Peta Credlin: Malcolm Turnbull needs to unleash power of ‘office of prime minister’ during election campaign
PETA Credlin, the former chief of staff to Prime Minister Tony Abbott, gives Malcolm Turnbull and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten some pointed election advice in her first column.
Analysis
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YET another election with a Prime Minister we didn’t vote for asking us to trust him versus an Opposition Leader who helped kill off two Prime Ministers saying his party won’t do it again.
You are probably already sick of it and it’s barely started.
What happened to the days when a prime minister could survive a term, government got the big things right and we were confident that Australia was headed in the right direction?
The world’s a dangerous place and we’re not immune. The economy is changing and we’re worried about our jobs. We want reassurance that this is still the same country where wanting to get ahead is rewarded not punished. We worry about our kids getting a good start in life and expect Canberra to do better when spending our money because we don’t have any to waste. We want to believe Australia’s best years are still in front of us but aren’t so sure anymore. We hope our country’s safe and secure.
As for the politicians and would-be politicians, they just want to win. For Malcolm Turnbull, victory will vindicate his coup against the prime minister we elected last time. Defeat would make him the Liberals’ greatest ever loser. For Bill Shorten, this is his shot at the top job. Win, and he’s a hero. Lose, and he’s a footnote to history.
Both men have grown up believing that they would be prime minister one day and both men have demonstrated they’re prepared to wield the knife to get there.
Turnbull and his team are thinking: how do we get people to see Shorten as a ruthless hack who will always put the unions first? Shorten and his team are thinking: how do we position Turnbull as an aloof zillionaire who speaks waffle and doesn’t like everyday people?
The Coalition will portray Shorten as a tax and spend socialist who’ll destroy the economy and take us back to the Rudd/Gillard years. Labor will portray Turnbull as a patronising rich businessman only interested in the big end of town and not properly funding the services you need from government.
Turnbull will say that his policies will boost business, create jobs and generate prosperity — and hope that no one asks him for his real tax reform plan and his real budget repair plan. Shorten will say that his policies will fix public schools and public hospitals — and hope that no one asks him how he is going to pay for it or why he thinks more spending is the answer to every problem.
Turnbull will try to scare people about the policies Labor has already announced: like the negative gearing changes that will raise rents and lower house prices. Shorten will try to scare people about the policies Turnbull hasn’t announced: a GST increase, budget cuts and the end to overtime that (he’ll allege) is Turnbull’s secret agenda.
Turnbull’s minders will be desperate no one asks him why he had a plan to become prime minister but no plan to run the country. They will coach him on the price of petrol and the cost of a litre of milk and try to create images of him looking comfortable with ordinary people. The Shorten team’s worst nightmare would be running into a Cleanevent worker who’s prepared to take him on for trading their wage increases to boost his union profile.
They’ll both try to avoid shopping centres and random interactions. Instead we’ll see a lot of choreographed visits — small businesses for Turnbull, and schools and hospitals for Shorten. To date, the Opposition is running rings around the Turnbull team when it comes to events and press conferences. The government needs to lift its game and use the ‘office of prime minister’ to full effect by staging better events for better pictures because a key campaign objective is to win the political news packages each night.
Right now, both teams will be wondering how they can possibly say something new each day for the eight weeks of the campaign to keep it fresh, while saying the same thing each day to keep it consistent.
Every election is the story of two campaigns that run simultaneously — the local and the national. A strong national campaign can lift all the local ones. A local disaster can derail the national campaign. Social media can make a local mistake a national story in minutes and an old hand with a cool head is worth a dozen young political types who think they’re extras on the set of West Wing.
The big battle this week will be to establish the election “narrative”, or the issues that will dominate the campaign. The government has used last week’s budget to fire the opening salvo but is starting from behind after a difficult seven months struggling to land a cut-through message.
I was once Turnbull’s deputy chief of staff so I have seen the man behind closed doors. He likes to do things his way and is quick to give the benefit of his wisdom yet he also has that intangible ‘something’ that makes leaders. His challenge will be to accept that he’s not the only expert in the room and listen to the advice of his team — and then to make decisions.
Shorten’s challenge will be to lift himself from political and backroom operator to national leader and keep his team closer to the political centre than many of them want to be.
Let’s see next Sunday who’s been more successful after week one.
There can only be one campaign manager
This election will be the first in many years that I have not been holed up in the national campaign headquarters or travelling with the Liberal Party leader as he launches key policies, attends event after event, and relocates daily to a new city or town.
By now, the two major parties have moved 100-plus political staffers, researchers, media spinners, policy boffins, number-crunchers and experienced old hands into their respective campaign headquarters (CHQ).
Labor’s National Secretary, George Wright, is running his second national campaign and the experience shows. Wright will have already tasked the job of running key marginal seat campaigns to experienced hands and stockpiled union volunteers (essential) and dollars (critical) to run their ground war.
The Coalition’s campaign is led by Tony Nutt, an experienced and well-respected party veteran who has run several state campaigns but this is his first national effort. Only the steady Scott Mitchell, the Nationals federal director has done this before. No one else on the Coalition side — not Nutt, the Prime Minister, the Deputy PM or the vast majority of Liberal Party state directors — has done a national campaign before. And hardly anyone in the PM’s office has leader-level campaign experience out of the 2010 and 2013 battles.
My side needs to put their trust in Tony Nutt and not second guess his job. There can only be one campaign manager and that’s never the leader: think the ‘Real Julia’ fiasco in 2010 or Kevin Rudd’s ever changing instructions from 30,000 feet.
Thumbs up
Treasurer Scott Morrison deserves kudos for pulling off a ‘steady as he goes’ budget despite enormous pressure. The reform and repair must still come but he’s done his best to set them up for the campaign.
Thumbs down
Malcolm Turnbull stopped the budget sell dead with a shocker of an interview with David Speers on Thursday. He’s got to be better prepared especially when facing one of the sharpest operators in the gallery and resist the urge to talk himself into trouble.
Originally published as Peta Credlin: Malcolm Turnbull needs to unleash power of ‘office of prime minister’ during election campaign
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