Come in spinners, your time is up

IN The Wages of Spin (2003), Bernard Ingham, former press secretary to Margaret Thatcher, details how British politics has been adversely affected by spin doctors and the style-over-substance approach that has dominated the way parliamentarians conduct their business in the modern world.

One of the most telling examples in Ingham's book is a communique from a special adviser to the British Labour government who suggested that the day of the terror attacks on the US on September 11, 2001, was "a good day to bury bad news".

It summed up how far some political advisers are prepared to go to take advantage of the news cycle.

The battle between the main parties to take advantage of the Australian news cycle is not especially different from what happens overseas. In our biography on John Howard, Wayne Errington and I detailed a discussion Howard had with one of his key marginal seat holders, Jackie Kelly, in the lead-up to the Tampa saga. He was on his way to the parliamentary chamber when he was bailed up by Kelly about the effect One Nation was having on her support base in the marginal western Sydney electorate of Lindsay. Howard told her to wait and see; he was about to address the chamber on the blocking of the Tampa, and "that is all about to change" was how he described the flow of support from the Liberal Party to One Nation between 1998-2001.

Howard recognised that his decision to block the Tampa's entry to Australia would probably make disaffected former Liberal voters, who had thrown their support behind One Nation, return to the Coalition fold. It was a political judgment your average spin doctor would be proud of. I have to confess that whatever the moral judgment on Howard's decision to block the Tampa entry to Australia, I believe he did it because he believed it was the right decision for the nation. That it also may have benefited him politically is not mutually exclusive to this conclusion. It is not an either-or choice.

One of the most interesting things about the comments Howard made in this respect was the reaction of Howard haters and supporters I subsequently spoke to in the wake of the biography's publication. It galvanised support and disdain about his prime ministership. Howard haters believed the exchange between the PM and Kelly summed up everything manipulative and negative about Howard. Those who idolise Howard saw the expertise in his ability to take advantage of a situation.

One of Howard's great strengths was the force of his convictions. He was a beneficiary of good polling advice and focus group research coupled with an excellent feel for politics, especially up until 2004.

But more important to his political successes was his ability to read the electorate based on his judgment and feel for the attitudes of the average voter. His response to Tampa was a prime example of that strength.

It is a classic reason why Howard was a polarising figure. Early on in his long prime ministership his disapproval rating was in the high 40s. He lasted as long as he did because it never got any higher, until his last 12 months in office.

If Howard's political judgment is to be questioned, it can be questioned to the extent that late in his prime ministership he became increasingly guided by the pointers he was given by the Liberal Party's pollsters of choice: Crosby Textor. Crosby Textor is a focus group and polling organisation set up by Lynton Crosby and Mark Textor. It was known for its ability to maintain the confidentiality of its findings until late in the electoral cycle of the Howard government when the full research of one of its qualitative surveys was leaked to the media, providing the Labor Party with a blueprint on how Liberals intended to fight the campaign ahead of them.

This ended the reputation of the Crosby Textor organisation in Liberal circles as reliably discreet, and it sapped Howard of confidence in his professional providers of attitudinal advice. In short it was one fatal blow to the Coalition's chances of re-election.

After the Coalition lost the 2007 election Crosby Textor was forced to lay off staff and downsize sections of its operations (such is the partisan nature of party polling - without incumbency work opportunities for a conservative polling agency collapsed).

The aftermath of defeat always brings the truth about internal tensions within a political party to the surface. Sources close to Howard felt that in the dying days of his government Crosby Textor was no longer performing the role required to support the prime minister in his bid to minimise the loss, or even secure an unlikely victory in the campaign. The earlier leak out of the polling organisation didn't help trust between Crosby Textor and Howard's entourage.

The failure of the polling organisation to "put itself out there", as one Howard adviser described it, left the Howard camp feeling that Crosby Textor was trying to absolve itself from blame for the defeat before it had even happened. "A case of rats departing the sinking ship" is how one Howard confidant put it.

In his book on the 2007 election campaign, Peter Hartcher records a conversation between Howard and Textor in September that year where Textor told Howard he was gone and couldn't recover. If ever there were a case of stating the bleeding obvious that may have been it. But Howard has no memory of the conversation; the words were never uttered and his circle of advisers, some of whom it had been suggested were at the discussion, also have no memory of any such briefing.

"By the second half of 2007 we were up against it. Pulling a rabbit out of the hat, as John put it, didn't look likely. Every time our pollsters looked to tell us what to do they looked out of their pay grade," is how one senior Liberal described it.

This is the problem with the wages of spin: when the public switches off it can't be persuaded by hollow men. It takes substance to win people over.

In life, as the saying goes, those who can't do, teach. In politics those who can't do, poll. Whatever the criticism ALP strategists Hawker Britton endure for their propensity to direct Labor administrations towards the popular approach that will win them re-election, they do so based on judgment, not the prescriptive endeavours of polling results.

Bruce Hawker had experience as a long-term chief of staff to a Labor premier (Bob Carr). It is perhaps why they have been so successful for so long when it comes to helping state Labor regimes win elections even if those regimes have done so without the sort of policy results we would like to see from our governments.

But that doesn't mean either the Hawker Britton model or that used by Crosby Textor should be applauded. Both focus the activities of political leaders on what makes them popular and helps them win elections instead of what might represent good policy for the nation or the states.

What helps our politicians win elections is not the same as what is needed to make them good administrators. Unfortunately the lure of popularity is such that conviction in politics is becoming a dying attribute.