𝐈𝐓’𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐀 𝐒𝐀𝐋𝐄𝐒𝐌𝐀𝐍 𝐖𝐄 𝐍𝐄𝐄𝐃. 𝐈𝐓’𝐒 𝐀 𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐑.

A comment about Opposition Leader Angus Taylor caught my attention on X.

 

“Impressive education & business skills but Angus Taylor just isn’t a salesman.”

 

And it started me thinking.

 

Because personally, I don’t think a salesman is what Australia desperately needs.

 

What we need more than ever are leaders.

 

There is a significant difference between being able to sell something & being capable of delivering it.

 

And perhaps we need to think a little harder about the folly of allowing ourselves to be sold political products & political spiel rather than questioning what is actually inside the box.

 

Yes, some salesmanship matters in politics. But there’s an entire team to help with that. It shouldn’t rest solely on the leader.

 

A leader must communicate. Campaign. Inspire confidence. Explain ideas. Persuade people to support reforms that may be difficult or unpopular.

 

That takes experience & skill.

 

But somewhere along the way we seem to have started confusing the skills required to win power with the skills needed to exercise it.

 

They are not the same thing.

 

Governing needs policy depth, economic competence, administrative rigour, judgement, negotiating ability & the capacity to make tough decisions.

 

More importantly, it requires being honest about those tough decisions.

 

It requires understanding not merely what you want to do, but how government actually works. How competing interests are managed. How policy translates into implementation. And what the consequences might be five or ten years down the track.

 

None of that necessarily makes for a catchy slogan.

 

Often, it is simply explaining the what, the why & the how. These are the benefits. These are the downsides. These are the trade-offs.

 

And doing that effectively requires something rather more substantial than a clever sales pitch. It requires a solid foundation supporting the argument.

 

A politician can be exceptionally good at campaigning & communicating while being considerably less effective at leading & governing.

 

I’d argue the current Labor frontbench has some examples of precisely that. And there are a couple of populist politicians whose skill in campaigning against government I maintain would prove to be considerably greater than their ability to actually govern — much as we’ve seen with Labor. 

 

Campaigning & governing are two vastly different occupations.

 

Which brings me back to something that has intrigued me about the criticism of recent Liberal leaders such as Peter Dutton & now Angus Taylor.

 

One of the criticisms repeatedly levelled at Dutton was that he couldn’t “sell” himself or his policies.

 

So occasionally I asked people making that criticism a few questions.

 

Had they listened to his longer interviews? No.

 

Had they read the policies? No.

 

Had they listened to what he actually said rather than what somebody else said he’d said? Frequently, no.

 

Yet somehow, they knew he couldn’t “sell” his message. If only I had such skill.

 

And now I’m beginning to hear variations of the same criticism about Taylor.

 

That tells us something rather uncomfortable about ourselves as voters.

 

How much responsibility do we place on politicians to sell us something & how much responsibility do we accept ourselves for finding out what we’re buying?

 

Because democracy isn’t supposed to be QVC.

 

It isn’t the latest shopping channel.

 

We aren’t buying a set of steak knives because somebody gave an entertaining presentation & threw in free postage.

 

We’re choosing people to govern a country.

 

For me, substance matters far more than salesmanship.

 

I want the information that allows me to decide whether someone understands the economy. Whether they understand government. Whether their policies withstand scrutiny. Whether they have judgement. Whether they have experienced people around them. Whether what they’re proposing can be implemented.

 

Give me the tools to examine what they’ve said, what they’re proposing & what it means.

 

Just spare me the used-car salesman’s spiel.

 

I don’t confuse the quality of the pitch with the quality of the product.

 

Perhaps that distinction has become increasingly blurred because modern political campaigning is now almost perpetual.

 

Social media rewards the memorable line, the performance, the outrage & the personality.

 

Complex policy doesn’t fit neatly into a meme.

 

So increasingly we judge politicians by how well they PERFORM politics rather than examining how well equipped they are to PRACTISE & DELIVER good government.

 

And then comes the irony.

 

When the salesman turns out to be a dud & the shiny product we bought doesn’t perform quite as advertised, we’re furious.

 

We complain about the politicians.

 

We complain about the government.

 

We complain that nobody told us.

 

Occasionally we should also look in the mirror.

 

Because politicians can make the pitch.

 

Ultimately, we’re the ones who choose whether to buy it.

 

But perhaps I’m wrong.

 

Perhaps what the electorate increasingly wants really is salesmen & women prepared to sell us political products individually tailored to our own demands.

 

• Leave the Paris Agreement.
•  Give me more childcare.
•  Give me free education.
•  Sack Malcolm Turnbull.
•  Give me shorter working hours.
•  Stop immigration.
•  Fix housing.
•  Lower my cost of living.
•  But don’t ask me to sacrifice anything to achieve any of it.
•  Don’t tell me there are competing priorities.
•  Don’t tell me there are consequences.
•  And definitely don’t tell me that I can’t have everything I want.

 But that isn’t leadership.

Any politicians who tailor their spiel simply to deliver on individual demands aren’t leaders. They’re used-car salesmen.

Leadership is balancing what people want against what the country needs, what government can afford & what can be delivered.

 

And sometimes leadership means having the courage to tell voters something no salesman ever wants to tell a customer:

 

NO.