Talking Point

Barrie told me about Kevin

By Michael Grealy

To rework Channel 9 Melbourne’s famous 6pm News promo of the 1980s ("Brian Told Me"), it was Barrie who told me about Kevin as leader.

Three words will long be remembered from Julia Gillard’s Adelaide media conference: chaotic, paralysis and sabotaged. They described, in order, her leadership rival’s work patterns, the state of the government he led and, by implication, his role in the 2010 election campaign.

Some media took up the ball. The Sydney Morning Herald’s David Marr said: ‘No Kevin. This isn’t a breakdown in civility. Your colleagues are at last telling us why you were sacked.”

As pro-Gillard Ministers add fuel to the bushfire, and letter writers draw on Monty Python’s Life of Brian (Perry Gretton, Tumbi Umbi: "Kevin Rudd is not the Messiah. He’s just a very naughty boy"), it is true that formerly unnamed sources are finding the courage to be quoted by name.

But the story is not new.

Take Barrie Cassidy’s 2010 book "The Party Thieves, The Real Story of the 2010 Election." The ABC Insiders host and former Hawke press secretary didn’t miss in his account of the coup against Rudd – who had been labelled Captain Chaos by John Lyons as far back as 2008.

Firstly, on chaos and paralysis, Cassidy records Rudd summoning senior public servants for urgent meetings and keeping them waiting for hours, Ministers discovering major decisions in their portfolios only after the PM told the media first, the interfering nature of the PM’s office and a manic emphasis on winning the 24-hour cycle and its impact on governance.

He wrote: “That Kevin Rudd was cut down by Labor factions because of bad opinion polling is the great myth of 2010. The faction leaders took the initiative – that’s all. The support came in an absolute torrent. That’s because Rudd himself drove them (the numbers). His own behaviour had caused deep-seated resentment to take root.”

Cassidy added: “The coup was happening in part because Rudd had hijacked the party, and either ignored or abused key people within it for too long.”

Gary Gray bemoaned the blame lumped on Peter Garrett for the home insulation debacle: “For Rudd and his office to position Garrett as the fall guy was disgraceful, weak, sneaky, unprincipled and just plain wrong.”

Barry Cohen told Cassidy: “If Rudd was a better bloke, he would still be the leader. But he pissed everybody off.”

Take sabotage. Cassidy called the internal campaign against Gillard relentless, vicious and driven by some powerful media support.

Recalling the fallout from Laurie Oakes’ ‘exclusive’ that Julia Gillard had opposed in Cabinet a pension increase and paid maternity leave, Cassidy wrote: “It left few people in the Labor Party in any doubt that the source was either Kevin Rudd or somebody acting on his behalf, with or without his consent. It was now clear Gillard was going to be tested in a way that few leaders had been in the past.

"There was, undeniably, a rat in the ranks, to use a favourite Labor Party term. And that ‘rat’ was determined to bring down the government.

“Rarely before in an election campaign has a leader had such a fight, against an invisible yet real and potentially poisonous insider.”

So as we digest Kevin Rudd’s plea for an end to ‘vicious personal attacks,’ on the grounds they are ‘un-Australian,’ maybe the ABC will introduce Barrie Cassidy’s Insiders next Sunday with an update of Channel 9’s promo for the late Brian Naylor.

Angry Julia loses it for a minute

By Craig Regan

It’s a blip in the scheme of things but a clear case of Do As I Say, Not Do As I Do. I’m talking about Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s ticking off of a journalist at her Adelaide media conference this morning.

Press Gallery journalists rightfully praised Gillard for giving one of her strongest performances ever in front of a media throng. That was until the final moments when The Australian’s Michael Owen asked about her role in the downfall of Kevin Rudd.

"So you just fell into the leadership?" he said at one stage – and kept going. Her response showed what not to do in front of an otherwise benign media pack.

"I’ll answer your question but, ah, just ... I’m not listening to this rudeness, I’ll answer your question and then I’ll give a question to your colleague, thank you very much... “I’m not going have you just speak to me like this. End of sentence. I’ll answer your question and I will take a question from your colleague.

"Your question is internally inconsistent. Let me answer it...well, I’ll answer it thanks very much... If you stop talking then I’ll give you an answer, but I can’t give you an answer if you keep talking.”

The appearance of Angry Julia not-so-deft sidestepping an issue might have been a play aimed at presenting her as a PM with renewed authority, but went dangerously close to portraying her as out of control.

That the reporter has since apologised doesn't quarantine footage fo the incident making the nightly news. 

It wasn't quite on the scale of K Rudd’s Unhappy Little Vegemite YouTube video, mind you, but it's still not a good look.

At Lighthouse, we use media training to enable clients to handle questions exactly like this. So here's some free advice.

The most graceful response is to pause, stay silent until the questioner has run out of steam, acknowledge the question and answer or re-direct it, on your own terms.  

Remember, it’s a reporter’s job to ask hard questions and probe. Ripping strips off them just distracts from the messages you were trying to convey.

Three watershed moments for Julia Gillard's leadership

By Craig Regan

Are you sick of the Prime Ministerial soap opera? Take a holiday overseas or become a hermit. The Press Gallery loves a good leadership stoush - so prepare to hear much, much more.

The most likely scenario is that one of the warring parties will bring on a spill in a week and the loser - most likely Rudd, but a lot can happen in a few days - will zip off to the backbenches to plot some more.

If Gillard goes down, you can bet the media will look for turning points in her leadership. They’ve already being edited into neat TV packages that can be rolled out at a moment’s notice. So what will become these so-called watershed moments?

Putting aside the PM’s pre-election promise about “no carbon tax under a government that I lead” and the stumble over sending asylum seekers to East Timor, these are the contemporary events that stand out:

1. That speech to the ALP National Convention, wiping Rudd’s term as PM from the history books: It looked churlish, not Prime Ministerial, and fed into the image of disunity.
2. The Australia Day melee at The Lobby Restaurant in Canberra: That image of the PM being dragged into a waiting Comcar made her look helpless. That her office had a hand in stirring up an incident that led to pictures going worldwide posed serious questions about who was in charge.
3. The Four Corners interview: If you’re going to do an interview, have a game plan. Why not forcefully make it clear that leadership rumblings were underway before the Rudd coup but the decision to stand was taken at the last minute?