Never a True Word

by Michael McGuire

  Then there’s the lack of drinking as well. The days of hip flasks and stubbies in the press box are long gone. I’d always been a bit of a footy ratbag as well. A favourite afternoon for me was down watching my local footy team, usually standing in the forward pocket, always with a beer in hand, shouting abuse at players and umpires. I’d like to think my invective was clever and subtle but let’s face it, bawling ‘pretend that fucking whistle is your boyfriend, umpire, and blow it’ probably fails both tests. I hear such fruity language is frowned upon these days. And it certainly wouldn’t fit in the press box. I was always a good hater in footy so I did enjoy sledging the odd player in print who had annoyed me by refusing an interview, being rude in an interview, or who was just generally awful. The last word is a powerful tool.

  When Emily and I left the big smoke—where are all the big decisions were made and the bosses worked, a place that regarded itself as the centre of the known universe—and headed home for a quieter and, we thought, better life in one of the paper’s lesser-regarded outposts, people thought I was a bit strange. In essence they thought I was swapping a Lamborghini for a Barina. The boss of the paper was Bill Nosworthy, a great editor, but a scrapper. A fighter. Made actual lists of enemies and pinned them to a board in his office. Some of the journos loved working for him. Would do anything for him. Others hated him, thought he was a dangerous fruitcake. I wasn’t one of the inner circle, one of the acolytes, but we always got on pretty well. So I sent him a long email outlining the vacancy in my old home town and that I wanted to take it. I was summoned for a chat.

  ‘Mate, what are you doing?’ was his opening gambit.

  ‘It’s just time to go I think. Go home to family, friends, that kind of thing. See if I can buy a house. That’s never going to happen in this town. To be honest I’m a bit bored with business. Going to annual meetings isn’t quite as thrilling as it used to be,’ I say, hoping he gets the joke.

  A smile. ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Thirty-four.’

  ‘Mate, you are doing well. Stick around, we’ll look after you. If you want out of business, we’ll get you out. What do you want to do? You’re too young to retire.’

  ‘I appreciate it, Bill, but my mind’s made up. It’s time to go home, but I don’t want to leave the paper. I like working for you guys. I think this is a good solution.’

  ‘Fine,’ he says, looking suddenly exasperated. ‘We’ll make it happen.’ That was the last conversation I ever had with him. He obviously thought I was letting him down in some fashion. But he was as good as his word. He made it happen. We went home. After all the buzz and inherent self-importance of head office, moving home took some getting used to. Going from a sprawling, sparkling newsroom of 200 frantic workers to a poky room in a rundown building that housed five reporters takes some adjustment. It’s harder to generate that wonderful buzz of excitement that journos feed off when big news stories are happening. That addictive sensation you are surrounded by barely restrained chaos.

  The upside when you are ensconced in a small regional office is you are out of the direct firing line of the higher-ups, the downside is you are hostage to every fuckwit idea that is sent down the tube from headquarters. For a couple of years I enjoyed it. The footy, the variety, the relatively sane hours, but at some point a combination of boredom and a dwindling respect for those issuing the orders began to gnaw at me. The beginning of the end for me was the day I was instructed to knock on the door of a well-known local sportsman who had seen one of his best mates die in his arms the night before. Being a business reporter for so many years had shielded me from the dreaded ‘death knock’ and I had been pretty happy about that. What normal human being really wants to go and knock on the door of a grieving husband, wife, brother or sister and ask for an interview? But eventually my day came, as I knew it would. I have never felt so sick marching up to knock on a door and rarely have I ever been so thankful that no one was home. Each time I took phone calls from head office asking if I’d spoken to the poor bloke yet, I’d say I’d knocked several times and no one was answering. In reality, the one time I had actually knocked had scared me so comprehensively I hid away in a nearby coffee shop for the rest of the day.

  Then the Sloan thing came up. I had seen him in action at a few press conferences, covered one of his budgets and had written nice things about him. He seemed interesting at the very least. Strangely, it was my boss, Ian Cavendish, who saw the ad for the job and told me about it. He summoned me into the bolthole that passed as his office.

  ‘Mate, you seen this?’ he asked and slid across a job ad with the headline Senior Media Adviser.

  ‘No, but I assume that’s for Sloan. His last bloke just left,’ I said.

  ‘Yep, you should go for it.’

  ‘Well, thanks very much, boss. Good to know I’m held in such high regard in these parts.’

  ‘Come on, mate, you know I don’t mean it like that. But you can’t say you have been happy the last few months. You’re going through the motions and you know it. Anyway, as we both know this industry is headed for the knacker’s yard. This is a good chance for you to get out on your terms. You would be getting in right at the top of government, that’s no small thing.’

  ‘Sloan’s a bit nuts though, right?’

  ‘Well, it won’t be dull, will it?’

  ‘Maybe I like the quiet life? Anyway why don’t you go for it? You’re hardly a bundle of laughs yourself either these days.’

  ‘No, politics is not my thing, although to be honest if I could find a way out of here I’d take it.’

  The seed was planted. There were some lengthy conversations with Emily that night and we both went backward and forward on it for hours before I decided I would give it a shot. I rang the bloke in charge of the government’s media unit and told him I thought I was interested. To say he seemed pleased was an understatement. I knew him a little but not well, and had rung him on the day applications closed. I asked if I should I send a letter, my CV, the usual stuff. He said don’t worry about, just drop him a line in an email saying I was applying for the job and all will be fine. Two days later I got a phone call asking me if I could turn up and meet Sloan. I had the firm impression that barring Sloan taking a massive dislike to me the job was mine. The chat was set down for three days later. A half-hour before I was heading over to meet the man I got another phone call from the media bloke.

  ‘Mate, bring a CV. Just for the paperwork in case anyone asks,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t have one. I haven’t applied for a job in ten years,’ I replied.

  ‘Don’t worry. Just knock something up. Cover the main points. It’s just a formality.’

  So I turned up with my twenty-minute CV and that was that. We met in his office. As always his height took me by surprise. Well over six feet, but skinny as a supermodel. Sloan and I had a conversation that was more football than politics. He was on his best behaviour, only warning me that things did get a little hectic from time to time and he could be a demanding taskmaster. But what did I care? I had worked for all sorts of nut jobs masquerading as editors, chiefs of staffs and section heads. How bad could this bloke be? An offer was made and I accepted. There was also more money on offer and that wasn’t insignificant either. And I admit it. It was a great boost to my ego. I was an adequate-enough reporter, but now I was the main line of defence for the Treasurer and one of the city’s most high-profile figures. It was only much later that it occurred to me that perhaps the reason I had strolled into the job so easily was that nobody else had been daft enough to volunteer as Sloan’s media harlot.

  There is no doubt it was dazzling. On my first day I trooped upstairs to the meeting held every morning in the drab office block, headquarters of the government when parliament wasn’t sitting. Attendance was compulsory at these daily gatherings and seated around the long oval table were a few familiar faces I had jousted with from time to time over the last few years. All the government’s press secs were there, as we
ll as the main man himself, Premier Frank Boyle. I received a few friendly hellos, a few smiles and a couple of warnings from some of the older types about how they ‘wouldn’t want my job for anything’. Before I had a chance to process this slightly sinister welcome Boyle strode into the room, spotted me, rushed over to shake my hand and made a crack about joining the ‘right side’ at last.

  Boyle has a personality that just takes over a room. There have always been rumours that the people who work with him are more like cultists than people just doing a job. Up close you begin to see why. It’s a side you don’t often see of him in public. Caustic, smart, and rude about his enemies. He leads the team well and fosters a real camaraderie among the staff, a real ‘them against us’ mentality. It combines nicely with his ability to fire a feeling that we are here to make a difference to this state—and is very different to his public persona.

  The black-and-white public premier who fronts all the press conferences is a different man to the full-colour one I see on that first morning. In television appearances he’s a bad actor trying to remember his lines as the bravado he shows behind closed doors is replaced by an almost crippling fear of making a political blunder. This bloke talks of greatness and vision behind the closed doors of government, but has embraced caution as the greatest virtue in politics. Not that he is alone there. Every politician lives in fear of the stuff-up or the ‘gotcha’ moment. Of creating that slice of vision that will define them for years to come and be, no doubt, wheeled out come election time in every TV ad going. Every political leader is only one big political blunder away from a full-court media press that few ever escape from.

  So I understand Boyle’s reticence. In addition, he also managed to survive four years as Opposition Leader before being elected Premier, quite a feat in itself these days where two bad polls seem to spell the end for most of his type. As a result he is paranoid about mistakes, paranoid that if he makes himself a big target by pushing big ideas it will just make it easier for his opponents to tear him down.

  Boyle, again like many of his colleagues around the country, was also developing a reputation in media circles as being a first-class spin merchant and for being almost addicted to delivering good news. But that was fine. What a few grumpy journos thought of him at this stage was neither here not there. Poll after poll proved the punters thought he was going well enough and they were ready to enthusiastically re-endorse him at the next election.

  When I joined, the next election was still almost two years away but even then it was assumed Boyle would be re-elected with a much-increased majority. That job security was one of the things Emily and I had talked about before I applied for the job. We reckoned this lot had at least six years to go before being booted out again.

  I had heard about these morning meetings before joining. Just the odd whisper. By reputation they were a cross between Star Chamber and pep rally. The reality, a talk about the day’s agenda, was usually somewhat more mundane. We discussed upcoming announcements and attack lines on the Opposition, and fossicked for bright ideas.

  While Boyle runs the meeting, it’s also an opportunity for his two most senior advisers to dispense their wisdom. This usually consists of a run down on every one else’s most recent fuck-ups and some helpful threats issued to ensure said mistake is never repeated. No-nonsense Jennifer (never Jenny) Masters, Boyle’s chief of staff, has been with Boyle so long there is a rumour she was his bodyguard in primary school. She has devoted a career and a life to Boyle and has no husband or kids and works, on average, twenty-three hours a day. The other is his chief spin doctor (and I think one of my bosses) Mark Wilson. Like me, Wilson arrived from a newspaper background. Unlike me he lasted about two minutes in some backwater country rag before jumping into politics. Still, his two-minute stint in newspaper land has made him a world expert in everything that is wrong with journalism and print in particular.

  Unfortunately for me, Sloan believes every word that drops from the mouth of Masters and Wilson is dipped in gold and handed down from the mount (their office is five floors above us) as if in tablet form. His refrain on any marginally contentious issue: ‘What do Masters and Wilson think?’ In the office we took to referring to them as ‘the A-team’, and we didn’t mean it fondly. The morning meeting is also about sending messages back to ministers. Messages that Boyle doesn’t want to deliver personally. It’s a familiar refrain in offices across the government when the press sec turns up each day: ‘What was said at the morning meeting?’

  Today though I miss the meeting. After parking the car, sadly unharmed and still in rude, good health, I rush to the office so I can get to my desk and flick on the radio. When I arrive, Leo and the boys are already in place, radio volume turned up, waiting. There is a grunt of acknowledgment as I enter Leo’s office and pull up a chair. ‘Is he here?’ I ask.

  ‘No,’ says Leo. ‘Doing it in the car on the way in.’ This is not ideal but it’s better at least than the day he told me he did an interview with the doona over his head.

  ‘Here we go,’ pipes up Harry. It’s Caldicott’s voice. ‘And joining me now is Treasurer Ray Sloan. Treasurer, why has the airport defence project suddenly blown out by $100 million?’

  ‘Well, Andrew, it hasn’t. What has happened is that after extensive discussions with the Federal government, some of the parameters of the project have changed. We have upgraded the runway, a key component of the build process, so that it will become the longest in the southern hemisphere. We have improved communications at the site, beefed up security in places, and will be employing more workers. The project has changed substantially for the better.’

  To no one’s surprise Caldicott is having none of that. A harder tone enters his voice.

  ‘Come on, Treasurer. You are fiddling at the edges here. This is another government project that has just got out of control. We had the hospital blowout, we have had the roads blowout, now we have this blowout. Treasurer, have you lost control of the state’s finances?’

  We look at each other, fear showing. We know this could get ugly quickly. But Sloan is doing well, he is holding on to his composure and sticking to the script.

  ‘No, Andrew. You are wrong. The project has changed, the project has got bigger. If we want to grow this state, this is exactly the kind of project we need. If you remember there were plenty of other states that would have happily taken this project away from us. I mean, for goodness sake, Andrew, we are building an incredibly complex, high-tech facility in our state that will be the envy of many other nations right around the world. This is a big job.’

  ‘Sure, Treasurer, but where does it stop? Do we get another soft story in the paper in twelve months saying it’s going to cost another $100 million, but don’t worry because the project is now ginormous?’

  I wince. Somewhere in this city of ours in a big, white, chauffeur-driven car, a man with a combustible personality is about to explode.

  ‘No, Andrew. You are being deliberately provocative and misrepresenting …’

  ‘No, Treasurer, it’s you who is doing the misrepresenting. I am only trying to get answers for my listeners who deserve to know how their money is being spent by your government.’

  I think I heard the final straw just snap.

  ‘Oh give me a break. Let’s face it, Andrew, if it was left up to people like you nothing would ever get done. It’s up to people like me to push ahead, think of the future and not be sidetracked by whingers like you who reckon any change is bad change.’

  ‘Sure, Treasurer. We’ve heard it all before. Anyone who disagrees with you is a whinger. Anyone who puts up a fight is an enemy. Isn’t that just your usual bullyboy tactics?’

  ‘Are you calling me a bully …?’

  And so it goes on. In the office we just look at each other. It’s going to be a long day.

  4

  I hooked up with the government a couple of years into its first term after a long stretch in Opposition. When they finally scrambled back into power
it wasn’t because they were especially brilliant, even though Boyle and Sloan were a decent-enough combo. It was more that the punters were just sick of the other lot.

  Like any long-term government, our foes had started to fray at the edges. The internal rivalries and factional hatreds, which can be controlled to some extent early in any new government, had started to bubble up again in the dog days of its stint. A few hopeless political decisions such as raising the prospect of toll roads gave Boyle plenty of room to run shameless scare campaigns that played nicely into the daily ravings of the local shock jocks.

  Every day Boyle repeated his slogan (‘How can you expect them to run the government when they can’t even run themselves?’) so that not only were the public sick of hearing it, Boyle was completely sick of saying it. Still, the message sunk in.

  And Boyle and Sloan knew that because of the focus groups. The media may like to ridicule the idea of politics run by focus groups, holding them up as the ultimate example of gutless leadership, but there are times when the process is useful.

  When the language used by the focus groups started to mirror Boyle’s message they knew they were on the right track. When words such as ‘shambles’, ‘leaderless’ and ‘selfish’ started to sprout from those gatherings Boyle knew he was winning. The sad truth is that while everyone professes to hate negative politics, and some leaders even try and con the public by pretending to preach only positive messages, it works.