much so that the Premier’s department is beginning to resemble a retirement home for ex-TV journos.
So apart from falling over each other, what do these spin doctors do, this being the derisory term employed to describe them by people such as myself who have not taken the government’s shilling.
Perhaps this reflects a degree of jealousy or self-doubt.
Why, when so many have been called to the Tower of Power in George St, have the Premier’s underlings not come knocking on my door with lucrative offers of employ?
Perhaps it is felt that I wouldn’t be a particularly good fit.
So how is it that given that a trademark of this government is secrecy and opacity, that it employs so many people who are trained to communicate with the public?
Rather than keep the electorate informed of the workings of government, the Premier has surrounded herself with a propaganda team whose aim is to block the release of anything that casts government in a poor light and when an uncomfortable truth is revealed, misrepresent it.
The convulsions and contortions that surrounded the Wellcamp quarantine facility farce are a shining example of a government obsessed with secrecy.
Did any of these highly trained and well remunerated media staff urge the Premier to tell the truth about the amount of public money that had been poured into this monument to arrogance or was their role to come up with a cover-up strategy?
Was “Just keep saying ‘commercial in confidence’ Premier, and eventually they’ll get tired of asking,” the advice?
When the Queensland Building Construction Commission was shown to be dysfunctional, rather than address the issue the government’s response was to make an expensive TV commercial extolling the virtues of the QBCC. Really?
What PR genius came up with that idea? The same person, perhaps, who suggested that to counter growing outrage at increased royalties imposed on the coal industry, Treasurer Cameron Dick would announce that companies such as Whitehaven Coal were quite happy with the charges.
The company had said no such thing and was quick to say so, ending another PR-inspired stroke of genius.
When confronted with the news that there were now 229 staff attached to ministerial offices, Deputy Premier Steven Miles replied that the Newman government sacked 14,000 public servants.
Thank you, minister. That makes so much sense. Another PR masterstroke.
The government’s answer to ministerial underperformance is to hire more staff to shield the public from the truth.
Effective governments don’t need battalions of media advisers telling us what a wonderful job they are doing.
The underlying assumption is that people are stupid and can have their perceptions shaped and changed by media consultants, but I’d like to think that we are a lot smarter than they thinkand can see through the grandstanding and smokescreens and outright obfuscation generated by them.