Table of Contents
Perhaps the most sensitive external group a secretary interacts with is the media. Particularly in the Howard Government years, any direct interaction had to be handled with great care. The relationship between politics and the media has always been critical and, also, essentially symbiotic. The Public Service and particularly departmental secretaries are inevitably affected by this relationship whether or not they have direct, personal contact with journalists. In my experience, one of the greatest changes in public administration during the past 30 years has been the increased importance and sophistication (and sensitivity) of communications management.
The main ways in which departments and secretaries are involved directly or indirectly with the media are:
the daily routine of monitoring stories, preparing briefs and liaising with the minister’s office
planning for communications to support program management and implementation of new initiatives
presenting public speeches and publishing papers and reports
responding to freedom-of-information (FOI) requests
speaking directly to journalists and commentators.
Aspects of some of these elements have been discussed in Chapter 3 (‘Working with ministers’) and Chapter 6 (‘Managing the department’), but they are of such significance as to warrant attention in their own right.
The daily routine starts with the circulation early each morning of Media Monitors—in my day, via stapled photocopies of all that day’s newspaper stories relevant to the portfolio and a listing of other relevant media stories from radio, television and magazines (now the material is circulated online). Media Monitors are circulated to almost all SES officers as well as the minister and all advisers. The public affairs unit or ministerial support unit in the department organises this and ensures someone has scanned the stories at a very early hour in case of a big, breaking story possibly requiring response for early morning radio. I would normally scan Monitors when I arrived in the office about 8.30am. By 9am at the latest, the stories that seem likely to ‘get a run’ have been identified and agreement reached with the minister’s office on whether briefing is required for the minister.
Most days, I would not participate in this directly, although, by scanning Media Monitors, I was always ready to do so if I felt it necessary. Our Monday morning ‘prayer meetings’ of division heads and deputies would also have discussed expected media interest in the portfolio that week when identifying key issues (see Chapter 6), and helped to clarify our priorities.
The importance and urgency of ministerial briefings increased on parliamentary sitting days when Question Time Briefs (QTBs) were required. Division heads normally took responsibility for the quality of these and ensured liaison with the minister’s office, but when big stories were running I would often intervene personally, along with the relevant deputy secretary. As mentioned in Chapter 3, in cases such as the ‘Scan scam’ and ‘kerosene baths’, we implemented a major project management approach.
The public affairs unit would also keep an eye on the media cycle during the day, as newspaper stories were followed up first by ABC radio and then by talkback radio, and in the evening by popular and in-depth public affairs TV.
In the Department of Health, this routine was a huge task. Stories on health appear in every newspaper every day, often with a page-one headline and usually with a headline on one of the first five pages. Ministers and secretaries must get used to this, accepting the environment without being panicked, but also discerning which stories need high-level attention and how best to respond. The political imperative is to dampen down the bad-news stories and the department’s briefing certainly aims to help the minister achieve that. I always felt, however, that it was also important to inform and educate the public on complex matters of policy or management and encouraged the inclusion of background information if not in the brief itself then in an attachment. Mostly, this also reinforced the political objective of dampening down a crisis story.
Communications management these days also has a proactive element. Cabinet submissions usually include, as the first attachment, a draft press release indicating how the proposed measure might be presented to the public. This has long been the case, but now there is usually a more sophisticated communications strategy behind the press release and departments maintain a considerable continuing investment in capacity for market and other communications research and communications campaigns.
Table 9.1 Red and blue umbrellas: explaining lifetime cover
The decision to introduce unfunded lifetime community rating to replace the previous community rating regulation of private health insurance presented a considerable challenge for communications: how to explain a complex reform and how to maximise its effectiveness in meeting the government’s objectives of increased private health insurance membership and more stable premiums.
Communications considerations had already influenced the detail of the reform, including its simple profile of increasing premiums by age (very broadly reflecting increasing health costs by age). The market research contributed to the strategies for involving pharmacists and GPs extensively, as these were the main groups people said they would turn to for independent advice. The research also contributed to the name ‘lifetime cover’ as an accurate, simple and positive reflection of the reform.
The communications strategy drew on expert advice from the industry and elsewhere on the time needed to inform the community and allow them to make a considered decision, noting the potential negative impact on those who delayed deciding beyond the deadline set.
It also built on the earlier communications strategy surrounding the private health insurance tax rebate involving red and white striped umbrellas signifying ‘cover’. (That strategy included government advertising and complementary advertising by the industry and individual funds, all using the umbrellas.) The new strategy introduced blue and white striped umbrellas.
The scale of government advertising was clearly a political decision, though the department certainly agreed considerable advertising was needed. The department was satisfied that the content of the advertisements and related material was non-partisan and genuinely informative.
Our strategic plan usually highlighted communications as a ‘key results area’ for effective management of the department. We then had a complementary communications plan, which identified the broad policy approach and infrastructure we needed (for example, corporate image and badging, profile, web site role, ministerial correspondence arrangements, research, information, public relations skills) and the mandatory processes for specific communications strategies around, for example, any major government initiative.
During my time, the department did not conduct its own regular market research on public attitudes to its programs or administration. I can see a case for that for agencies in the business of directly delivering services, but am also mindful that it would be easy to cross the line in providing the governing party with privileged information that might be used for partisan purposes. We did, however, use market research extensively in most communications strategies for specific initiatives.
With the advent of the Internet, departmental web sites have become critical to the communications effort. Departments have learned that these sites require more effort than being a dump for their hardcopy publications and have invested in clever architecture and sometimes more active two-way communications through online, almost real-time exchanges, complementing ministerial and departmental correspondence. This has also led to the development of rules to separate departmental from ministerial sites, to preserve the political neutrality of departments and careful design to dampen expectations of unrealistic speed, accuracy and comprehensiveness of responses to individual queries.
I always took the view that one of the roles of a secretary was to make public speeches to explain the background to government policies and to promote informed discussion of the issues involved, without either directly promoting the government’s policies or undermining them. I similarly favoured publications by the department disseminating facts about the programs, presenting departmental research and canvassing some of the more technical issues underpinning policies and programs. These served the department as well as external players and the public, by forcing a discipline on our analysis and opening our work up to external, expert examination.
Table 9.2 Health Occasional Papers
Between 1997 and 1999, the Health department issued five papers in its first series of Occasional Papers. These covered:
national leadership through performance assessment
family and community services: when is competition the answer
a healthy start for zero to five year olds
compression of morbidity workshop papers
an overview of health status, health care and public health in Australia.
I was keen to promote more informed discussion of health financing issues generally and advised the minister on a number of occasions that some form of public inquiry or review would be helpful, perhaps by the Productivity Commission (notwithstanding my initial opposition to its 1996 inquiry into private health insurance). He took a more cautious view, fearful that this could set hares running and reduce his capacity to manage the policy agenda. When he again rejected my proposal after the 1998 election, I decided the department might take some action to fill the gap, albeit without advocating any policy directions either generally or specifically.
It was a delicate matter, but it did lead to an excellent special series of Health Financing Occasional Papers, prepared under the leadership of one of the deputy secretaries, David Borthwick. The papers published between 1998 and 2000 included:
Health financing in Australia: the objectives and players
International approaches to funding health care
Health expenditure: its management and sources
Public and private: in partnership for Australia’s health
Technology, health and health care
The quality of Australian health care: current issues and future directions
Health financing and population health.
Another occasional paper on health financing, Reforming the Australian health care system: the role of government, was also issued in 1999, but was not formally part of this series.
The papers received many plaudits, including from Ross Gittins in the Sydney Morning Herald, and caused no political damage. Their existence, however, did require some resilience by me and the department in the face of some unease among the political staffers.
The secretary may also become personally involved in managing FOI applications when they involve politically sensitive information. I delegated authority under the legislation, but was occasionally drawn in either by a delegate or (more often) by the minister or minister’s office. I did not ever withdraw a delegation, but I might have sought clarification from the delegate of his or her assessment of the case for or against release.
Ministers and their advisers are understandably concerned to minimise political damage and do not always appreciate public service advice on the requirements of the legislation or common law understandings of the public interest where that is a factor (for example, internal working documents may not be released only if it is not in the public interest not to do so). Sometimes, however, they do understand that delaying the inevitable often exacerbates the problem.
Table 9.3 FOI can become very personal
I was accompanying Michael Wooldridge on a visit to the United States when, on the way to an important meeting one morning, he turned to me in the car blasting me about the department betraying him and lying to his office. I had no idea what he was on about until the adviser explained that it concerned an FOI request. The department overnight had released information requested about the minister’s personal expenses in the form of all the various receipts for expenditure. The media back home was having a field day about such things as champagne with the AMA president after settling some negotiated agreement.
I contacted my office and sought the background. The minister remained furious all day, convinced of the department’s disloyalty and unilateral action. Having finally obtained the full story, I went to the minister’s hotel room late in the evening, a bottle of red wine (bought with my own money) under my arm. The staffer was with him.
I accepted responsibility for the department not forewarning the minister or his office of the precise time the information would be released, but advised that his office was aware of the request and the information to be released. I also noted that the FOI request followed the minister’s continued refusal to answer a related Question on Notice, a reply to which we had drafted on several occasions.
The minister was not much mollified (given the continuing media fun and games), but said he appreciated my gesture and accepted it was my role to defend the department. I bit my tongue, waiting until the staffer and I had left his room to hand the adviser copies of all the emails I had. These detailed the extent of communication between the department and the office over several weeks, including the collation and verification of documents by the office, consideration of what had to be released under the law and the deadlines under the law for release. I told the staffer: ‘You now know what I did not tell the minister: I could have nailed you and the office on this. There was no lying by the department or any disloyalty to the minister. You guys clearly did not keep the minister informed.’
Perhaps I should have been more forceful with the minister, but this way I won important credit with the office and greater cooperation from then on. I doubt the minister forgave us, however.
The department’s standard rules were that contacts with the media would be referred to the public affairs area and/or the minister’s office. By agreement with the office, some matters would be handled by the department, particularly if they were merely factual or related to a matter of administration or professional expertise where the general line to be used had been discussed with the office. For example, the Chief Medical Officer frequently commented publicly on public health and medical issues and the departmental delegate making a decision under a law might be the one to announce and explain the decision if there was media interest. Any policy matters or sensitive administrative matters would be handled by the minister’s office.
Notwithstanding these rules, which I established in line with ministerial directions, I occasionally spoke directly to journalists without formal clearance. Generally, this was with journalists seeking background to current issues rather than information for an immediate news story. For example, I had conversations with Ross Gittins on the analysis behind the lifetime cover reform to private health insurance. Background conversations with journalists occurred up to once or twice a month, but mostly much less often. (I had many years earlier developed a good relationship with Gittins, who was keen to understand the background to policy decisions on social welfare as well as economics; he never betrayed the trust between us.)
More problematic were the calls from reporters such as Michelle Grattan on a breaking, high-profile story. These I ducked as a rule, though on occasions, again, I provided some background, particularly for follow-up commentary columns. (Grattan also never betrayed my trust, but her focus on politics made any contacts more risky.)