By Martin Callinan

There are two ways governments can avoid
scandal. The first is to govern in a moral and
responsible way. The second is to govern as
you please and to deftly manage any scandalous
consequences.
The “handle the scandal” option has become
increasingly viable as governments gain greater
control of information and become better handlers
of public perception.
The key to managing a scandal is to understand
the importance of ‘relevance’. For a political
scandal, it is the ‘relevance’ of a scandalous act
to swing voters, in marginal seats, which matters
most. And thus every effort to dodge a scandal is
orientated around this idea, and is directed toward
this audience.
Swing and non-swing voters alike instinctively
suppose that a crime is a crime; that negligence
is negligence; and that, therefore, relevance must
surely depend upon the truth.
This is the ideal case in a court of law, but
the impact of a scandal depends strictly on the
perception of the court of public opinion.
This ‘perceived’ relevance is a grey area in which
governments now employ unprecedented public
relations powers to wash their hands.
So what exactly is the grey area and how do
governments make scandal soap?
Let us take the example of a puppy sitting next
to a pile of poo. He is guilty. But he is also a puppy, so we won’t hold it against him.
But if you happened to step in that poo, then the
puppy has a serious case to answer.
Conversely, what if that puppy let you know
he wanted to go outside? Well, we would then be
‘understanding’ of his circumstances.
Now what if that puppy let you know that he
wanted to go outside after he pooed but before
your bare foot discovered that poo?

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Stretching the issue out over time dilutes the
message, so that the people that matter are not
troubled by it. The scandal can thus trot along
harmlessly until boredom begins to work in the
scandalous government’s favour.
Notions of sympathy and empathy are crucial. So,
from the outset, ‘innocent puppy’ impersonations
are a must.
Further options include painting yourself as the
victim, demonising your accusers, chaining yourself to your subordinates to obligate their ongoing support, and arguing that the scandalous act ‘doesn’t make any sense’ which, on one hand is true, and on the other, is exactly why it is a scandal.
By dissembling, deferring, arguing sub-point by
sub-point, creating wiggle-room, and employing
linguistic subtleties governments effectively
undermine ‘relevance’ by confusing, dulling and
obfuscating the issue.

...dissembling, deferring, creating
wiggle room

And should truly threatening facts emerge,
then explicitly downplaying their relevance is
the final option. By popularising the idea that
‘no-one cares’, that the public is ‘not interested’,
governments openly push the most basic idea that
will keep them in power.
Whether you’ve had sexual relations with
someone you shouldn’t have, or you’ve been reckless as to whether 290 million Australian dollars was provided to a regime known to support terrorism and in doing so violated your own criminal code, undermined the work of your own navy, and the honest work of your allies, scandal soap works– and it works by dissolving relevance.

Martin Callinan is a writer and Advisor to Kelvin
Thomson, the Federal Shadow Minister for Public
Accountability. This talk was broadcast on Radio
National on Perspectives, 11/04/06.
Producer: Susan Clark.
www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/perspective

 

Scandal soap is a dishonesty-based product,
but if there is no hard evidence about when that
puppy pooed or when he wanted to go outside, the
cunning puppy gets the benefit of your doubt.
The point being that what matters most is the
‘understanding’ of the ‘relevance’ of the facts – not
the facts themselves.
At the first whiff of an impending scandal,
governments act to insulate themselves from the
issue and, if the issue cannot be made to go away,
they then buy as much time as is needed to develop, or ‘soap’, public perceptions in their favour.
Governments can insulate themselves by –
• severing evidentiary links with the scandalous
act;
• tidying up paper trails;
• avoiding any further contact with certain
people or certain issues.
Although, by turning their back on a nascent
scandal governments do run the risk that the
problem, unsupervised, will worsen.
Governments seek to control an unfolding saga
as much as possible in order to inoculate swing
voters against adverse political interpretations of
the available facts.
Control is usually secured by directing public
focus toward a third party, such as an enemy, a
scapegoat, a patsy, an ongoing police investigation or a politically benign public enquiry.
The subliminal and elementary intent of all
comments and actions is to reduce the relevance
of the scandal.
Of fundamental importance is the need to keep
each day’s news anywhere below the radar of swing voters. Oddly, this is more important than the need to have a consistent story, as long as contradicting yourself or being proved wrong on technical issues also occurs below the radar of swing voters.