Katina Curtis: Politicians need both style and substance in their toolkits

Flags, childcare, anti-Semitism, a nuclear costings dance — politics seems to be getting more frenetic as the summer heat rises rather than loping into a holiday lull.

Whether things are running apace or slowing down, politics needs to balance style and substance.

Too far in one direction and you fall into #scottyfrommarketing territory. Too far the other way and people feel abandoned no matter what practical actions leaders are taking.

A senior Labor strategist observed to this column some months ago that from Anthony Albanese down, too many ministers had their blinkers on doing the work of governing and weren’t spending enough time talking about what they were achieving.

Nothing seems to have changed.

The Prime Minister’s defensiveness this week about his handling of the terror attack at a Melbourne synagogue on Friday appears to stem in part from his perception that he had done everything he could. Add to this a discomfort from some in Government about “disaster tourism” of hauling cameras through the site of a hate crime.

Asked on radio yesterday morning — in the wake of another wave of anti-Semitic vandalism in Sydney — for his response to critiques he had moved too slowly, Albanese sounded like he was reading out his diary.

He spoke to police, the synagogue president, the local Labor (Jewish) MP, the anti-Semitism envoy, other Jewish community members, and a radio station.

He made a private visit to a Perth synagogue. He was asked for and quickly approved funding for more security at Jewish facilities. He met with Cabinet’s national security committee in-person in Canberra and stood up a special anti-Semitism police task force.

The problem is most of these actions were — necessarily — behind the scenes.

They had substance but they didn’t publicly demonstrate Albanese leading for a worried community.

There were no unprompted remarks condemning the synagogue attack at his press conference on Friday; it wasn’t until a question came almost 20 minutes in that Albanese labelled it shocking and anti-Semitic.

Pointing this out will seem petty to some.

But it speaks to the importance of style in that political balance.

The segue from vanadium to anti-Semitism may seem awkward but politicians frequently make these non-sequiturs to cover all the messages they want to get across. In fact, Albanese managed to do it on Wednesday.

Elsewhere this week, the Government has launched its next major child care pitch to parents, started a crackdown on private health insurers sneakily hiking costs, a separate strike against vaping and released plans to help carers, recruit submariners and train Pacific police officers.

It’s the business of government — and it’s a lot. Too much, perhaps.

Meanwhile, Peter Dutton continues to lean heavily into style with little heft to his policy bag.

For the third time since unveiling its nuclear power policy in June, the Coalition is hyping the imminent release of the anticipated price tag.

We might even see it this time.

Dutton unexpectedly said the quiet part out loud last week when he told reporters he had repeatedly postponed the release to let “the Government’s latest disaster” pull focus. Style wins over policy substance.

There is growing fury throughout Labor ranks at a perception Dutton is getting off lightly.

Media must remember their job is to scrutinise the Government and the Opposition and the crossbench, was the pointed message from one senior insider.

A junior minister is now standing up daily and pointing out to television cameras the continued lack of nuclear costings. It’s mostly getting airtime on social media.

There might yet be only talk of costings, but Dutton has opened up yet another culture war front by telling Sky News presenter Peta Credlin he wouldn’t hold press conferences with Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander flags in the background.

You may recall Credlin was Tony Abbott’s chief of staff at a time of ever-expanding numbers of Australian flags in the background of press conferences.

Dutton also retreated or back flipped on the Coalition’s migration policy — it’s unclear which, given the position on the complex area has only been spelled out in two lines of a speech and a handful of confusing media interviews.

Tax cuts have also been jettisoned to either the second week of the election campaign or after polling day — if at all — all while Dutton grows more confident of victory.

“My expectation is that when the next election takes place and we form a government…” he said on Monday when explaining what he thinks police should be doing now.

Labor is still confident voters will back it once they start thinking about the substance of what the next government will do.

But if it doesn’t get the style of public leadership right, perceptions by the time of the campaign may be too entrenched to change.