Tanner fixated on the medium

LINDSAY Tanner has unwittingly given us an insight into federal Labor's political malaise.

In a book with pretensions about revealing the causes of our waning capacity for national policy discourse, Tanner essentially blames the media. But what he really reveals is a politician obsessed with the medium over the message, and a Labor Party more focused on filling the airwaves than having anything to say.

Many Australians may view a debate between politicians and journalists about ethics and responsibility in the body politic as an ugly squabble at the bottom of the food chain: what came first, the maggot or the blowfly? Certainly there is sufficient chicanery, egotism and downright bastardry in journalism and politics to support this view. The world of ambitious politicians, aggressive journalists and cynical operatives is not a pretty one. But it has ever been so. Just read Machiavelli, Shakespeare or Orwell.

So, despite the lofty heights to which journalism and politics sometimes soar, there is no need to defend either sphere. Tanner's book, Sideshow: Dumbing Down Democracy, argues the media is dumbing down and dragging politics with it: "Because the media have undermined the core meaning of democratic elections, participants have responded in kind, as we have seen." That is one helluva cop-out.

The last former Labor finance minister to release a book was Peter Walsh and it revealed the weighty discussions behind the significant economic reforms of the Hawke-Keating years. For Tanner, instead of debating media coverage during the global financial crisis, it would have been more useful to explain the decisions that pushed a debt-free economy with a $20 billion surplus quickly into a $57bn deficit.

The real insight in Tanner's book is accidental. By revealing an obsession with media coverage, a focus on journalistic agendas and a conviction that to win politics you must win over the media, it demonstrates a failure to truly understand the beast.

It is no longer contentious to observe the Rudd government was a triumph of spin over substance, that the public quickly realised this and that the Gillard government is heading the same way. Sideshow unwittingly shows how this happens. In page after page Tanner wonders at the workings of the media, he strives to gain its attention, he despairs at what it highlights and what it misses. Yet nowhere does he outline a serious reform, a policy, an agenda that he is seeking to communicate to the public.

If these things mattered as much as Tanner says, John Howard would never have won an election. He had some supporters in commercial radio and from some News Limited columnists, and elsewhere, such as in these pages, he was criticised on some issues, praised on others.

But Howard's most diligent and enduring enemies were the bulk of the Canberra press gallery, the Fairfax press and the ABC. Yet he assiduously spoke through and around this media antagonism to pitch his messages directly to voters. No amount of media conspiracy can prevent a significant message getting through, while no amount of media management will make up for the lack of substance.

Sensible political operatives will cultivate friendlies, maintain cordial relations with journalists and attempt to promote the stories they want while playing down others. But nothing is more useful than having something to say. And having nothing to say soon becomes obvious to even the most casual observer.

So when the Howard government promoted an unpopular consumption tax or a deeply unpopular war, it didn't whinge about the antipathy of the media. Instead, it hit the radio studios, the TV shows and the newspaper columns to argue its case.

Not all politicians come to understand the difference between talking to the media and through them. Howard and some his senior ministers did, and Bob Hawke understood it innately. But a succession of Labor leaders have missed it. The starting point is having a strong agenda to push.

Tanner's intentions are honourable and he is widely regarded as one of the more intelligent Labor luminaries of recent times. But his book is replete with examples of his own craving for attention over political substance.

He berates the media for focusing on trivia and celebrity yet we read how the simple coincidence of meeting someone who shared his name becomes a media opportunity: "Naturally, I provided full details of this earth-shatteringly important encounter for publication in Strewth."

He laments how appearing in lesser media "doesn't exactly make you a household name". And when Tanner mocks Joe Hockey in parliament as the "Billy Brownless (AFL star) of Australian politics", he then alerts The Footy Show to his own joke.

Anyone extensively reported in the media will have their whinges. Sometimes this springs from naivety, being taken aback by the stridency of your own words in print; on other occasions the gripe is justified. But Tanner's examples are relatively lame, decrying, for instance, the way his reference to racism in a speech is seized on, when any experienced practitioner knows the consequences of invoking that word.

The suggestion a new 24/7 media cycle is driving politics to banalities also bears no scrutiny. Two 24-hour TV news stations, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube all provide more opportunities for politicians. Sure, those who don't use them risk ceding ground to opponents. But the new stations and programs actually provide many extra opportunities to discuss issues; all it requires is having something to say. And social media provides brilliantly easy new ways to send links to tens of thousands of voters.

As the ocean is to a sailor, the media is to a politician. While the ocean is unpredictable and treacherous, the test of a sailor is to navigate all this to get to the destination. Perhaps it is time for Labor to stop drifting at the mercy of the waves and hoist a sail.

Chris Kenny has reported on politics for television, print and radio, and provided media and political advice to state and federal Liberal MPs.