Media Insider: Politics and the PR blame game - when do we stop looking in the rear-vision mirror?

It’s been 325 days since the election. The National-Act-NZ First coalition is already almost a third of the way through the election term.

Analysis of Government press releases since December reveals a concerted strategy to target the 2017-2023 Labour governments’ alleged failings - with more than 50 press releases in the past nine months targeting the “last government” or the “previous government”.

Simeon Brown is a key protagonist, having his name on top of 16 of those 55 releases - the most recent of which was yesterday. Chris Bishop (seven) and Nicola Willis (six) are also regulars.

The waterfall of anti-Labour press releases seems a focused - some might say a somewhat unimaginative - PR strategy. Blaming the last government for everything is hardly an “I-have-a-dream” vision.

Is it time we moved on? Or at least stopped looking in the rear vision mirror?

At the same time, Labour has been involved in its own questionable PR strategies.

While you might expect the opposition to, well, oppose, the public is likely to take a dim view if that’s done in a misleading way - as we saw last week with Ginny Andersen’s claims in a press release that the number of police foot patrols has fallen.

Andersen had used selective figures, by comparing a June number with the always-favourable December number, and completely ignoring that patrols were - in fact - trending up under National.

1 News political reporter Benedict Collins was on to that particular ruse - and Andersen’s discomfort under questioning was plain to see.

Earlier this year Labour leader Chris Hipkins vowed he wouldn’t personally act like a dog barking at every passing car. He was responding to questions in March that he had issued very few press releases under his name in the first three months of the year.

“I don’t measure our success by the number of press releases that we put out,” Hipkins told Q+A’s Jack Tame.

Since then, his party appears to have made up for some lost time - on social media especially. Some might believe it’s suddenly acting like a canine in need of a corrective collar.

More recently, there has been commentary about Hipkins’ general approach as opposition leader.

“Generally I hate critiquing other politicians’ personalities and styles and so on, because that’s just not who I am. I tend to prefer to focus on being the best person, best politician, best leader that I can be,” Hipkins told The Post. “I don’t want us to criticise, I want us to be constructive and supportive. I’m not going to be critical, just for the sake of getting on the telly.”

Media Insider went to three leading PR experts for their views - and asked whether it was time to look ahead.

Trish Sherson, co-founder and director of Sherson Willis

Politics is a thankless game. Every Government blames ‘the other lot’ for what’s wrong and takes credit for what’s right. Labour was still blaming National for problems after being in Government for six years. Politicians today still blame the 1984 Labour Government and National’s 1990 ‘mother of all budgets’ for problems today.

In advertising and marketing it’s known as the ‘problem solution technique’ i.e. the previous government was the problem, we’re the solution. You see this in ads all the time: ‘Dirty floors? Get a mop!’ ‘Stinky dog? Get a spray!’ ‘Aching joints? Take a pill!’

Government ministers are going through every portfolio, identifying the problems they say Labour created for voters and selling their fix. Kiwis don’t like driving over potholes, Simeon Brown’s fixing them. Kiwi businesses don’t like red tape, David Seymour’s taking the scissors to it. Kiwis don’t like wasteful spending, Nicola Willis is tightening the purse strings.

There’s an old saying in politics that just when you’re sick of saying the same thing over and over, most people are only hearing it for the first time – so every minister is banging the drum hard about how much work is needed to ‘get New Zealand back on track’.

What voters do get tired of (and cost the previous government the election) is politicians that over-promise and under-deliver.

That’s why we’re seeing National set up the problems and timeframes/metrics to fix them. If they start to miss those deadlines, that’s when voters will get sick of them blaming the other lot. What they also know is that after four very tough years, voters need hope, cue [the recent] press conference hailing victory over inflation and mortgage relief.

Deborah Pead, founder and executive chair of Pead PR

Attributing blame to previous leadership is a common tactic for new management teams - not just in politics. This approach serves multiple purposes: it highlights the scale of inherited problems, it buys time and understanding, and it often provides context and justification for the tough decisions required to fix past failures.

It also helps reinforce the negative perceptions of the former leadership, reminding people why change was necessary.

While this strategy has a limited shelf life, the general rule is that the larger the issue, the more permission you have to blame the source of the problem. (Some businesses are still blaming Covid for a poor performance.)

And the reality is, right now we are facing big systemic challenges like the cost-of-living crisis, economic recession, energy shortages, and infrastructure coming apart at the seams. Consequently, we can expect to hear a lot more blame and the duration will depend on how long the recovery takes.

The risk with prolonged blame-shifting is that it can easily be perceived as an excuse for delays. And when it comes to short-term operational fixes, there is little patience for ongoing blame. At some point, the new leadership must take responsibility and demonstrate an ability to deliver results. If not, they will lose credibility, they will look incompetent and they will alienate their supporters.

The skill lies in reading the room and balancing the narrative, acknowledging inherited problems while focusing on forward-thinking solutions. And at the end of the day delivering results is far more powerful than attributing blame.

David Cormack, managing partner of Draper Cormack Group

Blaming the last government for current woes is a tale as old as time. The Labour Government and Labour/NZF/Greens Government also did it - the “nine long years” refrain of blaming National for everything was so boring.

It’s not really a tactic that flies with the public. All the research on social marketing - which is driving behaviour change in the public - says to focus on what you’re going to do, not what others have already done.

We don’t want to be told that the country sucks, or that there are all these things wrong with it, we want to have a hopeful future laid out for us. Our political classes are so preoccupied at talking about policies, but nobody cares about policies.

They care about what the outcomes of those policies will be. Tell me what you’re going to do to make my future better, and then what that future will actually look like. I can’t connect with a policy, but I can connect with an outcome.

And for god’s sake put some emotion in it. Facts and figures don’t win over people, feelings do.

Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand’s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including Managing Editor, NZ Herald Editor and Herald on Sunday Editor and has a small shareholding in NZME.