Well we’re off and away; Julia has a new hairdo and Tony is having a bad hair day.
When it comes to marketing, the key issue is establishing the position of the brand. What does the brand offer?
The positioning statement of a radio station is very important; it tells what to expect. For example “Easy listening,” ” Classic rock” “Sport and talk.” It’s always been an interesting one for Christian radio stations, because they will tend to tell you what they’re not –
“No ridicule” “No dirty jocks” etc. butt hat usually indicates they have no clear philosophy of action.
As we come to this election, the message is clear. Tony is telling us under Liberal no more new taxes and no more spending, and of course is evoking the images of death when he says he is certainly going to bury and cremate “work choices”. And certainly no more boats full of refugees! However we’re yet to hear of any vision for the future. He wants to win an election; he has made that clear.
Julia on the other hand, told the big miners, nothing much is going to happen to scare them, (but we now know the 1 point 5 billion loss to revenue, that was going to bring justice to all is now in fact a 13.5 billion loss) which means any real chance of tax reform, which could have brought greater equity, has vaporised. Trying to match Tony by keeping the refugees at bay with a poorly thought through Clayton’s East Timor solution was an attempt to reassure the Labour heartland the hordes from the north would be kept safely at a distance. And once again she thrown some confused rhetoric at the third challenge she had to face, climate change. She wants “community consensus” whatever that may mean.
As we’ve said before a politician has their eyes on the next election, the statesperson has their eyes on the next generation.
Before our eyes we see two politicians going for it. A core hunger for all Australians and young Australians in particular, is for a statesperson, who has a clear vision about the next 15 years. Aussies get excited if they hear their story and their future, being articulated.
How different is this election from the last one. Kevin 07 had grand visions about the future. He signed the Kyoto agreement, he said sorry to indigenous people, he invested in the future of the educational system so every young Australian would have an education that would fit them for the future. Not only that he was going to roll out broadband, to give us an infrastructure that would create a platform for the future.
He also found himself very much at home on the global stage amongst people trying to make sense of the horizon fast coming towards us. He was a “statesman” in that sense, but sadly he lacked the cunning of a politician.
Maybe what we need as never before is somebody whose spirit embodies both the capacity to be a statesman, and the cunning for out smarting one’s political opponents within the party and beyond it. Where is the person who can be as “wise as a serpent, and as harmless as a dove?” So keep your eye out for positioning statements from our pollies; let’s see if there are any statespersons on the horizon..