After Kevin Rudd it seemed unlikely that the words evidence-based policy would pass the lips of many politicians other than infrequently although few would have realised that the alternative, Tony Abbott’s evidence-free policy, would suddenly make it fashionable again.

Indeed, despite all the media talk about the Abbott government’s communication problems the real problem is clearly one of evidence-free ideological attitudes tinged with a fair degree of visceral nastiness. There was little or no visceral nastiness about the Napthine government but their failure on a cornerstone policy lacking any evidence base, rooted in ideology and urged on by News Corp may have lessons for the Abbott Government. In this case it was the Napthine government’s law and order policies – and those of politicians as diverse as Tony Blair, Bob Carr and hundreds of US legislators – which are both increasingly seen to be failures when the evidence is examined and losing their political effectiveness. read more

If the weekend’s Victorian state election made anything totally clear it was that if you want accurate information about a likely election outcome it is probably best not to turn to most of the pundits or the media.

Right up until the last minute most of the media was saying the election was too tight to call and the result may not be known until a week or so after the election, despite the last minute polls suggesting the probability of Labor winning was at least 60% and possibly higher. Indeed, the only part of the speculation which was vaguely right was that a few close seat results won’t be known until later in the week. read more

A good indicator of how well a new government goes in its early days is how quickly it gets its Ministerial staffing into place, how it goes about it, how the staffers are briefed and the operational guidelines they are given.

The Howard Government may have been very successful over much of its life but it got off to a very shaky start losing Ministers, sacking Departmental Secretaries and putting in quite a lot of inexperienced staffers whose main characteristic seemed to be a distrust of their departments. A blog colleague was not surprised when talking to a new Howard staffer to be told how busy and overwhelmed the staffer was. But he was stunned when the staffer said it was because he was snowed under by the Ministerial correspondence. The blog’s colleague asked whether the department wasn’t producing things quickly enough and the staffer replied: “I couldn’t trust them to do it, I’m doing it myself.” read more

The blog got an email this week from the Victorian ALP State Secretary and Campaign Drector, Noah Carroll, imploring the blog to help the cause as the election was ‘too close to call’. About the same time the blog read a background briefing from a ‘Coalition strategist’ which pointed out that the current polls may  be unreliable because the Coalition could expect to get a bigger share of the undecided voters than the polls assumed. read more

A major Indiana University research project on how memes spread on social media has thrown unexpected light on what the US satirist, Stephen Colbert, calls ‘truthiness’ – a term defined as “the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true.” read more

Is a woman more likely to be killed by a terrorist, attacked walking down a street at night, or killed by their partner?

That was the question the blog asked during a talk it gave at the Melbourne Forum recently on why pundits get it wrong and which canvassed probabilities, predictions and election forecasts. From the murmurings it was clear that the audience knew the answer. But from media coverage, and political reaction to, the concurrent issues of Ebola and terrorism it is clear we could be seeing an example of what Peter Sandman described as a tendency to be worried about risks we needn’t worry about and not worried enough about ones we should. read more

The latest International History of Public Relations Conference proceedings are now available. As usual they contain fascinating, surprising and enlightening insights into PR history – from papal PR to the anti-slavery UK celebrity book tour by Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Perhaps the most significant paper, however, is by Professor Michael Kunczik on public relations for money, particularly in the context of German historical experiences. The paper explores the communication realities which have been based on Talcott Parsons’ and Adam Muller’s theories about money as a medium of language and a general instrument of communication. The blog wasn’t aware of Muller (a 19^th century German economist) who apparently pre-dated Parsons in forming the theory. Obviously, after German hyperinflation, post-war reconstruction and then reunification monetary policy, money and communications around it are extremely important to German consciousness but Kunczik takes his investigation much wider including looking at currency and national identity. read more

If George Orwell was alive today no doubt he could write a scathing condemnation of the weasel word apologies which emerge from companies and institutions after lawyers and PR people have laboured over words which seem right but deep down don’t really say much at all, murder the English language and obscure the truth. read more

A remarkable journalist has written a remarkable book about a remarkable politician. Tim Colebatch’s Dick Hamer The liberal Liberal is elegantly written and is probably the best (and certainly at least equal to) book about politics and a political leader since Don Watson’s Recollections of a Bleeding Heart. read more