So yesterday Key added another entry to his legacy list – ushering in a “new level of brutality” for debate. (Not that it’s that new of course, following on from throat-slitting and “get some guts”.) Rob Salmond had an interesting take on the incident:
Cold, calculated and cynical
John Key’s strategic supremo is Lynton Crosby, from the Australian firm Crosby/Textor. Crosby has a trick in his bag called the “dead cat strategy.”
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Today, John Key threw a dead cat into the middle of New Zealand’s Parliament.John Key knew he was in a weak position today for two reasons. First, his deliberate inaction in the face of disgraceful treatment of expat New Zealanders by Australia is a dereliction of his duty, as his many advisers will be telling him.
Second, his Labour opponents have just completed an annual conference that far outshone expectations, capped by a rousing address from Andrew Little, buoying professionals and activists alike across the New Zealand left.
So Key decided to get rid of all those long-term negative headlines by gifting the media a short-term negative headline instead. That’s the strategic thinking behind Key’s disgraceful performance in Parliament today, when he said any politician looking for humane treatment for detainees on Christmas Island was “backing the rapists” and “putting yourself on the side of sex offenders.”
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Make no mistake – this was no passionate outburst. It was a coldly calculated tactic, cynically designed to remove stories about Key’s inaction and Labour’s conference from the media.
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Key doesn’t win just because we all looked at his dead cat. But he does win if we wake up tomorrow having forgotten about the important issues that lead him to throw the dead cat in the first place. We, all of us, cannot allow that.
Is Key running Australian-based Crosby lines? Maybe he isn’t the only one:
Coincidentally, it’s not the first time this week that the suggestion of internationally coordinated PR strategies has been raised. Andrea Vance:
Opinion: Five Eyes spies are swapping PR strategies
As well as swapping secrets, it seems Five Eyes spies are swapping PR strategies.
Over the weekend, British security services published a new list of what they consider the country’s greatest security threats. It came just a few days after the Security Intelligence Service (SIS) and the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) released their own ‘big six’ in a briefing to New Zealand ministers. …
Do PR strategies get shared internationally between likeminded governments and organisations? Probably. Is that the case with Key’s “outburst” yesterday? Possibly. Folks, keep an eye out for examples of common messaging from NZ / Australia / UK governments.
In the mean time let’s also take Salmond’s point and keep the pressure on Key for his willingness to insult and abandon NZ citizens.
This morning:
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