While think tanks add many things to the political debate, activist groups rarely do. Worse we have to put up with the ‘Get Up illusion’ in which some activists believe that signing an online petition, or crowdfunding an ad, is effective political action or a way to deal with African war criminals. read more

The 2016 Federal election campaign will go down in history as one characterised by the exceptional depth and breadth of policy debate and analysis. Eh? Sorry, the blog was not referring to the political party campaigns but rather the contributions of various think tanks.

For those despairing of negativity, puerile slogans, scare campaigns and robotic responses turn off the TV, put the papers in the recycling and turn to the very impressive contributions made by think tanks such as the Grattan Institute, the Australia Institute, Australia21 and assorted others. read more

In the next week we are going to see a disconnect between the emotional and the structural views of politics – and the media’s capacity to understand which is which – as the Brexit referendum result becomes known.

The blog has previously written about the paradox that the people most likely to vote Leave are older people, while those most likely to vote Remain are most likely to be young and less likely to vote of which more later. read more

The Netherlands holds the record for the longest continuous economic expansion in modern times – almost 26 years ending in 2008. Australia – despite what both political parties have been saying for decades about the damage they each do – might well break that record sometime early next year.

But who would you trust to predict whether it would happen and whether, if it did, how much longer it might last? The Reserve Bank is a possibility although in contrast the track record of academic, bank and other private sector economists is appalling. In most years they are lucky to get the trend, let alone the final numbers, right. read more

A Nobel Prize winner; one of Australia’s leading composers; the Chancellor of one university and the Vice Chancellor of another; two former Victorian Premiers; several former Federal Ministers and ditto Victorian Ministers; assorted authors and journalists; a few lawyers and judges; and, assorted others attended a book launch at the Hill of Content bookshop in Melbourne a few months ago. read more

There are often times when the blog feels some despair about the PR industry, the people who run it and the skills of those in it.

The latest was when the Issues Outcome newsletter’s Tony Jaques sent him a link to the latest US Holmes Report research report on talent in the industry which demonstrates some insights into structural changes in the industry and, more importantly, some strange findings on the skills employers looked for in that talent. read more

If framing is the most important thing communicators do, audience segmentation comes a close second. If you set the frame you set the agenda, and if you identify the segment of the population you most need to convince, then much else about the communication (eg tone, channel and tactics) just falls out naturally. read more

Despite all the talk about innovation and agility Australia only has two really innovative industries – agriculture and tax dodging.

The second is well recognised – well not necessarily by conservative governments – while the second is often overlooked even by the National Party politicians who supposedly represent rural areas and agricultural interests. read more

While the vast majority of Australians are neither engaged with the current election campaign, nor very enthusiastic about who wins or not, the passionate have one question: “who will win?”

The blog has been asked – on a rough estimate – about 20 times in the past 20 days who it thinks might win. Forced to rely on gut feeling – a very unreliable guide – the blog subscribes to the conventional wisdom that the gap Labor has to bridge is too great and the Tories will win. Perhaps by more than people expect. Sorry – didn’t mean to mention Tories in conjunction with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull but so far his campaign is a direct rip off from a combination of the Cameron and Goldsmith campaigns in the last UK general election and the London mayoral election. read more

Joe Kennedy famously said that the time to sell shares was when shoe shine boys started to give you tips. A variation on the story was that the time to sell was when lift boys were also doing it.

What do we have as a proxy for these indicators today? Probably it’s when PR people start talking about the growth potential of financial PR and the media start talking about the PR firms that do the spinning to them. read more