Yeah, nah: Scott Morrison’s PR tries but fails to hide climate denial and inaction
Our climate-denying PM, politicians and journalists have learnt the wrong lessons from PR during this bushfire crisis. Belinda Noble and Annabelle Lukin explain why following a tried and tested PR plan instead of resorting to spin would have been a far better approach for Scott Morrison.
There are three, accepted golden rules when it comes to dealing with a reputational crisis: apologise a lot, make your statements about the victims, and outline your steps to ensure the mistake never happens again.
Being in an unknown overseas country while people were dying in the flames and then failing to acknowledge the extent of the bushfire crisis seriously damaged Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s standing. Since that initial outrage, he’s ‘pivoted’, acknowledging climate change exists, recognising the plight of victims and announcing measures to deal with the immediate emergency.
Unfortunately, every word, gesture, and intonation in his press conferences and interviews is still refracted through his climate denialism. No admission, therefore no apology. No reflection on past mistakes. No future plans. No way to make things right. From this position, there is no PR or spin that can get him to where the public needs him to be.
Nailed it.
Spot on.
This para:
“The unpopular truth about PR is that you’re only going to have a good reputation if your actions are truthful and ethical. You can’t spin your way out of trouble. And when you make mistakes that cost lives or livelihoods, you need to come clean.”
Dan,
The PM didn’t cause deaths, the fires did, he didn’t light the fires did he? Clearly he didn’t.
He ignored warnings and delayed action. His decisions cost lives, animals, environment and property. You don’t have to light the match to have responsibility.
Matt, specifically what were the warnings and actions that he delayed that cost lives?
@Sarah Is that you, Rupert?
Sarah,
You’re wrong.
Scomo –
A person in charge who leaves things to others when a difficult or emergency situation arises.
Shit was going really tits up at work this week so I Scomo’d off to a tropical island for some R&R and let someone else sort it out.
Wow! So witty! You should put this on a sign at the next protest so you can really zing him! 😀
When are the media going to stop going on about what a horrible prime minister we have – this is getting more and more like Trump every day. If you don’t like him don’t vote for him next time. He made a mistake going on holiday – he doesn’t believe in climate change, that’s his belief. Nothing to see here folks, time to move on.
Oh Kevin – sorry to interrupt your dialogue, but some of us did not vote for ScoMo in the first place.
No one cares who you voted for, the end result is the result.
If everyone that marched against ScoMo voted for the Greens/Labor the result would be very different, except that is not the case.
What we need to stop doing is ousting every prime minister early in their term and let the voting do the talking. We oust ScoMo and who do we have Dutton? Or we oust a PM every time we disagree with their actions? The revolving door will never stop and nothing will get done because no PM will serve long-enough of a term to enact any change they were voted in for.
He didn’t use the word unprecedented because unlike you he knows that on every single metric they weren’t unprecedented. The only unprecedented part of the fires was the hysteria of people like you.
Good one Duncan – I see you’re one of those people that’s on the wrong side of history. Enjoy that.
I don’t think the billions of animals killed would agree with you on that!
I’ve bled every word you wrote.
Thank you.
Interesting topic.
And “spin” is the operative word because you get the feeling Shonky and Co. are revving really, really hard with all their sadly obvious PR tricks, but the wheel just keep spinning in the muck.
Exhibit K : It didn’t take long for his continued use of the moniker “Quiet Australians” to on the tired air of a man scrambling for ideas, if not an almost disturbing sinister pejorative bent.
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PS : If you want to see a spooky reflection of the Shonky mentality writ in black and white, watch (or rewatch) the movie PLEASANTVILLE. Although it could be argued that Australia is more like UNPLEASANTVILLE right now.