Then & now: the art of politics

Keith Jackson

Then - Mr Downer: My guess is at the end of the day, knowing Australia as I do … people won’t take a risk with an inexperienced Labor leader …. I think they will stick with what they know. Journalist: How confident of that are you? Mr Downer: Well I’m confident in my judgement. That’s my judgement [Doorstop interview, 16 November 2007]

Then - Presenter: Do you think it is possible for the Liberals to tighten the gap in this last week? Mr Downer: Oh look, I think – who knows what will happen – I think we can win [Interview, Nova 91.9 Adelaide, 19 November 2007]

Then - Presenter: You think you can still win? Mr Downer: I definitely think we can still win. I’m that sort of person though. I always think I can win, whether I do or not, it varies of course on occasion to occasion. I’ve had my successes and my setbacks as we’ve all had but I’m certain we can win [Interview, 2UE Sydney, 21 November 2007]

Now - 'I thought we would lose': Downer. Former Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has admitted that he thought all year that the Coalition would lose the Federal election [ABC News website, 25 November 2007]

Comments

[Ingrid Jackson]

Christmas will come and go and John Howard and his government will be part of history. Rudd's honeymoon come and go and the media, ever focused on the present, will return to scrutinising the government in their cynical search for news stories and reasons for complaint.

The danger is that the lessons of the Howard government will be forgotten. Yet there are learnings from the last eleven years that Australians should remember:

o How to blur the truth and change public perception through deceit.

o How to avoid responsibility by pleading ignorance and blaming others.

o How to harness public fear and risk aversion by communicating fanciful visualisations of scary scenarios.

o How to misinform rather then educate the public about how the economy works.

o How to build on the public’s lack of familiarity with other cultures so as to foment racism.

o How to put words in the opposition’s mouths and then argue against what the opposition never said.

o How to capitalise on public apathy and short memory by airbrushing out the government’s inconvenient previous actions and statements.

o How to win short term favour by encouraging Australians to care only about themselves and their hip pockets, instead of valuing the overall good of the nation and the world.

o How to stealthily change mindsets in the belief that nobody will notice, much like the pigs in 'Animal Farm', who initially taught the sheep to chant the anti-farmer slogan “Four legs good, two legs bad” but eventually, after the pigs stood up and began to walk on hind legs, subtly changed this to “Four legs good, two legs better!"

Lest we forget.