{"id":33415,"date":"2017-08-08T06:00:05","date_gmt":"2017-08-07T20:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=33415"},"modified":"2017-08-07T19:00:22","modified_gmt":"2017-08-07T09:00:22","slug":"tyranny-talking-points","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/tyranny-talking-points\/","title":{"rendered":"The tyranny of talking points"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Here\u2019s one suggestion that will sharply improve the performance of the Australian Government and Opposition. It\u2019s a small step to make a big change and it doesn\u2019t need a plebiscite (postal or otherwise), or even a vote in the Senate. The government could enact this change overnight. It won\u2019t of course because, well, our politicians and our public servants are addicted to the very brain-eating drug that I would have them ban.<\/p>\n

Talking points, dear readers! Talking points are the fluff that fills the gap where policy used to be. If you\u2019re interested in strategy or politics you\u2019ll hear talking points deployed to blandify morning radio while you smash your avocados. Their muffled prose turns newspapers into slush ponds of guff. Evening television flees from talking points into the arms of glassy-eyed ranters, but that\u2019s surely better than being drowned in tar pits of talking-point complacency, telling us in the third-person passive that all\u2019s right with the world.<\/p>\n

You can tell when a politician lapses into talking points. Suddenly they\u2019re reading at you, not talking to you. There was one on Radio National yesterday morning, sounding like captive children sound at school when reading 1984<\/em> aloud in class. In a monotone voice, they shuffle to the end of the sentence, thinking \u2018Just let me get through this agony and then Fran can play the track of the week. I don\u2019t believe what I am saying. You don\u2019t believe what I\u2019m saying. But the bell will ring soon and then I\u2019ll go back to my office to ask my department for more talking points. Better ones than these.\u2019<\/p>\n

During my time in Canberra, now approaching a geologic span, I have seen the explosive proliferation of demand for talking points briefs. Ministers stagger in to question time clutching bulging folders bejewelled with tabs and yellow sticky notes. At Senate Estimates, Defence public servants hide behind multiple binders of talking points so thick they could stop a bullet. The single-most preoccupying function of many, many officials is producing endless updates for hot issues briefs, holding briefs, question time briefs, estimates briefs, travel briefs.<\/p>\n

Equally there\u2019s the spiralling industry of ministerial staffers\u2014packed into Parliament House like sardines minus the spines\u2014doing no more than tasking their departments to produce this material. When Kevin Rudd was prime minister, the min wing was clocking on at 5 a.m. to feed Kevin\u2019s insatiable appetite for briefings. Ministers\u2019 staffers could be reduced to quivering heaps with a call from the PMO asking for a \u2018round the world\u2019 brief on any topic. In Defence, we would get calls like: \u2018GIVE ME EVERYTHING YOU\u2019VE GOT ON AFGHANISTAN \u2026 NOW!\u2019 (Rudd government staff spoke in upper case.) When Stephen Smith was Defence minister, a small division of the department was geared to provide a daily early morning talking points pack\u2014often more than 50 pages\u2014responding to even the most minor issue running in the media. Then there would be the question time briefing pack delivered (hopefully) around 12.30\u2014and at any other moment on call.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just that there are too many people tasking too many others with doing this work. The pernicious effect of talking points is worse than that. The biggest problem is that the whole purpose of talking points is to defensively protect today\u2019s policy orthodoxy. They are innovation killers. Say that ASPI publishes a report calling for reform of Defence\u2019s pencil procurement system. The ministers\u2019 offices (all of them) will demand a defensive talking points brief\u2014just in case a journalist breaks through the outer perimeter. The brief will say that Defence\u2019s pencil procurement strategy is world\u2019s best practice and produces pencils optimised for Australian conditions. Made by Australians. In Australia. There is no possible requirement to rethink anything to do with pencils. Thus are all new ideas erased from possibility.<\/p>\n

Another damaging effect of talking points briefs is that those who use them gradually come to believe they do real things. Watch and learn: North Korea launches a missile. We will say \u2018Australia condemns North Korea\u2019s latest \u2026 test in the strongest possible terms.\u2019 We will declaim that \u2018North Korea\u2019s ongoing reckless and menacing behaviour is in violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions, is a threat to regional and global security and stability, and is in violation of the rules-based order we seek to promote and advance.\u2019 Yea, verily, do I smite my foe in 12-point font.<\/p>\n

The third damaging effect of talking points is that they suck all personality and believability out of the user. Public servants might aspire to reach this Zen-like state, but it\u2019s death to politicians, who, above all else, must connect with their voters as human beings. Show me a politician who looks authentic and I\u2019ll show you someone who has stopped hiding behind talking points.<\/p>\n

The reality is that a talking points brief won\u2019t save a politician or senior public servant if they aren\u2019t already across their issues. Canberra could produce 98% fewer briefs and we would all be better off as a result, with more authentic policy discussions\u2014and more open even to new thinking.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s one suggestion that will sharply improve the performance of the Australian Government and Opposition. 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