Sorry saga
Saying sorry isn’t leadership. It’s crisis management. By Gemma Tognini.
Are we there yet? Less than one week into this election campaign and all I can think of is, are we there yet?
In saying that, what a week it’s been. Talk about an insight into the state of Australia’s political discourse. We’re not exactly covering ourselves in glory.
The advertisements being rolled out are terrible. And some are of questionable accuracy, to say the least.
And the Climate 200 Party, aka the “independents”, are proving themselves to be cherry-picked elitists with little to offer other than slogans like you can have the same, or you can have better. How incredibly quaint.
The standout of the week so far though has been he who would be king. Anthony Albanese has burst out of the blocks and rolled a fetlock within days of the starter’s gun firing.
You could say it was his John Hewson moment except he’s now had four of them.
Albanese’s Labor has campaigned (or is trying to) heavily on the economy but he didn’t know what the official cash rate is. Didn’t know what the unemployment rate is. And was woefully wrong with his assertion that workforce casualisation has increased under the Morrison Government. Official data from the ABS shows clearly that the share of workers in casual jobs has drifted down.
As if all of this wasn’t enough, Mr Albanese was asked a question about the future of Lorraine Finlay.
He said he didn’t know who she was. Ms Finlay has been the Australian Human Rights Commissioner since November.
When you consider that Mr Albanese is effectively being interviewed for the role of prime minister, you wouldn’t hire him. Not in a blue fit.
I can tell you if a candidate performed that poorly in an interview for my firm they wouldn’t make it through the first round. It’s a resounding no from me.
Mr Albanese said sorry. He said he’s human and he made a mistake.
No, he did not. He was either unprepared or arrogant or indifferent or a combination of all three.
A mistake is taking a wrong exit off the freeway. A mistake is saying something in a heated moment that you might regret. A mistake is misjudging someone based on the experience of another.
There is a long list of what can be considered a mistake and none of Mr Albanese’s own goals falls into this category.
It’s not just the hubris that thinks a simple, whoops-a-daisy is enough — it’s the fact he reckons we will buy it.
You can’t present yourselves as alternative managers of the economy (and by extension, our financial futures) and brush off mistakes like these as being a mere quirk of his humanity.
It’s an insult to the rest of us who are in fact very interested in what the cash rate is, and equally as invested in what the unemployment rate is.
It’s a curious thing indeed for the Opposition Leader to be so ill prepared. And it’s even more bizarre to watch him double down, attempting to trade off the reforming work of the Hawke government — calling himself an “economic adviser to the Hawke government.” He was no such thing. He was a comparatively junior research officer with no role in economic policy.
Does he think us daft? And does he think a simple, sorry folks, is enough?
This is not a game, but it appears for Mr Albanese to be an exercise in political vanity.
For all of the Opposition Leader’s carefully curated, heavily filtered, overly styled social media content (and there’s a truckload of it) he has nothing to say of substance.
And he can’t even answer the basics.
Do we forgive? For sure. It’s not worth holding a grudge for, but just because you forgive a person doesn’t mean you then let them into your life. Give them the keys to the car.
Can you imagine? I forgive you for cheating on me and now, would you like to move back into the house? I totally forgive you for wrecking my car, here are the keys, go for a spin.
Can you imagine in a corporate environment if a board member failed to exercise their due diligence, or failed to execute their role according to the Corporations Act?
I am absolutely certain that saying sorry and falling on your frail humanity would not wash with ASIC.
These are serious times. These are concerning days. The Opposition Leader has demonstrated within the blink of an eye that he hasn’t got what it takes to lead this country.
He hasn’t got what it takes to chat to a member of the public.
He hasn’t got what it takes full stop.
He can be as sorry as he likes, and I’ve no doubt that he is, but saying sorry, I’m only human isn’t leadership. It’s crisis management. It’s an attempt to put out the fire.
Leadership is doing the work.
It’s more than weight loss and a new pair of glasses. It’s so much more than motherhood statements and curated content. Leadership is turning up prepared in the first place.
Gemma Tognini is Executive Director of GT Communications. This op ed was first published in The West Australian and has been republished here with the author’s permission.