Mark Bishop (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tonight I again raise the matter of this government’s ongoing spin doctoring of defence; specifically, how it uses public affairs to gloss over some of its more embarrassing gaffes within Defence. In that I include the number of media releases drafted for the Kovco and Sea King boards of inquiry, how much money is being spent on travel for Defence PR purposes and how much money the government spends on embedding journalists in Iraq.

This is not the first time I have raised concern over such ongoing spin doctoring. Late last year I revealed how much this government spends on Defence public relations. I showed how in 2005 it spent nearly $18 million on a Defence public affairs division. That division churned out more than 1,500 media releases. Among other matters, these media releases put a positive spin on poor morale amongst ADF personnel, government inertia over reforming military justice and cost blowouts on defence procurement projects. In each case the media releases ignored the facts and put out a somewhat contrived positive story.

It is now a year or so on and, as the answers to my questions showed, that trend continues. Let us look at two boards of inquiry held last year, both of which were roundly judged to be lacking in their terms of reference and their eventual outcomes. First, there is the case of the board of inquiry into the death of Private Jake Kovco. You might recall, Mr President, that this inquiry was criticised for failing to be sufficiently independent and for the poor quality of evidence delivered at the subsequent inquiry. Similar criticisms were levelled at the board of inquiry investigating the failed Sea King helicopter crash. I note that we are still awaiting the outcome of the latter inquiry.

What is of interest here is how the government’s public relations machine went into overdrive for both inquiries. Their aim was to gloss over the shortcomings while highlighting political points. For example, there were no fewer than six media releases drafted for the Minister for Defence, Dr Brendan Nelson, over these inquiries, and that is not counting the spin put out by the minister’s own office. On top of that, the government drafted a further 21 media releases for board members of the Kovco inquiry. Then the government saw fit to send a full-time public relations officer to the Kovco board of inquiry just to make sure journalists attending the inquiry were given ‘the right information’. That is apart from the staff in Defence’s public affairs division assigned to handle media inquiries emanating from the inquiry. Then there are the briefs compiled for the minister on these boards of inquiry. Apparently, no fewer than 122 briefs have been sent to Dr Nelson on the Sea King board of inquiry—and we are still waiting for the minister to release the findings of that inquiry. Furthermore, he received, believe it or not, a total of 64 briefs regarding the Kovco board of inquiry.

To digress, I raised the matter of ministerial briefs at Senate estimates recently. I was told that up to 40 such briefs cross the minister’s desk every day. Yet, in spite of all that advice, the minister still managed to bungle the repatriation of the body of the late Private Kovco. Imagine the public relations effort that went into trying to save the minister from that mess which he himself created.

The real question is: how much is all this costing the taxpayer and what is the net result? I will lay a bet that the money spent on sultans of spin writing media releases and submissions and giving public relations advice to the minister was three times the paltry $7,000-odd spent on assisting Private Kovco’s family for the funeral. Style over substance is the mantra of this current government. Indeed, the public relations machine propping up the government’s faltering image over its handling of defence matters seems to grow by the day. For example, the government’s public affairs division wrote a total of 94 media releases for Minister Nelson in the nine months leading up to April this year. In the same time, the PR merchants drafted a further 53 media releases for the Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence, Mr Billson, and another 53 media releases for the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence, Mr Lindsay. That is about 198 media releases in nine months, or close to one a day. Remember that this is a government that spent $18 million in the last financial year in this division alone on public relations and media. That is an awful lot of money spent on putting the right spin on defence matters—ensuring a muted truth sounds no warning bells for controversy.

My questions also disclosed that this government spends more than a quarter of a million dollars each year maintaining its Defence website. I am all for the government using a website to promote defence and to disseminate information, but I also note that the minister places on this webpage his own media releases, media alerts, transcripts of interviews and parliamentary speeches—information, coincidentally, that is also found on the minister’s personal webpage.

Money is not just spent on writing media releases; the government has also spent more than three quarters of a million dollars on travel and accommodation for its Defence public relations team in the past nine months. I did ask related questions, such as for a breakdown of these costs, but the minister responded that this information was too difficult to aggregate and he declined to provide it. Consequently, one can only speculate on where such a travel budget would take public relations staff and whether such travel is entirely necessary.

This brings me to the final point I would like to address this evening: embedded journalists. This concept was first used by the United States government in 2003 when it embedded journalists with troops in the Iraq war. The purpose, according to that government, was to provide the media with unlimited access to battlefields. An unstated purpose, of course, was to ensure the dilution of journalistic independence in covering such controversial battles. It appears this government has taken to embedding Australian journalists in the same way. Beginning in October 2006, it has embedded 26 journalists in theatres of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. A more bizarre sponsoring was that of a journalist from Ralph magazine. The overwhelming number of these journalists were embedded with troops in Iraq. Furthermore, most were from commercial media outlets—just six journalists represented the ABC, SBS and AAP.

So this is where the government is spending millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money—on professional spin, making sure information is controlled by and from a central source and making sure facts are enamelled with sufficient gloss to render them palatable to a sceptical public. This is aside from the billions spent on political advertising by the current government. The money this government spends on spin for defence is outmatched only by the amount it spends on litigation. Its annual budget in the litigation area in 2005-06 was $57 million, out of a total budget for that financial year of close to $20 billion. Litigation and spin takes up much time and even more money when it comes to the government’s take on defence. If only it afforded a similar budget to speeding up reform of military justice or of ex-gratia payments to the families of ADF victims of suicides.

Let us see the substance to this government’s claim that it is genuine about reforming Defence, a portfolio that has seen billions of dollars worth of failed procurement projects and that is facing a crisis in the recruitment and retention of personnel. Let us see less spin, less style and more substance. Only then will the public lose its cynicism when it comes to government promises and only then will Defence be truly reformed.