Taxpayer-funded strategist advises ministers on Premier Daniel Andrews’ brand

In the midst of last year’s 112-day Covid lockdown, John Armitage briefed cabinet; not about the public health crisis, but about the Premier’s political brand.

John Armitage. ­ Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui

The Victorian government’s taxpayer-funded political strategist briefed its Covid-19 crisis cabinet about public perceptions of the Premier’s performance at the height of last year’s 112-day ­lockdown.

Labor sources familiar with the briefing have revealed that QDOS ­Research’s John Armitage ­appeared before the eight-member cabinet in late August and ­presented a detailed analysis of how Victorians rated Daniel ­Andrews’ handling of the pandemic. Mr Armitage assured the crisis council of cabinet that ­despite the second wave, sparked by breaches of the government’s hotel quarantine program, there was still solid public support for the Premier, according to Labor ­sources.

Mr Armitage streamed into the meeting and delivered a clear message that even if Victorians were angry at the Premier over the second wave and stage 4 lockdown, they respected the fact he turned up every day to press conferences, Labor sources said.

Mr Armitage urged the ministers to understand that turning up every day, telling the story of the state’s Covid outbreak and getting on with business was the government’s brand and they should stick to this strategy.

Labor sources said at the time of the briefing there was emerging anxiety in caucus about the political fallout of the second wave and lockdown. The sources said some ministers in the meeting inter­preted the Armitage briefing as an attempt to assure them the Premier still commanded community support and that this should be ­filtered back to Labor MPs.

The Andrews government ­failed to respond to detailed questions from The Weekend Australian on Friday, saying it did not comment on cabinet matters. Mr Armitage declined to comment.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews. Picture David Crosling/ POOL via NCA NewsWire

Mr Armitage – who has been paid $2m in taxpayers’ funds to conduct a highly secretive five-year program monitoring the views of Victorians – did not cover public health topics during the cabinet briefing.

One source familiar with the briefing said the political nature of the presentation crossed the line as it was purely party political and should not have been conducted by a taxpayer-funded researcher.

The Australian exposed the controversial work of Mr Armitage in a series of reports this month that have revealed how during the height of last year’s second wave, the QDOS chief launched a large-scale program to monitor Victorians’ perceptions of how the government was handling the crisis. These surveys included scoring the government’s leadership out of 10. Heavily redacted government and QDOS emails ­released to The Australian have confirmed that the Premier’s Private Office was heavily involved in the surveys, including helping draft and approve questions.

In one partially redacted email, sent on July 16, 2020, a DPC manager explains to QDOS research director Sue Loukomitis that they were waiting on “pending PPO confirmation of no additional questions”. Multiple other emails also refer to the detailed involvement of the PPO in the preparation of the QDOS surveys.

The emails reveal that members of the PPO, including the Premier’s chief-of-staff Lissie Ratcliff, were also invited to watch live streams of focus groups conducted by QDOS. “Hi (redacted) and Lissie, here’s the Zoom link for ­tonight’s group (females living in South Yarra),” Ms Loukomitis wrote on May 25 last year.

Labor figures believe that Mr Armitage’s research helped frame the Premier’s strategy, tone and language used during last year’s lockdown, including his decision to appear at more than 100 consecutive daily press conferences.

The Weekend Australian understands some in Labor believe there is a strong link between Mr Armitage’s research and analysis and the Premier’s pandemic strategy. One source said QDOS political research and the conduct of the press conferences shared several strong themes.