Kristina Keneally’s challenge as she moves from media back to politics as Labor candidate for Bennelong
WHEN she moved into media, Kristina Keneally had to shift a few mental gears. Now she’s back on the other side of the microphone with a new challenge.
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LESS than a month ago, Kristina Keneally was making her move on Canberra politics as host of her own Sky News program, To The Point.
But after her shock announcement to contest the Bennelong by-election on December 16, the former NSW premier may have to go back to answering the questions she once revealed she had tried to “dodge” as a politician.
As her sharp press conference with Labor leader Bill Shorten showed, Keneally has not lost her ability to nail a sound bite or argue her political corner on network widely-regarded as a rare platform for right-wing opinions.
The articulate US-born Australian, who confirmed she renounced her dual citizenship in 2002, had made the transition to media look easy — whether sounding off against Liberal conservative Peta Credlin or offering analysis with Sky’s bureau chief, David Speers.
With one important shift, she explained: “It is, at times, amusing to me as a former politician to be on the other side of the microphone, so to speak, as the one asking the questions instead of the one thinking of the answers, or how to fend off those pesky journalists.”
The biggest challenge of her TV career, she said was “to stop thinking like a politician”.
“A politician thinks about ‘how do I repeat my message, be clear in what I’m trying to communicate and dodge the questions I don’t want to answer. As a journalist, I’ve found it was a transition for me to stop thinking as I might answer the question and ask, ‘what does the viewer want to know about this? And what don’t I understand about it and how can I get to the bottom of it and then explain it to someone else? How do I make it relevant to people’s lives.’’
That media training was clear in the Shorten stand-up today, listing Labor’s key points of attack on the Turnbull government (the citizenship crisis, power prices, NBN and One Nation); before making the political personal, sharing an anecdote about a recent visit with her 17-year-old son to a Medicare office in Ryde — at the heart of Bennelong.
Anticipating where the press questions would probe, she confessed she lived “800 metres” outside the electorate she will contest, but challenged her expected rival John Alexander to a countback on the “minutes” each of them spend on the ground there.
After her prepared comments, she welcomed the press corps to return fire, charming the first journalist with her reply: “Great question, I would have asked that myself.”
For Keneally, the opportunity to be part of that national conversation had been impossible to resist, she told News Corp last month.
“For me, parliaments are a familiar place. I get how they work and they have a rhythm and a pace and a formality I understand. The first time I did a show for Sky in the Parliament House studio [Canberra] I noticed I just relaxed into the familiar feeling of parliament and I think all the Canberra-based anchors do a good job of staying across the ebb and flow of what’s happening and that’s where I want to take To The Point,” she said.
Even announcing her move to Canberra back then she sounded like a seasoned tourism campaigner, but hedging her bets back in NSW.
“I always thought that I was a Sydneysider for life and I probably always will find my heart lies in Sydney but Canberra just got voted the third most desirable city to visit ... so yes, I am keen to get down to Canberra, to experience all the things that Lonely Planet says make it great.”