Mark Carney, the Canadian Prime Minister, has the gift of the gab. Albo does not. Which is the best communicator, the one who comes out swinging, or the one who pulls punches? Strategic communications is about outcomes – which will deliver the best? I don’t know.
Carney’s riveting speech at Davos to the World Economic Forum in January, and his political engagements, are designed to steer countries like Canada into a new era of middle power cooperation.
And in Canberra, he’s repeated his message that the rules-based order is over and it’s time to build a ‘middle power’ coalition.
If good communication is judged by how quickly the media and politicians pick up your ideas and slogans, then Carney is a gold medallist. Consider some of his ideas and phrases that have been applauded globally since Davos:
– The rules-based order is over
– It’s not a transition – it’s a rupture
– Hegemons with no limits, no constraints
– Cooperation not coercion
– Pleasant fiction/harsh reality
– Nostalgia is not a strategy
– Middle-power cooperation
– A third-path with impact
But based on my corporate experience, I’d urge caution on those who lament that our PM isn’t more like his Canadian counterpart.
Albo is not a great communicator. Plus, I wish he would better articulate strategy on a variety of issues.
But let’s look at some facts. Australia has been charting a middle-power course for decades, while also managing relations with its two Pacific ‘hegemons’, China and the Unites States.
Regardless of whether it’s Labor or Liberal, we walk and chew gum. We have transnationalism, bi-lateralism and multilateralism.
Australia was instrumental in setting up the United Nations in the late 1940s, thanks to Herbert ‘Doc’ Evatt. He led a middle-power revolt against the ‘veto’ power demanded by the Great Powers – Canada voted for it.
I suspect Albo’s advisors in his office and DFAT are well versed on our ‘nostalgia’ problem, faced harsh realities, dropped pleasant fictions, and built middle-power coalitions as evidenced by our:
– pushing of the Quad Alliance, focused on a stable Indo-Pacific region,
– membership of APEC, focused on trade, investment, and economic in the Asia-Pacific
– dialogue membership of ASEAN, the first non-Southeast Asian country be granted this status, in 1974. It focusses on economic growth and political cooperation
– 50-year outreach to Indonesia (probably could have been better)
– recent push into the Pacific.
Australia has been at the forefront of Free Trade Agreements, plus maintaining membership of the WTO.
Canada has spent its effort being American-centric and NATO-facing.
Carney is a great communicator. Albo’s messaging is low-key and avoids talk of ‘rupture’.
Both are working out how to deal with two unpredictable 800-pound gorillas. Which will history judge to have been the better communicator, in this instance, when we look back on this turbulent period of history?
