The Self Perpetuating Machine

VICTORIAN STATE ELECTION

Reinforcing the fact that this State Election will be about one issue and one issue only, today's 'Age' reports that 50% of Victorians no longer feel safe out on the street at night. Other reported findings include:

- 89 per cent don't feel safe using public transport at night
- 88 per cent don't feel safe in the CBD at night
- 14 per cent have considered moving because of a crime
- 36 per cent have experienced a crime at home
- 55 per cent said violence is racially motivated
- 42 per cent were disappointed with the government's initiatives on law and order

The information contained in the article came from a survey conducted for 3AW's Neil Mitchell. Approximately 6500 homes spread across Melbourne participated in the survey, a large sample size for this type of thing, so even though 3AW is a cartoonish outfit with only the most tenuous attachment to the idea of 'serious news,' the results cannot be easily dismissed.

But what this survey really tells us is less about the crime situation in Melbourne and more about the perception of the crime situation in Melbourne. In other words, people in the suburbs have already been convinced that crime is really out of control in our city and that they're unsafe unless they're at home with the doors and windows locked and a blanket over their heads.

And we've got people like Mitchell himself to thank for this.

Obviously, if you go on the radio everyday and talk in a LOUD VOICE about the law and order problem we have in this state - never trying to determine if there is one of course, just shouting about how bad the problem is - than a lot of your listeners are going to get it into their heads that the problem exists and is getting worse. This is really how Mitchell and his ilk define their existence: shouting about something loud and long enough so that people start talking about it so that they can then shout about it some more and companies that manufacture security doors and burglar alarms will advertise on their show.

'Yellow Journalism,' it's called, in the parlance of a completely different time.

Nevertheless, now that the self perpetuating machine that is the media has been set in motion on this topic, you can expect to hear about almost nothing else for the next three weeks. John Brumby and Ted Baillieu will fall all over themselves trying to outdo one another, trying to prove to us which of them will be toughest on crime.

Brumby will go on Neil Mitchell's show to state that serious crime figures have actually fallen in Victoria while he's been Premier (a fact, by the way)... before adding that nevertheless, he still thinks that we should have more police, tougher laws and longer sentences across the board.

Then Baillieu will give an interview to The Hun where he'll talk about a few of his constituents whose house was burgled and that he feels that suspended sentences should be done away with (Liberal party policy, by the way) and that he would legislate for more police, tougher laws and longer sentences than the Premier has proposed.

Then Brumby will be in The Hun stating that this just shows how weak his opponent has gotten on this important issue and that if he had his way than thieves and drunk drivers would be hung, drawn, quartered, guillotined, stoned, asphyxiated, buried in soft peat and recycled as firelighters.

Then Baillieu will be on Neil Mitchell's show yelling about how this merely highlights Labor's weakness when it comes to really cracking down on crime and that he feels that really everyone in the state who's ever littered or jaywalked or cut a loud fart in church should be sealed up in a block of concrete and buried somewhere in the desert.

Then... well, you get the idea.

Yet all this hyperbolic debate makes me think of is an old bit of Bill Hicks’(truncated, paraphrased and taken out of context, but still, you’ll get the drift):

'WAR, FAMINE, DEATH, AIDS, HOMELESS, RECESSION, DEPRESSION, WAR, FAMINE, DEATH, AIDS.' Over and over again. Then you look out your window - (crickets chirping) - where's all this shit going on, man?

And all this at a time when there are serious issues facing olur state, and mistakes the Government has made that they should be held to account over. As a tweet I saw after the leaders 'debate' last week put it:

'Did I miss the debate on public transport?'

(pause)

Allright! Anyone that made it this far deserves a treat: It's Bill!

In Focus

'Stop the boats.'

'Moving forward.'

'Dismantle the debt.'

'Jobs, education and the economy.'

'An action plan for Australia.'

As has been noted here and everywhere, Federal Election 2010 has been overrun by sloganeering. So much so that the casual political observer would think that there has been little else other than slogans on offer... and a more engaged political observer would also think this, and be angry about having wasted more time finding it out.

And there's a reason for all of this empty, banal word play: The major political party's in this country think you're stupid.

And disengaged, disinterested, disenfranchised and disabled (mentally that is. See previous point). They assume that you, the voter, have no real interest in how the country is or will be run, and you wouldn't be able to understand the way it is or will be run even if you did. You like football and porno and books about war. Little else interests you, certainly not how billions and billions of dollars of your money, harvested straight out of your pay packets, is going to be spent. Hell, you can hardly even count to ten! Best leave the politickin' to the politicians while you get on with... whatever it is you do, out there in the suburbs.

But every few years, our nations elected and wannabe elected have to come to us looking for our vote. What then do they do, to try and get us interested in a subject - politics - that we have no interest in and don't understand? They turn to the advertising industry.

Because everyone knows that the advertising industry can sell any idea, any concept, anything to anyone.

Take the 'Advanced Medical Institute' as one example, among, well, all of the corporate world. Started by a Russian immigrant to Australia with no medical background, the AMI sells nasal spray with no beneficial properties - and possibly some harmful ones - to the public under the vaguely worded promise that it'll 'Make Sex Last Longer.' The modern day equivalent of the old travelling medicine show that contemporary westerns make fun of... right? Right?

Did I mention that the AMI has billboards, lots of them, dotted around every capital city in Australia that say things like:



and that they also have some really crappy TV ads? And did I mention that they sold $36 million worth of their benign-if-you're-lucky product in Australia last year?

The power of advertising.

And so it's only natural that our major political party's will turn to the same dark... scratch that, evil forces of marketing and advertising to try and get us to vote for one of them over the other. So you're familiar with the ads on radio and television and in the press. And by familiar I mean bombarded. What about the slogans then. How do they come about?

And this is where we get to talking about a particular aspect of the dark... sorry, evil, art of advertising: Focus Groups. It works like this.

The major political party's know that the election will be decided in a handful of marginal seats out of the 150 in the lower house of parliament. And an analysis of the electoral results will show that most of these marginal seats are on the suburban fringe of our major cities. And some quantitative research from among the population on the fringe of our major cities will show that most of the people living in these areas are 25 - 44, have 1 - 2 kids and a mortgage that they can barely afford (Now do you understand all the education refunds and increased baby bonuses and child care super premium rebate thingos that get handed out to middle class parents during every election campaigns?).

So what happens next?

Firstly, a large and obscenely expensive marketing company, paid for by YOU most of the time, goes onto the Labor or Liberal payroll. This company will go out to a marginal electorate and look for people willing to participate in 'discussion groups.' These people will be 25 - 44, have 1 - 2 kids and a mortgage they can barely afford. The marketing company might advertise in the local paper or just contact people directly off lists the major party's keep of constituents who have identified themselves as swinging voters at some point (during a doorknocking campaign or at the local Church fete or in an overheard conversation in the Woolies check out queue) and ask them if they'd like to participate. Sometimes the marketing company will offer small cash inducements, but mostly they have no trouble finding people willing to contribute to what's pitched as something to do with policy formulation.

So the marketing company gets these people together and asks them what they think about a hot button contemporary topic:



The answers that are given are recorded:



And they try and get as many views as possible:



While encouraging people to be as honest, as off-the-cuff, as non PC as possible:



The marketing company then draw up a report which highlights the key statements of the group:



Which they present to Labor/Liberal HQ, so that the campaign team and the speech writers can convert it into a short slogan or two that they can bludgeon us over the head with.

QUESTION: Mr Abbott, you've committed to substantially reducing Australia's Greenhouse Gas emissions but have also pledged not to put a tax on carbon. How will you achieve one without the other?

ANSWER: Well that's an important question that needs to be addressed, but an even more important question and one that the the Labor Party have failed to address entirely is what they're going to do about the fish problem plaguing this country and that's why I'm ready to stand here committed to a policy of STOP THE FISH!

Essentially feeding the people in the marginal seats their own views back to them, in slightly rephrased form. Which bizarrely, somehow, makes the Labor or Liberal leader look like they understand them and how they feel. At least in theory. What it actually makes the Labor or Liberal leader look like is a mindless little drone with a few push button, pre-programmed responses to anything they get asked

And the other purpose of all of this activity, time and money? So that when we think of Tony Abbott, we'll immediately know that he wants to 'STOP THE FISH!' I mean, BOATS! Without thinking about it too much ourselves.

Which leaves the idea of political leadership or courage in this country exactly... where? I don't need my own expensive focus group and quantitative research to know the answer to that. I'll let Bill Hicks sum it up for me: