The Redemption: The role of spin in reconstructing political

opinion.
Gianni Tills
Politics is becoming increasing PR-ized, bringing the demagoguery
underpinning the political process into the open (Louw 2005). Legitimacy
must now be maintained through the use of an effective communications
machine, of which spin is a core feature. Effectively deploying spin allows
political figures to gain favour with the voters whilst undermining the
favour of their opposition (Louw 2005). The 2013 Australian federal
election demonstrated two scenarios in which an effective spin strategy
could make or break a campaign. The second case study will examine the
failed attempt of the reincarnated Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to restore
Labor party favour after the previous spills. However, the first is the
successful campaign from Liberal leader Tony Abbott to diffuse volatile
claims of sexism and misogyny.
The installation of Tony Abbott as leader of the Coalition in 2009 brought
with it an irrefutable challenge of promoting a candidate with widespread
concern for his moral character. In the lead up to the 2009 election
against Kevin Rudd of the Australian Labor Party, Abbott endured
criticisms over his significantly conservative position on matters such as
climate change and homosexuality, but it was his comments on women
that really drew fire. He was known to be strictly pro-life, and had been
pulled up on comments surrounding virginity, sex and womens roles in
society on numerous occasions. But it was when Abbott was forced to run
against Australias first female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, that this
history became volatile. A campaign instigated by the ALP to demonise
Abbott drew worldwide attention with one swift blow on October 9th, 2012,
when Gillard famously attacked Abbotts misogynistic attitudes in
response to the Peter Slipper case. The speech received worldwide
interest, and whilst it got its fair share of criticism, managed to receive
significant support from people (particularly women) around the world for
bring sexism to the political stage. The demagoguery of Gillards speech
empowered by visual and online media mobilised support for her and
posed a new challenge for the Liberal National Party.
Despite efforts by the LNP to brush the attack off, there was no doubt that
Tony Abbotts women problem (indicated by the consistent gender gap
in voter polls) had come into full effect. Abbotts political advisor Peta
Credlin and the spin team behind them were faced with a seemingly
insurmountable task of rebranding Abbott to be more appealing
(politically) to women. But in September of 2013, Abbott became
Australias 28th Prime Minister after a successful campaign. This
demonstrates that in the lead up to and during the 2013 election
campaign, Abbotts spin team exercised its knowledge of the media,
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journalists and audiences to execute successful spin and minimise the

misogynistic connections to him.
The most immediate response of the team was to deflect the allegations
of sexism, with Abbott appearing on radio the next morning to deliver
sound bites, no doubt constructed, trying to frame the attack as unfair
and playing the gender card. Abbott recast the story by putting his own
spin on it and criticising Gillard for using the attack as a distraction from
policy. Good spin should be unseen, and by attempting to highlight that
was Gillard trying to distract from policy gave Abbott and effective
platform to frame her in a negative light instead. But despite saying this,
it was the media presence over the next year that really gave Abbotts
spin a foothold.
It started with the front page headline of the Herald Sun: MY TONYS A
GOOD MAN Hes not anti-women. Tony Abbotts most valuable spin tool
to remove sexist connections was his wife and daughters, and his spin
team exploited them to the fullest. The Liberals campaign launch was
very much directed towards discrediting the view that he had a problem
with women, with two of his daughters taking the stage with tightly
scripted words to dispel any ideas their father was sexist. Joyce (2013)
draws allusions to Obamas campaign style by deploying successful
women to reassure those in doubt of Abbotts values. The media took the
bait, TV bulletins and front pages led with his daughters, distributing the
message designed by Abbotts team with crafted phrases from their
speeches, notably: Ive seen my Dad with people from all walks of life
young, old, rich, poor, gay, straight, the frail, the fit, indigenous and
migrant, and he treats every single one of them with equal respect. The
role of the daughters in the launch was a pseudo-event or gimmick,
which were attractive to the media (Louw 2005) and made an effective
televised spectacle. Throughout the entire year, the women in Abbotts
life had a significantly frequent presence in many of his media
appearances (commonly noted as wearing white to boot), and often
served as a mouthpiece to the campaign to improve his image.
One of the most notable terms to be born from this was the appropriation
of the daggy dad approach, which his daughters used to dismiss many of
the gaffes Abbott had made. It was used in reference to his comment on
MP Fiona Scotts sex appeal and to brush off the uncomfortable and
infamous appearance in front of the Big Brother housemates encouraging
them to vote for the guy with not bad looking daughters (Davidson
2013). Whilst a small move, the framing of these comments as daggy
dad moments the role of this is in the campaign was actually two-fold.
First, it constructed plausible deniability, allowing the deflection of
attention elsewhere (Louw 2005) and the dismissal of any negative
connotations the comments carried. This better allows the spin team to
bury the issue and diffuse much of the controversy surrounding it.
Second, it allows the team to generate a face with symbolic
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interactionism. The daggy dad framing of Abbotts comments allowed

emphasis of a paternal role and diminish any perceptions of more
aggressive masculinity (). The image of a fatherly and husbandly
protective masculinity was branded (Louw 2005), constructed and
rehearsed. This could be seen throughout the campaign in his televisual
performances on shows such as 60 Minutes and Kitchen Cabinet in which
he was seen cooking for his family (Australian Broadcasting Commission
2013; Frankie 2013). The face constructed served as a positive family
man contrast to Rudd and Gillard, and the spin doctors wished to
interpolate this persona to the women (and men) of Australia.
When trying to win to the support of the particular interest group of
women, the LNP employed narrowcasting to the niche readership of Marie
Claire in January of 2013. Political advisor and chief of staff Peta Credlin
revealed to the magazine her own IVF treatment and defended Abbott
against sexism claims by saying he was deeply supportive of her (Wroe
2013). The normally behind-the-scenes advisor told the magazine that
Abbotts views on abortion, contraception and IVF were more balanced
and nuanced than many people believe. The strategic planting of this
arguably intimate story in a magazine with 90% female readership (Marie
Claire 2014) attempted to portray a more understanding compassionate
light to Abbott without running the risk of any contention with male
voters. But this wasnt the only understanding of the journalistic role the
spin team demonstrated.
Abbott and his team went to a significant effort to foster a positive image
with independent womens media, with a notable example of Mia
Freedman, famous blogger of Mamamia. After less than favourable
reviews in the past from the blogger, Abbott had met with her for
breakfast in 2010 to provide her with an off-the-record backgrounder in
order to lobby her to his cause (Louw 2005) . In doing so, he achieved a
number of positive spin effects. First, he came out with positive
impression management with Freedman, prompting subsequent
favourable articles about his character. Second, Freedman noted his
inquires into the opinions of Mamamia readers (Freedman 2015).,
displaying the teams interest in researching the public opinion and no
doubt receiving valuable information on what messages connected best.
But finally it allowed him to float an idea, or fly a kite (Louw 2005) and
effectively conduct market research on a particular policy. This came to be
the coup de grace of the 2013 campaign: the Paid Parental Leave scheme.
Abbott received support from Freedman (amongst other high profile
feminists) who said of it With whiplash inducing speed however, Abbott
had transformed public perception of himself, from oppressor of women to
their liberator and champion (Freedman 2015).
The policy, regardless of political response, granted Abbott a go to
response against any anti-women accusations. After PPL the Scheme
announcement, Abbott satisfaction with female voters jumped 5%.
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Overall, the results of the spin were evident in Newspoll female

satisfaction ratings of Abbott continually increasing to a high of 37% after
a low of 28% in October 2012 (coinciding with the Gillard speech). Note
that this is comparable to a female satisfaction of 32% and 35% of Gillard
and Rudd respectably (Newspoll 2013). This demonstrates the effective
use of spin by Abbotts team to improve female voter support and overall
disjoint sexist accusations. Not all spin campaigns will produce such
positive results however, as was the case with Kevin Rudds election
campaign against Abbott in 2013.
When Rudd took over the ALP once more in 2013, the principle aim of the
partys campaign predominantly became about damage control. Suffering
from a wealth of negative light from LNP attacks and unfavourable press
over the leadership spills over the 3 year term, Rudd, campaign director
George Wright and his spin team had a challenge on their hands to
reinstate voter trust. However, unlike the successful spin constructed by
the LNP, Rudds spin failed and resulted in a dismantled campaign. The
main issue as a constant theme throughout the campaign was that the
masses generated steering problems in that they made problems for him
by demanding real participation (Louw 2005). There were a number of
problems with his spin efforts that resulted in this, most notably the loss
of control over the party message and face and the failed use of smear
campaigns.
The organisational shortcomings of Rudds spin campaign apparent with
features revealing the breakdown with Wright struggling to maintain any
cohesive links with the Prime Ministers increasingly independent strategy
development (Williams 2013). This became apparent with the push of
Rudds new slogan and soundbite A New Way. Creating sound bites and
script writing involves managing politicians, and explaining to them
exactly what to say to a journalist or an audience with a goal to create a
unified message for the party and achieve the most positive media
coverage. (Louw 2005). This soundbite did not present a unified message,
with many internal members expressing their disfavour for the slogan.
Snow (2013) revealed how many on the campaign team, including Wright
argued against the catch-phrase. Wrights central view was to position the
election around Abbott, but by promoting A New Way they were inviting
a campaign about Rudd, to their opponents chosen ground. In addition
the phrase allows no room for any negative campaigning with inherent
hypocrisy risks.
This became a notable issue with the poorly executed smear campaign
attempts against the LNP, which ultimately backfired. A smear campaign
involves running an effective research department to gather information
about the opposition and use it to undermine them (Louw 2005). Often
smear campaigns can be beneficial, with demagoguery sufficient to
undermine the legitimacy of the opponent. However often times the
campaigns arent notably subtle and will give negative favour to both
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parties. The ALP slogans of A New Way and New Politics promoted
politics free of such tactics. Critics quickly pulled him up on this and
ultimately his main scare campaign against the potential Abbott
government cuts failed to gain legs due to his loss of credibility (Manning
and Phiddian 2015). His next major attack close to the election fell flat
almost immediately when his attempt to highlight a $10 billion dollar hole
in Coalition costings (Australian Associated Press 2013) was undermined
after the heads of Treasury and Finance issued a statement promptly after
the accusation and distance themselves from the claims. This forced
Labor into a vulnerable an embarrassing position, and demonstrated the
ineffective research that had gone into digging up ammunition for the
attack.
Ultimately it was the general inability to maintain an effective face for
Rudd which crippled the campaign the most. In 2007, Rudd had been
artfully framed as a genuinely likeable character. His spin team
constructed him into a celebrity politician they decided what face will
appeal to an audience, staged that face and made it appealing to a wide
audience so that media would distribute this persona. After an effective
campaign by the opposition to portray Rudd as supremely chaotic (even
naming him Captain Chaos), Rudd had difficulty shaking negative
connotations as many of his actions played into this stereotype of him.
Poor televisual performances, press over his hostile character (Griffiths
2013; Australian Associated Press 2013) and seemingly unfocused and
obscure policy concoction all worked towards perpetuating negative face
for Rudd. He had lost the requirements to be an effective political leader in
an increasingly PR-ized political sphere described by Louw (2005), as he
was not a credible performer, was not appealing to voters, and was not
disciplined enough to follow a script.
One of the shortcomings of Rudds personalized campaign was that his
technological success in 2007 resulted in his default meet-and-greet,
when members of the public surrounded him less concerned with policy
and more interested in getting a selfie with a celebrity. In a keenness to
exploit his supposed popularity, Rudd incorrectly used the concept of
celebrity-politicians to a politically wounding level. It was ill-informed
behaviour like this that drew criticisms from the media such as The Ages
Michael Gordon (2013), who blamed the governments demise on the
folly of Labors initial campaign strategy of focusing entirely on the Rudd
persona almost independent of the Labor Party.
Whilst Labor had many tools for spin available to them, it did not deploy
them effectively enough to influence voters to favour Rudd in the 2013
Election. In conjunction and contrast to the successful spin campaign run
by Abbott to rectify his misogynistic views on women, it can be seen how
effective political spin can be vital in campaign success. It is without doubt
that with the ever increasing PR-ization of politics has and will continue to
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alter the political process and campaigns with spin practitioners at its
core.

References

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