Cosmetic Surgery In Terrigal
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday February 17, 1990
A FORTNIGHT ago, the NSW Minister for Agriculture, Ian Armstrong, emerged from the Peppers-on-Sea resort at Terrigal and headed for the tennis court. Armstrong was taken aback to bump into a member of the State Opposition's shadow ministry, who was en route to the pool.
The chance meeting was amicable, but the Labor MP didn't realise then that it was to send the NSW Cabinet into something of a frenzy: the entire Cabinet, including the Premier, and their spouses, were at Peppers that weekend on what was supposed to be a secret strategy meeting that was to include lengthy assessment of the threat posed by Bob Carr's Labor Party.
In the end, it turned out that the Labor MP was having an innocent weekend off; there was no dark ALP conspiracy.
A pity.
We might otherwise have learned more of what it was that the one outsider admitted to the Pepper's conclave had to say to Greiner and his ministers about the selling of the conservative message and the survival of conservative governments in 1990s.
He was Tim Bell, former managing director of the British advertising agency Saatchi and Saatchi, and the man credited with the rise and rise of Margaret Thatcher. Bell was Saatchi's television maestro. It was under his direction that the British Prime Minister changed to a softer, less formal hairstyle, lowered her voice to remove the shrillness, and avoided hostile television interviewers who aroused her natural combativeness.
Bell lectured the Cabinet on the marketing of conservative policies (in one week, during the 1987 British election campaign, the Conservative Party spent$A4 million to place press advertisements written by Bell).
Although it can be safely predicted that Nick Greiner will not change his personal looks, there are worrying signs that the cosmetics bag has been opened.
Greiner's office, caught out by the NSW ALP three weeks ago when it sought tenders to print and distribute a colour brochure to every NSW household, maintained no decision had been made to go ahead.
But a draft of the brochure, a report to electors, as Greiner calls it, has been completed and a final version will almost certainly be distributed to your letterboxes.
That tells us the Premier has decided to go over the heads of the media in a direct effort to sell his policies to the electorate - a risky course given the effective (and justified) milage he got, as State Opposition Leader, by attacking Barrie Unsworth's pre-election use of taxpayer-funded advertising.
Greiner will be judged on his undertaking to include the Government's warts in this publication.
This week, Greiner disclosed on radio that he was considering making a television address to the people of NSW on his Government's progress. A day later, he scotched that idea, saying it had been considered and rejected three months ago. If so, why did he raise it?
It almost seems that a case of the electoral jitters has hit Macquarie Street, yet it would be wrong to believe the Terrigal Cabinet meeting was called after Greiner hit the panic button; it was organised back in November to meet Greiner's long-standing intention to hold a searching mid-term review of his Government.
What it produced was an acknowledgment by Greiner and his ministers that the tangible benefits of quick and far-reaching public sector reforms since he took office are neither adequately understood nor appreciated by the NSW public - or, for that matter, by the media.
That is why, since the Terrigal meeting, there has been much activity on the part of Greiner and his ministers to vigorously promote the benefits, as the Government sees them.
Just ask some of the Sydney radio stations which have had ministers call in, during the past few weeks, with stories that can be seen as a direct result of views Greiner expressed at Terrigal.
And, a week ago, Greiner drafted a letter to his ministers asking them to hold Government fees and charges within inflation. No matter that it was existing policy (even if it has been breached); the important thing was that it made good copy for last Sunday's papers and was seen by Greiner as a method of conveying to people that the worst was over and now he was delivering. Again, the letter was proposed by Greiner at Terrigal.
Likewise, expect the Police Minister, Ted Pickering, to mount next week a renewed campaign to demonstrate falling crime statistics.
All good stuff and likely, you may think, to advance, far more than glossy brochures or a televised address by the Premier, the Greiner vision of sensible management and leaner Government.
By why all this activity now?
While Greiner would dismiss the idea, there is suspicion that the coming general election is not unrelated to the Premier's renewed efforts to put a softer face upon his Government and demonstrate that conservative Governments can deliver.
It is no secret that the Federal Liberals are soft in NSW (witness John Spender's battle to hold North Sydney) and that the unpalatable flavour of Greinernomics will be a factor in the Coalition's fortunes.
But while he's now more concerned about the presentation of his policies for leaner government, he will not be swayed from them.
After all, he made his ministers pay, out of their own pockets, for their meals at Peppers-on-Sea.
© 1990 Sydney Morning Herald