Pinks Batts and Red Tape are not naughty words
TheLNP government are experts at using a carefully selected set of
‘naughty, bad, bad Labor’ words to frame an issue to their advantage.
They work hard to keep these words negative for Labor, to wed them to
bad connotations, and to insert them into any situation, especially when
they’re on the back foot. Negative words like ‘unions’, ‘pink batts’,
‘waste’, ‘red tape’ and ‘Craig Thomson’. It should be obvious that
they’re doing this, but unfortunately the electorate don’t think very
hard about what is actually being said. They just let the negativity
wash over them, and Labor ends up getting bashed, unjustifiably, time
and time again. And of course the media don’t help, because they adore
anything that even looks like Labor bashing. So these negative words
find themselves all over political sound bites all over the news. Like a
virus, they get spread around the electorate, eating away at Labor’s
credibility, particularly amongst disengaged voters.
It’s important to understand that this is not dog whistling. This is
strategic framing. The Liberals are experts at this tactic, and Labor
are terrible at combatting it. But if Labor are going to win the next
election, they need to get better at communicating. They need to learn
how to defend against these words, to shift the frame and to expose the
Liberals for what they are really saying. They need to turn these
‘naughty’ words into toxic words for Tony Abbott.
I know it’s not easy. I know Labor’s first instinct is to try to
explain the complexity of an issue, to throw facts at the problem. But
this is not going to work. It’s time Labor realised that facts are the
domain of the left, being abandoned by right-wingers long ago. As George
Lakoff, framing expert and author of ‘Don’t think of an elephant’, explains, progressives need to get over the myth of ‘Enlightenment’ which is that:
“The truth will set us free. If we just tell people
the facts, since people are basically rational beings, they’ll all reach
the right conclusions”.
I must admit, I’m a victim of this myth. I throw facts at Liberal
bullshit all the time. But just as Lakoff says, facts just bounce off
Abbott voters. They’re impervious to rational argument.
So what can Labor do? What should they say to combat these words being used against them time and time again? I’ve written before about Labor’s communication problems,
and how these problems overshadow the great policy reforms of the
previous Labor government. So it’s time Labor tried something new. Here
are my tips about what Labor should be saying in the media (mainstream,
independent and social), to build their own frame. Just by using two
sets of these naughty words together, you can see that Labor can turn
the negative words frame to their advantage:
Pink batts and Red Tape
This week, Joe Hockey said:
“If we don’t get on top of the proper management of
the NDIS, not only would it not be sustainable, but it could end up as
big a farce as the pink batts program or the $900 test program.”
This is clearly Joe Hockey on the back foot, worried about how he
will explain that his government is putting at risk the NDIS, by putting
a hiring freeze on public servants
who need to run the program. He is also no doubt pre-empting a change
to the NDIS funding in the budget, now that Abbott’s government has
decided they have run out of money.
It’s clear there are several layers of bullshit intertwined in this
short statement. But focussing just on ‘pink batts’ for a moment. These
are two short words, that when put together, cause havoc for Labor. Let
me lapse into old habits and throw in some facts. The Home Insulation
Scheme was no more dangerous to installers than the industry was before
the government funded stimulus scheme was implemented. A scheme that
successfully insulated (and ironically cut energy usage) in over a
million homes. As eloquently outlined in this Independent Australia article:
“The CSIRO’s basic research – developed further by Possum Comitatus at Crikey
– found the rate of fires, injuries and deaths was actually four times
higher during the Howard years than during the period of the home
insulation program”.
The lack of knowledge of this fact amongst the electorate is evidence
of Labor’s failure to defend against the ‘pink batts’ frame. So moving
right along, since we know facts don’t help, let’s look at what Labor
should be saying, by throwing in another Liberal negative frame: ‘red
tape’.
We all know Liberals say they’re cutting ‘red tape’ because they want
to do a favour to their rich business mates. We know the regulations
they are cutting are actually really important for consumers and workers
to keep people safe, to save the environment, to protect communities
from rampant greed and to safeguard employee rights. We all get that
right? Yet, we now have a government who has celebrated ‘repeal day’,
where over 8,000 regulations (rights) are on the chopping block. And
the Australian public have mostly stood by and welcomed this attack on
all of us. Go figure. It’s actually too hypocritical for words to, in
once sentence, enact a Royal Commission into the ‘pink batt debacle’ at
the very same time as you’re cutting hundreds of regulations that stop
private businesses, like the ones that took up the government funding to
install home insulation, from putting profit ahead of safety. That’s
right. Private companies hired the workers who tragically died due to a
lack of regulation and training in the insulation installation industry.
Abbott is hypocritical beyond Bullshit Mountain. And no, I’m not asking
Bill Shorten to say this. Don’t forget, Lakoff says not to think about
an elephant. Don’t mention Abbott. Labor needs to make their own frame.
Because defending against Abbott’s frame just gives his words more
prominence, and in turn more value. But how about this for a frame that
meets these parameters. How about Shorten say this whenever he’s in the
vicinity of a camera or a Facebook meme:
We welcome an enquiry into safety within the home insulation
scheme. We welcome any inquiry, no matter how politically motivated to
try to make Labor look bad, to make sure workers have the rights to a
safe work place and the regulations that enshrine these working rights
in law. Unions protect workers’ rights in this way. Perhaps if more of
the workers installing home insulation were part of a union, these
tragic deaths might not have occurred. At a time when the government is
cutting regulations that protect workers, and that make sure young men
and women don’t die in workplace accidents, it’s important to remember
that ‘red tape’ is not a naughty word. It’s often not until the tape is
taken away, that we realise just how badly we need it.
Then say it again, and again and again. See how that goes Labor. See
how often Abbott and his team mention pink batts and red tape after this
new frame has been heard by the electorate a couple of hundred times.
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