Población y educación del estado

The media landscape in the 1980s was different from the one we recognise today. Some features remain similar: television is still a dominant news medium, though less important than in

1983.488 Tabloid and broadsheet newspapers remain the leading agenda setters from which other media sources take their cue.489 By the late 1980s, there was a recognition of the

importance of media performance skills and management techniques.490 Yet, in 1983, Australia had more newspapers, including afternoon newspapers, ownership was less concentrated than today and news production in the major media companies was less centralised and

syndicated.491 The Canberra press gallery enjoyed a higher status in the 1980s, as the interlocutors or conduits between politicians and the public.

Since the 1975 dismissal the LPA s elatio ship ith the edia has ee st ai ed. By the 1980s, a generation of younger gallery journalists had been i fatuated ith Gough Whitla a d their relationship with the Fraser government as e e os .492 Complaints about left-wing media bias have become a totemic feature of Liberal party and thei suppo te s heto i .493 Even before losing office in 1983, communication was a major concern for the party. Communication, or rather its poor prosecution during the Fraser years, was highlighted as a major flaw in the

487

O sele a d O sele , O Message o out of Tou h? , .

488_{Ia M Alliste a d “a ah Ca e o , T e}

ds in Australian Political Opinion: Results from the Australian Election Study, 1987- Ca e a: “ hool of Politi s a d I te atio al ‘elatio s ANU College of A ts a d Social Sciences, 2014), 7, http://politicsir.cass.anu.edu.au/research/projects/electoral-surveys/australian- election-study/publications/aes-trends.

489

David Denemark, Ia Wa d, a d Cli e Bea , Ele tio Ca paig s a d Tele isio Ne s Co e age: The Case of

the Aust alia Ele tio , Australian Journal of Political Science 42, no. 1 (2007): 90.

490

Tiffen, News and Power, 80–85; Windschuttle, The Media, 312, 325–26.

491

Rodney Tiffen and Ross Gittins, How Australia Compares (Port Melbourne, Vic: Cambridge University Press, 2009), Chapter 13.

492

Fraser and Simons, Malcolm Fraser, 266; Rob Chalmers, I side the Ca erra Press Gallery : Life i the

Wedding Cake of Old Parliament House, ed. Sam Vincent and John Wanna (Acton, ACT: ANU E Press, 2011), 199.

493

See Derek Parker, The Courtesa s : The Press Gallery i the Ha ke Era / Derek Parker (North Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1991); Henderson, A Howard Government?, Chapte ; Keith Wi ds huttle, The Po e t of Media Theo , Quadrant, Ma h ; Da id Fli t, The Bias of Aust alia Jou alists. , Quadrant, September 2001.

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1983 Report, Facing the Facts, and the party organisation called for improvement.494F ase s media strategy was a now-familiar formula: leader-centric in focus (known in the literature as personalised) but with the gruff patrician style of the man himself.495 The strategy presented the prime minister as an outdoor type, an e e a and a sports fan.496

Frase s p ess offi e also i o ated. It de eloped the doo stop i te ie : a ief a d su i t message on the steps of parliament, from which a transcript was produced and circulated to the press gallery.497F ase s p ess team, under David Barnett, developed a strategy of limiting

F ase s e posu e to a critical press gallery. Instead, Fraser focused on (live) radio and television interviews, where the interviewers were often deferential, the questions were often provided beforehand and transcripts would be provided to newspaper journalists to ensure the message was distributed as widely as possible.498 Moreover, live television and radio was broadcast immediately, without editing.

Losing government in 1983 added additional burdens. The first was the much-hated creation of the National Media Liaison Service (NMLS) by the Hawke government, i k a ed aNiMaL“ the press gallery. Employing 21 staff the NMLS allowed the Hawke government to monitor media nationally, including the statements of the opposition, at public expense.499 Inconsistencies, disagreements and gaffes on the part of the opposition were damaging enough. For example, Peter Baume recorded in his diary how a particular gaffe by Michael Baume, where he

o t adi ted the pa t leade s ti eta le fo ta uts du i g the ele tio a paig , had aused a t e e dous fu o e a d o fi ed the inevitability of defeat on Saturday — the final nail.500 The resources of NMLS would ensure that an interview in Hobart, by a mid-ranking shadow minister would be alerted to the national media and gave the government a significant advantage compared with the modest resources of the federal secretariat at Menzies House.

Second, the pa t s use of media was dissipated and not effectively co-ordinated for much of the 1980s. Former shadow ministers were largely left to their own devices in relation to the media appearances they chose to make. The party still emphasised the importance of promoting the shadow cabinet but within that objective, it relied on having the more successful performers

494

Liberal Party of Australia. Committee of Review and Valder, Facing the Facts, 108, 113–14.

495

For the personalisation of politics see Karvonen, The Personalisation of Politics; Webb and Poguntke, The Presidentialization of Politics.

496

Julian Fitzgerald, On Message: Political Communications of Australian Prime Ministers 1901 - 2014 (Mawson ACT: Clareville Press, 2014), 337.

497 Ibid., 339. 498 Ibid., 341–42. 499 Ibid., 353. 500

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make themselves available and to do media that played to their strengths.501 However, a lack of co-ordination increased the risk of messages going awry or members simply freelancing. Before the NMLS this was less of an issue, as candidates who spoke locally rarely had their words

transmitted beyond their electorates. As Baume reflected in his diary, the lack of co-ordination in

the pa t s essagi g as o e o e example of the incompetence and accident-proneness of

the f o t e h.502 _{It is for these reasons that leaders embraced technologies in the late 1980-}

90s such as the fax machine, and later email and secure online websites, which allowed the party to increasingly centralise its message.