Originally published as an editorial under a joint by-line with Tim Westcott and Gilda Di Vincenzo in Planning News 36, no. 3 (April 2010): 4.
“I am a bit tired,” was the Planning Minister’s explanation in the midst of his cringe-inducing interview with Neil Mitchell after the release of the now-infamous Windsor Hotel media plan; the same protest slipped out during the Minister’s subsequent press conference announcing that the hotel redevelopment would go ahead. On both occasions it was an unusually direct and human admission, all the more notable for the contrast with the attempts at tightly controlled media messaging that had created the problem in the first place.
There seems little doubt that regardless of what happens in this election year, the Windsor Hotel will be remembered as a low point in Justin Madden’s career. Yet what are the actual lessons to be learnt here?
The first point worth making is that the ultimate decision is hard to challenge: while the opposition have argued that approval was inevitable once the media plan was released, one might equally argue that it would – or should – have been almost a fait accompli once Heritage Victoria and the Advisory Committee had both supported the proposal. The second point is that the problem with the consultation proposed was not that it would go ahead even though a particular outcome (refusal) was already expected. That in itself is not sham: all planners would have been involved in situations where it was envisaged a decision would go a particular way, but consultation occurred anyway. Planners (and politicians) would be foolish not to acknowledge that consultation can have value even when they are pretty sure what the final answer will be.
The disturbing thing about the Windsor case is what it suggests about the way media management drives decisions, and the cynical manner in which the government communicates. The infamous media plan (here) was dismissed by the government as an “internal speculative working document.” Yet it is clearly a very well-developed document, obviously updated on an ongoing basis. Nothing else in it is improper, and most is not particularly surprising, although seeing the State’s planning agenda laid out in such media-driven, message-first terms is faintly depressing. Presumably the government means that the section on the Windsor was the “speculative” part, or that the latest updates to the plan were inconsistent with the way it was normally written; the reluctance to discuss it further means we can only guess. We can also only wonder about the primacy the document (and media advice more generally) plays in influencing decisions and policy priorities.
Unfortunately, the straight-bat non-answers of the government on the topic do nothing to dissuade the community from drawing the worst conclusions on these points. Neither, for that matter, do the “internal audit review” and “probity advisors report” released on the DPCD webpage alongside the Advisory Committee’s report. The former is mostly a procedural review, and is focussed on aspects of the process that have never been called into question: the Department’s management of the file, and the contribution of the Advisory Committee and Heritage Victoria. It doesn’t consider the actual Ministerial decision at all, being limited to review of the process “commencing with preliminary discussions with the applicant prior to submission of the Planning Application, and concluding with the establishment of the Advisory Committee and its Terms of Reference.” The second document, the “probity advisors report,” is a one page letter simply stating that the probity advisor has sighted relevant documents and is “satisfied that the advice to the Minister is acceptable from a probity perspective in that it is consistent with the supporting information.” Both sets of findings are unremarkable, very limited in scope, and completely unrelated to the issue at hand: whether the proposed consultation was really one person’s flight of fancy, and what influence the media plan and its circulation had on the ultimate decision.
What’s irritating about the use of these documents is that their very release is an example of the primacy of media messaging over substance. Since neither addresses any of the aspects of the handling of the Windsor Hotel that had actually been called into question, they serve no purpose other than to give the impression of some sort of review of the Minister’s handling of the matter. This is the nub of the Minister’s communication problem: by over-engineering his media management, he has jeopardised his actual communication with the profession and the public. This is a far wider problem than simply the Windsor Hotel.
Modern politicians and their media people (and, increasingly, the public service) are at one level great at communication: they are now expert in shaping and controlling their media lines to give a consistent message and reduce risk. We see this in the way language is used to pre-empt criticism, so that a distinctly non-sustainable expansion of the UGB is branded as Delivering Melbourne’s Newest Sustainable Communities. We also see it in the way that a talking point is hammered, so that, for example, multiple Ministerial press releases during January and February all had the Minister declaring that “the Brumby Labor Government is standing up for Victorian families by speeding up the planning process to create jobs, manage growth and help families secure their lifestyle.” You can’t really engage with that kind of communication: it delivers a targeted, non-negotiable message in much the same way an advertising jingle does.
If it seems naive to expect anything else, consider the shortcomings of such communication from even the government’s perspective. Cynical communication breeds cynical community reception. Repeated frequently enough, stock phrases and cute lines get stripped of meaning, and communities will decide for themselves what those phrases really mean: “speeding up the planning process to create jobs” will simply be heard as “shonky deal for mates,” and at that point the media managers are left chasing their tails. Something like the Windsor Hotel debacle hurts in this environment because it seems to confirm expectations of disingenuousness that the community have already formed.
The irony of this is that Madden is clearly a good communicator. He is charismatic and genuine in his manner. What the Neil Mitchell interview demonstrated is that he’s a lousy non-communicator: trying to say nothing and defend the indefensible left him choking on the absurdity of his own words. Had he simply determined the application (whichever way) and outlined a genuine explanation for his decision, his “messaging” would have been far clearer. We can only hope that in the future, when media advisers offer their sage advice on “clever” communication strategies, that point is remembered.
Windsor hotel image by “tranquil niche,” used under Creative Commons licence. Click image for details.