One of the great things about getting away from Australia is the sense of perspective it gives. The blog has managed to be away for many recent Federal and State elections including, thankfully, all the 2010 one and most of the current one.
Perhaps the best thing is that the amount of coverage of the Australian election in foreign media is about right – almost zero with the odd exception of the odd short piece in The Economist or the FT.
Digitisation
It’s far too easy to take the benefits of digitisation for granted – as the blog was reminded in the last month or so. Recently the blog attended the launch of a history of Port Melbourne, The Borough and its People, by Margaret and Graham Bride. It’s a terrific book and the subject desperately needed to be re-visited since the 1983 publication of A History of Port Melbourne co-authored by the blog and Nancy U’Ren.
The blog is taking a break and will be back in about a month. In the meantime a few odds and sods to go along with. Part 2 later today.
The road to Damascus
Recently a Greenpeace anti-GM activist rather upset his Greenpeace colleagues by announcing at a farming conference that he had been utterly and tragically wrong on genetically modified organisms in food.
Amidst all the rhetoric about competitiveness, productivity and the Australian economy there is a sobering fact which puts many of the banal nostrums in the debate into some context.
While the Australian economy is ranked the 12th or 13th largest economy in the world according to nominal GDP, and 17th according to GDP as measured by purchasing power parity, we rank a lowly 19th in terms of our innovation. Now while business bods are constantly talking about tax, industrial relations, regulation and working harder there’s not so much talk about innovation. Indeed, much of Australia’s recent economic performance has been due to our skill at finding and digging stuff up (more commonly called luck in most places) rather than innovation.
The 2013 Transparency International Global Corruption Barometer has been released – and its findings suggest we are a deeply cynical and alienated lot.
The Barometer measures perceptions of corruption in countries; whether people have had to pay bribes or not; and which institutions are considered corrupt. There is a site which allows you to look at Australia, compare it with other countries and alternatively weep or celebrate. The details are here: http://www.transparency.org/gcb2013/country/?country=australia
There are two bits of modern popular language which the blog finds particularly irritating. The first – whatever – has an alienated, contemptuous and anti-social air to it. A bit like the tone you get from a cyclist after they have nearly run you over while you are walking on the footpath they are riding on and you suggest they apologise. The second – move on – is different because sometimes it is harmless shorthand for getting over something but is more usually, in its political sense, irritating because of its hypocrisy.
There was the blog talking earlier today about negative campaigning, FDR and you have nothing to fear but fear itself when Kevin Rudd does something very clever – making a positive ad which is a very subtle form of negative advertising.
Earlier today the blog discussed that the real art of negative campaigning was to define your opponent before they had a chance to define themselves. Tony Abbott has been an extraordinarily successful Opposition Leader – perhaps the most successful since Gough Whitlam – but largely by being as he promised, an attack dog, and using the tactic to define the Labor Government through three and four word slogans.
Well does negative campaigning work or not? That was the question the blog was asked about a number of statements made recently about negative campaigning and the lessons from the last US Presidential campaign.
Essentially the blog said that campaign showed that negative campaigning didn’t work in that the billions of dollars spent by various right wing groups and individuals, mainly on advertising, didn’t unseat Obama. On the other hand there is a fair amount of academic research which suggests negative campaigning does work although the research gets simplified by the time political players and the media get involved.
One thing that the change of Labor leadership will do is to bring out a swarm of PR, advertising and marketing types to counsel Labor and the Coalition on precisely what they should do to win.
Some of these types will be hunted down by journalists trying to get: a comment on what works; any suitable grab before deadline; or, a continuation of the Bush-Dukakis media coverage which degenerated into coverage of the campaign mechanics rather than anything else. And some of coverage will be because the PR, advertising and marketing people will be promoting their services and expertise in the belief that media publicity generates business.
Most young authors would be ecstatic at a review by the distinguished historian and war hero, Michael Howard, which claimed your book was the best about war since John Keegan’s Face of Battle. As Professor Sir Michael Howard MC also reviewed Keegan’s book back in 1976 the commendation was based on a very considered opinion.