Should Bibi have attacked Albo? + Minns' hospital concession + Labor’s ‘yoof’ frame

Hi

I often consider writing ‘evergreen’ content: material that deals with timeless principles and remains valuable for years. But I think it’s better to apply timeless principles to the hot topics of the day. In this edition, we look at how attack, concession and framing are playing out in the news.

Let me know if you have any comments.

Ben

Should you attack like Bibi (and Bob)?

You would have obviously seen Benjamin Netanyahu’s extraordinary attack on Anthony Albanese after Labor recognised a Palestinian state.

BiBi slammed Albo as a “weak politician” who had abandoned Israel and Australia’s Jews.

For a leader of a liberal democracy, it was a full-on assault on another leader.

I don’t want to go through the ins and outs of Netanyahu’s attack.

But I do want to address the concept of attack.

When – as a tactic or strategy – should you launch a full-scale attack on an opponent, particularly their character?

When should you scrunch your words up into a grenade and hurl it at your enemy?

Or when, as we say in the industry, should you “take the nuclear option”?

The attractions of attack

Attack is more common than we think.

It’s when

· Paul Keating eviscerated John Hewson as a “disgraceful, disgusting fraud”

· Julia Gillard gave her misogyny speech

· Trump took to heart his mentor Roy Cohn’s advice to “attack, attack, attack” and used it to become President

· Churchill called Hitler a “blood thirsty guttersnipe”

· When the Australian resources industry launched its public campaign against Kevin Rudd’s mining super profits tax

· When Trump attacked Zelensky in the Oval Office

· And when Jesus threw the money changers out of the temple in Jerusalem, calling them nothing but a “den of robbers”.

· (And even when Bob went feral at a journalist who questioned him about his heritage!)

There are obviously a lot of benefits to going on the attack.

Firstly, you get to let off steam. It can be extremely emotionally satisfying, particularly if you believe you’re expressing justified anger.

It’s also a great way to get attention. When you attack, people stand up and take notice. Many challenger brands are built on attacks on the incumbents (Richard Branson’s assault on British Airways, etc). As a young reporter, I learnt the best way to flush out a difficult-to-access source or leader was to – paraphrasing Napoleon – give them a “whiff of grapeshot”.

Attack is also a great way of garnering news coverage, which thrives on conflict.

But perhaps the biggest benefit of attack is rallying your people. When you attack an enemy, you’re clearly, loudly and emotionally defining who the good guys are (you) and who the bad guys are (them). That gives people a standard to rally around, bringing your tribe closer together and motivating them to take action.

Return fire

But, of course, when you attack, there are also downsides.

You can appear unreasonable. Because of the vehemence of his attack on Albo, Netanyahu seemed to divide Australia’s Jewish community, and was criticised by previously supportive elements. Savvy leaders are usually trying to appear to take the middle path. But when you attack, you no longer seem reasonable or a ‘sympathetic’ character.

Going on the attack can also make you appear desperate and isolated.

But perhaps the biggest downside is that you burn bridges and open yourself up to retaliation. You can poison the well for a long time. Mark Latham is an attacker, but by doing so, he opens himself up to counterattacks that often leave him worse off.

One of the biggest roles of a communications advisor is to provide a voice of reason. When a boss or client wants desperately to lash out at an opponent, to say to them: “Um, perhaps that’s not the best idea”.

Treading through the minefield

What if you do decide to go nuclear?

There are some rules to follow:

· Base your attack on a clear strategy, not emotion or a wounded ego.

· Have a clear objective that you want to reach from your attack.

· Use attack as a last resort if nothing else has worked and you have nothing left to lose.

· Try and play the ball, not the main man. Try to keep your attacks focused on the issue. If you do ‘play the man’ I’ve found it often good to attack the people around a key decision maker, and spare the decision maker themselves. The key player can then swoop in as a peacemaker.

· Stay on the attack until you get what you want. A one-off attack that fizzles quickly makes you appear weak and vulnerable. Your enemy will smell this a mile away and double down on their counterattack.

· Try to harness allies and supporters to back you up. There is nothing worse than launching an attack and then turning around to realise there is no one else supporting you.

· Make sure no one is using you and encouraging you to attack while they stay and wait in the wings to see how your attack goes. I’ve seen this many times: when interested parties shove someone else forward to attack, while they hang back.

· Bolster your attack by providing firm evidence, which can remove some of the emotion and bolster your argument.

· Harness humour to leaven your attack. The likes of Keating (‘I wanna do you slowly’) and Costello were brilliant at this.

(And don’t, like Bob, threaten physical violence!)

Perhaps the best way to use attack is to have it ready but withhold it. To let your enemy know that you could hit them very, very hard. But that you are holding off for the moment.

Subtle not blunt

Attack can work.

But it’s usually a last resort.

I think one of the major benefits of becoming a better communicator is learning to dismantle your enemies without appearing to do so; to be subtle rather than blunt.

It’s learning to use rhetorical gymnastics, like Shakespeare’s Mark Antony in his funeral speech for Ceaser, when Antony came across as reasonable (“Brutus is an honourable man”), yet skilfully turned the crowd against the assassin Brutus.

And it’s why Sir Humphrey Appleby gave us these fabulous words of wisdom: the first step to rubbishing someone is to “express your fullest support”. “After all, you must first get behind someone before you can stab them in the back.”

***

‘You have a point … but’: The power of concession in counterattack

Of course, you may find yourself on the receiving end of an attack.

One technique that can help blunt an attack is to concede a point first before launching into your counter (concessio).

This is similar to the ‘ABC’ model of media interviews, where you

· Acknowledge the question

· Bridge to your prepared message, and then

· Communicate your message.

Without the Acknowledge – a form of concession – you come across as arrogant and dismissive.

Concession disarms your opponent, sets up your counterpoint, and makes you appear reasonable.

If you listen closely to Donald Trump, despite his bombast, he’s weaving in a lot of concession.

A colleague noted that Chris Minns – a skilled communicator – recently faced an irate woman on radio. Her relative with serious medical conditions had lain on the floor of a hospital for hours awaiting a bed and treatment.

The outcry led to the Government taking action.

But when speaking with the woman on radio, rather than taking credit, Minns conceded the Government had only helped her relative because the Government faced media scrutiny.

It was a disarming moment of honesty and concession that my colleague – a former communications advisor to NSW premiers – said made Minns appear both decent and authentic.

Of course, as is the case with withholding a full-blooded attack, concession requires you to put your ego and emotion aside and focus on the bigger picture.

***

Labor’s savvy ‘youth’ framing of economic reform

Others have pointed this out, but Labor has deftly framed the outcome of its Economic Reform Roundtable.

Their main frame is that we need tax reform to address growing ‘intergenerational unfairness’.

The intergenerational frame is beautiful for Labor because it does several things all at once:

· Takes the focus off the devilish challenge of improving productivity

· Allows them to keep spending like drunken sailors and buying votes

· Play to their strength amongst younger voters, and  

· Justify what it really wants to do: whack taxes on “the rich” to fund its massive spending

Whether or not we have intergenerational inequality is beside the point.

What Labor has done is tap into an existing, growing and powerful narrative in Australians’ minds: that the young are being ripped off.

All Labor has to do – and all it is doing – is to frame its tax ‘reform’ as redressing that terrible injustice.

What is the Coalition’s frame? Improve productivity when few voters could explain what that means? Or implement fiscal discipline when more than half of voters now rely on Government for most of their income?

As always, it is the zeitgeist – the commonplace of the population – that is powerful; and currently it’s in Labor’s favour and they know exactly how to exploit it.

Though, as we saw above, when you launch an attack on someone, it usually results, eventually, in a counterattack. The Coalition no doubt will be working out how to position itself as defenders of older Australians against Labor’s growing ‘financial repression’. So all may not be lost for the Opposition on the reform front.