A Case Study Evaluating James' Public Relations Positioning

Power, legitimacy and political positioning: a case study evaluating James’ Public Relations Positioning Framework

A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to The School of Creative Industries University of Newcastle, Australia. by

Deborah Jane Wise

B. Communication (Hons) (UoN)

21 July 2017 Declaration

This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university or other tertiary institution and, to the best of my knowledge and belief, contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference has been made in the text. I give consent to this copy of my thesis, when deposited in the University Library, being made available for loan and photocopying subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968.

Signed: ______

Date:

Name: Deborah Jane Wise

ii Acknowledgements

I wish to firstly acknowledge the unfailing guidance and support provided by my primary supervisor, Dr Melanie James, from the University of Newcastle. Words cannot adequately express how much I appreciate everything she has done in the course of the supervision of this thesis, including providing me with invaluable guidance and insightful feedback at every stage of my ‘way finding’ PhD journey. I thank her for her kindness, friendship, and her indefatigable support and encouragement to pursue this research.

I would also like to thank my co-supervisor Professor Judy Motion from the University of New South Wales. I have always had the utmost regard and admiration for her scholarship. Given she is held is such high esteem in our field, it was with some trepidation that I approached Dr James about whether we could invite Profession Motion to be involved with my thesis supervision. I was delighted when she accepted and I am most grateful for the time she spent providing insightful critique and guidance when it was most necessary.

I would also like to acknowledge the generous assistance that has been provided by the University of Newcastle throughout this project. Through the support offered initially in the form of a three-year scholarship (that then became an Australian Post-Graduate Award), as well as travel scholarships and postgraduate awards, I have been able to spend extended periods of time working on my research. I have also been afforded opportunities to present my research in progress to my peers at conferences – a vital part of my ability to move through this project.

The generous support of my colleagues and fellow research students in the School of Design, Communication and IT, and now the School of Creative Industries, throughout my doctoral project has also been very much appreciated. I also wish to thank my undergraduate students who have challenged me and spurred me on to engage with new techniques and ideas.

Last, but certainly not least, thank you to my four wonderful children, Annika, Kurt, Zane and Declan who gave me the space to be ‘a different kind of mother’ and accompanied and supported me at every step of this wonderful journey.

I must also acknowledge the work of Ann Cowper who provided professional editorial services in the latter stages of my thesis preparation. These services were limited to editing for consistency (Standard E, Completeness and

iii Consistency of the Australian Standards for Editing Practice) and complied with the University of Newcastle’s Policy for Editing of Research Theses by Professional Editors.

This thesis is dedicated to my parents, Graeme and Barbara Wise.

iv Abstract

This research resulted in advancing understanding of how strategic positioning occurs within public relations and has also extended possibilities for the application of Positioning Theory. In terms of the public relations field I have explained, through the application of a positioning theoretical framework and Positioning Theory, how the intertwined concepts of power and legitimacy underpin public relations positioning. I provided an evaluation of both the 2010/2011 and 2014 iterations of James’ Framework for Intentional Positioning in Public Relations. Although these Frameworks had been variously tested and applied since 2010, they had not been evaluated using an in-depth case study approach. My work has resulted in a point of reference from which other public relations researchers can further develop conceptualisations and applications of public relations positioning. From the perspective of Positioning Theory, this research has indicated the prominence of power dimensions in positioning episodes. A suggested critical approach has been put forward that provides a sound basis from which to further investigate this phenomenon in contexts wider than public relations. The research results strongly suggested that the concept of legitimacy be given more prominence and be considered as a core factor in Positioning Theory and these results provide a platform from which a more general conceptual framework for intentional positioning could be developed. This research has also contributed to furthering understanding of political discourse in relation to government policies on climate change, identifying how the climate change discourse in Australia changed in 2010. The results indicated that how viewing climate change from an economic perspective achieved ‘truth’ status, wherein the very idea of action on climate change became an economic risk that took precedence over any concern for the environment.

Keywords: public relations, Positioning Theory, positioning analysis

v Referred publications resulting from this thesis:

Drawing on the work in this thesis I have published two articles in peer reviewed academic journals and I have presented my research at six international academic conferences:

Refereed journal articles Wise, D., & James, M. (2013). Positioning a price on carbon: Applying a proposed hybrid method of positioning discourse analysis for public relations. Public Relations Inquiry, 2(3), 327-353. doi: 10.1177/2046147x13494966

Wise, D. (2015). Positioning PR: an Analysis of the Representation of Public Relations in Australian Political Speeches. Asia Pacific Public Relations Journal, 16 (1), 90-106.

Copies of these journal articles are included in Appendix X and Y

Published refereed conference publications Wise, D. (2013). PR, positioning & a carbon tax: applying a new conceptual framework to the analysis of polarised political positions. Paper presented at the 2013 International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) Conference, Dublin, Ireland.

Referred conference abstracts Wise, D. (2015). Positioning PR: an analysis of the positioning of public relations in Australian political speeches. Paper presented at the 2015 Positioning Theory Symposium, Brugge, Belgium.

Wise, D. (2015). The political positioning of the Australian carbon price/tax: a case study approach to testing the analytical framework for strategic positioning in public relations. Paper presented at the 2015 Political Discourse-

vi Multidisciplinary Approaches Conference, London, UK.

Wise, D. (2013). Positioning PR: an analysis of the representation of public relations in Australian political speeches. Paper presented at BCN Meeting #3 International PR 2013 Conference, Barcelona, Spain.

Wise, D. (2012). Posting the shift or shifting the post? A review of the role of public relations in constructing climate change discourses. Paper presented at the 2012 Australian and New Zealand Communication Association (ANZCA) Conference, Adelaide, Australia.

Wise, D. (2011). Positioning a price on carbon: testing a model of positioning discourse analysis in public relations. Paper presented at the 3rd New Zealand Discourse Conference (NZDC3), 2011, Auckland, NZ.

vii Table of contents 1. Introduction ...... 1

1.1 Background and context ...... 2 1.2 Problem statement ...... 3 1.3 Statement of purpose and research questions ...... 3 1.4 Research approach ...... 4 1.5 Assumptions ...... 7 1.6 Rational and significance ...... 7 1.7 Definitions of key terms used throughout this thesis ...... 8 2. Situating the case study ...... 9

2.1. Overview of Australia’s political system ...... 10 2.2 The Clean Energy Act 2011 ...... 11 2.3 Australia and the vexed issue of climate change ...... 14 2.4 Australia’s history of policy action (inaction?) on climate change ...... 17 2.5 Chapter summary ...... 25 3. Review of the literature: conceptualising strategic positioning in public relations ...... 28

3.1 What are the origins of strategic positioning in public relations? ...... 30 3.1.1 Introduction ...... 30 3.1.2 How is strategy conceptualised in the public relations literature? ...... 30 3.1.3 How is positioning conceptualised in the public relations literature? ...... 32 3.1.4 Where do public relations and Positioning Theory scholarship on strategic positioning converge? ...... 42 3.1.5 Summary ...... 49 3.2 What are the origins of Positioning Theory? ...... 50 3.2.1 Introduction ...... 50 3.2.2 Discussion ...... 50 3.2.3 Summary ...... 55 3.3 What is strategic positioning in Positioning Theory? ...... 56 3.3.1 Introduction ...... 56 3.3.2 Discussion ...... 56 3.3.3 Summary ...... 60 3.4 Frameworks: Are they useful in public relations? ...... 60

viii 3.4.1 Introduction ...... 60 3.4.2 Functionalist frameworks ...... 62 3.4.3 Symbolic or interpretative frameworks ...... 68 3.4.4 Discursive frameworks ...... 74 3.4.5 Summary ...... 79 3.5 Frameworks: Are they useful in Positioning Theory? ...... 81 3.5.1 Introduction ...... 81 3.5.2 How are traditional Positioning Theory frameworks conceptualised? ...... 81 3.5.3 How are James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) Positioning Theory frameworks conceptualised? ...... 86 3.5.4 Discussion ...... 98 3.5.5 Summary ...... 99 3.6 Chapter summary ...... 100 4. Methodology ...... 102

4.1 Research approach: rationale for qualitative research design ...... 103 4.2 The research sample ...... 108 4.2.1 Speech transcripts ...... 108 4.2.2 Election campaigns ...... 111 4.3 Information needed to conduct the study ...... 113 4.4 Overview of research design ...... 113 4.4.1 Literature review ...... 115 4.4.2 Research journal ...... 115 4.4.3 Confirmation approval ...... 116 4.5 Data collection methods ...... 116 4.5.1 Data collection methods described ...... 117 4.6 Methods for data analysis and synthesis ...... 120 4.6.1 Overview of James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) Frameworks ...... 120 4.6.2 The process described (Phase 1) ...... 126 4.6.3 The process described (Phase 2) ...... 129 4.7 Ethical considerations ...... 134 4.8 Discussion of issues relating to trustworthiness ...... 135 4.8.1 Triangulation ...... 135 4.8.2 Peer reviews/debriefings ...... 137 4.8.3 Reflexivity ...... 139 4.9 Limitations of the research study ...... 142

ix 4.10 Chapter summary ...... 144 5. Major findings from applying and evaluating James’ (2010, 2011) Provisional Conceptual Framework for Intentional Positioning in Public Relations ...... 145

5.1 Finding 1 ...... 147 5.1.1 Positioning Goal Domain ...... 147 5.1.2 Purpose Positioning Domain ...... 149 5.1.3 Positioning Type Domain ...... 153 5.1.4 Positioning Triangle Domain ...... 167 5.2 Finding 2 ...... 171 5.2.1 Positioning Goal Domain ...... 171 5.2.2 Purpose Positioning Domain ...... 172 5.2.3 Positioning Type Domain ...... 175 5.2.4 Positioning Triangle Domain ...... 177 5.3. Finding 3 ...... 181 5.4. Finding 4 ...... 182 5.5 Chapter summary ...... 183 6. Major findings from applying James’ (2014) Intentional Positioning Framework for Public Relations ...... 185

6.1 Finding 1 ...... 187 6.1.1 Positioning Triangle Domain ...... 187 6.1.1 Positioning Triangle Domain ...... 206 6.1.2 Strategic Pre-positioning Domain ...... 212 6.1.3 Positioning Type Domain ...... 216 6.1.4 Positioning Goal Domain ...... 218 6.2 Discussion of key discourses ...... 219 6.3 Chapter summary ...... 224 7. The strengths and weaknesses of applying James’ (2014) Framework ...... 226

7.1 Finding 1 ...... 228

x 7.1.1 Positioning Triangle Domain ...... 228 7.1.2 Strategic Pre-Positioning domain ...... 243 7.1.3 Positioning Type Domain ...... 245 7.1.4 Goal Domain ...... 246 7.2 Chapter summary ...... 247 8. Discussion ...... 249

8.1 James’ (2014) Framework and legitimacy ...... 250 8.2 Using Positioning Theory to examine legitimacy in public relations positioning ...... 254 8.3 Linking legitimacy and public relations positioning ...... 257 8.4 Integrating critical PR scholarship into a future framework ...... 264 8.5 Chapter summary ...... 266 9. Conclusion ...... 269

9.1 Summary of the project ...... 269 9.1.1 The literature review ...... 271 9.1.2 Methodology ...... 271 9.1.3 The findings of study 1 (i.e. Chapter 5) ...... 272 9.1.4 The findings of study 2 (i.e. Chapter 6) ...... 273 9.1.5 The strengths and weaknesses of the framework (i.e. Chapter 7) ...... 274 9.2 Thesis conclusion: The case for incorporating power and legitimacy in a positioning framework for public relations ...... 275 9.3 Final observations and reflections ...... 281 10. References…………………………………………………………………………………………..288 11. Appendices

xi 1. Introduction

The aim of this doctoral research project was to evaluate James’ Provisional Conceptual Framework for Intentional Positioning in Public Relations (2010, 2011), and the Framework for Intentional Positioning in Public Relations (James, 2014), as a model for examining and explaining public relations positioning, and to extend theory in the discipline. This study consists of a single case study using James’ Framework(s) and positioning analysis to focus on how former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, and former Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott, positioned a carbon price or tax in political speech transcripts. It was anticipated that a deeper understanding of these phenomena would afford new insights into how Positioning Theory (Davies & Harré, 1990; Harré & van Langenhove, 1999) is used in and adapted to public relations scholarship, and that this could further inform the development of public relations research, practice and education. The study addressed four research questions:

RQ1 Did applying James’ Framework provide answers into how a carbon price/tax was strategically positioned in the case study and if so how?

RQ2 What are the strengths and weaknesses of applying James’ Framework?

RQ3 Could James’ Framework be improved upon and if so how?

RQ4 Does public relations need a positioning ‘framework’ at all?

This chapter commences with an overview of the background and context of the study. The problem statement, a statement about the purpose of the study, and the study’s research questions follow. The chapter also discusses the research approach taken and the perspectives of the researcher including the researcher’s assumptions. To conclude, the chapter discusses the proposed research rationale, the significance of the study, and definitions of key terms used.

1 1.1 Background and context

This thesis originated in mid2011 at a time when much of the political discourse in Australia was dominated by the Australian Labor Party (ALP) Government’s proposed introduction of a carbon emissions reduction scheme, and the contrary position of the opposition Liberal National Coalition (the LNP or the Coalition) that the scheme was a ‘bad idea’. Numerous opinion polls taken at the time suggested that many Australians were increasingly against the scheme, and I was interested to know why a country that in 2007 had held the world’s first climate change election (Burgmann & Baer, 2010), was now veering towards opposing a carbon price or a ‘carbon tax’ as it also came to be known. However, while this study started by being about a carbon tax/price, it also became apparent as the study progressed that it was about much more, and that ‘something’ else was going on. In addition to positioning a carbon price/tax, both Gillard and Abbott were seemingly locked in a discursive battle over legitimacy - but how was it being gained, maintained, and/or lost, in the pursuit of their respective political goals? These questions, then, provided the original impetus for this study. My PhD supervisor, Dr Melanie James, provided the other.

In 2011 Dr James published her second paper applying Positioning Theory to public relations. Positioning, from a social psychological theoretical perspective, refers to the analysis of “fine-grained symbolically mediated interactions” both from an individual standpoint, and “as representatives or exemplars for groups” (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 1). At the core of the theory is the concept of local moral orders or the “ever-shifting patterns of mutual and contestable rights and obligations of speaking and acting” (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 1). In organisational public relations, rights and obligations are strategically enacted “as intentional practices and processes of representation with others in multiple, contested sites in which information is exchanged; meaning is mobilized and managed; and consensus, consent, and legitimation won or lost (Berger, 1999, pp. 190-191; see also James, 2011, p. 98).

2 Drawing on the work of Berger (1999), and Harré and van Langenhove (1999), James (2010, 2011) proposed a ‘Provisional Conceptual Intentional Positioning Framework for Public Relations’ that could be applied to both devise, and analyse, public relations campaigns and texts. My interest in the political debate being played out over carbon pricing, together with the potential to test James’ (2010, 2011) Framework as an analytical heuristic, merged to become the spark for this thesis.

1.2 Problem statement

The greatest challenge facing humankind is changes to the planet’s climate system and our collective responses to this crisis. In Australia, in 2007, a hugely successful political public relations campaign led to Australians voting overwhelmingly for policy action on climate change. Yet, in 2017, Australia, which is the world’s largest carbon emitter per capita, has become the first country to repeal its laws requiring big carbon polluters to pay for the right to release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. As it stands there is little previous work that has specifically examined this situation from a public relations Positioning Theory perspective.

1.3 Statement of purpose and research questions

The aim of this doctoral research project was to investigate how a particular positioning strategy gained ascendency and legitimacy, by applying James’ public relations positioning framework (James, 2010, 2011, 2014) against a case study of 23 political speech transcripts. It was anticipated this would provide fresh insights into strategic positioning in political public relations contexts, and that this would further inform the development of practice, research and education in public relations. To shed light on the problem, the following research questions are addressed:

RQ1. Did applying James’ Framework provide answers into how a carbon price/tax was strategically positioned in the case study and if so how?

RQ2. What are the strengths and weaknesses of applying James’ Framework?

RQ3. Could James’ Framework be improved upon and if so how?

RQ4. Does public relations need a positioning framework at all?

1.4 Research approach

This research project has largely been a “wayfinding” (Thomson & Kamler, 2016) that has required navigating not only the challenges inherent in any qualitative research project, but more particularly it has required navigating the challenges thrown up by applying a constantly evolving theoretical framework. This thesis, then, documents my wayfinding, as a researcher testing a theoretical framework , and it also reports on the research findings. In keeping with this research approach, I have used singular first person nouns to position myself within the study. While this may be contrary to positivist research approaches, it nevertheless aligns with qualitative/interpretative approaches and this was considered important given the cultural-political context in which the study is set.

Following this introduction, Chapter 2 presents a contextual backdrop to the case study. Positioning Theory holds that in any interaction there is both “knowledge of the past” as well as “insight into the current conversation” (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 6). This is beyond the roles of the social actors in the episode, and consists of a history of interactions as well as the specifics of the particular episode (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 6). This chapter includes a brief overview of Australia’s political system and the Clean Energy Act, 2011. This is followed by a discussion of some of the ‘knowledge of the past’ and ‘history of interactions’ that have contributed to the construction of the

4 ongoing climate change debates in Australia.

Chapter 3 is a critical review that explores several major areas of academic literature. To further contextualise the study, the review begins with a discussion of public relations as an area of academic scholarship and professional practice and, more specifically, political public relations as a subfield of public relations. This is followed by an examination of how positioning has been variously conceptualised in the academic literature, including public relations scholarship, and contrasts this with Positioning Theory conceptualisations of positioning. The review concludes with a discussion of James’ Public Relations Positioning Framework. The review sought to understand how positioning had been differently conceptualised in the public relations academic literature to a) clarify and distinguish these different understandings and b), to provide a contextual backdrop for the evaluation of James’ Positioning Frameworks for Public Relations (i.e. James, 2010, 2011, 2014).

In Chapter 4, a description of this project’s research methodology is provided which includes discussions around the following areas: (a) research approach rationale, (b) the research sample, (c) research design overview, (d) data collection methods, (e) data analysis and synthesis, (f) ethical considerations, (g) a discussion of issues relating to trustworthiness, (h) situating myself in the research project, and (i) the limitations of the research study. This research employed a qualitative methodology involving positioning analysis (e.g. Harré, Lee & Moghaddam, 2008; Harré, Moghaddam, Pilkerton Cairnie, Rothbart & Sabat, 2009; Harré and van Langenhove, 1999; James, 2011, 2012, 2014; Louis, 2008; Montiel & De Guzman, 2011; Neille, 2013; Pinnegar, Mangelson, Reed & Groves, 2011; Redman & Fawns, 2004; Slocum & van Langenhove,2003, 2004: Slocum-Bradley, 2008, 2010a, 2010b; Tsetsura, 2014& James, 2013; Yamakawa, Forman & Ansell, 2009; Zelle, 2009) of the transcripts of 23 political speeches delivered by the (former) Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard and the (former) Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott.

5 When I first commenced this research project in mid 2011 the Provisional Conceptual Framework for Intentional Positioning in Public Relations (James, 2010, 2011) was still, as its name implies, at the provisional/conceptual stage. Excited by the possibilities of a new approach to analysing positioning strategies in public relations, I applied the framework to a case study of 23 political speech transcripts delivered during a three-month period in 2011. This initial evaluation of the framework became the ‘case’ for this study; the findings of which are discussed in Chapter 5. A published version is also available in the appendices [see appendix X, Wise & James, 2013).

Eighteen months later, in mid 2013, and while writing up this research paper, I was employed as part of a small research team using quantitative and qualitative research methods to test James’ Framework as it stood at the time (i.e. 2010, 2011). During this time, I also commenced employment as the National Public Relations Officer for Australia’s largest community service organisation. In early 2014, I proofread a new book on positioning in public relations authored by my PhD supervisor, Dr Melanie James, who had also led the research team testing the framework in 2013. Dr James’ new book (James, 2014) included developments and refinements to the framework since it was originally conceived (i.e. James, 2010, 2011) and these modifications, together with the insights I gained from my initial evaluation of the framework, my work as a research assistant and my work outside of academia as a public relations practitioner, together with my proofreading of this new book, led to my re- evaluating the updated iteration of the framework in the latter part of 2014. The results from this latter evaluation are included in Chapter 6.

In Chapter 8 I bring these chapters together to pose the question “where to from here?” in terms of positioning in public relations. Although the chapter concludes that there are still unanswered questions, my research does indicate that James’ Framework(s) for positioning in public relations offers an exciting new way of approaching the analysis of legitimacy from a strategic public relations and Positioning Theory perspective.

6 1.5 Assumptions

When this study commenced in mid 2011 the primary assumption I initially made was that the speech transcripts under investigation were discursive debates about the introduction of a carbon price/tax. However, as the study progressed, it became clear that they were about much more. People, political parties, political leaders and nations were being positioned in the exercise of power. Underpinning this were the mutual attempts by both sides to legitimise their own positions and to deligitimise the position of their opponent.

1.6 Rational and significance

One of the original contributions to the public relations field that this doctoral study makes is to help explain, through the application of a positioning theoretical framework, how legitimacy is gained, maintained, lost or restored through the deployment of public relations texts. Texts, in this sense, are “the material site of emergence of immaterial discourse(s)…that realize the interests of their makers” (Kress, 2012, p. 36) (original italics). Texts, therefore, provide a means of “reading the interests and purposes of those involved in the making of texts in an institution” (Kress, 2012, p. 37) which was considered important within the context of this study.

In considering the central issue of legitimacy in public relations, the thesis also contributes to furthering understanding of discursive political positioning in relation to government policies on climate change. Climate change is a public relations issue in which policy responses are “determined by the success or failure of the competing discourses that seek to frame the issue” (Roper, 2004, p. 42). Central to this discursive battle are public policies that have potential to “shape discourse transformations, legitimate organizational identities and address social concerns” (Motion & Leitch, 2009, p. 1045). Arguably, there has never been a greater urgency or imperative to examine public policies in relation to climate change, than there currently is.

7 The study provides an evaluation of James’ PR positioning framework. The framework has been variously tested and applied since 2010 but to date has not been evaluated using an in-depth case study approach. This thesis adds to the growing body of work in this rich theoretical area.

1.7 Definitions of key terms used throughout this thesis

Earned, owned and paid media: earned media refers to organisational communication channels and information that involves journalists; owned media refers to communication channels and information that are owned and operated by an organisation; paid media refers to communication channels and information that are purchased (Smith, 2017)

Organisation/s: used throughout this thesis “in its broadest sense” in line with previously published scholarly work (Hallahan, Holtzhausen, van Ruler, Verčič & Sriramesh, 2007, p. 4) to refer to for-profit and not-for-profit organisations, corporations, clients of public relations agencies and consultants, activist groups, nongovernment organisations, social change organisations, political entities, and government organisations and agencies.

Public/s: any group of people who share common interest or values in a particular situation (Chia, 2009, p.5).

Stakeholder/s – A group or individual who can affect, or is affected by, the achievement of an organisation’s objectives (Freeman, 1984, p. 25).

8 2. Situating the case study

RQ1 Did applying James’ Framework provide answers into how a carbon price/tax was strategically positioned in the case study and if so how?

RQ2 What are the strengths and weaknesses of applying James’ Framework?

RQ3 Could James’ Framework be improved upon and if so how?

RQ4 Does public relations need a positioning ‘framework’ at all?

This chapter provides a contextual backdrop to the case study which examines political positioning as presented in 22 political speech transcripts, delivered in 2011 by former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard and former Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott. Positioning Theory holds that in any interaction there is both “knowledge of the past” as well as “insight into the current conversation” (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 6). This is beyond the roles of the social actors in the episode, and consists of a history of interactions as well as the specifics of that particular episode (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 6).

9 Moreover, “negotiations of power relationships and policy formation do not occur in isolation … but, rather, they are sensitive to social norms at any given time and place. Thus it is important to contextualize any discussion of power shifts within a historical context” (Roper, 2009, p. 73). What follows, then, is a historical backdrop to the current study, and provides a brief overview of Australia’s political system and the Clean Energy Act, 2011, followed by a discussion of some of the knowledge of the past and the history of interactions that have contributed to the construction of an ideological battle over climate change policies in Australia.

2.1. Overview of Australia’s political system

The Australian Federal Parliament consists of the House of Representatives and the Senate, and is led by the Prime Minister (Australian Electoral Commission, 2011). The powers of the two houses are defined by the Australian Constitution, and “all proposed laws (bills) must be passed by both houses” (Parliament of Australia, N.D.). However, while the “Senate's law-making powers are equal to those of the House of Representatives … it cannot introduce or amend proposed laws that authorise expenditure for the ordinary annual services of the government or that impose taxation” (Parliament of Australia, N.D.). Nevertheless, the Senate does have considerable power whereby it may “request that the House of Representatives makes amendments to financial legislation and it can refuse to pass any bill” (Parliament of Australia, N.D.). As such, unlike many Westminster systems of government, the Senate can block government legislation initiated in the House of Representatives.

Australia is also somewhat unusual in that voting is compulsory for every Australian citizen aged 18 years and over and, despite being a representative democracy, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom is formally the Queen of Australia. With three levels of government: Federal, State or Territory, and local (Australian Electoral Commission, 2011), the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and

10 the Liberal Party of Australia dominate at both the state and federal levels. Also at the federal level, the Liberal Party has formed a coalition with the Australian National Party, and is commonly referred to as The Coalition or the LNP. Because Australia’s Constitution limits the term of members of the House of Representatives, an election must be held every three years (Australian Electoral Commission, 2011). In addition, in 2010, the Australian Greens Party (commonly known as The Greens) finished with 13 per cent of the vote in the Senate and won their first seat in the House of Representatives; a first for any Australian minor party.

2.2 The Clean Energy Act 2011

The case study for this thesis centres on a three-month period in 2011 during the lead-up to the introduction of the ’Bill for an Act to encourage the use of clean energy, and for other purposes’ to the House of Representatives. Part of a package of measures introduced on 13 September 2011, the Clean Energy legislative package included 18 Bills, of which the Clean Energy Bill 2011 (the ‘Main Bill’) formed the framework for establishing a carbon price. In Australia, “a bill is a proposal for a law or a change to an existing law” that “becomes law (an Act) when agreed to in identical form by both houses of Parliament and assented to by the Governor-General” (Parliament of Australia, 2011). The package was passed by the Australian Parliament on 8 November 2011, and included “the Clean Energy Act 2011, which implements the carbon pricing mechanism for Australia, as well as the Clean Energy Regulator Act 2011 and the Climate Change Authority Act 2011, which implement key elements of the governance arrangements for the carbon pricing mechanism” (The Australian Government Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, 2012). The purposes of the Clean Energy Bill 2011 were as follows:

The Clean Energy Bill 2011 and related Bills establish a framework to meet specified emissionsreduction targets by creating incentives for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions through the implementation of

11 measures that impose the costs of emissions on selected sectors of the economy” (Swoboda, Tomaras & Payne, 2011).

Interestingly, Swoboda, Tomaras and Payne (2011) also note,

There has been some controversy over the appropriate terminology to be used when referring to this Bill’s impost. The question of whether it constitutes a tax has legal implications as well as political implications. The Government, and others, refer to the introduction of a carbon price, whereas the Coalition, and others, refer to it as the introduction of a carbon tax. The legislative package is structured so as to accommodate the constitutional requirements governing the introduction of a tax. This Digest uses both the terms ‘a carbon price’ and ‘a carbon tax’, depending on the context of the reference.

The objects of the Clean Energy Act 2011 that resulted from the Bill were:

(a) to give effect to Australia’s obligations under:

(i) the Climate Change Convention; and (ii) the Kyoto Protocol; (b) to support the development of an effective global response to climate change, consistent with Australia’s national interest in ensuring that average global temperatures increase by not more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels;

(i) take action directed towards meeting Australia’s long-term target of reducing Australia’s net greenhouse gas emissions to 80% below 2000 levels by 2050; and (ii) take that action in a flexible and cost-effective way; (d) to put a price on greenhouse gas emissions in a way that:

(i) encourages investment in clean energy; (ii) supports jobs and competitiveness in the economy; and (iii) supports Australia’s economic growth while reducing pollution (Clean Energy Act 2011).

In effect this required that from 1 July 2012, approximately 500 of Australia’s biggest polluters, or “those that have facilities that directly emit more than 25,000 tonnes of carbon pollution into the atmosphere in a year or are natural gas suppliers” (The Australian Government Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, 2012, p. 7), to pay for their carbon emissions. Companies that fell within this scope (who collectively produce approximately 60 per cent of Australia’s carbon emissions) would be required to purchase a permit (called a carbon unit) for every tonne of carbon they produced. At the end of each year liable entities would then be required to “surrender the number of carbon units that represents its total emissions to the Clean Energy Regulator or pay a charge” ( The Australian Government Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, 2012, p. 7). Also known as a price signal, the overarching aim of the Act was to incentivise businesses to reduce their carbon emissions, by investing in energy efficient and low pollution technologies (The Australian Government Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, 2012, p. 6). During the first three years, the cost of each tonne of carbon pollution was to be fixed, commencing in 2012-13 at $23 per tonne, and increasing by 2.5% each year during the fixed price period (The Australian Government Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, 2012, p. 7). From 1 July 2015, the carbon price would switch to a market ‘cap and trade’ emissions trading scheme (a flexible price mechanism) in which the Government would cap the number of carbon units it would issue according to “Australia’s national emissions reduction targets, our international climate change obligations and the recommendations on pollution caps made by the Climate Change Authority” (The Australian Government Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, 2012, p. 7). In addition, “over 50 per cent” of the revenue derived was to be used to assist low-middle income households in the form of tax relief and assorted other payments (The Australian Government Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, 2012, p. 1). Despite this, and as outlined previously, the Coalition won the October 2013 federal election and, shortly thereafter, set in motion the repeal of the Carbon Pricing legislation.

On 14 July 2014, A Bill for an Act to repeal the Clean Energy Act 2011, and for other purposes or the Clean Energy Legislation (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2014, was introduced and read for a first time to the House of Representatives. Part of a package of 8 Bills, the legislation to remove the carbon pricing mechanism finally passed both Houses on 17 July 2014 (Clean Energy Legislation [Carbon Tax Repeal] Bill 2014). In so doing, Australia became the first country in the world to remove its carbon pricing legislation. According to an April 2016 Carbon Emissions Index (CEDEX®) Report, electricity generation, demand and consumption continued to be increasing nationally, and this followed a seventeen-month trend (Saddler, Tinch & Johnston, 2016, n.p.). Total annual demand was also 2.5% higher and, while this rate of demand growth was once considered normal for the electricity industry up until 2004, it has not been seen since that time (Saddler, Tinch & Johnston, 2016, n.p.).

One of the CEDEX® report’s authors, energy analyst Hugh Saddler, argues that the rise is a direct result of changes in electricity generation "away from hydro and back to brown and black coal as removal of the carbon price changed the relative costs” (Saddler, cited in Martin, 2016). He adds, Many energy consumers appear to have lost interest in taking further steps to use energy more efficiently … the impact of political leadership is not confined to policy decisions on carbon prices or renewable energy targets – it has an effect on energy consumption behaviour that should not be underestimated” (ibid).

Arguably this only serves to underline the necessity of examining how the Clean Energy Bill 2011 and subsequent Act were positioned in the political speeches of Gillard and Abbott, if only to inform future public relations efforts in this critical area.

2.3 Australia and the vexed issue of climate change

An Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report

14 (IPCC, 2014) states that in relation to observed changes in the climate system and their causes,

Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have increased since the pre- industrial era, driven largely by economic and population growth, and are now higher than ever. This has led to atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide that are unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years. Their effects, together with those of other anthropogenic drivers, have been detected throughout the climate system and are extremely likely to have been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century (p. 4).

In response to these concerns, the Paris Agreement (2015), governing the international process for action on climate change, was signed in December 2015 by 96 participating countries (United Nations, 2015). Nevertheless, there are elements of the Agreement, “such as the intended nationally determined contributions” (United Nations, 2015), that are not legally binding. Of concern is the fact that these nationally determined outcomes, when taken collectively, are “unlikely to be enough to limit global warming to 2 degrees” Celsius (Wood, Blowers, & Moran, 2015, p. 7). Two degrees Celsius is the temperature goal deemed necessary to “stabilize greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system” (Levin, Ward, Gesteira, & Wagner, 2010, p. 20). This then raises concerns not only in terms of the effectiveness of the Paris Agreement overall, but it also raises questions about Australia’s nationally determined outcomes given it has been singled out for criticism in this regard.

What is perhaps also equally surprising is that Australia’s geography and climate means it is particularly susceptible to the impacts of climate change, and Australia will likely experience severe impacts “across a number of sectors, including water security, agriculture, coastal communities, and infrastructure” (Department of the Environment, n.d.). This scenario was made evident to Australians in 2013 when numerous Australian temperature records were broken, and sophisticated climate models indicated that these temperatures could not have been reached in the absence of human emissions of greenhouse

15 gases (Lewis & Karoly, 2014). Moreover, Australia is a signatory to the Paris Agreement (2015) and, as it stands, it has established carbon emission targets “to reduce national emissions to 5 per cent below 2000 levels by 2020, and 26 to 28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030” (Wood, Blowers & Moran, 2015, p. 7). But while this target is 50 per cent lower than 2005 levels, Australia will still be the highest per capita carbon emitter “of any G20 country other than Saudi Arabia” (Climate Institute, 2015). Australia’s reliance on coal also means that “the pollution from Australia’s coal resources alone could take us two-thirds of the way to a two-degree rise in global temperature” (Climate Council, 2015). As such Australia’s current carbon emissions reduction targets are a cause for considerable global concern.

Various entities within Australia have voiced their concerns. For example, the (Australian) Climate Council (2015) recently argued that not only are Australia’s targets “vastly inadequate to protect Australians from the impacts of climate change, they simply don’t represent a fair contribution to the world effort to bring climate change under control … by every measure, they fail to make the grade”. Former United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, has accused Australia of becoming “a climate change ‘free-rider’, dropping off the list of nations taking "credible" action to curb greenhouse gas emissions” (Hannam, 2015). Added to this are claims that Australia is undertaking ‘dodgy accounting’ by relying on ‘loophole credits’ (a loophole in the international accounting rules whereby if a country exceeds its target in the first period, the excess can be carried over) (Flannery, 2015). What this means, in effect, is that by taking on a low target during the “first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (2008 to 2012)” and overshooting it, “Australia banked 128 million tonnes of emissions reductions without doing anything at all” when the second commitment period began in 2013 (Flannery, 2015). This, then, raises concerns not only about the ethicalness of such actions, but it calls into question Australia’s commitment to reducing its carbon emissions.

16 2.4 Australia’s history of policy action (inaction?) on climate change

In 1985, the World Meteorological Organisation and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) held a climate conference in Austria. The conference was instrumental in driving a growing global awareness of the issue of climate change (Kay, 1997) including in Australia where climate change began to be discussed in the mid 1980s. According to Taylor (2014), in 1989 then Labor Prime Minister Robert (Bob) Hawke, was aware of a growing consensus amongst scientists that climate change was a reality. Hawke stated, The growing consensus amongst scientists is that there is a strong possibility of global warming with major climate change, and that this is linked with the levels and nature of industrial and agricultural activity. Significant climate change ... would have major ramifications for human survival ... (Hawke 1989, cited in Taylor 2014, p. 24).

One of Hawke’s objectives was to shift the national environmental debate away from conservation, to talk instead about “Ecologically Sustainable Development (or ESD)” (Economou, 2013). The idea for a carbon price was first mooted as part of ESD, with cabinet documents showing that Hawke considered a “carbon tax for energy use" as well as a "carbon tax-type" tax based on "all greenhouse gas emissions, for all source activities, including industry, energy, agriculture, transport" (Iggulden, 2016). According to Hudson (2015), Hawke’s plan for an ESD was intended to “draw green groups into his (Hawke’s) consensus-based style of policy formation” (n.p.). However, when Hawke lost the prime- ministership to his deputy, Paul Keating, in 1991 it effectively spelt the end of the ESD, and with it policies to price carbon emissions for the foreseeable future.

Despite ‘green’ votes playing a key part in Labor’s win in the 1987 and 1990 elections, Paul Keating, who had a much more adversarial style than Hawke, seemingly went “out of his way to alienate green groups” and promptly kicked the ESD “into the long grass” (Hudson, 2015, n.p.). Recommendations from business and environmental groups were also overlooked in the National

17 Greenhouse Response Strategy (1992), and Keating was amongst the few Western leaders who didn’t attend the Rio Earth Summit at which the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was signed in 1992 (Hudson, 2015). According to Hudson (2015), Keating decided that the environment wasn't an issue at the 1993 federal election, which Labor won, and adopted the same position at the 1996 federal election. As eventuated, Keating was defeated by the conservative Coalition Howard Government; the first federal victory by the coalition of the Liberal and National Parties since 1980. From this point on climate policy inaction became “Australia’s moniker on the domestic and international stage” (Crowley, 2011, p. 1); a moniker that is perhaps as apt today as it was during the eleven years of the Howard government.

Former Prime Minister John Howard was re-elected at the 1998, 2001 and 2004 Australian federal elections. Importantly, throughout this period, Howard was “shackled to self-proclaimed climate change skepticism” (Crowley, 2011, p. 1), Primarily, as Woodward (2010) argues, this was because the Coalition government’s climate change policy was heavily influenced by (and at times even written by) “the ‘greenhouse mafia’ lobbyists for the most polluting industries” (Woodward , 2010, n.p.). One of the Howard Government’s responses, then, was to establish the Australian Industry Greenhouse Network (AIGN), representing a “dozen industry associations and 23 corporations” formed to provide “a united front to government” (Pearse et al., 2013, p. 136). A key AIGN strategy was the obtaining of seats “on a steering committee created to design and oversee a project to model the impact of adopting greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets” (Pearse et al, 2013, p. 137). The subsequent claim made by the committee that the economy would take a $150 million ‘hit’, and thousands of people would lose their jobs, was not only “a powerful tool designed to soften public concern”, it also provided Howard with a cover for retreating from policy action on climate change throughout his Prime Ministership (Pearse, 2013, p. 137).

The Australian coal lobby (or the greenhouse mafia to use Woodward’s (2010)

18 terminology) was also instrumental in the refusal by Howard to sign the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement that set binding targets for member nations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 2014). Consequently, and despite a generous Kyoto target of 108% (Christoff, 2010, p. 214; see also Christoff, 1998; Christoff and Eckersley, 2007; Hamilton, 2007), Howard not only actively sought to undermine the protocol, he blocked Australian ratification. According to Christoff (2010), Howard argued that these actions were protecting Australia’s ‘national interest’,

Narrowly defined as its comparative advantage in vast reserves of coal and natural gas … and by agreeing only to weak voluntary climate measures that were then undermined by strong material support for domestic coal-fired power generation and the nation’s energy-intensive processed minerals, coal and natural gas export sectors (p. 214).

That said, Howard did bow somewhat to national and international pressure ahead of the 1997 Kyoto climate conference, and announced his intention to establish a mandatory renewable energy target that required 2 per cent of energy generation to come from renewable sources. However, as Pearse et al (2013) further argue, this was little more than “convenient window-dressing designed to mask Australia’s extraordinary ambit claim of wanting to win international approval for increasing greenhouse gas emissions at a conference aimed at negotiating cuts” (p. 137). Moreover, to the “delight of the coal and other industry groups”, the Australian delegation to Kyoto “succeeded in winning approval for an 8 per cent increase in greenhouse gas emission levels over the 1990 baseline” and ‘bought’ approval for Australia’s biggest polluters to increase emissions for a further 15 years (Pearse et al, 2013, p. 137). The upshot was that Australia’s economic reliance on fossil fuels grew without restraint from the early 1990s onwards (Christoff, 2010, p. 214) and, as it stands, Australia remains wedded to policies that support fossil fuel industries over policies that protect the environment.

19 Nevertheless, there was also a growing discrepancy between domestic expectations and the Howard Governments’ equivocal position on climate change, and this “grew significantly between 2006 and 2007” (Burgmann & Baer, 2010, n.p.). Opinion polls taken at the time suggested that “levels of concern … had recently risen dramatically”, with 78% of respondents in a Climate Change Institute poll taken in January 2007 expressing that they “very concerned or extremely concerned” about climate change (Climate Institute, 2007). One possible reason for this rise in concern was that it corresponded with the release of the popular documentary film on climate change ‘An inconvenient truth’ (Guggenheim, 2006), and the release of the Stern Review (Stern, 2007) detailing the economic impacts of climate change. Arguably, to appease these concerns, and with an election looming in 2007, in November 2006 Howard announced he would establish a task group on an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), a proposal that was publicly endorsed by then Coalition Leader of the House, Tony Abbott.

On 30 April 2007, ALP Opposition leader, Kevin Rudd, together with State and Territory leaders, commissioned Professor Ross Garnaut to conduct The Garnaut Climate Change Review (Garnaut, 2008) into the impact of climate change in Australia and to “recommend policies to deal with the problem” (Woodward, 2010, n.p.). According to Woodward (2010), Rudd showed determination in the lead-up to the 2007 election, taking “seriously the need to cut emissions of greenhouse gases in order to avoid potentially catastrophic climate change” by making environmental promises that included ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, and cutting emissions by 60 per cent by 2050 via an ETS (n.p.). Nevertheless, almost as soon as the idea for an ETS was flagged, the fossil fuel lobby began organising and martialing their troops (Hamilton, 2009). Hamilton (2009) portrays how the lobby,

Rearmed themselves with arguments, fighting funds, lobbyists and dodgy economic studies…rebuilt their networks in government and the public service, insinuated themselves into policy processes, schmoozed back-benchers and dined privately with ministers and their staff. They whispered about how important the old energy industries are to the economy, how Labor voters value their jobs, and how they will take their business offshore (n.p.).

In June 2007, Howard put his plan for an ETS to the Federal Cabinet where it was agreed that it would form part of the Coalition’s platform for the November 2007 Federal Election. Controversially, Rudd also took an ETS to the election, leading to the claim that Australia held the world’s first climate change election (Burgmann & Baer, 2010; Glover, 2007). Although Rudd (arguably) copied Howard’s election policy pledge, he also declared climate change as “the greatest moral challenge of our time” (Taylor & Hoyle, 2014, n.p.). It was this, together with the positioning of the ALP as the party of reform “willing to take climate change seriously … and to place global interests above short-term national ones” (Macintosh, Wilkinson & Dennis, 2010, n.p.) that ultimately led to a convincing win for Rudd and the ALP on 24 November 2007. In so doing Rudd not only ended eleven years of conservative government, he also had a clear mandate to act on climate change. Nevertheless, the Influence of the coal industry meant that anything prepared during the eleven years of the conservative Howard Government was also “liable to bring that influence into the Rudd government’s proposals and so it proved” (Woodward, 2010, n.p.).

Almost immediately following the election, on 3 December 2007, Rudd fulfilled his pre-election commitment and signed the Kyoto Protocol. He also declared his government would address climate change by introducing an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), but refused to commit Australia to a binding CO2 agreement arguing that he was waiting for the Garnaut Review to be delivered (Woodward, 2010). Rudd also made Julia Gillard his deputy and, in so doing, ensured that for the first time in Australia’s history a woman held the nation’s second highest office. Within the Opposition Coalition there were also leadership changes, with Malcolm Turnbull elected as the new LNP Coalition leader upon Howard’s resignation post-election.

On 16 July 2008, the Government released its green paper on a proposed ETS (also called a ‘Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme’ [CPRS]) (Woodward, 2010) and, on 30 September, the final report of the Garnaut Climate Change Review

21 was delivered with the recommendation that an ETS “should be the centrepiece of Australia's policies to implement emissions reductions targets” (Garnaut, 2008). Nonetheless, in a critique of the Review, Christoff (2010) argues that the “gaps between scientific analysis of the threat of global warming, economic analysis of the costs and benefits of mitigation, and political perceptions of feasible climate policy” are a chasm in Australia, and that the Garnaut review is a “weak political compromise” with targets that reinforce “the narrowly economistic discursive framing that has long dominated the climate debate in Australia” (p. 216). Arguably this critique remains valid in 2017.

Wood et al (2015) argue that 2008 was the year in which Australia’s lack of political consensus on climate change really took hold, however in 2009 the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) hit and it took priority over the immediacy of climate change for many Australians (Burgmann & Baer, 2010). Nevertheless, despite the growing crisis, behind the scenes the Federal Liberal Party was mounting a public relations campaign against Rudd’s emissions trading scheme (Pearse, et al, 2013, p. 130). Pearse et al (2013) argue that,

To outside observers their strategy seemed simple: create a sense of looming jobs crisis in the coal mining regions of NSW and Queensland and mobilise the industry’s supporters as an army of lobbyists against Labor’s regional Members of Parliament. Together with the mining industry’s supporters in government and an emboldened Opposition, the (coal) industry hoped the public outcry would be enough to entirely kill off Rudd’s plan or politically cripple it so that an incoming Liberal government could repeal it (p. 130).

It was against this backdrop then, that on 4 May 2009, Rudd announced the ETS would begin in mid 2011; 12 months later than originally planned. A further outcome of the coal industry campaign was the showering of generous compensation on the largest polluters, and this prompted the Greens (Australian political party) which held the casting vote in the Senate, to vote against the Bill (Pearse et al, 2013, p. 130). Consequently, on 13 August 2009, the Senate voted down the ETS for the first time forcing the Government to negotiate with the Opposition. Like Rudd, Opposition leader Turnbull was in

22 favour of action on climate change and Rudd and Turnbull struck a deal. However, not all Coalition Opposition Members of Parliament agreed, with Coalition MPs reportedly voting 47-46 against such a deal. In December 2009, political infighting over the ETS led to a leadership ballot that resulted in Turnbull being ousted by a single vote. The new Opposition Coalition leader, Tony Abbott, immediately declared a secret ballot with the motion that the ETS legislation be delayed for three months, and if this was not tenable that the legislation be defeated.

The proposed ETS was defeated again in April 2010 when the Senate once more blocked the Bill. Rudd subsequently announced that the ETS would be delayed for at least three years, a move that resulted in Labor, and Rudd personally, taking a substantial dive in the polls, with a Nielsen poll placing the Coalition ahead of Labor for the first time in more than four years by 53-47 per cent. Disillusionment with the ALP and the Coalition also led to more voters supporting the Australian Greens Party, with the Greens recording a poll-record primary vote of 15 per cent (Coorey, 2010). These setbacks and delays also resulted in some sectors of the electorate becoming “bored” with the issue of climate change (Burgmann & Baer, 2010). However, the coal industry was still continuing to play a crucial role behind the scenes.

A central platform of the ALP government’s tax reform was a ‘Resources Super Profit Tax’ with a tax rate of 40 per cent on all minerals (Pearse et al, 2013). Alarmed by this, and with swollen coffers from generous government subsidies, the minerals industry launched a six-week campaign of ‘Keep mining strong’ television advertisements “railing against the new tax” (Pearse et al, 2013, p. 131). Pearse et al (2013) argue that “the ads had a devastating effect, leaving Rudd increasingly isolated and Labor’s support greatly diminished (p. 131). One month into the campaign the Chair of MacArthur Coal, (and former Queensland Labor State Treasurer) Keith De Lacy, called for Rudd’s resignation. Less than two weeks later, on 24 June 2010, Gillard launched a leadership challenge and Rudd resigned (ibid). In so doing Gillard became Australia’s first female Prime

23 Minister, and later that year narrowly led the ALP to win the 2010 Federal election. Crucially, just a few weeks out from the election, Gillard made a commitment that she would not price carbon pollution vowing that, “there will be no carbon tax under a government I lead” (Channel Ten, 2010).

Labor’s narrow win was even then also only a result of Gillard gaining the support of the Australian Greens Party, as well as several Independent Members of Parliament. At the core of Gillard’s deal with the Greens was the securing of numerous concessions sought by the Greens, that included the formation of a climate change committee (Rodgers, 2010) and acknowledgement that “reducing carbon pollution by 2020 will require a carbon price” (Agreement, n.d.). On 12 July 2011, Gillard announced that, “for the first time in Australian history, we will put a price on carbon pollution” (Gillard, 2011a). However, once more, the coal industry began a concerted campaign to undermine the proposed carbon price. Coal regions in Queensland and NSW were again the targets,

With a campaign full of dire predictions … this time claiming that by 2015 eight existing coal mines would close early, with a further 18 coal mines to close by 2020. All up they claimed that 5000 jobs were at risk, and over 12,000 jobs across the economy (Pearse et al, 2013, p. 132).

In Queensland, this figure was extrapolated by the Head of the Queensland Resources Council as meaning “the loss of 13,000 Queensland jobs” (ibid), while in Victoria a scare campaign by “the country’s dirtiest coal power generators” that warned of electricity ‘blackouts’ during peak usage periods, was “hammered relentlessly” (Pearse et al, 2013, p. 133). Ultimately these campaigns had their desired effect and secured “generous compensation to mining companies” as well as a pledge “to pay $5.5 billion in cash and free carbon permits from an ‘energy security’ fund to the most polluting power generators so they could keep on polluting” (ibid).

Abbott’s vow that should he be elected Prime Minister, the first priority of a Coalition Government would be to repeal the Carbon Tax legislation, partly

24 came to fruition when the Coalition, with Abbott as leader, won the October 2013 federal election. Almost immediately, in November 2013, the Coalition Government introduced legislation to repeal the carbon price and, on 17 July 2014, after three attempts, they finally secured enough Senate support to fulfil Abbott’s election promise (Griffiths, 2014). On 14 September 2015, Malcolm Turnbull, who previously held the position of Leader of the Opposition while Rudd was Prime Minister, and who had previously lost a 2009 ballot against Abbott over his support for an emissions trading scheme, challenged for the leadership and won. Nonetheless Turnbull’s political history means that he still faces political tensions from the “hard right within the Coalition” that “will likely push back if he tries to move on climate” (Arup, 2015). As such, Turnbull has maintained that the “central climate policies in place under his predecessor Tony Abbott will, for now, at least, remain unchanged” (Arup, 2015). This position was demonstrably evident throughout the 10 weeks of the 2016 federal Liberal party election campaign, where climate change barely rated a mention.

2.5 Chapter summary

Thus, as it stands in early 2017, Australia has the dubious distinction of being the first developed nation to repeal its carbon pricing legislation that prices carbon emissions. At the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Paris, Australia was rated third last out of the 58 countries assessed in the latest Climate Change Performance Index (Australian Conservation Foundation, 2015). And, while most Australians now consider global warming to be a “serious and pressing problem”, 35% continue to say that the Government “should not make significant commitments on emissions reductions ahead of other countries” (Oliver, 2015). At the epicentre of this debate are “the coal industry and its allies” that, for almost thirty years, “have had the upper hand on just about all the key elements of Australian government climate policy” (Pearse et al., 2013, p. 134). Little wonder then, as Christoff (2010) argues, that Australia’s climate change policies have spectacularly failed to hit the mark in terms of reducing carbon

25 emissions and, on the contrary, have largely ensured that Australia does “not contribute fairly to the global effort to combat climate change” (p. 214). Regrettably there is little indication that this is likely to change in the foreseeable future.

One reason for this is that as part of its 2030 target of reducing carbon emissions t0 26-28 per cent below 2005 levels, the government committed to holding a review in 2017 (Department of the Environment and Energy, 2017, n.p.). In December 2016, and with the release of the climate review's terms of reference, Federal Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg suggested that the government was considering an emissions intensity scheme (a widely-supported form of carbon pricing). According to Australian political journalist, Lenore Taylor, writing in The Guardian,

But when Turnbull minister Josh Frydenberg said a review of Abbott’s Direct Action policy – which the Coalition had retained all those years – would at least consider a low-cost form of emissions trading for the electricity sector, it took Prime Minister Turnbull just 36 hours to can it.

Whether or not Abbott understood the limitations of his Direct Action policy, we know for sure that Turnbull is right across those limitations now.

He ruled out the so-called baseline and credit trading scheme even though it was what the policy had been designed to possibly morph into, what the government had been privately assuring stakeholders it would consider, had broad support from opposition parties, industry and the environment movement, and had the prospect of finally ending the stupid barren years of climate wars and delivering business the policy certainty it has been pleading for years.

He ruled it out even though – true to his own 2009 argument – it was also far cheaper for the government and for consumers. Cheaper according to the Australian Energy Market Commission and the Australian Energy Market Operator and the electricity transmission sector – based on modelling done by CSIRO – and the independent Climate Change Authority. It has been tacitly endorsed by the chief scientist, Alan Finkel, in his review of the electricity sector and the experts say it is the policy most likely to avoid disruption in the electricity sector because it would provide some certainty for investment.

And he ruled it out before the review had even considered it (Taylor, 2016, n.p.).

Hudson (2017) argues Turnbull’s back tracking was “in part due to pressure from conservatives within the Coalition” (n.p). Taylor (2016) is less guarded, arguing, Those same climate sceptics in the Coalition still don’t want to do anything about climate change, and even though Abbott is no longer prime minister they still seem to be calling the shots (n.p).

Interest groups are also concerned that there is nothing in the review’s terms of reference “about an expanded and lengthened renewable energy target (RET)” (Hudson, 2017, n.p.), and instead there is only a suggestion about a “potential long term emissions reduction goal” (Department of the Environment and Energy, 2017). Given that the outcome of the review will shape Australia’s responses to climate change for the foreseeable future, and that it will also potentially influence the political actions of other nations, research into political public relations strategies about climate change has never been more crucial, or more pressing.

27 3. Review of the literature: conceptualising strategic positioning in public relations

RQ1 Did applying James’ Framework provide answers into how a carbon price/tax was strategically positioned in the case study and if so how?

RQ2 What are the strengths and weaknesses of applying James’ Framework?

RQ3 Could James’ Framework be improved upon and if so how?

RQ4 Does public relations need a positioning ‘framework’ at all?

To carry out this study it was necessary to complete a critical review of the current literature. This review was ongoing throughout the study and explores public relations positioning, which has been shown to be a significant aspect of public relations practice and is an example of strategic communication (James, 2010, 2011, 2014). In situating this doctoral research project in the public relations academic field, I have examined what evidence there is in the literature that: a) conceptualises and theorises strategic positioning in public relations

28 scholarship, and b) conceptualises and theorises strategic positioning in Positioning Theory scholarship. A review of the literature on strategic positioning in public relations provides an understanding of the context, history, and conceptual underpinnings of strategy and positioning in public relations scholarship. Positioning Theory is reviewed to provide a history and context for understanding strategic positioning as conceptualised from a Positioning Theory perspective. This critical review explores the inter- connectedness of scholarship in these two academic fields, and concludes by reviewing conceptual frameworks within the public relations and Positioning Theory literature to provide a context and history for the evaluation of James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) Framework(s).

To conduct this selected literature review I used multiple sources of information including books, dissertations, Internet resources, media stories and professional journals. Because of the nature of the literature reviewed, no specific timeframe was used to delimit this search. For example, the historical development of positioning in public relations scholarship was considered significant, and bounding the review within a specific timeframe could have precluded the inclusion of substantial relevant material.

Throughout the review, I sought to find important gaps or omissions in the literature when they became apparent. Where relevant, areas of contestation were also identified and discussed. Each section of the literature review closes with a synthesis that focuses on research implications, and the interpretative summary that concludes the chapter illustrates how the literature has informed my understanding of the material and how the material contributes to the ongoing development of the study’s conceptual framework.

29 3.1 What are the origins of strategic positioning in public relations?

3.1.1 Introduction A key premise of James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) work that applies Positioning Theory (Davies & Harré, 1990; Harré & van Langenhove, 1999) to public relations is that positioning in public relations is inherently strategic. Taking this as the starting point for this review, this section begins by exploring the context, history and conceptual underpinnings of strategy in public relations scholarship. Positioning is also frequently referred to in the public relations literature, and the review also examines the literature to provide an understanding of the context, history and conceptual underpinnings of positioning in public relations scholarship. Where appropriate, the review also draws on Positioning Theory literature to provide a context and to understand the linkages between public relations and Positioning Theory, and how these affiliations are relevant to strategic positioning. This affiliation is made explicit in the conclusion of this section of the review that explores the public relations and Positioning Theory literature on framing and personas.

3.1.2 How is strategy conceptualised in the public relations literature? One continuing characteristic that has historically defined public relations is that of having a strategy “between communicators and publics” (Miller Russell & Opdycke Lamme, 2016, p. 746). In public relations scholarship, the term ’strategic’ has been the key word that has underpinned how public relations has been theorised since the 1980s (Holtzhausen, 2002, pp. 254-255); a focus that Holtzhausen (2002) argues “has possibly made the biggest contribution to establish public relations as a serious field of study” (p. 254). From this perspective, public relations is argued to provide economic value to organisations through practices variously defined as “issues management; strategic relationship management; the strategic management of public relations programs and campaigns through Management by Objectives (MBO);

30 the strategic management of publics and the organization’s external environment; and ultimately the strategic management of the public relations function as a whole” (Holtzhausen, 2002, p. 255). Yet there is little agreement on a single encapsulating definition about what public relations strategy, or associated terms such as strategic, actually is or should be (James, 2009).

In political contexts, and in terms of election campaigns, strategy is conceptualised by Strömbäck & Kiousis (2014) as, The use of communication to reach voters directly through different forms of controlled communication or indirectly through the news media, or as different modes of communication and campaigning (p. 110).

Broadly this refers to the “purposeful management of information and communication” to achieve political objectives and goals, and this holds true whether the communication is being issued within or outside of an election campaign (Strömbäck & Kiousis, 2014, p. 111). What this suggests, and although it is not made explicit in this definition, is that power is a central part of strategy and that this has “strategic implications” (Smudde & Courtright, 2010, p. 181) for public relations practitioners working in the political public relations sphere.

Power, then, is invariably linked to strategy. In public relations power is not something public relations possesses, rather it is something exercised through relationships (Smudde & Courtright, 2010, p. 181). According to Smudde and Courtwright (2010) strategy means,

Applying an understanding of power’s multidimensionality for what it has been in the past (i.e. to learn from it) and, most important, formulating further ways (i.e. to anticipate applications) to inspire cooperation between an organisation and its publics through public relations efforts (p. 181).

Power, in this sense, is thus a “community-based phenomenon that people confer on each other through their relationships with one another” (Smudde & Courtright, 2010, p184). The conferring of power (or not) is also dependent on

31 three power dimensions: the hierarchical position of entities within organisations; the use of rhetoric as a communicative act wherein the effectiveness and effects of an entity’s ability “to create, use and misuse language” contributes to power (p. 179); and the social implications that the manifestation of these power dimensions have on “the communal views of the system of relationships that exists and evolve among people” (Smudde, & Courtright, 2010, p. 185). Smudde & Courtright (2010) argue that by observing and applying these phenomena in practice, public relations practitioners can devise strategies that “inspire cooperation” (p. 181), however that might be defined. These connections between power and strategy are not always observable, or indeed theorised as such, and Smudde and Courtright’s (2010) work provides important insights into how public relations strategies are deployed in the pursuit of power. The relationship between power and strategy in public relations is threaded throughout this literature review and is returned to in the discussion on strategic positioning and James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) positioning frameworks (3.6) where the question posed concerns what is strategic positioning in Positioning Theory?

3.1.3 How is positioning conceptualised in the public relations literature?

Just as there is no single definition of what constitutes a strategy in public relations, defining positioning is similarly multifarious. Within the academic literature, the term ‘position’ has been widely referred to in social and psychological writing (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 1) and is especially prevalent in the marketing literature (James, 2010, 2014). Several studies have also demonstrated that positioning is a significant aspect of public relations practice e.g. Beurer-Zuellig, Fieseler & Meckel 2009; James 2009; Motion, 1997; Motion & Doolin, 2007, and it is frequently referred to in the public relations academic literature (see for example, Berger, 1999; Beurer-Zuellig, Fieseler & Meckel 2009; Fitch, James & Motion, 2015; Hallahan, 1999; Heath, Motion &

32 Leitch, 2009; James 2009, 2010, 2014; Leitch & Motion, 2010; Moffitt, 1992; Motion 1997, 2000, 2005; Motion & Doolin, 2007; Motion & Leitch, 1996, 2007; Motion & Weaver, 2005; Roper 2005, 2012; Schoenberger-Orgad, 2005, 2009, 2011; Tilley, 2009; Tsetsura, 2014; Wang, 2007; Warmer & Heath, 2007; Wu, 2007; Zompetti & Moffitt, 2009). Yet how this is undertaken is rarely explicated (James, 2014).

Many studies that mention positioning within the public relations literature refer to marketing-type definitions and concepts. From a marketing perspective, positioning is primarily related to the ‘4 P’s’ of product, place, price and promotion, and whereby positioning something (be it a product, service or business) refers to the “act of designing a company’s offerings and image so they occupy a meaningful and distinctive competitive position in the customer’s mind” (Kotler, 1995, p. 295). These concepts have been adapted in political marketing to include “segmentation, targeting and positioning” (Egan, 1999, p. 497). By this definition political positioning is primarily a communicative “connection between the party and the (researched) voter” whereby political parties position themselves within the electoral marketplace to “produce and promote a competitive offering to help realise organisational aims and satisfy groups of electors in exchange for their votes” (Egan, 1999, p. 497). Strategic marketing in political campaigns may also describe “political parties as market players” analogous to a company in a marketplace, and whereby parties can be variously positioned as “leader, challenger, follower and nicher” (Collins & Butler, 2002, p. 2). Whereas ‘’leaders’ defend their market share by reinforcing their existing position; ‘challengers’ challenge the position of the leader and often adopt similar strategies to those used by the leader when they first came to power (Collins & Butler, 2002). ‘Followers’ follow by imitating the leader’s political product and adapting it so that it can be sold “in a different market to avoid direct confrontation” (Collins & Butler, 2002, p. 12) and ‘niche’ political marketing specialises in serving the interests of a niche political market (Collins & Butler, 2002). Also sometimes referred to as relationship marketing (Egan, 1999), or social marketing (Kotler & Zaltman,

33 1971; Kotler, 2011), the common aim of political marketing is to influence voter behaviour. Many of these concepts are thus equally applicable to public relations.

However, although there is often an overlap between public relations and marketing, and marketing conceptions of positioning may at times be applicable to public relations, this is not always so (James, 2014). Finding that the “concept of position had not been explored thoroughly outside of the marketing discipline” (James, 2014, p. 17), James (2014) proposed a more strategic conception of positioning in public relations contexts; one that facilitates understanding in terms of how organisations “wield and concede power” and provide “insights into the way elements of practice such as language use and stakeholder engagement come together” to shape meaning- making in society (p. 16). Thus, instead of focusing on how to influence behaviour as in marketing approaches, the focus is on how public relations practitioners work to discursively construct knowledge and belief systems (James, 2014). James’ (2014) work on Positioning Theory is, therefore, based on a social constructionist epistemology. As such, rather than discussing the full body of work on positioning in public relations, the remainder of this section of the literature review focuses on those studies that are similarly underpinned by a social constructionism approach, with attention paid to the use of strategic positioning in political campaigns.

One of the earliest public relations scholars to define positioning from this perspective was Moffitt (1992, 1999, 1999), who argued that devising effective public relations campaign messages required designing messages that matched the multiple traits and public positions of audience members (my italics). Based on her study of State Farm (1992), Moffitt (1994) argued that individuals hold multiple and shifting images and positions as members of groups or publics. Rather than holding a single fixed image and associated position, however, an individual had “almost instantaneous, shifting public positions within him/her” (Moffitt, 1994, p. 167). These shifting images/positions result from the

34 articulation or intersection of multiple “social, organisational and personal” factors that determined an individual’s “knowledge, attitudes, behaviours or images” (Moffitt, 1994, p. 163). For public relations scholarship, this finding meant that individuals had to be viewed as holding multiple “public memberships” and that they could “go in and out of publics with more fluidity and instantaneity” (Moffitt, 1994, p. 167) than had previously been recognised.

Moffitt’s (1994) conceptualisation of a position thus shares similarities with the Positioning Theory of Harré and van Langenhove (1999). Primarily this relates to how Moffitt’s (1994) concept of a position centres on the premise that an individual’s understanding of what something means, which Moffitt (1994) collapses with image (i.e. image/meaning), is a cognitive function formed and shaped not just (for example) by an individual’s gender or socioeconomic status or race, but it is also formed through the intersection of multiple factors including the individual’s personal experiences of gender, race, economic class etc. (Moffitt, 1994, p. 162). Similarly, in social psychological approaches to positioning, a key premise is that a multiplicity of factors can impinge on the range of positions that are available for individuals to take up in any given social episode. These so-called “position clusters” differ “depending on which psychological, physical, characterological, autobiographical, or personality characteristics are taken as salient for the episode in question” (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p.197). Individuals draw on this repertoire to enact different positions appropriate to different contexts or social episodes (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p.2) and this has implications for public relations because, as Moffitt (1994) argues, it reinforces the idea that individuals can and do enact a range of positions depending on the context in which they find themselves.

Motion and Leitch’s (1996) reference to positioning draws on Moffitt (1994) to similarly argue that individuals can hold multiple and shifting images and positions at any one point in time. Where Motion and Leitch (1996) primarily differ is that they also draw on Fairclough (who drew on Foucault) to differentiate between an individual’s social position (i.e. gender/economic) and

35 the different subject positions individuals may occupy. Like Moffitt (1994), they argue that as only one (subject) position and image can ever be in ascendency, meaning-making is a continuous process of different images contending for dominance (Motion & Leitch, 1996). The role of public relations practitioners is to call on these pre-existing perceptions, attitudes or worldviews (be it an organisation, an issue or another person), and articulate this with a desired image or perception (Motion & Leitch, 1996). The process whereby one image dominates over another (even if only momentarily) is called overdetermination and it is through such “discourse articulations” (Motion & Leitch, 1996, p. 300) that meaning is changed or altered. Ultimately the goal of public relations is to discursively shift an individual’s existing image and/or position to an image or subject position that is desired by the entity commissioning the public relations activity (Motion & Leitch, 1996). This critical/social constructionist approach to public relations shares much with the work of James (2010, 2011,2014) in terms of a shared view of public relations as strategically seeking to shape how people construct meaning.

As part of a larger study into women politicians in New Zealand and the public relations practitioners working on their political campaigns, Motion (1999) examined identity construction as a public relations commodity. Personal public relations is defined as “the constitution, positioning, and promotion of individuals to form a public identity” (Motion, 1999, p. 476) (my italics). As with most public relations functions, personal public relations were found to be a planned and strategic process that employed both marketing and public relations techniques (Motion, 1999, p. 468). For example, one practitioner deployed “competitive positioning to compete and gain market share (or in this instance votes)” by highlighting “a defining, or distinguishing, characteristic or feature to create a public identity for a woman politician” (Motion, 1999, p. 468). Another positioning strategy was competitive advantage whereby the politician was “encouraged to assume a market identity and operate in market discourse” (Motion, 1999, p. 469). Yet another practitioner held the view that “the process of positioning was competitive” (p. 474) which, as Motion (1999)

36 argues, is based on a marketing philosophy of strategic differentiation. Thus, in terms of strategically positioning their clients,

Public relations practitioners offered a variety of perspectives on positioning: some practitioners consider that the politician must have a personal philosophy; other practitioners advise on how to create and market a personal philosophy; and other practitioners create the personal philosophy” (Motion, 1999, p. 474).

James (2010) also conducted interviews with senior public relations practitioners and found, much like Motion (1999), that the concept of positioning was a constant in terms of practitioner’s work practices. James (2010, 2014) also found that references to positioning were often about “the way they wanted people to think about something such as a place, an idea, a person, a process, a project, a behaviour and so on” (James, 2014, p. 1). It seems clear that some of the practitioners interviewed in the Motion (1999) study were alluding to something similar, especially in terms of wanting voters to think about politicians and their behaviours as part of strategically constructed personas.

In another study, Motion (2000) drew on Foucault to develop a theoretical framework for the analysis of personal identity work in public relations. The study, sparked by a media report ‘positioning’ the (then) New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clarke as a “lover not a politician” (Motion, 2000, p. 31), sought to shed light on how female politicians discursively positioned themselves as political leaders “rather than allow themselves to be constituted as gendered subjects by others” (p. 32). “Six key themes, or threads of meaning, were identified: history, positioning, commodification, media, aesthetics and morality” (Motion, 2000, p. 33). For the purposes of this study I will focus on Motion’s (2000) discussion of positioning which she defines as,

The attempt to situate oneself within a particular standpoint in a discourse or adopt a particular discourse perspective. As a consequence of positioning oneself within discourse, an individual is created as a subject of that discourse with a designated identity. Positioning may thus become a way for individuals to manage how people think about them (pp. 34-35).

Motion (2000) argues that “the women politicians deployed personal positioning in order to constitute … public identities for themselves” (p. 35) and wherein “personal positioning functioned as a technique of self-promotion” (p. 35). Although Motion (2000) is not specifically applying Positioning Theory, it seems relatively clear-cut that there are conspicuous symmetries between her work and the core concepts that underpin Positioning Theory.

Positioning was also explored in a study that analysed the Catching the Knowledge Wave Conference, undertaken jointly by the New Zealand government and the University of Auckland. Motion (2005) applied a Foucauldian lens to explore how discourse was deployed “to discuss the future of New Zealand” (p. 508) and found that the term ‘knowledge’ was “articulated with both social and economic terms” (p. 508) in a discursive struggle between the political positions of the NZ Labour Government (led by then Prime Minister Helen Clark) and economists. Although it is beyond the scope of this study to detail each of the arguments presented, of special interest is how government policies were positioned through the transformation of discourses or “discourse transformations” (Motion, 2005, p. 508). Existing discourses were found to have been articulated with new meanings so that they changed not only the way that people talked about things, but also their “attitudes and knowledge” (Motion, 2005, p. 508). For example,

Economic articulations included “knowledge economy”; “knowledge capital markets”; “knowledge-intensive industries,” and “knowledge- primed economy”. In contrast, others talked in more social terms of a “knowledge society”, “knowledge-based society” or a “knowledge nation’ (Motion, 2005, p. 508).

As Motion (2005) concludes, applying a discursive lens to these articulations was instrumental in highlighting opposing discourse positions that might otherwise have been masked. It also seems clear that in terms of this research project, an understanding of how the carbon tax/price was articulated and positioned could potentially provide important insights into this phenomenon.

38 Heath (1993) also discusses positioning but does so from a rhetorical perspective. According to Heath (1993), adopting a rhetorical approach contributes to public relations scholarship by recognising, The use of informed, ethically responsible, and thoughtful messages to articulate positions important to key publics and to organisations that seek to advance their prerogatives in an area of collective and conflicting interests (Heath, 1993, p. 183).

These arguments are premised on the notion that people have the capacity for multiple “zones of meaning” (Heath, 1993, p. 142) and whereby “terministic screens” or interpretative frames shape and limit people’s “interpretations of reality” and “prescribe which behaviours are normative” (Heath, 1993, p. 142). Terministic screens that are embedded in idioms, for example sexism, racism, globalism, environmentalism et cetera, “become zones of meaning once identifiable groups of people subscribe to them” (Heath, 1993, p. 142). According to Heath (1993), public relations can add value to organisations by communicating with key publics and positioning their organisations amid these “compatible, conflicting, and competing interpretative frames” (p. 142). Although Heath (1993) advocates that a rhetorical approach is ethically responsible, and this approach can be conceptualised within a discursive framework through acknowledgement of discursive idioms, it could also be argued that this approach remains fundamentally functionalist. Indeed, Heath (1993) suggests that his arguments for a “rhetorical paradigm” (p. 141) align with Grunig’s concept of two-way symmetry and systems theory that are critiqued by some scholars as being essentially a functionalist theory. It could also be argued, on this basis, that the aim of communicating rhetorically as defined by Heath (1993) is ultimately to discursively shape people’s understanding so that it aligns with the organisation’s position. Some might also argue then, that this could be construed as being somewhat manipulative.

Roper (2005, 2012) is another public relations scholar who has contributed to furthering understanding of positioning, particularly as it relates to political positioning. In a study examining political identity construction by New Zealand political parties, Roper (2005) drew on Bourdieu to argue that the

39 political sphere consists of competing discourses which encompass a range of discursive positions, with what is acceptable in terms of discursive positions and identities defined and limited by “the social norms of a given time and place” (p. 140). Public relations practitioners use social science research to construct discourses to sell to political consumers, with political entities discursively positioning themselves as “unique selves” (Roper, 2005, p. 141). Such political positions must coincide with the “interests, values and discourses” of voters (Roper, 2005, p. 141), but by politicians differentiating their political identity from that of their opponents, consumers are offered a choice within the political marketplace. Roper (2005) notes that although this conceptualisation is somewhat aligned with marketing conceptions of positioning, in terms of the political sphere being a marketplace, it also clearly shares similarities to Positioning Theory in terms of identity construction and the range of acceptable discourses that may be taken up by political entities.

In a 10-year longitudinal study, Roper (2012) examined the political positioning of New Zealand as “clean and green” and as the world’s first truly sustainable country (p. 74). Primarily a branding strategy, the aims of the campaign were also primarily economic in that they were a crucial part of the government’s broader economic growth strategy (Roper, 2012). However, as in Australia (Wannell, 2010), most New Zealanders share a neo-liberal ideology wherein they are (or were at the time) “opposed to government interference in business practice” (Roper, 2012, p. 83). Thus the promulgation of pro-climate change mitigation discourses took place within a highly-contested environment, where neo-liberal economic discourses sought to gain primacy in the minds of voters. In many respects then, there are parallels with the contested Australian environment in which Gillard sought to position a carbon emissions trading scheme in 2011, with the New Zealand experience. Roper’s (2012) study also highlights the role of public relations in developing positioning strategies, particularly on behalf of lobbying organisations which, as was discussed in Chapter 2, have been hugely influential in stifling action on climate change not only in Australia and New Zealand, but also globally. Roper (2102) argues that

40 the answer lies in making moral arguments that privilege the needs of the environment over the needs of big business. It is also an area that Positioning Theory, and James’ (2014) Framework that applies Positioning Theory, could be of benefit in terms of understanding how some discourses gain legitimacy over others through an examination of the (moral) rights and duties to take particular positions.

Many of the arguments put forth by Roper (2005, 2012) in relation to the role of public relations in constructing discourses to shape public understanding, particularly as it relates to climate change, are further developed in her most recent (2016) article written with fellow public relations scholars Shiv Ganesh and Theordore E. Zorn. Roper, Ganesh and Zorn (2016) combine Bourdieu’s work on political and social fields with the concept of articulation to provide a framework from which to examine how climate change skeptics develop strategies to “politicise climate change, generate debate, and delay political action” (p. 776). Their study specifically analysed publications issued by the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition, an “organization with strong links to U.S. conservative think tanks” (Roper, et al, 2016, p. 776). Although Roper et al (2016) do not refer to the strategies of this organisation in terms of strategic positioning, the concept of articulating ideas so that they align with the pre- conceived ideas of publics or audiences is clearly drawing on the earlier scholarship of Motion (2005), Motion and Leitch (1996) and Moffitt (1994) on discourse articulations. Thus,

When a discourse resonates with already established beliefs, identification occurs. The greater the scope of recognition, the more powerful (and persuasive) is the discourse. If identification with a particular discourse occurs for a broad majority of people, it may well become common sense, and neutralized in the center (Roper, et al, 2016, p. 783).

Motion and Leitch (1996, 2010) describe this neutralizing process in terms of discourse transformations that are considered to have been achieved when they succeed in shifting or changing established ways of thinking, and whereby the

41 discourse succeeds in assuming a taken for granted or ‘truth’ status. These processes of identification and discourse transformation are not, however, always easily achieved, with public relations practitioners engaged in discursive struggles over power, knowledge and what constitutes truth (Motion & Doolin, 2007). Clearly these processes have relevance to strategic positioning in public relations wherein, through the enactment of storylines, speech acts and positions, practitioners seek to shift socio-cultural discourses to align with the positioning goals of the commissioning entity.

3.1.4 Where do public relations and Positioning Theory scholarship on strategic positioning converge?

The convergence between Positioning Theory and public relations scholarship in terms of strategic positioning was first made explicit in a study by Motion and Doolin (2007). Motion and Doolin (2007) applied Davies and Harré’s (1990) Positioning Theory concept of “multiplicities of ‘self’’ (p. 47) to examine “how scientists discursively negotiate and make sense of their encounters with activists, the range of subject positions they claim, and how power is implicated in identification with the public” (Davies & Harré, 1990, p. 63). Drawing on Davies and Harré (1990), Motion and Doolin (2007) argue that, By taking up positions in discourses, individuals construct identities reflexively, by locating themselves, or interactively, by locating others, through their discursive practices. Although positioning is not necessarily intentional, there remains the notional possibility that individuals may actively claim identities by taking up a particular position made available from a range of discourses (pp. 65-66).

The scientists they interviewed were found to have drawn on and located themselves “between multiple scientific and social subject positions to position scientists as publicly motivated and working in the public interest” (Motion & Doolin, 2007, p. 81). In terms of social discourses, scientists positioned themselves “as members of the public, whether as threatened citizens, older people with ‘lived experience’, or community members and working parents”

42 (Motion & Doolin, 2007, p. 81). These positions, enacted through a range of narratives, were used as a discursive resource when scientific discourses were “unable to counter emotional appeals or ambiguity in the application of science” (Motion & Doolin, 2007, p. 81). The outcome was that by positioning themselves as members of the public, the public were reassured that scientists, “as part of society, work in the public interest” (Motion & Doolin, 2007, p. 81). In this way, what constituted the public interest became a discursive resource competed for, and deployed by, both scientists and activists to influence public opinion (Motion & Doolin, 2007), with both sides engaged in a struggle to occupy “a discursive space in which their actions and discourse are perceived as moral and legitimate, and in which they are positioned as the appropriate representatives of and spokespersons for the public and its interests” (Motion & Doolin, 2007, p. 82). This not only highlights the “centrality of knowledge, power, and truth in social controversies” (Motion & Doolin, 2007, p. 82) but it also accentuates the importance of strategic intent in public relations positioning episodes (James, 2010, 2011, 2014,). From this perspective, social actors can be seen to strategically adopt various subject positions to achieve specific and pre-determined outcomes. Quite clearly, this has implications for the current study in terms of the controversy that was played out over the issue of carbon pricing, and the positioning strategies of those involved.

The insights provided by Motion and Doolin (2007) in terms of the relevance of Positioning Theory to public relations, were followed in 2010 by Leitch and Motion’s (2010) observation that Positioning Theory offers potential for the public relations field. In particular, their argument that amongst the strengths Positioning Theory can offer is “a more active concept that explains the process whereby subject positions are created for publics and transformed relative to other subject positions” (Leitch & Motion, 2010, p. 106) was insightful. They conclude that the concept of discursive positioning is “of central importance in public relations work” (Leitch & Motion, 2010, p. 106) and James’ work adapting Positioning Theory to public relations can be seen to be contributing to scholarship within this tradition. Indeed, as James (2014) argues, the

43 relationship between critical public relations scholarship and Positioning Theory is becoming clearer and provides “a strong foundation for future positioning research” (James, 2014, p. 22). However, despite these apparent affiliations, and apart from the scholarship of Motion & Doolin (2007), Motion and Leitch (2010), James (2010, 2011, 2014) and, more recently, Tsetsura (2014), few public relations scholars have engaged with Positioning Theory.

Another area in which convergences between Positioning Theory and public relations are evident is in scholarship on personas. In Positioning Theory “organisations are perceived as having personas of sorts” (James, 2014, p. 15, see also Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 8), however most Positioning Theory scholarship focuses on the personas of individuals. From this perspective, the self or personal identity we attribute to ourselves (which is coupled with our sense of personal agency) differs from the self that we publicly present “in the episodes of interpersonal interaction in the everyday world” (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 7). These “coherent clusters of traits” are sometimes referred to in Positioning Theory as personas (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 7) and are “created primarily in the process of engaging in certain types of spoken discourse (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 8). Thus, each person has a repertoire of personas “any one of which can be dominant in one’s mode of self presentation in a particular context” (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999 p. 7). It is also important to note that a person’s “personal identity still persists ‘behind’ the publicly presented repertoire of one’s personae” (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 7). This is very different from an organisational approach to personas as is often found in public relations scholarship, as organisations cannot be said to have a ‘personal identity’ such as would be experienced by a person.

Positioning Theory concepts of personas do not differ significantly from how personas were first conceptualised by Goffman (1959). Goffman argued that personas are the front-stage “dramatic realization” (p. 30) of an idealised and controlled self, which is consistent with the norms and values of society. This idea of norms and values could be extrapolated to mean local moral orders in a

44 Positioning Theory sense. According to Goffman (1990), through processes of impression management and the control (or lack thereof) of verbal and non- verbal signification, actors attempt to convince their audience of the appropriateness of their behaviour and the legitimacy of their social role. Like Goffman (1959; 1990), Harré & van Langenhove (1999) also argue that, from a Positioning Theory perspective, saying or doing things must fit “coherently into a locally acceptable cluster of the types of behaviour that define a persona” (p. 8). Of relevance to public relations is that from a Positioning Theory perspective, to successfully carry off a persona requires “the social cooperation or consent of others” (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 8). Failure to provide this social recognition impacts not only on how an entity’s behaviour is perceived, but also “the ways in which the person is then treated by others” (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 8). Ultimately, without social acceptance “personas cannot be constructed at all” (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 8). There is a clear link then, between this concept and the public relations concept of entities requiring a "social license to operate" through the building or creation of trust and, with that, societal legitimacy (Ihlen & van Ruler, 2009, p. 1).

In public relations scholarship, the concept of personas originally developed from the fields of image and impression management, where the focus was on achieving public acceptance through “aesthetics and the correct media performance” (Motion, 1999, p. 466). This scholarship drew directly from Goffman’s (1959) work on impression management, but was criticised as having associations with deception and manipulation and consequently ‘identity’ and ‘identity management’ became more acceptable terms (Motion, 1999). For example, Image Repair or Image Restoration Theory (IRT, see Benoit, 1995) was developed to be applicable to any threat to a public persona, and has been applied to the study of politicians, corporations and celebrities (Coombs, 2011, p. 215) (also see Benoit,1995; Benoit & Brinson, 1994). From this perspective, the focus is on determining the correct strategies to protect organisational personas (Coombs, 2011, p. 215), thereby maintaining organisational legitimacy.

45 Such strategies are often part of corporate crisis communications, where a crisis may trigger “questions of social legitimacy and organisational reputation” (Coombs, 2011, p. 215). Organisational personas may also enable people to form parasocial relationships with organisations whereby, although they “never really interact with the persona” they nonetheless “perceive that a relationship and interaction exists” (Coombs & Holladay, 2015, p. 693). Motion’s (1999) work on the construction of political personas is particularly valuable here, and the way in which it could be melded with Image Repair or Image Restoration theory (IRT, see Benoit, 1995) in a Positioning Theory context is evident.

Mackey (2016) has recently argued that the key link, as well as the key difference, between studies of personas in public relations scholarship and other academic fields (for example the work of Goffman), is in terms of how identity is defined. He argues, The term identity is usually deployed at the internal, psychological, subjective level by scholars of persona while it is usually applied to external, material objects and events by the public relations industry and its academia (Mackey, 2016, p. 84).

Although Mackey (2016) argues for a rhetorical approach towards unifying both of these approaches, James (2014) approach that advocates applying Positioning Theory and the intertwined concepts of local moral orders and rights and duties, as well as Motion’s (1999) work on the development of personal personas in political settings, has the potential to bridge the gap between how personas are conceptualised at both subjective and organisational levels.

What Positioning Theory most contributes to public relations scholarship on personas then, is the recognition that difficulties may arise if the persona does not align or fit within the prevailing local moral order and the rights and duties of entities to adopt particular personas (James, 2014). James (2014) draws on both public relations and Positioning Theory scholarship to argue that it is through the social interaction of parties in the positioning episode that personas are manifested. This has relevance to public relations in terms of what

46 is presented as a persona through words and actions, must differ in order to accommodate differences in different situations (James, 2014). James (2014) argues, All positions taken might be with the view to achieving the same overall goal or mission. One can see that it may cause problems for an organization if the inappropriate persona was presented in a particular situation, that is, that the positioning was not in accordance to the local moral order which determines what is right to do and say (p. 30).

Organisations may have multiple personas whereby, dependent on the context, any one personae may dominate at a single point in time (James, 2014). For example, an organisation may wish to be variously perceived/position as “community-minded in a civic forum; as maximizing return on investment at a shareholders’ meeting; or as environmentally responsible to government regulators” (James, 2014, p. 15). In each of these situations different personas are enacted “to accommodate the differences in the situations” (James, 2014, p. 15). From a public relations Positioning Theory perspective James’ (2014) conceptualisation of a persona thus constitutes a “point of intentional representation” (James, 2014, p. 207) and these can be seen to play a pivotal role in terms of strategic positioning for both individuals and organisations alike.

A further area in which there is considerable convergence between public relations and Positioning Theory scholarship relates to the concept of framing, described by Hallahan (1999) as a “potentially useful paradigm for examining the strategic creation of public relations messages” (p. 205). This relates to strategic positioning in terms of framing contests, whereby public relations practitioners are said to “strive to position clients and their products or services so they will be evaluated favorably and so key publics will respond in a desired way when they buy, invest, donate, work, or vote” (James, 2014, p. 225). One of the ways in which clients and products are positioned is through attribute framing involving “creating positively valenced associations with beliefs and values, traditions and rituals, or with other cultural artifacts that people cherish” (Hallahan, 1999, p.225) For example, this could be extrapolated to the framing/positioning of a product as being environmentally friendly or a carbon

47 price as being good for the economy. James (2014) draws on the work of Hallahan (1999) to argue that there is a link between framing and positioning, wherein framing is “a process not just of inclusion but also of exclusion, and of adding emphases to specific elements” (p. 23). This effectively delimits the subject matter (Hallahan, 1999, p. 207) and shows (James, 2014) argues, “the strategic nature of positioning ansheds light on some of the ways that public relations works to co-construct meaning through the use of messaging techniques” (p. 23). Although James (2014) argues that often conceptualisations of framing in public relations scholarship fail to fully encapsulate positioning “for the field as a whole” (p. 21), it is clear there is an overlap between Positioning Theory and framing theory.

The corollary between Positioning Theory and framing theory was recently explored in a study examining the strategic positioning of Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) (Zerfass, Verčič, & Wiesenberg, 2016). Zerfass et al (2016) argue that strategic positioning constructs a “frame of reference for corporate communications” and, drawing on Ries and Trout (1981), that such positioning is undertaken with the aim of “owning a concept or word in the public mind, relative to the position of competitors” (p. 38). On this basis Zerfass et al (2016) also argue that James’ (2014) development of Positioning Theory for public relations is, in effect, a derivative of framing theory. But while accepting that Positioning Theory shares some similarities with other theories and concepts, for example Goffman’s (1959) work on personas and framing theory (e.g. Hallahan, 1999), there are also distinguishable differences that are unique to Positioning Theory. As Sengul and James (2016) argue, “applying Positioning Theory, one can see that positioning in public relations and communication management is more complex, being discursively constructed and focused on rights, duties and the local moral orders in operation at the sites of positioning” (n.p.). As such, while the study by Zerfass et al (2016) is insightful in terms of conceptualising strategic positioning which, as this review of the literature has argued, remains an area of public relations scholarship that is under-explored, there are distinctions between Positioning Theory and framing. Most

48 particularly this relates to the inter-twined concepts of rights and duties and local moral orders and these are delved into in more detail in the following section of this review.

3.1.5 Summary Evidence has been presented that suggests that the concepts of strategy and positioning have been applied by various scholars and taken to mean various things in public relations scholarship. However, despite being important conceptual tools widely applied in practice, there is no single encapsulating definition of either positioning, or of strategy in the public relations literature. Evidence was also presented that suggested strategy in public relations is inextricably linked to power, even if this connection is not always observable or theorised as such. Many conceptualisations refer to positioning in marketing terms, however although there is often an overlap between public relations and marketing, and marketing conceptions of positioning may be applicable to public relations, this is not always so (James, 2014).

The review further showed how positioning as conceptualised in public relations scholarship has developed along a continuum, and there are clear convergences between public relations and Positioning Theory scholarship within these continua. These affiliations are most evident in public relations scholarship undertaken from a discursive perspective, including rhetorical and critical approaches, and it is clear that James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) work applying Positioning Theory to public relations, aligns with this approach. Strategic positioning can thus be conceptualised as a discursive process of intentional representation, whereby the purpose of public relations communication is to shape or shift public understanding in the contested space where such meanings are constructed.

Evidence was also presented that showed convergences between public relations and Positioning Theory scholarship on identity and personas, and work undertaken by Motion (2005), and Motion and Doolin (2007) is

49 particularly valuable here. Applying Positioning Theory as conceptualised by James (2010, 2011, 2014), further suggested that personas are examples of intentional representation, and applying her Framework (2014) permits an analysis of the rights and duties of entities to adopt particular personas. Also valuable is Hallahan’s (1999) discussion of framing, which showed the overlap between Positioning Theory and public relations scholarship in this area. Zerfass et al (2016) have recently argued that strategic positioning provides a referential frame for public relations communications, however they also critique James’ (2010, 0211, 2014) work applying Positioning Theory to public relations as being, in effect, a form of framing. As the next section of the literature review explores, this overlooks the inter-twined concepts of rights and duties and local moral orders that underpin Positioning Theory, and also that of strategic positioning in public relations contexts.

3.2 What are the origins of Positioning Theory?

3.2.1 Introduction The review of the literature now turns to a discussion of Positioning Theory, and the origins of the theory, to provide a contextual backdrop and history. A key focus of this section is an examination of the Positioning Theory literature that applies Positioning Theory to examine conflicts, and more particularly political conflicts, to again provide a context and history.

3.2.2 Discussion Positioning has traditionally been associated with military campaigns (Baert, 2012; Harré & van Langenhove, 1999; Harré & van Langenhove, 1991) and, wherein, a position is often conceptualised as something “taken against the position of the enemy” (Harré & van Langenhove, 2010, p. 108). The concept of positioning has also been widely applied in both social and psychological academic literature (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999), and it features

50 prominently in marketing literature (James, 2010, 2011, 2014). In marketing contexts positioning is a communication strategy that allows one to position a product against those of competitors (Harré & van Langenhove, 2010, p. 107; James, 2010, 2014; Zelle, 2009). Often this is used in conjunction with the “4 Ps” of product, place, price and promotion, with most based on the work of Ries and Trout (1981; 2001) who proposed that “things” (i.e. a product, service, or business) are all products that can be positioned “in the mind of a prospect” (Ries & Trout, 2001, p. 2). This is achieved not by creating “something new and different”, but rather by manipulating “what's already up there in the mind to retie the connections that already exist” (Ries & Trout, 2001, p. 5). Ries and Trout’s (2001) development of this concept was hugely influential and largely established how ‘positioning’ came to be conceptualised in both marketing and in public relations scholarship and literature.

Positioning Theory differs by being a social constructionist approach (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999; Kroløkke, 2009; Slocum-Bradley, 2010a, 2010b, Wood & Kroger, 2000) that originated from Foucaldian influenced feminists concerned with “altering the positions of women in society” (Boxer, 2003, n.p.). According to Kroløkke (2009), one of the first scholars to illustrate the workings of Positioning Theory was psychologist Wendy Hollway, who demonstrated how people take up and negotiate their gender-related places in conversations. Social psychologists Jonathan Potter and Margaret Wetherell, psychologists Rom Harré and Bronwyn Davies, and sociologist Luk Van Langenhove are most often seen as the founders of Positioning Theory. They share a social- constructionist approach to how communication shapes identity (Kroløkke, 2009, p. 765).

Hollway (1984) analysed gender differentiation and subjectivity in discourses, and argued that in relation to the construction of subjectivity in heterosexual relations, Discourses make available positions for subjects to take up. These positions are in relation to other people. Like the subject and object of a

51 sentence…women and men are placed in relation to each other through the meanings which a particular discourse makes available (p. 236).

Positioning Theory also emerged out of social psychology “in part as an alternative to role theory in an attempt to better account for the complexity of human participation in social settings” (Acevedo, Aho, Cela, Chao, Garcia- Gonzales, MacLeod, Moutray & Olague, 2015, p. 32). Davies and Harré (1990) were critical of role theory within social psychology, arguing that they construed people “as actors with lines already written and their roles determined by the particular play they find themselves in” (p. 52). Harré and van Langenhove (1999) developed their conceptualisation of Positioning Theory based on Hollway’s (1984) work, as well as the advertising and marketing concept of positioning developed by Ries and Trout (1981). Harré (2012) states, Positioning Theory developed as a method of analysis aimed at revealing the storylines and implicit (sometimes explicit) ascriptions and resistances to ascriptions of rights and duties to perform actions expressing social acts appropriate to the situations recognized by participants in a strip of life (p. 191).

Clearly Hollway’s (1984) concept of positioning, as well as the social psychology approach of Davies and Harré (1990), and Harré and van Langenhove (1999), shares much with the work of Motion and other public relations scholars working within a discursive paradigm at around this same time (James, 2014).

Since the 1980s, Positioning Theory has been variously applied to examine social interactions between individuals, groups, organisations and nations. It has especially been taken up in the field of education (e.g. Redman, 2004; Acevedo, Aho, Cela, Chao, Garcia-Gonzales, MacLeod, Moutray & Olague, 2015; Dixon, 2006; Wagner & Herbel-Eisenmann, 2009) and it has also included research in areas as varied as anthropology (e.g. Handelman, 2008), journalism (e.g. Miller,2013; Weizman, 2008), midwifery (e.g. Phillips & Hays, 2008), organisational change studies (e.g. Zelle, 2009), workplace agency (e.g. Redman, 2013), organisational conflict (e.g. Ghosten, 2012), cultural studies (e.g. Hirvonen, 2016), political identity studies (e.g. Slocum-Bradley, 2008), health education (e.g Sargeant , McLean, Green & Johnson, 2017), and public relations

52 and strategic communication (e.g. James 2014; Leitch and Motion, 2010; Tsetsura, 2012; Wise and James, 2013; Wise, 2015; Zerfass, Verčič, Wiesenberg, 2016). Recent work has also included close attention to political activity and the grounds under which positioning acts can occur, including interest in the attributes and historical backgrounds “germane to the ascription, refusal, assumptions, and so on, of positions in the psychological processes in which people become involved” (Harré, Moghaddam, Pilkerton Cairnie, Rothbart & Sabat, 2009, p. 29). As an important social phenomenon, the way that candidates preposition themselves preparing the ground for claims to the moral high ground, will continue to be research domains of future concern (Harré et al, 2009). This last point was thus influential in determining the ‘case’ for this study.

Many Positioning Theory studies also focus on conflicts or disputes. Winslade (2006) examined the deconstruction of discourses in the production of disputes and although he does so within the context of mediation, there are some similarities between discourse articulations (Motion, 2005) and the deconstruction of discourse from a Positioning Theory perspective. Like Motion (2005), Winslade (2006) applied a Foucaldian lens to examine conflict and argues that from this perspective,

Positioning Theory provides a bridge between the local moral order of a relation and the wider social discourse in which it is but one example among many. It does this through taking account of how an utterance can be responsive not just to the immediately preceding utterance but also to utterances in many other conversations in the discourse on a certain theme … When there are dominating discourses at work that provide insistent positions from which to make sense of the immediate utterance of the other, they can exert a strong pull on what is said in the direction of the dominating discourse and can discourage options for refusal or contradiction (p. 507).

In particular, the concept of utterances having a theme and how they then come to dominate over other discourses, are concepts that appear to be immanently applicable to public relations concepts of strategic positioning.

53 Another area of interest to positioning theorists is political conflict. As Moghaddam and Harré (2010) argue, “politics and diversity of opinion march together” and this diversity can readily escalate into situations of conflict (p. 2). Most traditional applications of Positioning Theory tend to focus on the “flow of talking and writing within which the hostile action of the conflict is usually set” (Moghaddam, Harré & Lee, 2008, p. 4) rather than the conflicts themselves. This is because it is through talk that “explicit beliefs become visible” and whereby “at the heart of such talk, and the literature that condenses and crystallizes it, are narratives” (Moghaddam, Harré & Lee, 2008, p. 4) and storylines. From this perspective, “the utterances and acts occurring within a given storyline are addressed” (Henriksen, 2008, p. 43) and whereby, “instead of seeing conflicts as a choice between two more or less opposing perspectives … attention is paid to the social dynamics of conflicts, rather than seeing it as something itself” (Henriksen, 2008, p. 43). It can be seen from this that Positioning Theory thus potentially offers a new way to examine conflicts in public relations settings through an analysis of storylines and narratives and how they constitute social reality.

While not exhaustive, to date Positioning Theory studies into political conflicts have included: an analysis of intergroup conflicts in the Philippine political diaspora (Montiel & de Guzman, 2010); conflict between the Office of the (U.S.) President and his political appointees (Pilkerton Cairnie, 2010, p. 47); political positioning in debates between U.S. Presidential contenders Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton (Harré and Rossetti, 2010); a positioning case study of U.S.-Iran relations from 2005-2008 that analysed the political discourses of former U.S. president George Bush and Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (Konaev and Moghaddam, 2010); a historical case study of the positioning of Dr Ian Paisley and the Northern Ireland conflict (Benson, 2010); a detailed study of the positioning strategies of Indonesia and its ‘good friend’ Australia (James, 2014); and, originating from this study, the political conflict over carbon pricing in Australia (Wise & James, 2013). Slocum/Slocum-Bradley, together with other authors, have also contributed in this area, with positioning analyses that have

54 variously examined: how regions are constructed as actors in relation to regional integration (RI) in Europe (Slocum & van Langenhove, 2004); a study into how the African-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP) Group was constructed and deconstructed in discourse (Slocum- Bradley, 2007); an analysis of identity construction at the U.S.-Mexico Border (Slocum-Bradley, 2008, 2016); an examination of the discursive production of conflict in Rwanda (Slocum- Bradley, 2008); and an analysis of the discourses surrounding the Danish euro referendum and how discursively constructed identities were instrumental in promoting either a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ vote (Slocum-Bradley, 2010b). Positioning Theory thus offers a rich vein for researchers who are interested in examining how ‘truths’ are discursively constructed, and how conflicts can evolve and escalate. It also suggests that Positioning Theory might provide insights into how legitimacy is constructed and maintained in public relations.

3.2.3 Summary Positioning Theory is a social constructionist approach and the evidence presented suggests that Hollway’s (1984) concept of positioning, as well as the social psychology approach of Davies and Harré (1990), and Harré and van Langenhove (1999), shares much with the work of Motion and other public relations scholars working within a discursive paradigm at around this same time. The evidence further showed that Positioning Theory has been applied in a variety of academic fields, including in the political sphere where the focus is on the grounds under which positioning acts can occur. This suggests that Positioning Theory is particularly appropriate in examining situations of conflict, including political conflicts wherein the focus is on the rights and duties of entities, as manifested in discourse, and the social dynamics that contribute to battles over legitimacy.

55 3.3 What is strategic positioning in Positioning Theory?

3.3.1 Introduction The review now narrows to explore the Positioning Theory literature that specifically examines strategic positioning. The intention was to again provide a context and history but more specifically to provide a context to James’ work applying Positioning Theory (Harré & Davies, 1990; Harré & van Langenhove, 1999) to public relations. In these contexts, public relations positioning is conceptualised as an intentional and strategic practice and thus may not always be consistent with more traditional approaches to Positioning Theory.

3.3.2 Discussion From a Positioning Theory perspective, strategic positioning involves the attributing of rights and duties “to the advantage of the person” performing the positioning acts (Moghaddam Harré & Lee, 2008, p. 294). Although many Positioning Theory analyses don't specifically discuss positioning in terms of having a pre-determined strategy, a study by Brinkmann (2010) sheds further light on this concept. Brinkmann (2010) applied Positioning Theory to examine how a cyclist who was caught taking a banned substance (EPO), and then lied about it, undertook a strategic performance using a “strategic speech act of taking moral responsibility … coupled with a more strategic concern for the survival of his cycling team” (p. 263). These positioning strategies exemplify, as James (2014) argues, how in public relations contexts practitioners discursively construct points “of intentional representation” or “positions” (James, 2014, p. 89). From a Positioning Theory perspective, these techniques could also be explained in terms of “performative positioning” (Slocum Bradley, 2007, p. 638) or when “one positions oneself and others through the discursive acts one performs” (Slocum Bradley, 2007, p. 638). However, the cyclist’s performance did not include the performance of guilt (which was the socio-cultural expectation) and thus he was perceived as transgressing the local moral order (Brinkmann, 2010). The outcome was that the cyclist was not attributed the

56 right by many Danish people to position as taking a moral stance, and ultimately led to a loss of social capital and legitimacy.

Where Positioning Theory further adds to these understandings is that it also accounts for “social flux” (Boxer, 2003, p. 260) or the social forces or dynamics that can “affect the set of solutions to issues requiring resolution” (Boxer, 2003, p. 260). Returning to the Brinkmann (2010) study (above), applying Positioning Theory elucidated how various social forces were at play, including the societal expectation about how sporting people should perform ‘guilt’ or contrition when caught out taking banned substances. It is also highly likely that the cyclist in question was advised on the ‘correct’ position to take by a public relations practitioner(s). As Fitch, James and Motion (2015) argue, “it is in the social space that public relations practitioners work to influence the way positioning takes place, from the strategic conceptualization stage right through to the evaluation points of programs and campaigns” (Fitch, James & Motion, 2015, p. 283) and it would be unlikely that public relations advice was not sought given the social prestige of the cyclist in question. It is also conceivable that an understanding of Positioning Theory and the rights and duties to take particular positions within the context of fluctuating social dynamics and forces, could have potentially resulted in a better-considered public relations strategy in this circumstance.

Baert (2012) also discusses strategic positioning and argues that “Positioning Theory provides the conceptual tools to investigate how entities” (and here Baert is specifically referring to ‘intellectuals’) “and their products might acquire strategic (dis)advantages within the cultural and political arenas in which they find themselves or in which those texts or ideas are appropriated” (p. 321). By ‘products’ Baert (2012) is referring to the cultural artefacts of academics such as autobiographies, books, research articles, blogs and speeches et cetera (p. 304). Texts, from this perspective, do not have an “intrinsic meaning as such” but rather they acquire meaning in a setting and are

57 “dependent on the status, position and trajectory of the author(s) and on the other intellectual products available at the time” (Baert, 2012, p. 304). Drawing on Bourdieu (1984), it can be seen that the success or not of this positioning strategy is dependent on the social and cultural capital of the author, and wherein texts are strategically deployed with the aim of deriving power for the author (p. 498). Baert (2012) seems to be also arguing, as James (2014) argues, that products can be strategically positioned. Whether this is a marketing concept of positioning or positioning as conceptualised by Harré and van Langenhove (1999) is, however, less clear.

James (2014) examined the enactment of power in terms of strategic positioning and, like Baert (2012), discussed this within the social context of academia. Through the application of the positioning type domain (i.e. James, 2010, 2011, 2014), James (2014) analysed the positioning of herself (as an academic) and her academic work (a cultural artefact) and found that by “striving to position my work and myself in a particular way … it is clear that my efforts are an exercise in deliberate self-positioning” (p. 207). Central to such self-positioning strategies is the issue of power, which is “multi-layered but … centered on the actual sayings/actions of each of the parties that are part of the positioning episode (author, publisher, reviewers, readers and so on)” (James, 2014, p. 207). James (2014) concludes that each of these entities has “the power to shape certain aspects of the social world, namely the positioning of my (James’) work in the public relations field, and myself as one of its scholars” (James, 2014, p. 207). This finding is therefore like that of Baert (2012) wherein, from a strategic Positioning Theory perspective, the relative power of entities is related to their rights and duties within the social milieu in which the positioning is being undertaken.

Pilkerton Cairnie (2010) also provide an example of strategic positioning in a political context (although they don't specifically call it this) and, as with the Brinkmann (2010) study, their research could also be conceptualised as being an example of public relations strategic positioning. Their study centred on U.S.

58 Vice President Cheney’s positioning of (then) President George Bush as having the “ultimate moral authority for assigning and deleting rights, duties and obligations in order to act in a dangerous world” (p. 61). They argue that this strategy was successful because of Cheney’s right, based on his long history working in the U.S. Administration, to position Bush in this manner. This study also demonstrates how Positioning Theory aims to understand the dynamics of social episodes not only in terms of the roles that people play, for example the roles of President and Vice President, but it also considers their previous conversations and the history of their interactions as well as “the specific dynamics of that one single episode” (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 6). These then make ‘what is going on’ understandable for participants in the unfolding social episode, and it also distinguishes Positioning Theory from other similar theoretical approaches.

One of the greatest contributions that Positioning Theory brings to public relations, then, is that it allows an examination of how power is strategically deployed by examining “what kinds … can be wielded, by whom, in such situations” (James, 2014, p. 5). From a traditional Positioning Theory perspective, and as exemplified in the previous Bush/Cheney example (Pilkerton Cairnie, 2010), the enactment of power involves the “concepts and principles from the local moral domain, usually appearing as beliefs and practices involving rights and duties” (Harré, Moghaddam, Pilkerton, Cairnie, Rothbart & Sabat, 2009, p. 6). In public relations positioning contexts, power is wielded through the strategic implementation of a position (or by assigning one to another entity i.e. a situation of intentional self or other positioning) “to achieve a desired outcome” for the client/organisation (James, 2014, p. 49). Through acts of discursive positioning, public relations practitioners seek to define on behalf of their clients/employers “situations, entities, value premises and social norms, even ways of thinking and acting” (James, 2014, p. 59). Such actions are neither inherently good nor bad (James, 2014) but rather it is “the strategic use of power and the end to which it is used” (Heath, Motion & Leitch, 2010, p. 195) that determines the merits or not of positioning efforts.

59 3.3.3 Summary From a Positioning Theory perspective, strategic positioning involves the attributing of rights and duties “to the advantage of the person” performing the positioning acts (Moghaddam Harré & Lee, 2008, p. 294). However, many Positioning Theory analyses don't specifically discuss positioning in terms of having a pre-determined strategy and this is where James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) work is insightful. Evidence was presented which showed how positioning strategies are deployed to discursively construct points “of intentional representation” or “positions” (James, 2014, p. 89). It was also shown that failure to adhere to the local moral order resulted in entities not being attributed the rights to take particular positions, and this ultimately led to a lack of legitimacy for the entities involved.

Positioning Theory was also shown to account for “social flux” (Boxer, 2003, p. 260) and this has relevance for public relations in terms of developing positioning strategies, as it facilitates an examination of the social dynamics in which positioning takes place. More than the roles that people play, evidence was also presented that shows that Positioning Theory considers the history of interactions as well as “the specific dynamics of that one single episode” (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, pp. 5- 6). It is this that makes ‘what is going on’ understandable for participants in the unfolding social episode, and it thus distinguishes Positioning Theory from other similar theoretical approaches. Finally, evidence was presented that shows that Positioning Theory allows an examination of how power is strategically deployed in public relations contexts; a process that is neither inherently good or bad, but rather it is “the strategic use of power and the end to which it is used” (Heath, Motion & Leitch, 2010, p. 195) that most matters.

3.4 Frameworks: Are they useful in public relations?

3.4.1 Introduction One of the questions that this thesis addresses is whether taking a ‘framework’

60 approach was a viable course of action or whether such a framework, as it has been developed over the ensuing years, remains useful for the field. James (2009), in her earliest work on identifying positioning as a key aspect of public relations practice, went on to present a Provisional Conceptual Framework for Intentional Positioning in Public Relations (2010, 2011) for consideration of the field. Since James’ initial (2010, 2011) framework was developed, it has been applied to analyse whether public relations positioning in government communication campaigns differed from marketing conceptions of positioning (James, 2010); how positioning was undertaken in a case study of 57 Australian Golden Target Award entries - a prestigious Australian public relations competition (James, 2011); how Indonesia and Australia strategically positioned during a one-week period in relation to the Australian Government’s ‘Operation Sovereign Borders’ policy (James, 2014); and, as part of the current study, how positioning was undertaken in the speeches of two opposing Australian political leaders (Wise and James, 2013; Wise, 2015). The framework has also been tested for its utility when developing positioning strategies for public relations campaigns (James, 2012). These studies have contributed to the growing literature applying Positioning Theory to public relations and it seems clear that James followed others in the public relations field in attempting to encapsulate a theoretic approach in a framework, perhaps recognising the primarily applied nature of the field.

Nevertheless, as this review of the academic literature has made apparent, conceptualising public relations is less than straight forward. One way of making sense of this complexity is to apply conceptual or meta-frameworks. Although the terms ‘model’, ‘theory’ and ‘framework’ are often used interchangeably, theories are usually “a denser, logically coherent set of constructs and relationships that have predictive capability and therefore may be translated into testable hypotheses to predict or explain a certain phenomenon” (Urquhart, Sergeant & Grunfeld, 2013, p. 49). Models differ by typically being narrower in scope and they “normally depict specific situations” (Urquhart, et al, 2013, p. 49). Frameworks differ again by (sometimes) drawing

61 on multiple theories, and by identifying “a set of factors and relationships among those factors” (Urquhart, et al, 2013, p. 49). These factors are then examined to gain an understanding and to help “explain a phenomenon” (Urquhart, et al, 2013, p. 49). When clearly articulated, conceptual frameworks thus have the potential to scaffold research and assist researchers “to make meaning of subsequent findings” (Smythe, 2004, 168) and this is the approach taken in this review of the public relations and Positioning Theory literature.

In the public relations literature, such overarching or meta-frameworks can be broadly conceptualised as falling within either a functionalist, symbolic/interpretative or discursive framework. The distinctions between these frameworks are not hard-edged and there may be some theories that may be encapsulated within two or more frameworks. Various scholars have also applied different terms or demarcated frameworks applying different concepts or theoretical underpinnings (see, for example Macnamara, 2016: Grunig, 2009). Bearing this in mind, what follows is an overview of some of the ways functionalist, symbolic/interpretative and discursive frameworks are conceptualised in public relations scholarship.

3.4.2 Functionalist frameworks Functionalist frameworks focus on the consequences of communication rather than the communication process itself (Pearson, 1990). In response to questions concerning the role of public relations in society, a functionalist response might be that “public relations creates and disseminates information that helps the organisation to accomplish its goals” (Taylor, 2010, p. 6). Thus the role of public relations practitioners is defined primarily in terms of “effective media relations, links to advertising, explaining public relations to clients, measuring impact of media placements, agenda setting, and strategic message design” (Taylor, 2010, p. 6). From this perspective, public relations act as the buffer between the organisation and its stakeholders (Grunig, 2009, p. 9), and the over-arching concern is with outputs in the form of communication messages and activities, as opposed to the activities themselves (Pearson, 1990). For these

62 reasons, functionalism is often linked with systems theory (Pearson, 1990; Witmer, 2006).

First conceptualised by Cutlip and Center (1952), systems theory (metaphorically) views organisations as organisms, made up of various subsystems, that must be ‘open’ and interact dynamically with their environments in order to survive (see, for example, Bivins, 1992; Creedon, 1993; Cutlip & Center, 1952; Cutlip, Center & Broom, 2006; Haslam, 2004; Gregory, 2000; Grunig, Grunig & Ehling, 1992; Ihlen, Van Ruler & Fredriksson, 2009; Kennan & Hazelton, 2006; Morgan, 2006; Sison, 2012; Toth, 1992; Trujillo & Toth, 1987; Witmer, 2006). Public relations, as a management sub-system of this larger organic-like system, receives environmental information (inputs), develops responses (throughputs), and returns the results (outputs) to the environment, thereby maintaining organisational equilibrium. By acting as the nexus between organisations and their operating environments (Cutlip, Center & Broom, 2006), and by responding appropriately to the environment and maintaining a balance between inputs and outputs (Bivins, 1992; Gregory, 2000; Morgan, 2006; Witmer, 2006), public relations practitioners thus act as organisational boundary spanners, scanning the environment and advising management of potential threats and appropriate courses of action (Bartlett, 2005; Cutlip, Center & Broom, 2006; Dozier, 1990; Grunig & White, 1992; Gregory, 2000; Grunig, Grunig & Ehling, 1992; Kennan & Hazelton, 2006; Witmer, 2006). Thus, legitimacy is a core concern, as organisations must be perceived as possessing legitimacy if they are to successfully garner the resources upon which their survival depends (Bartlett, 2005; Broom, Casey & Ritchie, 1997).

The first theory specifically developed for public relations was the Four Models theory developed by J. Grunig (1976), and Grunig and Hunt (1984) (Grunig, Grunig & Ehling, 1992, p. 72). Based on the need they saw for a “theoretical framework to solve problems in public relations” (Neff, 1989, p. 164), the overarching aim of the theory was to assist organisations to be more effective in

63 terms of how they functioned within their operating environment (Toth, 1992). The first model is the Press Agentry/Publicity model that defines the type of one-way communication that is primarily used for propaganda-like purposes, for example in sports or theatre promotion (Grunig & Hunt, 1984). In these contexts, “complete truth” is not essential and instead it is something that can be used at the discretion of practitioners who “spread the faith of the organisation involved, often through incomplete, distorted, or half-true information” (Grunig & Hunt, 1984, p. 21). Because of these negative connotations, it is the model public relations scholarship most strives to distance itself from.

The second of Grunig and Hunts (1984) four models is the public information model that also relies on one-way communication, but differs because its purpose is the dissemination of information, for example in communication used by governments or public agencies. While communication adopting this model may or may not be persuasive in intent, it also differs from the first model because truth is an important factor (Grunig & Hunt, 1984). How truth is arrived at, however, is not defined. One explanation offered by Neff (1989) is that the public information model was primarily developed to bring more objectivity to the public relations role, thereby enabling organisations, such as governments, “to have a public relations function” (p. 163). However, once again, the concept of objectivity is taken for granted, with little explanation in terms of how public relations practitioners are to be guided in reaching this state. Moreover, the underlying assumption is that in telling the truth, others will be persuaded of the sender’s message. As such it fails to account for activist groups and other publics that may attempt to subvert the relative ‘truth’ of a message irrespective of how objective the messenger wishes to be perceived. Despite this the public information model remains in use in much contemporary public relations practices; for example, in government health campaigns that aim to stop people from smoking, or as part of a campaign to convince voters that a policy to tackle carbon emissions is necessary to reduce the risks of climate change.

In contrast to the ‘seat-of-the-pants’ intuitive attempts at persuasion

64 characterised by the public information model of public relations, the third ‘two-way asymmetric model’ was originally proposed by Grunig and Hunt (1984), Lane (2003) argues, as being “the ideal form of public relations” (p. 2). This model uses social science research and theories about attitudes and behaviour to persuade segmented groups of people “to accept the organisation’s point of view and to behave in a way that supports the organisation” (Grunig & Hunt, 1984, p. 22). Because of its use of social science research, it is often used in political contexts where this information is used by communication professionals “to strategically modify the discourse practices of targeted discourse consumers” (Roper, 2005, p. 141). Studies of social media use in public relations (see Robson & Sutherland, 2012; Robson & James, 2011, 2013; Waters & Jamal, 2011; Shin, Pang and Kim, 2015), indicate that two-way asymmetric communication remains a model that many practitioners continue to use despite the “principles of excellent public relations practice” (Robson & James, 2013, p. 13). By ‘excellent’ Robson and James (2013) are referring to “Excellence” theory - the origins of which can largely be found in Grunig and Hunt’s (1984) fourth ‘two-way symmetrical’ model of public relations.

Of the four models, two-way symmetrical communication was offered as a replacement for persuasion models that had “dominated thinking about public relations almost since its birth” (Grunig & Hunt, 1984, p. v). Based on “negotiation, compromise, and understanding” (Morris & Goldsworthy, 2012, p. 29), two-way symmetrical communication (as with two-way asymmetrical communication) uses social science research and methods to understand people’s motivations, however the associated theories are usually “theories of communication rather than theories of persuasion” (Grunig and Hunt, 1984, p. 22). Public relations practitioners using this model act as mediators and have, as their goal, the attainment of mutual understanding between organisations and their publics, thereby benefitting both (Grunig & Hunt, 1984, p. 22). On this basis Grunig and Hunt (1984) argue that two-way symmetrical communication results in public relations being a powerful force for good in society. However, the extent to which two-way symmetry is attainable (or even desirable) remains

65 a highly-contested issue within public relations scholarship.

Although not argued as such, a key premise of Grunig and Hunt’s (1984) Four Models was establishing a distinction between the propagandist-type public relations activities evident in one-way communication models, with the two-way symmetrical model (L’Etang, 2009). In effect, this ensured that two-way symmetrical communication was positioned as being more ethical than the other models (Botan & Taylor, 2004, p. 652). This was especially apparent in terms of balancing the needs of organisations with the needs of stakeholders, and whereby rather than seeking to persuade the public into buying “into values or beliefs that benefit the interests of the propagandists over and above the interests of the public”, symmetrical communication was argued to be based on compromise and negotiation (Weaver, Motion & Roper, 2006, p. 14). In so doing, public relations is a “facilitator of dialogue working for the mutual benefit of both the client organisation and the public good” (Weaver, Motion & Roper, 2006, p. 14). Nevertheless, and as Weaver, Motion & Roper (2006) also argue, Grunig and Hunt’s (1984) concept of two-way symmetry can also be viewed as being part of a campaign that has historically sought to distance the profession from links to manipulation and propaganda, and whereby the aim is to advance public relations as “an acceptable and ethical profession built upon democratic ideals” (p. 14). The extent to which this aim is feasible or even practical remains a key point of contention within public relations scholarship, and is elaborated on in the discussion of discursive frameworks.

In the same year as Grunig and Hunt published their (1984) book about the four models, the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Research Foundation put out a call for proposals to research “how, why, and to what extent communication affects the achievement of organisational objectives” (Grunig, Grunig, & Dozier, 2002, p. ix). The resultant fifteen-year “Excellence” study, led by J. Grunig and assisted by ‘the team’ of public relations scholars, set about answering what the researchers argued were the fundamental questions facing public relations namely: “What are the characteristics of an

66 excellent public relations department? And how does excellent public relations make an organisation more effective, and how much is that contribution worth economically?” (Grunig & Grunig, 2006, p. xi). The study spawned a host of middle range public relations theories and, after being tested through surveys “of heads of public relations, CEOs, and employees in 327 organizations”, culminated in a general theory of public relations, the “Excellence” theory (Grunig, 2008).

Grunig (1992) argues that Excellence Theory “provides a theoretical explanation for the best current practice” (i.e. “excellent”) public relations “that organisations and society do not understand or appreciate” (p. xiv). Essentially a systems theory approach (Witmer, 2006), at the core of Excellence theory, is the notion that organisations have a social responsibility to stakeholder publics. Public relations practitioners, as organisational boundary scanners, scan the environment “to identify publics who are affected by potential organisational decisions or who want organisations to make decisions to solve problems that are important to them” (Grunig, 2008, n.p). In so doing, and by favourably affecting “the organisation’s ability to meet its goals”, ‘excellent’ public relations is said to assist the organisation to acquire social legitimacy (Grunig et al, 2002, n.p.). However, and as Grunig (1992) concedes, the problem for public relations is that organisations tend to weight their own self-interests ahead of those of their publics, and moreover, will sometimes “ignore the consequences of their behaviours on publics” (p. 57). In response Grunig (1992) argued that these challenges could be resolved through the norm of reciprocity; a moral imperative he argued was the bedrock of two-way symmetrical communication and Excellence theory.

Much of the work that emanated from the Excellence study was also directed towards separating out the function of public relations from marketing functions. Writing in 1998 Grunig (J.E) and Grunig (L.A) argued that the difference between the fields of marketing and public relations, which are often seen as competing fields, was that whereas marketing communication concepts

67 were typically derived from personality theories, two-way symmetrical communication was based on theories of participatory democracy. Grunig (1992) argues that when all parties contribute to decision-making and arrive at agreed upon outcomes, the communicative process is inherently ethical. This differs from marketing, which Grunig and Grunig (1998) argued was founded on the assumption that “the right message can implant the corporate identity into the public’s image” and that this then permits organisations to manage their “reputation by managing the production and distribution of symbols” (p. 157). Two-way symmetrical communication, on the other hand, manages the types of organisational behaviours liable to produce a bad reputation (Grunig & Grunig, 1998). This, in turn, creates “a trusting relationship with both consumer markets and publics” (Grunig & Grunig, 1998, p. 159; see also Macnamara, 2010). However, and as James (2014) argues, functionalism in its broadest sense fails to address the dynamism of public relations and efforts “to tightly control messages and meaning as a way of engineering defined outcomes for organisations, no longer works, if it ever did” (James, 2014, p. 24). For this reason, many public relations scholars have sought to redefine the field by applying a symbolic or interpretative framework.

3.4.3 Symbolic or interpretative frameworks Symbolic or interpretative frameworks are those that view the role of public relations as being primarily founded on building relationships with key stakeholders. Drawing on interpersonal, psychotherapy, inter organisational relationship (IOR) perspectives and systems theory, Broom, Casey and Ritchie (1997) argued that public relations should be conceptualised within an organisation-public framework. Their framework was founded on the concept of relationships based on “mutual adaptation” (p. 93) and “the exchange or transfer of information, energy or resources” (p. 94). From this perspective, the role of public relations is to act as “a bridging activity … designed to build relationships with stakeholders” (Grunig, 2009, p. 9). However, the extent to which this is practical or even ethical remains highly contested.

The concept of relationships has antecedents in symmetry/excellence theory (Coombs & Holladay, 2015; Ledingham & Bruning, 1998, 2000), wherein relationships are either conceptualised within a relationship management theoretical framework “offered as a general theory of public relations that can guide research”, or as the “dominant outcome variable” in public relations research more generally (Coombs & Holladay, 2015, p. 690). Research, from a relationship management perspective is (arguably) gathered not as an instrument of power, but rather is gathered to gain an understanding of values and perceptions (Botan & Taylor, 2004). Once armed with this knowledge, communication can then be used to negotiate changes between the organisation and its publics so that they achieve “shared meanings, interpretations, and goals” (Botan & Taylor, 2004, p. 652; see also Broom, Casey & Ritchie, 1997, p. 94). However, the degree to which this rather idealistic view of public relations is practiced by public relations practitioners is difficult to gauge, and whether such concessions are for the betterment of organisational publics, or for the organisations themselves, remains a rather grey area.

Other theorists have built on and contributed to the development of relationship-based frameworks. Cutlip, Center and Broom (1994) applied a relationship management framework to define public relations as “the management function that establishes and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between an organisation and the publics on whom its success or failure depends” (p. 2). Ledingham and Bruning (1998) argue that this represented a paradigm shift for the public relations field, because rather than explaining what public relations does in a pragmatic sense, it answered the question of what public relations “is” (original italics, p. 56). Building on this, and in response to what they saw as the continuing search for a public relations theoretical framework, Ledingham and Bruning (1998) defined the ideal organisation-public relationship as “the state that exists between an organization and its key publics that provides economic, social, political, and/or cultural benefits to all parties involved, and is characterized by mutual

69 positive regard” (p. 62). Ledingham (2003) advocated that ‘relationship management’ therefore be considered a “general theory of public relations” (p. 181) consistent with systems theory and the two-way symmetrical model of communication.

The development of relationship management theories further led to the idea that dialogue, dialectic, or dialogic frameworks (Taylor & Kent, 2002) could provide a theoretical framework that would extend public relations theory beyond symmetrical communication models (Botan & Taylor, 2004; Taylor & Kent, 2002). Originating in the work of Pearson (1990) dialogic approaches are based on the idea that rather than organisational publics being used as instruments for furthering the organisation’s public relations goals, publics are elevated to having equal status in the communication process (Botan, 1997). Thus, as opposed to being “a specific method, technique, or format”, dialogue is conceptualised as a “stance, orientation, or bearing in communication” (Botan, 1997, p. 192). In public relations, this can refer to “communicating about issues with publics” or as “rhetorical dialogue” (Heath, 2000), however it was Kent and Taylor (2002) that established a formal structure by advocating that dialogic communication was underpinned by “five dialogic tenets” of “mutuality, empathy, propinquity, risk, and commitment” (p. 33). The following is an abbreviated form of the key arguments Kent & Taylor (2002) put forth to explain their tenets:

Mutuality: “Although the partners in exchanges are often of differing status, discussants should consciously avoid the dynamics and trappings of power to manipulate or otherwise control the flow or direction of conversation” (p. 25); Propinquity: closely related to mutuality “dialogic propinquity means that publics are consulted in matters that influence them, and for publics, it means that they are willing and able to articulate their demands to organizations” (p. 26); Empathy: “refers to the atmosphere of support and trust that must exist if dialogue is to succeed” (p. 27); Risk: “Although parties who engage in dialogue take relational risks,

70 dialogic participants also risk great rewards” (p. 28); Commitment: commitment describes three characteristics of dialogic encounters: ‘genuineness’ and authenticity, ‘commitment to the conversation’, and a ‘commitment to interpretation’ (p. 29)

Botan and Taylor (2004) suggest this ‘attitude’ towards publics is what most differentiates functionalist from co-creational perspectives (p. 653), and whereby rather than focusing on the organisation’s mission (as with a functionalist approach), adopting a co-creational stance prioritises and “values the relationship between an organization and its publics” (p. 653). Nevertheless, as Kent and Taylor (2002) also argue, “dialogue is a complex and multifarious process” and implementing this approach in organisations is not unproblematic.

Theories that fall within the interpretative/symbolic framework, such as dialogic and co-creational perspectives, are not without their critics. One criticism is that with antecedents in various other disciplines including rhetoric, relational communication, psychology, and philosophy (Kent & Taylor, 2002), dialogic approaches have “vastly different starting points and epistemological assumptions” (Davidson, 2016, p. 145). Yet, despite this, scholars “have converged on advancing dialogic forms of communication as representing the best normative theories for shifting practice towards democracy-friendly norms” (Davidson, 2016, p. 146). Hutton (2010) argues that while the term ‘relationship management’ may have provided a unique selling point for public relations, with some large public relations companies making a substantial income out of marketing themselves as ‘experts’ in this area (Hutton, 2010), research suggests the reality is often quite different. For example, many Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) do not view the primary function of public relations as being “in charge of their organization’s reputation” (Hutton, 2010, p. 517). Moreover, A reputation is not something that can be managed, in any real sense, given that it results from the actions of all members of an organisation, as interpreted by a host of outside observers (Hutton, 2010, p. 517).

Theorising has also emphasised “compromise and consensus” and this has

71 occurred at the expense of public relations practitioners, who are placed under enormous pressure “to adopt ostensibly non-partisan styles of communication (Davidson, 2016, p. 146). Several recent Australian studies are worth discussing in this regard, as they examine exactly this phenomenon.

Lane (2016) interviewed Australian public relations practitioners and found that practitioners often did “not conduct dialogue in their work because of the existence of a number of constraints and challenges” (p. 2). These included a lack of time and an over-riding imperative to “achieve often pre-determined organisational outcomes” which, as Lane (2016) notes, is a concept that is antithetical to Kent and Taylor’s (2002) original “interpretation of commitment” (p. 36). In her discussion Lane (2016) argues that to properly fulfill the key tenets of Kent and Taylor’s (2002) principles of dialogic communication, requires “input and cooperation from all participants” (p. 26) however, not only is this “beyond the control of the public relations practitioner” but, “ironically, even if public relations practitioners could control the other participants, such control would be totally contrary to the spirit and practice of dialogue” (Lane, 2016, p. 26). Given also that there were no examples in the study whereby all of Kent and Taylor’s (2002) tenets were evident, Lane (2016) concludes that “public relations should ‘dump the dialogue’ in favor of a more practical and pragmatic approach that recognizes the situational nature of two-way communication in public relations” (p. 2). These findings echo many of the findings of another study by Macnamara (2016).

In an in-depth case study that included interviews with 104 public relations/communication professionals, Macnamara (2016) found that the principles of dialogue or relationship management were normative rather than being something undertaken in everyday public relations practice. He primarily found that the problem is not with dialogue as such, but rather a lack of listening. Macnamara (2016) explains that, Through lack of attention to listening, public relations are fundamentally failing to operationalize excellent, dialogic, relationships oriented, and

72 sociocultural theories and models, and also failing to practice an ethical approach to rhetoric and a participatory, networked, or emergent approach to strategic communication as it claims to do (p. 163).

In making these arguments Macnamara (2016) concedes that organisational listening is not easily achieved “because of the challenges of scale and diversity of views among stakeholders and publics that can lead to cacophony rather than consensus” (p. 164). However, it goes some way towards providing answers in terms of filling a “significant theory-practice gap” (Macnamara, 2016, p. 164) and, wherein, despite its paradigmatic status, co-creational and dialogic communication is (seemingly) something that practitioners find is not pragmatic in practice.

Criticisms such as these have given rise to alternative theories of public relations. Systems based theories such as Grunig and Hunt’s (1984) Four Models, and two-way symmetrical communication (Grunig, 1989b, 1992a, 2001) played into managerial discourses and the ‘myth’ of scientific management popular during the 1970s and 1980s (L’Etang, 2008; Brown, 2010). However, and as Motion and Weaver (2005) argue, “even though functional theorists assert that public relations has to consider notions of public interest, ultimately such perspectives privilege the interests of organisations, the elite or dominant coalition and capital” (p. 51) and arguably the same could be said of some dialogic and co-creational approaches to communication. At the same time, new approaches including Marxism, post-structuralism, and sociological and rhetorical criticism began to be applied to public relations research (Cheney, 1992). Within the social sciences, an increase in critical research throughout the 1990s eventually led to public relations scholars realising the insights this approach could offer (Motion & Leitch, 1996). Critical scholars began questioning not only functionalist approaches and the paradigmatic dominance of Excellence Theory, but also began examining public relations research and practice “in its broader ethical and societal context” (Trujillo & Toth, 1987, p. 221). This, then, is where this literature review now turns.

73 3.4.4 Discursive frameworks Originating in sociology and cultural studies, critical theorists question the validity of symmetrical communication, arguing that the symmetrical model of public relations is a management ideal that assumes everyone has equal access to power and, as such, ignores the power disparities that exist between organisations and publics (see, for example, Berger, 1999; Leitch & Motion, 2010; Moffitt, 1992; Pieczka & L’Etang, 2001). Berger (1999) describes this as the “missing context” in public relations scholarship “that is, the frequently ignored questions of power and structural relations that influence meaning and understanding” (p. 187). Within critical public relations scholarship, power is a well-understood and sophisticated concept (Kent, Sommerfeldt & Saffer, 2016), and although it is sometimes used simplistically - for example “as a measure of … financial or political strength … power is also seen as a dynamic social force with both positive and negative connotations” (Kent, et al, 2016, p. 95). Discursive frameworks encourage an examination of power, “and the ongoing work by public relations practitioners to legitimate truth claims within discourse contexts” (Leitch & Motion, 2010, p. 103). In this way, by shifting from examining public relations through a functional lens to instead ask “why organisations practice public relations at all” permits an examination of ideology (Berger, 1999, p. 189) and this was considered important within the context of this research project.

Whereas “a functional perspective allows public relations theorists to distance themselves from contested social meanings, a discursive perspective places the process of constantly renegotiating meaning squarely at the forefront (Curtin & Gaither, 2009, p, 93). Discursive frameworks encompass a range of approaches including rhetorical, critical and post-structural perspectives, but in general they share a concern with “suasive discourse” (Heath, 2001, p. 31) and, wherein, rather than symmetrical communication, A key aim of public relations is to achieve or resist change by persuasively advancing and potentially privileging particular meanings and actions. Although the objectives may be negotiated or consensus sought through engagement with publics, it may also be achieved

74 through persuasion. Public relations, therefore, constitutes a rhetorical practice (Heath, 1992) that establishes a discursive contest between organisations and publics (Leitch & Motion, 2010, p. 103).

From a critical perspective, public relations is conceptualised as a “discourse practice with power effects” (Motion & Leitch, 2007, p. 263). That being so, the dominant notion that “the role of public relations is to minimize or diffuse conflict” is not only questioned, but public relations efforts are seen as “manifestations of power designed to legitimate the discourses, power and positions of the dominant coalition” (Motion, 2005, p. 505). Public relations practitioners are “discourse technologists” (Motion & Leitch, 1996, p. 298) who deploy discourses with the strategic aim of legitimating or challenging “social, cultural, political, and/or economic power” (Weaver, Motion & Roper, 2006, p. 8). These efforts can be conceptualised as a “strategic attempt to control the agenda of public discussion and the terms in which discussion takes place” (Weaver, Motion & Roper, 2006, p. 17). From this perspective, public relations is a significant social force, shaping (and some might argue manipulating) how people understand situations to be.

These practices do not, however, occur in a vacuum; rather “virtually every site is congested and contested” wherein meaning “is both emergent and complicated … requiring consistent and persistent representation” (Berger, 1999. p. 190). By representation Berger (1999) is referring to “the purposeful expression of organizational voice(s) and appearance(s) to influence others” (p. 190). The purpose of these processes is the construction of an ideological worldview or “a self-interested and partial representation of the world based on a particular set of beliefs, ideas, attitudes, and objectives” (Berger, 1999, p. 190). The role of public relations, then, is to provide,

Organizations with dynamic and comprehensive methods and processes of intentional representation in contested sites in which information is exchanged, meaning constructed and managed, and consensus, consent, and legitimation gained or lost with others (Berger, 1999, p. 190).

Critical scholarship further diverges from functionalist approaches by being

75 critical of how citizens “are influenced to think” by capitalist culture, and by the “displacement of the public sphere” by “the rhetoric of big business, big government and other powerful organisations” (Mackey, 2004, p. 50). One of the key theorists is Habermas (1991) who was concerned with how public opinion is co-opted by big business, politicians and marketers as a tool to “manipulate democracies in ways that serve people who hold financial power” (Mackey, 2004, p. 52). According to Habermas (1991), in ideal speech situations participants who are on an even footing in terms of their respective power equity can make up their own minds based on rationality, careful reasoning, and the desire to arrive at mutual understanding.

However Motion (2005) rejects the Habermasian concept of deliberative democracy, describing it as, An idealized public sphere in which citizens’ legitimate positions by presenting and justifying views in a public forum which appeal to the common interest and, as a consequence, subsequent decision making then reflects a rational, agreed-upon, common good (p. 506).

Social media has also invigorated the possibilities for a more equal public sphere. Motion, Heath and Leitch (2016) argue “social media have changed the dynamics of what is ‘public’ and ‘private’ (p. 184). As such, the public sphere has been displaced with a “networked citizen perspective” where, “instead of Habermasian concomitants from dutiful citizens, the ‘drivers’ of democratic innovation have been the networks of everyday citizens who are engaged in lifestyle politics” (Iosifidis & Wheeler, 2011, p. 127). Within this space discourses take on “a life of their own” (Motion, Heath & Leitch, 2016, p. 162). However, these opportunities for a more inclusive “discursive democracy” also raise new challenges for public relations theorists, particularly as it relates to refining “their understandings of the nature and role of public relations” (Motion, Heath & Leitch, 2016, p. 162). This is an area of future research that James’ (2014) Framework and Positioning Theory more broadly could also potentially explore, particularly in relation to issues of power and the rights and duties of entities using social media to enact such power within the local moral order of

76 public/personal digital spaces.

Poststructuralism is part of a matrix of post-modern theory and a “subset of a broader range of theoretical, cultural, and social tendencies that constitute postmodern discourses” (Holtzhausen 2012, p, 12). As such, just as there are varying versions of structuralism, post-structuralism has equally diverse definitions (Milner & Browitt, 2002). In general, poststructuralists “reject the ‘scientific pretentions’ of structuralists” that describe phenomenon “in terms of linguistic structures, rules, codes, and systems” (Holtzhausen, 2012, p. 12). Poststructuralism thus breaks with and rejects “conventional representational schemes of meaning and … totalizing, centered theories of meaning and systems” (Holtzhausen, 2012, p. 12). Poststructuralists also reject the notion of any absolute truths (Weaver, Motion & Roper, 2006). Instead, all ‘truth’ is “socially constructed and contestable” (Weaver, Motion & Roper, 2006, p.8). For example, the concept of propaganda, which L’Etang (1997) argues is simplistically defined as lying, and is often conflated with public relations practices, is problematic from a post-structuralism perspective. This is because the notion that there is an objective ‘truth’ which “propaganda stands in opposition to” is a flawed concept (Weaver, Motion & Roper, 2006, p.8). Another key tenet is the idea that humans cannot objectively study themselves (Holtzhausen, 2012, p. 12). Holtzhausen (2012) argues that public relations scholarship that takes a critical discursive approach is therefore related to post- structuralism, particularly in its rejection of the idea of a “unified self”, and “the tradition in public relations that critiques societal institutions, “their use of language”, and the way in which poststructuralists theorise the oppressiveness of some organisations (p. 12). Some of the work discussed in this part of the literature review that examines public relations within a discursive/critical framework, could arguably be conceptualised, based on this, as being a poststructuralist approach to theorising the role of public relations in society.

Also falling within this discursive/critical framework, rhetorical theory has experienced somewhat of a renaissance due to the influence of other theories including post-structuralism and post modernism (L’Etang, 2006,) As a theory,

77 rhetoric encompasses a wide range of approaches, including argumentation, advocacy and persuasion, corporate communication, dialectics and discourse, dramatism and storytelling, information, organising, public opinion and reputation management (Hallahan, 1999, p. 205). However, despite this considerable body of ideas and principles, “it connects intellectually and ethically” with social constructionism and discourse analysis (Heath, 2009, p. 3). In public relations, rhetorical discourse approaches focus on how public relations is engaged in the construction of messages and meanings that are intended to influence key publics that are important to an organisation.

Probably the most prominent scholar in this space is Heath (see variously: 1992, 1993, 1997, 2000, 2001, 2013), who, with Motion and Leitch (2009) and Palenchar (2007), has established rhetorical approaches as a key school of thought in public relations scholarship. Heath (1993) argues that a “rhetorical perspective on public relations gives the opportunity to address the impact of words and other symbols” (p. 141) and that it can “help participants in social dialogue, even combatants, define conflict - the means for mitigation, accommodation, collaboration, and qualitatively superior relationships” (Heath, 2009, p. 3). It would seem from this that rhetoric could potentially provide answers for many of the questions that surround public relations as a theory and as an area of practice; a premise that Heath stridently argues.

To support his claim that rhetoric should be accorded paradigmatic status, Heath (1993) argues that a rhetorical approach “embraces persuasion” and provides added value to organisations by “increasing sensitivity to how stakeholders create interpretative frames to impose limits on their business and non-profit activities” (p. 142). It thus provides a “useful vehicle for understanding how meaning, created and expressed through open contest in society, constrains the prerogatives of individuals and organizations” (Heath, 1993, p. 143). Central to this concept then, is the idea of public relations operating in “the wrangle in the marketplace of ideas” (Heath, 2001, p. 16) and, wherein, through the discursive enactment of rhetorical strategies, public

78 relations competes with other organisational voices in a contest to gain ascendancy. However, and as is also discussed elsewhere in this literature review, while “the development of rhetorical theory … is a rich area for further debate”, “to date self-proclaimed rhetorical scholars within public relations have not really presented an alternative paradigm in that they still have sought to work within the systems framework” (L’Etang, 2006, p. 371). Thus, and as Hallahan (1999) argues, as yet “none of these approaches represents a comprehensive foundation for fully understanding the processes or consequences of public relations” (p. 205). This is where James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) conceptualisation of Positioning Theory, and its applicability to public relations, potentially provides a fresh approach to answering the key problematic that continues to plague public relations scholarship; that is, how is strategic intent conceptualised in public relations theory and what role does power play in such practices?

3.4.5 Summary

Evidence was presented which showed that functionalist frameworks typically focus on the consequences of communication rather than the communication process itself, and are often conceptualised within a systems theory approach. From this perspective organisations are viewed metaphorically as organisms, made up of various subsystems, that must be ‘open’ and interact dynamically with their environments to survive. Legitimacy is thus a core concern, as organisations must be perceived as possessing legitimacy if they are to successfully garner the resources upon which their survival depends. However, the evidence also suggested that functionalist/systems theory approaches fail to address the dynamism of public relations, and efforts “to tightly control messages and meaning as a way of engineering defined outcomes for organisations no longer works, if it ever did” (James, 2014, p. 24).

Symbolic or interpretative frameworks are those that view the role of public relations as being “a bridging activity … designed to build relationships with

79 stakeholders” (Grunig, 2009, p. 9). This attitude towards publics is what most differentiates functionalist from co-creational perspectives, and whereby rather than focusing on the organisation’s mission, adopting a co-creational stance prioritises and “values the relationship between an organization and its publics” (Botan & Taylor, 2004, p. 653). Nevertheless, implementing this approach in organisations is not unproblematic. Evidence was presented which suggests that dialogic approaches have “vastly different starting points and epistemological assumptions” (Davidson, 2016, p. 145) and management often fails to see the economic merits of this approach. The upshot is that public relations practitioners are confined in terms of their ability to implement dialogic and co-creational approaches in practice.

Criticisms of dialogic and functionalist frameworks have led to other frameworks being considered. Discursive frameworks differ by encouraging an examination of power “and the ongoing work by public relations practitioners to legitimate truth claims within discourse contexts” (Leitch & Motion, 2010, p. 103). Encompassing a range of approaches, including rhetorical, critical and post-structural perspectives, the shared concern is with persuasive discourse that privileges particular meanings over others, and whereby public relations is conceptualised as a “discourse practice with power effects” (Motion & Leitch, 2007, p. 263). Thus, from a discursive perspective, public relations is seen as being a significant social force, shaping (and some might argue manipulating) how people understand situations to be. That being so, as Hallahan (1999) argues, “none of these approaches represents a comprehensive foundation for fully understanding the processes or consequences of public relations” (p. 205). This is where James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) conceptualisation of Positioning Theory potentially provides answers in terms of answering a key problematic of public relations scholarship; that is, how is strategic intent conceptualised in public relations theory and what role does power play in such practices?

80 3.5 Frameworks: Are they useful in Positioning Theory?

3.5.1 Introduction This final section of the literature review examines the Positioning Theory literature to provide a context and history for the evaluation of James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) conceptual Framework(s) that applies Positioning Theory to public relations. The review commences with an examination of the literature pertinent to how Positioning Theory is traditionally conceptualised, and then examines how James’ conceptualises and applies these concepts to positioning in public relations contexts. Specifically, this examines her positioning frameworks (2010, 2011, 2014) in terms of the following positioning domains: the positioning triangle domain consisting of the position pole or vertex, the speech act/action pole/vertex, and the storyline pole or vertex; the positioning purpose domain; the positioning type domain, the strategic pre-positioning domain, and the goal domain.

3.5.2 How are traditional Positioning Theory frameworks conceptualised? There exists a broad diversity in terms of how Positioning Theory has been applied and conceptualised, However, there are also commonalities that different approaches share. Firstly, Positioning Theory does not consider, as in some disciplines, that people, institutions and societies can be stratified in the examination of social phenomena (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999; Zelle, 1999). Instead, the social world is viewed ontologically as “consisting of one basic realm” (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 10) wherein discursive practices of “conversations and other close order symbolic exchanges, institutional practices” and societal rhetorics (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 15), generate psychological and sociological phenomena, including “complex interpersonal relations or belief systems such as social class” (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 10). The most basic substance of this social realm is conversations where, either through ‘positioning’ or ‘rhetorical redistribution’, “social acts and societal icons are generated and reproduced” (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p.

81 15). The former refers to the study of local moral orders, understood as continually “shifting patterns of mutual and contestable rights and obligations of speaking and acting” (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 1). The latter is “the discursive construction of stories about institutions and macrosocial events that make them intelligible as societal icons” (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 15). The standard ontology of people, institutions and societies can all be understood within this new ontology, permitting an analysis of discourse at the interpersonal (micro), institutional (meso), and cultural (macro) levels of society (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999).

Secondly, Positioning Theory as it is traditionally understood is about “how people use words (and discourse of all types) to locate themselves and others” (Moghaddam & Harré, 2010, p.2). From this perspective entities (be they individuals, groups, organisations or nations) select from a range of socially acceptable storylines or discourses, “to construct an object that is adapted to different situations” and this is dependent on “the relevant social functions assigned in each individual encounter” (Olaison, 2010, p. 70). Key to positioning acts is the concept of rights, duties and obligations. In Positioning Theory, any discursive position has “particular rights, duties and obligations for speakers and hearers … within certain moral orders of speaking” (Tan & Moghaddam, 1999, p. 184). Moral orders are collective, and public, social and psychological phenomena (van Langenhove & Harré, 1994) that, because they are embedded with rights, duties and obligations, impinge on a person’s “possibility of acting” or what people in these circumstances may and actually do (Moghaddam, Harré & Lee, 2008, p. 13). At a basic level this refers to the right to speak or the right to be heard, for example a politician delivering a speech would typically have the right to both speak and to have the right to be heard. Both speakers and hearers in this context are jointly constituted through discourse while, simultaneously, these discursive processes permit those involved to “negotiate new positions and so establish new storylines implemented through newly recognised social acts” (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 10). Within a social episode of a politician

82 delivering a speech at the Sydney Town Hall to Labor Party delegates, for example, the rules that govern what is socially appropriate to do and say may differ markedly from a social episode wherein a politician is delivering a speech at an outdoor rally consisting of carbon tax protesters. Whereas in the latter example persons or groups may protest against what is being said by shouting out or waving placards et cetera, and this might be deemed as entirely socially appropriate, these same acts might be completely inappropriate within the context of the Sydney Town Hall. It is in this way that participants in the episode are both influenced by “and influence the storyline drawn implicitly from a local repertoire” “of admissible social acts” (Moghaddam, Harré & Lee, 2008, pp. 21-23), and whereby “the assumptions people make as to the character of the episode in which they are engaged can have a profound influence on what people say and do” (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 5). Drawing on Motion’s (1997) concept of ‘positioning portrayals’, Positioning Theory is thus a way of exploring this dynamism as it unfolds within social episodes.

These complex and dynamic patterns of rights, duties, obligations and moral orders (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999) can emerge even in seemingly mundane circumstances, and there are other factors that may further impede what people may rightfully say and do. For example, “cultural norms, environmental cues, and personal values – what the social identity approach might identify as the perceptual and normative fit of an identity – may constrain strategic positioning for most people most of the time” (Louis 2008, p. 28). As such, from a Positioning Theory perspective, the act of shaking hands when being introduced to someone is viewed as a social custom or tradition that, rather than being explicitly formulated, is passed down among the culture (Moghaddam, et al, 2008, p. 12). More formal examples of moral orders that constrain possibilities for action include ceremonies or social episodes bound by “an existing script, rule book or manual” (Moghaddam, et al, 2008, p. 12) such as the passing of Bills in Parliament or in a court of law. In these more formal social episodes, explicit rules govern “the sequence of actions” and whereby the rules may be so strict, that participants adhere to “pre-given

83 wordings” (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 5). Also impinging on rights, duties and obligations, are the “past experiences, values and beliefs” of parties to the episode (Pilkerton Cairnie, 2010, p. 60). As this research project explores, this can have significant impacts in terms of the storylines which are realised out of time; that is the “ideological background to the ‘real-time’ activity” (Bartlett, 2008, p. 172).

Thirdly, and common to many analyses applying Positioning Theory, is a conceptual framework consisting of a mutually determining triad of position, speech acts/action and storylines (e.g. Harré and van Langenhove, 1999). James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) Frameworks, which are adapted from Positioning Theory as conceptualised by Davies and Harré (1990), and Harré and van Langenhove (1999), likewise share the concept of a positioning triad. However, James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) Frameworks also differ by being adapted specifically for use when devising public relations campaigns or, alternatively, they can be applied as an analytical heuristic. Positioning, as defined by Harré and van Langenhove (2003) can either be interactive wherein an entity positions another, or it can be reflexive meaning that the person positions one’s self. In either instance, positioning is not “necessarily intentional” (Harré & van Langenhove, 2003, p. 37). Thus, Positioning Theory as it is more traditionally conceptualised, may not always be apposite to positioning in public relations contexts, where positioning is almost always strategic (James, 2014). To allow for this, in addition to the positioning triad that consists of the position, speech act/action and storylines vertices, James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) Frameworks include three additional core domains. They are:

The Positioning Triangle Domain as adapted from the positioning triad proposed by Harré and van Langenhove (1999) and consisting of: i. The ‘position’ pole or the expression of an entity’s, and its stakeholders, actual and potential positions; ii. The ‘speech acts/action’ pole that draws on the work of Searle (1979) who proposes there are a limited number of basic things that

84 individuals do with language: “we tell people how things are” (assertives); “we try to get them to do things” (directives); “we commit ourselves to doing things” (commissives); “we express our feelings and attitudes” (expressives); and “we bring about changes through our utterances” (declarations) (p.29). Moreover, as individuals, “often, we do more than one of these at once in the same utterance” (Searle, 1979, p. 29); iii. The ‘storyline’ pole that refers to meanings constructed through storylines, “that the entity has chosen to promulgate through its public relations activities” (James, 2010, p. 133). When used in public relations contexts, storylines are congruent with key messaging.

Within this triad, (i) the determined/desired position (the first pole/vertex), (ii) the way it is enacted through speech acts/actions (the second pole/vertex), and (iii) the means by which the positioning is supported through storylines (the third pole/vertex which is most often key messages in a public relations sense) become evident. Since James’ initial development of a framework in 2010, 2011, the definition of a position has also been redefined to include the key Positioning Theory concept of rights and duties that, as James (2014) argues, is what Positioning Theory most brings to public relations. From a public relations positioning perspective “the possession of rights and duties in a positioning context” is “part of an organisation’s symbolic capital” and wherein discourse, “in these terms, is the meditational means through which speakers are able to realise their embodied symbolic capital as power in action” (James, 2014, p. 42). Organisations or entities cannot, however, “adopt or assign any position they like, instead they are only able to position in ways in which their symbolic capital (Bourdieu, 1991) is recognised by others operating within the local moral order” (James, 2014, p. 42). By ‘local moral order’ James (2014) is referring to the social norms that determine what is appropriate to say and do in a particular situation.

The continued development of Positioning Theory in public relations

85 scholarship and the increased understanding that has ensued has recently led to James (2014) revising the definition of a position in the latest iteration (i.e. 2014) of her framework. A ‘position’ is now defined as,

A point of intentional representation discursively constructed for the purposes of achieving an intended outcome, and from where possibilities for action are established, or in some cases denied, in terms of the local moral order/s wherein the public relations activity is taking place. Positioning comprises the actions taken to achieve the position (James, 2014, p. 19).

This revised definition is more aligned with the concept of a position as originally theorised by Harré and van Langenhove (1999), and permits an analysis of public relations texts within the social context to which they are bound, through an examination of the inter-related concepts of rights, duties, obligations and local moral orders. Given the importance of the positioning triangle domain to public relations positioning, the three poles or vertices of James’ Framework, as well as the other positioning domains, are now outlined. Where appropriate, the discussion also relates these domains to public relations and Positioning Theory scholarship more broadly.

3.5.3 How are James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) Positioning Theory frameworks conceptualised?

3.5.3.1 The positioning triangle domain (James, 2010, 2011, 2014) consisting of the position, speech act/action and storyline vertices

The Position Vertex: From a Positioning Theory perspective people take up ‘positions’ or ‘position’ oneself in relation to other people. In public relations contexts, the determined/desired position for any program or project is

86 informed by the research on current attitudes of audiences, the goals of the organisation, and the known or anticipated positions of stakeholders or critics (James, 2012). There are similarities here to the concept of the stance continuum within contingency theory, which “focuses on the stance of the organization in dealing with a given public” (Cameron, Pang & Yin, 2007, p. 137). However, the concept of what a ‘position’ is remains “somewhat ambiguous” (Slocum-Bradley, 2010a, p. 88). For example, a position as conceptualised by Harré and van Langenhove (1999) refers to,

A complex cluster of generic personal attributes, structured in various ways, which impinges on the possibilities of interpersonal, intergroup, and even intrapersonal action through some assignment of such rights, duties and obligations to an individual as are sustained by the cluster (p. 1).

A position can also include the denial of a position by social actors involved in an episode. Harré and Moghaddam (2003) argue a position is, A cluster of rights and duties to perform certain actions with a certain significance as acts, but which may also include prohibitions or denials of access to some of the local repertoire of meaningful acts (pp. 5-6).

This latter conceptualisation was also drawn on by Slocum-Bradley (2010a) who suggests a position can also refer to both an entity or a “person like entity” and that a position is “a cluster of rights and duties that limits the repertoire of possible social acts available to a person or person like entity (such as a corporation) as so positioned” (p. 88). In a conversational setting, a position is a metaphorical concept “through reference to which a person’s “moral and personal attributers as a speaker are compendiously collected” (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 17). For example, people may position or be positioned as “powerful or powerless, confident or apologetic, dominant or submissive, definitive or tentative, authorised or unauthorised” (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 17). When positioned as ‘dependent’, a cry of help may be taken to be “a plea for help” or, conversely, when positioned as dominant the same cry “can be

87 heard as a protest or even a reprimand” (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 17).

What is agreed upon and central to each of these author’s conceptualisations, then, is the basic premise of “a cluster of rights and duties” (Harré & Moghaddam, 2003; Slocum-Bradley, 2010a) and obligations (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999) that impinge upon the range of possible positions available for entities to take up or enact in any given social episode. James’ (2010) original definition of a position differed from this conceptualisation by proposing that a position is “the expression of an entity’s, and its stakeholders, actual and potential positions” (p.133). Accordingly, by this definition, rights, duties and obligations, as well as local moral orders, were not prioritised and this represents a significant shift in terms of how Positioning Theory was originally conceived. Further research that included work published as part of this thesis (i.e. Wise & James, 2015) also indicated that this was a potential weakness of the (2010, 2011) Framework. This then led to the revising of the definition of a position in James’ most recent (2014) iteration of the Framework.

The speech act/action pole/vertex or the declaration of a desired outcome through speech acts and actions: Once an organisation has determined which position it will take, possibly using contingency theory to determine this, the position must be declared or asserted in some way so it becomes known. In Positioning Theory, and in James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) conceptualisation, the speech act/action pole or vertex is based on Searle’s (1979) version of Austin’s (1961) speech act theory, and “the assumption that the basic unit of human communication is not a sentence or a phrase but a speech act (James, 2014, p. 104). Searle (1979) argues there are a limited number of basic things (or “five general categories of illocutionary acts”) (p. viii) that individuals do with language: “we tell people how things are” (assertives); “we try to get them to do things” (directives); “we commit ourselves to doing things” (commissives); “we express our feelings and attitudes” (expressives); and “we bring about changes through our utterances” (declarations) (p.29). Moreover, as individuals “often, we do more than one of these at once in the same utterance” (Searle, 1979, p.

88 29). However, Positioning Theory also goes beyond Searle’s (1979) conceptualisation of Austin’s (1961) speech act theory, to also include non- verbal contributions to language (Davies & Harré, 1999, p. 34). As such, “every socially significant action, intended movement, or speech must be interpreted as an act, a socially significant performance (Harré & Moghaddam, 2003, p. 6).

This relates to public relations whereby something as simple as a handshake becomes an action/performance “designed by the practitioner as part of a larger set of performances” to create meaning (James, 2014, p. 104). For example, a handshake might be a necessary strategic act in a diplomatic meeting, or in corporate situation to seal a deal. However, there is also no guarantee that “the meaning intended by the practitioner and the meaning constructed by audiences” will be the same (James, 2014, p. 104). Marcu (2000) describes this as one of the fallacies of speech act theory. James (2015) argues that public relations examined through a Positioning Theory lens nevertheless aligns with Searle’s’ (1979) view that most communication aims to “not break the intentions of the speaker, but rather to have the intended meaning co-constructed by the target public or audience - in essence to have a position ‘crystallise’” (pp. 36-37) (original italics). In public relations, this last concept is critical because the aim of most public relations is “to engage stakeholders in participative processes with predetermined outcomes” (Motion, 2005, p. 505). The crystallisation of a position is thus essential to this process (James, 2014).

The so-called ‘father’ of public relations, Edward Bernays (1923, 1961), argued that the crystallising of public opinion depended “not alone on words, but on action deserving public support, and education of the public to acquaint it with such action” (Bernays, 1961, p. iv). While Bernays may not have been referring to speech acts in a Searlian sense, it supports the concept that in public relations, having a position crystallise requires both speech acts and supporting actions to achieve organisational goals. James (2014) describes this as the “organisation’s course of action chosen from among various possibilities” and the enactment of the organisation’s position through what it says and does (p.

89 65). Austin (1962) also distinguished between the illocutionary force or what is “achieved in saying something” and the perlocutionary force or “what is achieved by saying something (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999 p. 17) (original italics). In speech act theory, the locution is the act of saying something, “the illocution is the act done in saying something” and “the perlocution is the act done by saying something” (Marcu, 2000, p. 1721). In other words, the illocution explains the way in which a locution is being used - for example "asking or answering a question, giving some information or an assurance or a warning" (Austin, 1962, p. 98), and this will normally give rise to certain perlocutionary “consequential effects upon the feelings, thoughts, or actions of an audience, or of the speaker, or of other persons” (Austin, 1962, p. 101). In Positioning Theory, the illocutionary force of speech acts is generally referred to as the ‘social force’ (James, 2014, p. 65).

To date speech act theory has not been widely applied in public relations scholarship and most “scholars that have addressed speech act theory, have primarily engaged with Searle’s’ five categories” (James, 2014, p. 105). However, it is a realm that most practitioners work in whether they realise it or not (James, 2014). This is because when designing or analysing public relations’ “positioning enactment strategies … the most important part is the question of what is the point or purpose of what is being said” (James, 2014, p. 66) and this is where speech act theory comes into play. In public relations contexts practitioners construct speech acts so that the intended audience will (ideally) take up the preferred meaning and “together co-construct the meaning and define the speech act” so as to further the organisation’s mission (James, 2014, p. 105).

The identification of speech acts thus provides a “clue to the discourse being invoked”, and when developing a positioning program, it permits practitioners to invoke a specific discourse by using “certain categories of speech acts” (James, 2014, p. 109). However, analysis also entails more than merely seeking out verbs (for example to “announce” or “proclaim”) (James, 2014, p.109). It also requires looking at the act in its entirety so that, rather than looking only at the

90 illocutionary act (or the literal meaning of what is being said), the researcher also analyses the perlocutionary act or “those effects which our utterances have on hearers which go beyond the hearer’s understanding of the utterance” (Searle, Kiefer & Bierwisch, 1980, p. vii). In Positioning Theory, however, how these effects are articulated or ‘known’ if they do indeed ‘go beyond’ the understanding of the hearer, is much less clear. This is where Positioning Theory (as opposed to speech act theory) potentially offers a more in-depth framework for the analysis of texts. For example, Searle (1979) argues that speech acts can be defined according to the social intentions of the speaker. However, positioning theorists Davies and Harré (1999) refute this arguing that social episodes are “joint actions” in which each of the participants “make (or attempt to make) their own and each other’s actions socially determinate” (p. 34). Accordingly, a speech-action can only become determinate if it is taken up by the other participants, meaning the social meaning of what is said and done is dependent on how participants (or interlocutors) are positioned within the social episode, “which is itself a product of the social force a conversation is taken ‘to have’” (Davies & Harré, 1999, p. 34). Similarly, James (2014) argues that the deployment of a speech act is not completed until the act is interpreted by someone else as having a social force. For example, a spokesperson may apologise on behalf of an organisation for an issue that has occurred, by using an (expressive) speech act of being sorry or apologetic (James, 2014). If, however, the speech act is not heard or reported on by the media (for example), it has failed to exert any social force (James, 2014). Thus, speech acts, from a public relations Positioning Theory perspective, can only be perceived as being successfully completed and positioning enacted when storylines are invoked (James, 2014).

The success (or not) of a speech act is also contingent upon the position of the speaker to perform the act (Searle & Vanderveken, 1985). This aligns with Smudde and Courtright’s (2010) concept of hierarchical power, where the social status of the entity plays a key part in terms of the degree of power that they will have attributed to them. From a Positioning Theory perspective, this also ties in

91 to the local moral order and the specific rights, duties and obligations of speakers to “ascribe rights and claim them” for themselves and to “place duties on others” (Moghaddam & Harré, 2010, p.3). It also suggests that what is acceptable in terms of speech acts/actions is dependent on both the social capital of the entity commissioning or enacting the public relations activity, as well as the prevailing social norms or local moral orders.

Neff (1998, 2008) is the only other public relations who has engaged with speech act theory. Like James (2010, 2011, 2014), Neff (1998) argues that speech act theory permits an analysis of the intent or purpose of the act of communicating. Where Neff primarily differs from James (2010, 2011, 2014) is that she argues speech acts can be classified according to only three “action paradigms” i.e. “directives (requests), promises (commissives) and expressives (declarations)” (Neff, 1998, p. 356). The most powerful of these is the declaration because it creates a space for “other speech acts to be enacted by declaring a possibility (it does not have to be reality) (and) in fact, if one's requests are not working, a new declaration must be created” (Neff. 1998, p. 356). In more recent work, Neff (2008) proposes that speech act theory also offers a method for a dialogic or “mutuality in conversation” approach to public relations scholarship and wherein speech act theory is conceptualised as a way of engaging with people to mutually satisfy the needs of both. Such an approach, Neff (2008) argues, provides an ethical basis for public relations by bringing into focus the question of intent in public relations communications.

However, although Neff (2008) provides examples of various ‘ethical dimensions’ and values, for example “reciprocity, mutuality, involvement and openness … a spirit of mutual equality” (Neff, 2008, p. 98) as well as the two-way symmetrical model of communication, these are offered only as ‘guides’ and as such they overlook the question of power disparities between organisations and publics. Researchers in communication, social and psychological studies have also shown that there is no method to predict if a speech act “will achieve its intended perlocutionary effect” (Marcu, 2000, pp. 1721- 1722). This is especially

92 true in terms of persuasive messages where, Marcu (2000) argues, it is a fallacy to consider “perlocutionary acts to be consequences of simple locutionary acts” (p. 1722). Even if, assumedly, a text succeeds in being persuasive, it is difficult to pinpoint the factors that contributed to this effect (Marcu ,2000). To provide an example, assuming a warning (illocution) that a carbon tax is bad, may persuade people that they should be concerned (a perlocutionary effect). However, as Marcu (2000) argues, how we are to know whether it is the warning that persuaded people, or the evidence that supported the warning, or “was it the text as a whole?” (p. 1723). Marcu (2000) further argues that speech act theory doesn’t provide any answers to these questions and even then, Providing answers to them amounts, among other things, to solving the ‘many forms for one function’ mapping problem which occurs when it is the complete full text or the discourse that has a function, rather than any single sentence” (pp. 1723-1724).

Clearly these are complex concerns for which there are no straightforward answers.

A further fallacy of speech act theory is the “hidden assumption” that perlocutionary effects result from offering new information that is previously unknown to the hearer (Marcu, 2000, p. 1724). Marcu (2000) argues that not only does new information rarely change attitudes, but to be persuasive requires that a text reminds “the hearer of information that she already knows” (p. 1724). Such arguments are borne out in both marketing and public relations scholarship, wherein the ideas put forth by Ries and Trout (2001) in terms of positioning as manipulating “what's already up there in the mind. To retie the connections that already exist” (Ries & Trout, 2001, p. 5), are conceptually similar to research conducted in public relations. In public relations, the role of practitioners is to call on pre-existing perceptions, attitudes or worldviews (be it an organisation, an issue or another person), and articulate this with a desired image or perception (Motion & Leitch, 1996: Motion, 2005). In these settings ‘what is already known’ is often assessed through market research (Roper, 2005) and it is imagined that practitioners using James (2014) Framework would draw

93 on this sort of information to inform the positioning strategy.

That said James (2014) acknowledges that speech act theory is not unproblematic and that further research is needed to ascertain whether speech act theory weakens the positioning triangle domain. One solution James (2014) suggests is that the researcher asks questions such as “what perlocutionary effect was the practitioner seeking when using a certain phrase?” (James, 2014, p. 105). James (2014) proposes that taking this approach would shift the focus from the receiver of the communication to the initiator or illocuter (James, 2014). In terms of this thesis and this review specifically, it was beyond the scope of the study to detail the pros and cons of what is a well-established theory. Nevertheless, because this thesis focused on an evaluation of James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) Frameworks, it also, necessarily, evaluated aspects of speech act theory as conceptualised by James (2010, 2011, 2014) as part of this evaluation. A discussion of speech act theory is thus (necessarily) reported on in in the study findings (Chapters 5, 6 and 7).

The storyline pole or vertex: In public relations, the storyline relates to the position that the entity wishes to take, promulgated through its communication activities (James, 2014). Accordingly, the storyline is “where the organisation attempts to construct meaning … about the position it has taken, the position it has been assigned or, the position it has assigned to another” (James, 2014, p. 66). Storylines are largely determined by the first two vertices of the positioning triangle domain, namely the positioning vertex and the speech act/action vertex (James, 2014) and wherein the role of public relations is to “develop and deliver various narratives that: a) support the desired positioning and b) are consistent with the other two vertices of the positioning triangle” (James, 2014, p. 66). It is also important to distinguish between the storyline and narratives. In public relations narratives are, Often told through key messages delivered through various platforms in paid, earned and owned media. A storyline is essentially a style of narrative that contains firstly, a conventional flow of events and secondly, characters (James, 2014, p. 66).

Thus, while storylines “scaffold the narrative to be more encompassing than what is merely said or written” (James, 2014, p. 132), it “is in the telling of the narrative that the storyline’s force is made determinate” (James, 2014, p. 141). Storylines in public relations also typically relate to a particular topic (James, 2014, p. 141), and there may be a “braided development of several storylines” whereby “each storyline is organized around various poles such as events, characters and moral dilemmas” (Davies & Harré, 1999, p. 38). James (2014) advises therefore, that “practitioners designing storylines should align them with the local expressive repertoires that they presume are in use, and towards which the organization, in a given situation, orients itself” (p. 141). In other words, storylines should articulate with other pre-existing socio-cultural discourses operating in society if they are to be taken up by targeted audiences in a public relations scenario.

3.5.3.2 The Purpose Positioning Domain (James, 2010, 2011) Originally the third positioning domain of James’ (2010, 2011) Framework as it was first conceptualised, was developed as a way of understanding the purposes of positioning and how it “relates to Jones and Pittman’s (1982, cited in Van Langenhove & Harré, 1999, p. 25) description of the ways individuals could present themselves in a positioning context” (James, 2011, p. 104). In public relations positioning contexts, this relates to examining the purposes for which an entity may wish to position itself or others. The five categories or positioning purposes of James’ (2010, 2011) Framework were/are: i. Ingratiation or when the purpose is “to be liked, do favours for/flatter others, risk being perceived as brownnosers”; ii. Intimidation or when the purpose is “to be seen as dangerous/threatening/powerful, emphasis is on ability to cause negative consequences to others, risk being seen as bossy or ineffectual if they fail”; iii. Self-promotion or when the purpose is “to be seen as competent-

95 emphasis is on abilities and accomplishments, risk being perceived as conceited or if claims are false as fraudulent”; iv. Exemplification or when the purpose is “to be seen as dedicated/upstanding/moral - emphasis is on going beyond ‘the call of duty’ – risk that is they fail to live up to their standards they may be seen as hypocritical”; and v. Supplication or when the purpose is to be seen as “weak/dependent” (James, 2011, p. 104). There may also be some slippage between classifications. For example, an entity may position themselves using self-promotion discourses, but they may also support this with positioning for the purposes of exemplification (James, 2011). Since 2010, 2011 when James’ Framework was initially developed and wherein it was offered solely on a provisional basis, further research has contributed to the Framework being refined. One of the changes has been the removal of the Purpose Positioning Domain. Consequently, in the latest iteration of James’ (2014) Framework, the second core domain is now the Strategic Pre-positioning Domain.

3.5.3.3 The Strategic Pre-Positioning Domain (James, 2014) With the removal of the positioning purpose domain, the third core domain of James (2014) Framework is now the strategic pre-positioning domain. This change has resulted from continued refinement of Positioning Theory by Positioning Theory scholars (see, for example Lee, 2010, and Moghaddam & Harré, 2010). Consequently, it is now generally accepted that positioning occurs in two phases. Phase one, or pre-positioning, refers to "the attribution of qualities such as character, intellect, or temperament" supported by biographical reports or evidence of past behaviour of the person in question (James, 2014, p. 210). However, James (2014) differs from Positioning Theory scholars by also drawing on public relations theory to propose that pre- positioning in public relations contexts is much more about "intentional representation" (Berger, 1999, p. 186) and, citing Weaver, Motion, and Roper

96 (2006) "the strategic attempt to control the agenda of public discussion and the terms in which discussion takes place” (p. 17). Pre-positioning, then, in public relations, is "central to the purposive construction of meaning with the strategic intention of an organisation achieving its goals" (James, 2014, p. 63).

3.5.3.4 The Positioning Type Domain This domain determines situations in which an entity may deliberately self- position, be forced into self-positioning, engage in deliberate positioning of others, or be forced into positioning others. There may also be considerable overlap between these positions. James (2014) argues that in situations of deliberate self-positioning, where an entity wishes to occupy a particular position for a specific reason, researchers looks for indications that an organisation is setting its own agenda on its own position and is not being forced to do so. In situations of forced self-positioning, where forces outside an entity’s immediate control necessitate the entity repositioning itself, researchers look for indications that an organisation is setting its own agenda on its own position but that is it being forced to do so for some reason (usually external). In situations of deliberate positioning of others, where an entity deliberately positions other entities for a specific reason, researchers looks for indications that an organisation is setting its own agenda on positioning something/someone other than itself.

From a traditional Positioning Theory perspective, these positioning types are held as being “categories of self-presentation” that differ depending on the stories people want to tell about themselves (Harré and van Langenhove, 1999, p. 25). By this definition, self or other positioning is almost always a type of strategic self-positioning and, rather than having a separate domain as in James’ (2010, 2011, 2914) Framework, they can be analysed by applying the narrative (storyline) pole of Harré & van Langenhove’s (1999, p. 25) Positioning Triangle. This perhaps raises questions of the necessity for a separate domain when using James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) Framework as an analytical heuristic, and they are

97 questions that are returned to in Chapters 5, 6 and 7 (the study findings). With that said, James (2014) argues that a strength of the positioning type domain is that it permits an analysis of social power by facilitating discussions in terms of “the power to position oneself or others, to exercise power to resist being positioned or to examine power relations between those in positioning situations” (James, 2014, pp. 48-49). Clearly this is an aspect of strategic positioning that has relevance to this study, as it suggests that the positioning type domain potentially offers a way of examining how power was discursively constructed and enacted in the speech transcripts of Gillard and Abbott.

3.5.3.5 The Positioning Goal Domain The fourth and final domain of James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) Framework is the positioning goal domain. In public relations contexts, Positioning Theory is applied to examine “how discourse is used to strategically position something in order to gain advantage and achieve a public relations goal” (Wise & James, 2013, p. 3). Thus, this domain is pivotal in terms of examining the goal that underpins the overall positioning strategy, and the “goal the position taken was intended to achieve” (Wise & James, 2013, p. 5).

3.5.4 Discussion In addition to the actual framework, James’ work on positioning stresses how parties to positioning efforts have rights and duties that are jointly constituted through engaging in discursive practices (James, 2011; Wise & James, 2013). This is related to public relations positioning primarily in the processes by which the desired positioning is determined by the entity undertaking a public relations program. Positioning Theory suggests that in a public relations sense, an entity must have the right, or construct the right, to discursively take a particular position (Wise & James, 2013; James, 2011, 2014). Key to taking a position in public relations contexts then, are the “concepts and principles from the local moral domain, usually appearing as beliefs and practices involving rights and duties” (Harré, Moghaddam, Pilkerton Cairnie, Rothbart & Sabat, 2009, p. 6).

98 Participants in social interactions are thus constrained by this understood framework of rights, duties and obligations (Tan & Moghaddam, 1999). From a public relations perspective, initial work (i.e. Wise & James, 2013) suggested that failure to consider the prevailing local moral orders within a particular social episode, will result in the positioning failing.

3.5.5 Summary Evidence was presented which showed that there are several commonalities to how Positioning Theory has been conceptualised. These include that positioning can be examined through an analysis of discourse at the interpersonal (micro), institutional (meso), and cultural (macro) levels of society. Positioning is about “how people use words (and discourse of all types) to locate themselves and others” (Moghaddam & Harré, 2010, p.2) and provides a way of examining the dynamism of interactions as they unfold within social episodes. Underpinning Positioning Theory is the concept of a complex and dynamic patterns of rights, duties, obligations and moral orders (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999) that can impede what people may rightfully say and do. Also impinging on these rights, duties and obligations, are the “past experiences, values and beliefs” of parties to the episode (Pilkerton Cairnie, 2010, p. 60). From a public relations perspective, an understanding of these factors can be seen to provide insights into how ideology might frame assumptions and perceptions.

Also common to many analyses applying Positioning Theory, is a conceptual framework consisting of a mutually determining triad of position, speech acts/action and storylines (e.g. Harré and van Langenhove, 1999). The evidence presented suggests James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) Frameworks, which are adapted from Positioning Theory as conceptualised by Davies and Harré (1990), and Harré and van Langenhove (1999), likewise consist of a positioning triad however James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) Frameworks differ by being adapted specifically for use in public relations. In these contexts, positioning is almost

99 always underpinned by having a strategic intent. Thus, positioning as it is more traditionally understood may not always be apposite to positioning in public relations contexts. To allow for this, in addition to the positioning triad that consists of the position, speech act/action and storylines vertices, James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) Frameworks include three additional positioning domains. Initial work applying these domains (i.e. Wise & James, 2013) suggested that failure to consider the prevailing local moral orders within a particular social episode, would result in the positioning failing.

3.6 Chapter summary

A uniting theme that has distinguished public relations scholarship historically has been that of having a strategy behind communication between organisations and publics. Evidence has been presented that suggests that strategy is prevalent in the public relations academic literature, however there is no single definition that sufficiently encapsulates this concept. Evidence was also presented that showed that strategy was inextricably linked to power, even if this connection was not always observable or theorised as such. The concept of positioning has also been widely referred to in the public relations literature, and the evidence suggested that often this usage is aligned with marketing concepts. Again, the evidence suggested there is no single encapsulating definition of positioning, outside of Positioning Theory. Most of this research has developed along a continuum, with most conducted from a discursive and social constructionist approach. From this perspective strategy is inextricably linked to power, and Positioning Theory, that provides a way to examine how power is strategically deployed in public relations contexts, provides important new insights in this regard. The evidence further suggested that James’ work applying Positioning Theory to public relations aligns with, and is a continuation of this discursive/critical scholarship.

Within this continuum, too, the literature suggested convergences between public relations and Positioning Theory, particularly as it relates to scholarship

100 on identity and personas. The evidence suggested that personas in public relations contexts can be conceptualised as sites of intentional representation, the success of which is determined by the rights and/or duties of the entity to enact a particular persona within the local moral order (James, 2014). Although there was some overlap between ideas of framing and positioning, the intertwined Positioning Theory concepts of rights and duties and local moral orders, as drawn on by James (2010, 2011, 2014), distinguishes positioning, framing theory and Positioning Theory in public relations scholarship.

This review of the literature also examined various public relations meta- frameworks, including functionalist/systems theory, co-creational/dialogic and discursive frameworks. The evidence presented suggests that despite efforts to conceptualise public relations within these frameworks, in large part Hallahan’s (1999) assertion that there are no approaches that represent “a comprehensive foundation for fully understanding the processes or consequences of public relations” (p. 205) remains valid. The following chapter will report on the research approach and methodology for this doctoral research project.

101 4. Methodology

RQ1 Did applying James’ Framework provide answers into how a carbon price/tax was strategically positioned in the case study and if so how?

RQ2 What are the strengths and weaknesses of applying James’ Framework?

RQ3 Could James’ Framework be improved upon and if so how?

RQ4 Does public relations need a positioning ‘framework’ at all?

This chapter provides a description of this project’s research methodology and includes discussions around the following areas: (a) research approach rationale, (b) the research sample, (c) research design overview, (d) data collection methods, (e) data analysis and synthesis, (f) ethical considerations, (g) a discussion of issues relating to trustworthiness, (h) situating myself in the research project and (i) the limitations of the research study. The chapter culminates in a brief concluding summary.

102 4.1 Research approach: rationale for qualitative research design

Any research approach should be decided according to what it is the researcher wants to find out (Silverman, 2011; Daymon & Holloway, 2011). In this study the task was to evaluate James’ Frameworks (2010, 2011, 2014) as a model for examining and explaining the public relations positioning of a carbon price or tax in a particular case. Much public relations’ work is ideological (Berger, 1999) and, by selecting a qualitative framework, the aim was to go beyond simply interpreting the intended meaning of a text, to instead “expose and publicly resist the ideology that permeates the accepted wisdom of society” (Griffin, 2000, p. 16). Qualitative research approaches also respect the complexity of social interaction and avoid over-simplification (Glesne & Peshkin, 1992) and therefore potentially offering a deeper understanding of social phenomena (Silverman, 2011). These possibilities provided the rationale in terms of approaching this research project using a qualitative research methodology.

The research approach taken in this study can be described as fitting within the umbrella term of social constructionism; a “general epistemological perspective on social life” (Nikander, 2008, p. 414) that draws influences from numerous disciplines and is “multi-disciplinary in nature” (Burr, 2015, p. 2). This thesis project was undertaken from my own social constructionist epistemology, and my ontological view that “social phenomena and their meanings are continually accomplished by social actors ... produced through social interaction ... in a constant state of revision” (Bryman, 2016, p. 29). Public relations plays a pivotal role in these processes by constructing ways “of understanding the world” (Gordon and Pellegrin, 2008, p. 117) and this was a further key consideration in terms of selecting a research approach for this thesis.

There are several key tenets that hold social constructionism together. In public relations,

One tenet is that conceptions of reality (including of ourselves) are created through social interaction. A second tenet is that human institutions are created through social interactions and cannot exist

103 independently of human agreement. Finally, a third tenet is that the constructed world of everyday life is itself an important element in the maintenance and reconstruction of social reality, human institutions, and ourselves (Gordon & Pellegrin, 2008, p. 105).

From a social psychological perspective Lock and Strong (2010) propose five key tenets of social constructionism: 1. It is concerned with meaning and understanding as the central feature of human activities. With respect to meaning, the focus is on how it is that a symbolically based language does what it does; 2. The view that meaning and understanding have their beginnings in social interaction, in shared agreements as to what these symbolic forms are taken to be; 3. Ways of meaning-making, being inherently embedded in socio-cultural processes, are specific to particular times and places … thus, the meanings of particular events, and our ways of understanding them, vary over different situations; 4. Following from this, most social constructionists have an uneasy relationship with ‘essentialism’: that is … if people fashion who they are within their varying socio-cultural traditions, then they are instrumental in creating the discourses they use to define themselves. Thus, people are self- defining and socially constructed participants in their shared lives; 5. The adoption of a critical perspective to the topics at hand (Lock & Strong, 2010, pp. 7-8).

What these and most social constructionists acknowledge, then, is the existence of a physical world beyond our interpretation of it, in which social actors discursively construct “the ideas, social processes, and phenomena that make up the social world” (Nikander, 2008, p. 413). Most social constructionists further share the view that reality is not some objective ‘truth’ waiting to be discovered through positivist scientific inquiry, but rather it is that “which is perceived, taken for granted and continually accomplished by those who hold a shared history and shared meanings” (Daymon & Holloway, 2011, p. 273). Through these

104 human processes, reality is something that is constantly “created, maintained, altered, and destroyed” (Gordon & Pellegrin, 2008, p. 105) and wherein multiple realities each compete for truth and legitimacy. From an intellectual standpoint, social constructionism thus offers a method of philosophical enquiry that permits public relations scholars to ask different questions, raise different concerns, and employ different methodological approaches (Gordon & Pellegrin, 2008). The ability to ask these philosophical questions was considered vital within the context of this study.

In taking this approach I am also diverging from what may be considered more mainstream approaches to public relations research wherein the aim, often, is to discern how public relations can be practiced ‘excellently’ (see, for example, Grunig & Grunig, 2000) and thereby add economic value to organisations. Instead this study raises different concerns by drawing on critical scholarship, and in particular the work of Motion and Leitch (1996, 2007, 2010), and Motion and Weaver (2005). Motion and Leitch (1996) argued that public relations practitioners are “discourse technologists” who “play a central role in the maintenance and transformation of discourse” (p. 298). Through the use of discursive strategies (Motion & Weaver, 2005, p. 50), and the deployment of public relations texts, public relations seeks to “achieve change by transforming discourses” and whereby “established ways of thinking about particular objects, concepts, subjects, and strategies" assume a taken for granted or “truth” status (Motion & Leitch, 2010, p. 103). Demetrious (2013) describes this as controlling and manipulating “the meaning making process” (p. 28). Through these discursive practices organisations “gain public consent to pursue their organisational mission” (Motion & Weaver, 2005, p. 50) and the “hegemonic power of particular groups” is advanced (Motion & Leitch, 2007, p. 266). Public relations, from a critical perspective, is thus a “discourse practice with power effects” (Motion & Leitch, 2007, p. 266) and this more critical social constructionist perspective was influential in informing the research approach taken in this study.

105 This thesis was also underpinned by James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) work on positioning in public relations, and employed a qualitative methodology involving positioning analysis (e.g. Boxer, 2001, 2003; Harré, Lee & Moghaddam, 2008; Harré, Moghaddam, Pilkerton Cairnie, Rothbart & Sabat, 2009; Harré & Slocum, 2003; Harré and van Langenhove, 1999; James, 2011, 2012, 2014; Louis, 2008; Montiel & De Guzman, 2011; Neille, 2013; Pinnegar, Mangelson, Reed & Groves, 2011; Redman & Fawns, 2004; Slocum & van Langenhove, 2004: Slocum- Bradley, 2008, 2010a, 2010b; Tsetsura, 2014; Wise & James, 2013; Yamakawa, Forman & Ansell, 2009; and Zelle, 2009). As with these positioning researchers, James’ Framework (2010, 2011, 2014), is underpinned by social constructionism. In public relations, this relates to the ways in which practitioners “work to construct versions of reality through positioning” (James, 2014, p. 19). Of most relevance to public relations is the concept of rights, duties and obligations that has “the capacity to move public relations research and practice into new areas, and to provide stronger links to the communication disciplines and other areas of scholarly inquiry” (James, 2014, p. 54). Dimitrious (2013) argues that “the analysis of the social apparatus of public relations and its effects … needs greater attention” (p. 31) and this was a key consideration thought vital within the context of completing a research higher degree, and making an original contribution to the body of knowledge within the public relations field.

Much “qualitative enquiry is considered to be a form of case study research” (Daymon & Holloway, 2011, p. 114) and case studies are one of the most prevalent forms of research in public relations scholarship (Coombes & Holladay, 2010). Rather than being a method, case studies are a broad methodological “umbrella” approach that can “encompass multiple methods” depending on the aim of the project (Daymon & Holloway, 2011, p. 114). Public relations scholars Singh and Glenny (2004) propose that case studies in public relations research rely on factual data “recorded from real-life practices and events” (p. 156). Taking this approach, they argue, allows researchers to analyse and evaluate “the positive and negative aspects” of public relations “events, campaigns or programs” (Singh & Glenny, p. 156). In terms of the scope of this

106 case study I drew on these arguments and that of Yin (2014) who argues a case study is an empirical inquiry that “investigates a contemporary phenomenon (the “case”) in depth and within its real world context” (p. 16). Central to this understanding are the contextual conditions that will be pertinent to the case (Yin, 2014).

While there are no set rules when conducting case study research (Yin, 2009; Merriam, 2009), there are a few key criteria which separate case studies from other forms of qualitative research. Primarily this relates to a concern with understanding complex phenomena in their social context (Yin, 20o9; Daymon & Holloway, 2011) and involves ‘intensive and holistic examination - using multiple sources of evidence … of a single phenomenon … within its social context, which is bounded by time and place” (Daymon & Holloway, 2011, p. 115). This case study, then, is an intensive examination of a contemporary communicative event that took place during a three-month period in Australia in 2011. The phenomenon investigated is the positioning of a carbon pricing policy (or carbon tax) by two Australian political leaders, and the research aims to further knowledge about how the policy was communicated within the context of Australian politics. In posing the question “what is going on here?”, my intent is “to bring to life the nuances of professional communication by describing a chunk of ‘reality’” (Daymon & Holloway, 2011, p. 115). To do this requires: Undertaking a detailed analysis of a case; i.e. a particular phenomenon in its setting … noting the many different influences on, and aspects of, communication relationships and experiences that occur within the case; drawing attention to how those factors relate to each other; (and) often also noting the broader social forces and regimes of power in which the case is embedded (Daymon & Holloway, 2011, p. 115).

These arguments were influential in determining that a case study approach applying James (2010, 2011, 2014) Frameworks, would provide a method to answer the research questions, and that the nuances of how meaning was constructed about a carbon price/tax would be understood within the context of the social realm in which public relations operates.

107 4.2 The research sample

In this study, and in alignment with a qualitative research paradigm, samples were purposively selected in terms of their ability to provide “complex comparisons” (Gray, 2003, p. 101) and thereby satisfy the study’s specific needs (Robson, 2002). The need, in this case, was to evaluate James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) Frameworks as a model for examining and explaining the public relations positioning of a carbon price or tax, and to extend theory in the discipline. Nevertheless, the notion of a study sample is problematic in qualitative research. This is because it is founded on a different quantitative/positivist conceptualisation, and it requires that samples are selected on the grounds that they are representative of the whole (Gray, 2003). To ameliorate this shortcoming data, sources should be “first and foremost linked to the research questions asked” (Linders, 2013, p. 473) and care should be taken to evaluate “how, by whom, for what purpose, and with what audience in mind particular documents are produced, all of which affect the content and structure of documents in various ways” (Linders, 2013, p. 473). These factors were influential in the selection of a single research sample – a case of 22 speech transcripts.

4.2.1 Speech transcripts Official documents, such as speech transcripts, are valued by researchers for their ability to provide insights into organisations (Lamont, 2015, p. 80) and in public relations the use of speech transcripts for research purposes is well documented (e.g. Anagondahalli, 2013; Benoit & Brinson, 1999; Benoit & Henson, 2009; Chaka, 2014; Kiousis & Shields, 2008; Kiousis & Strömbäck, 2011; Kim, Xiang & Kiousis, 2011; Liu, 2007; Mboene & Gonçalves, 2017). Speeches are a key public relations tactic that can be delivered through a variety of channels (Hudson, 2004) and as such, they can potentially reach large mass audiences (Heath, 2010). One of many official genres “designed for the public” (Wodak, 2012, p. 525) speeches are a front-stage act in which politicians “present

108 themselves, stage their work and (drawing on Goffman, 1959) ‘perform’” (Wodak, 2012, p. 525). Amongst their many purposes, and especially in political contexts, speeches are used to gain media coverage, increase the salience of an issue, and are also used to influence and garner public support (Kiousis & Strömbäck, 2010, pp. 8-9). This makes speeches amongst the “most meaningful information subsidies” (Kiousis & Strömbäck, 2011, p. 9) available to political leaders, and they provide a rich source of primary data for public relations researchers.

Speeches may also take many forms, for example a formal speech, a script, a Public Service Announcement (PSA) or a conversation (Treadwell & Treadwell, 2004). Regardless, and irrespective of the context, from a public relations perspective they are always prepared with an intended goal or outcome in mind (Treadwell & Treadwell, 2005). This includes speeches that are seemingly uttered spontaneously or delivered “ad hoc” as, even in these circumstances, the speaker will be recalling past linguistic and episodic memories (Reisigl, 2008). In public relations, goal directedness requires that practitioners “establish key messages, attract the audience’s attention and then tell them what you are going to say – then tell them again” (Hudson, 2004, p. 218). From a public relations positioning perspective, this relates to the use of consistent messaging to support believability (James, 2011, 2014) and, whereby, if the three poles/vertices of the positioning triangle domain are inconsistent, key messaging will likely fail (James, 2010).

Other decisions public relations practitioners may make when preparing speeches include whether the speech will “inform, persuade, or entertain”, as well as decisions about the intended audience and the purpose of the speech on both a micro and macro level (Treadwell & Treadwell, 2005). On a micro level this might concern “how and to what extent an audience will be informed” and, on a macro level it might concern “the nature of the relationship the speechwriter hopes to establish with the audience” (Treadwell & Treadwell, 2005, p. 308). Attention is also paid in terms of whether the speech should be

109 one or two-sided, who should deliver it, the level of education of targeted publics, and whether it will answer questions an audience will likely have (Treadwell & Treadwell, 2005). Alternatively, the goal may be to “promote an agenda the speaker wishes to promote” (Treadwell & Treadwell, 2005, p. 308). In these circumstances, and in political contexts, speechwriters use political rhetoric to persuade or influence the thoughts and/or actions of others (Ihlen, 2010). Various techniques are used to accomplish these aims - for example framing is used to get “an audience to automatically respond to a given issue in a certain way by creating a dominant framework of understanding” and “dog whistling” is the term used for “the art of sending different and disguised framing messages out to each group of electors” (Glover, 2007, pp. 154–155). Speechwriting thus constitutes a discursive practice wherein power “as a property of relations between social groups, institutions or organisations” (van Dijk, 1996, p. 84) is deployed as part of a political organisation’s overall discourse strategy. From a public relations perspective, this point is crucial because it underpins the goal directedness of the speeches analysed in the study.

As an example of naturally occurring data (Patton, 2002), speech transcripts offer considerable benefits because the role of the researcher in constructing the data itself is minimised. As a result, the research focus is “on how a particular phenomenon is constituted” by people in real-life situations, and this encourages explanations that address “‘why?’ because we have a knowledge of ‘how’” (Silverman, 1994, p. 71). These factors were considered important in terms of a having a study sample that reflected ‘real-world’ communication from a public relations Positioning Theory perspective. The research sample is also an example of targeted sampling, a common approach in social constructionist research that involves the selection of documents based on “the emergence, persistent, and/or evolution of a particular social construction” (Linders, 2008, p. 475). In this study the persistent phenomena targeted was the social construction of a carbon price or tax. One of the challenges of this approach, however, is ensuring that “the findings are not predetermined by the

110 particular set of documents and the conclusions are not foregone in the sense that we pick only documents that fit” (Linders, 2008, p. 475). To remedy this, and as Linders (2008) advises, the research sample in this study consists of “a single carefully selected case” (Linders, 2008, p. 476).

4.2.2 Election campaigns Election campaigns are well researched in public relations and provide an ideal context for analysis (Roper, 2005, p. 14). And, while the case study analysed as part of this thesis is not an example of an election campaign per se, it provides a snapshot in time wherein the respective positions of the two major political parties and their leaders were largely established in the lead-up to the 2011 federal election. In Australia, moreover, political leaders are locked in a cycle of continuous electioneering (Young, 2007) and the period under investigation had important flow-on effects for both political leaders in terms of the eventual election outcome. Thus, the speech transcripts in this study provide a rich source of data in terms of how strategic pre-positioning (James, 2014) was influential in shaping understanding about the introduction of a carbon pricing mechanism, and how this may have ultimately influenced voter intentions. The selection of speech transcripts as the data sample in this study was selected on these grounds, and the understanding that as a primary means of political communication, the speech transcripts would be likely to provide insights in terms of how both political leaders sought to discursively position themselves and their respective policies as part of an overall campaign strategy. The following tables provide a chronological list of each of the speech transcripts that comprised the case study.

Table 4.1 Breakdown of speeches delivered by former Prime Minister Julia Gillard, by date.

9 July 2011 'The courage to be new', Speech to the New South Wales Branch of the ALP State Conference

111 10 July 2011 Transcript of Address to the Nation 14 July 2011 ‘A great clean energy future, a great reform agenda’, Address to the National Press Club, Canberra 18 July 2011 ‘A great clean energy future, a great reform agenda’, Address to the National Press Club, Canberra 4 August 2011 Address to Per Capita: The Reform Series, Melbourne 7 August 2011 Address to the Tasmanian branch of the ALP State Conference, Hobart 31 August 2011 Speech to the Financial Services Council Breakfast, Sydney

13 September 2011 Address to the Australian Steel Convention, Canberra

13 September 2011 Introduction of the Clean Energy Bill 2011, Canberra

Table 4.2 Breakdown of speeches delivered by former Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott, by date.

10 July 2011 Address to the Nation 13 July 2011 Remarks at the Melbourne Wholesale Fish Markets, West Melbourne 16 July 2011 Address to LNP State Council, Brisbane 29 July 2011 Address to Consilium 2011, Queensland 13 August 2011 Address to the WA Liberal Party State Conference, Perth 16 August 2011 Address to the No Carbon Tax Rally, Canberra 19 August 2011 Address to Workers at Seeley International, Adelaide 20 August 2011 Address to the South Australian Liberal Party State Council, Adelaide 22 August 2011 Address to the Convoy of No Confidence Rally, Canberra 22 August 2011 Second Reading Speech, Carbon Tax Plebiscite Bill, Parliament House

112 27 August 2011 Address to the Tasmanian Liberal Party State Council, Hobart 29 August 2011 Address to the Committee for Economic Development of Australia, Melbourne 12 September 2011 Address to the Australian Steel Convention 2011, Canberra 14 September 2011 Second Reading Speech: Clean Energy Bills 2011, House of Representatives

4.3 Information needed to conduct the study

The case study focused on 22 political speech transcripts delivered in 2011 by former Australian Labor Party Prime Minister Julia Gillard, and former Liberal/National Coalition Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott. In seeking to understand how strategic positioning was undertaken in these transcripts, and the efficacy of applying James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) Frameworks as a method of analysing positioning in public relations texts, four research questions were explored to gather the information needed. How to answer these research questions was determined by the conceptual framework, and wherein it was determined that the key category in terms of the information needed was theoretical. Thus an ongoing review of the literature provided the theoretical grounding for this study.

4.4 Overview of research design

The idea of an ‘ideal’ research process wherein “the research is carried out in discrete phases starting from the literature review and ending with the writing up” rarely proceeds so neatly (Gray, 2003, p. 58). This was certainly my experience in writing this thesis; informed by my review of the public relations and Positioning Theory literature, what began as several broad questions about the pricing of carbon emissions in Australia, as well as questions about applying James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) Frameworks that can be applied to examine strategic

113 positioning in public relations, evolved to become the thesis as it stands. In addition, since any research methodology and choice of research methods is an “imperfect interplay of resources, capabilities, purposes, possibilities, creativity and personal judgements by the people involved” (Patton, 2002, p. xxiii), it was acknowledged that this would necessarily inform the selection of research methods, and that there would be a degree of flexibility in the design processes (Glesne & Peshkin, 1992; Robson, 2002). The study also drew on Robson (2002, p. 5) who argues that qualitative researchers can be less specific in designing their research project at the outset because research methods can be developed as the project unfolds. Accordingly, in this study, the problem statement, research design and interpretations (Glesne & Peshkin, 1992, p. 6) evolved as the research progressed.

In this project 22 political speech transcripts, delivered by former Australian Labor Party (ALP) Prime Minister Julia Gillard, and former Liberal National (LNP) Coalition Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, were analysed using James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) Frameworks. These frameworks permit an analysis of strategic positioning in public relations contexts, and the dual aims of the research design were to a) evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of applying James’ Positioning Frameworks and b) to identify how positioning was undertaken to discursively construct particularised meanings for targeted audiences or publics. The following list summarises the steps that were taken to carry out this research. Following this list, a more in-depth discussion of each of these steps is provided. 1. Preceding the collection of data, a selected review of the literature was conducted to examine the contributions of other researchers and writers in the areas of Positioning Theory and public relations scholarship on positioning. 2. On the advice of my PhD supervisor I commenced writing a research journal to document the research process. 3. Data collection commenced in late 2011 and an initial textual analysis (phase one) was undertaken in preparation for confirmation (a compulsory

114 research proposal defence process undertaken at the completion of the first year for research higher degree students at the University of Newcastle, Australia). 4. Phase one analysing the study data using textual analysis and applying James’ (2010, 2011) Framework was completed in 2014. 5. Phase two analysing the study data using textual analysis and applying James’ (2014) Framework commenced in 2014, following the publication of James’ (2014) book: Positioning Theory and Strategic Communication: A new approach to public relations research and practice.

4.4.1 Literature review Throughout the researching and writing of this thesis I undertook an ongoing review of the academic literature. This involved examining the literature in two key topic areas: strategic positioning in public relations and Positioning Theory. The focus of the review was to further my understanding of how public relations strives to strategically position identities - for example political leaders; entities - for example political organisations; and ‘things’ such as a policy to price carbon emissions or, more broadly, products, services et cetera. I also sought to understand how various frameworks had been applied in both public relations and Positioning Theory research, including how positioning is conceptualised by James (2010, 2011, 2014).

4.4.2 Research journal A core component of this study was a reflective research journal that I wrote in tandem with the researching and writing of this thesis. Janesick (1998) argues that the use of research journals is critical in qualitative research because the researcher is the research tool. She describes journal writing as “a type of connoisseurship by which individuals become connoisseurs of their own thinking and reflection patterns and indeed their own understanding of their work” (Janesick, 1998, p. 3) and argues that journal writing is thus “a tangible way to evaluate our experience, improve and clarify one’s thinking, and finally become a better ... scholar” (Janesick, 1998, p. 24). Janesick (1998) also argues

115 that these journals then become part of the research data however in this study the reflective journal was not, nor was it ever intended to be, included as part of the study data. Rather, it was used solely to reflect and to make sense of concepts, particularly in terms of evaluating James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) Frameworks. This process, as Borg (2001) found, was beneficial in terms of:

articulating and rationalising concerns and exploring solutions; acknowledging, expressing and examining feelings; describing events and procedures; clarifying concepts and their implications for the research; capturing, exploring and pursuing ideas; and structuring thoughts (pp. 169-70).

Keeping a research journal thus provided me with a detailed record that I then drew on to describe the structural and theoretical problems I encountered while evaluating James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) Frameworks. Writing the journal also provided me with insights into my changing perspectives throughout the research process, and this was found to be particularly instructive in terms of my own understanding of Positioning Theory and its applicability to public relations.

4.4.3 Confirmation approval Following an initial review of the literature I successfully defended a research proposal for this study that included: the background/context outlined in Chapter 2; a problem statement; a purpose statement; the research questions outlined in Chapter 1; the literature review included in Chapter 3, and the proposed methodological approach as outlined in Chapter 4.

4.5 Data collection methods

The research questions guided the data collection methods. In this research

116 project, there were two phases: the first phase evaluated James (2010, 2011) Framework and the second phase evaluated James revised (2014) Framework. Both phases consisted of applying James’ Frameworks to analyse a case study of 22 political speech transcripts. The transcripts are examples of a public relations discourse genre, an approach which foregrounds strategy/strategic communication in both “form and function” (Courtwright & Smudde, 2010, p. 60). In terms of message design, the speech transcripts in this study thus exemplify how public relations texts move beyond “mere tactical considerations” to also consider the “context of the message’s purpose and the situation it is designed to address” (Courtwright & Smudde, 2010, p. 60). This may include “situational constraints, sound theoretical message design choices, and the purposes for the message” (Courtwright & Smudde, 2010, p. 60). All of these are critical considerations for public relations practitioners who strategically deploy public relations texts so that they will have a desired impact on targeted publics (Courtwright & Smudde, 2010, Motion Leitch, 1996). Public relations texts, including speeches, thus play a part in the constitution and reproduction of social power (Fairclough, 2003). After considering these arguments, I determined that this was an appropriate approach to obtaining the information needed to answer my research questions.

4.5.1 Data collection methods described This thesis began in late August 2011; just a few weeks before then Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard introduced the Clean Energy Bill 2011 to the Federal Parliament. The debate over the carbon price/tax between Gillard and then Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott, had been ongoing for the previous three months and had been widely reported on in the Australian media. At the time, despite the legislation being introduced, it also seemed that the outcome was far from settled with Abbott vowing to repeal the legislation should he become Prime Minister in the forthcoming federal election. I was interested, from a public relations perspective, to learn why the carbon price/tax debate had played out in the way that it had, and so it was that I began to examine various

117 media releases and speech transcripts that were publicly available on the official websites of Gillard and Abbott.

This process entailed an initial search of the Prime Minister’s website (www.pm.gov.au/) using the website’s search function. The website ‘Press Office’ page permitted searches for content filtered by various content types (i.e. all content, interviews, media releases, speeches or video transcripts). Finding a wealth of available data using this search it was apparent that the search would need to be narrowed. As my interest was in how a carbon price was positioned, I again used the website search function but this time I narrowed the search to only include speech transcripts. Speech transcripts, as examples of a public relations discourse genre (Courtwright & Smudde, 2010), seemed to be a more appropriate choice in terms of applying James’ (2010, 2011) Framework, because they consisted of storylines, narrations, speech acts and positions that were uttered by Gillard or Abbott. Media releases, in contrast, are typically written in public relations contexts from an impartial and often voiceless perspective, and thus “the analytical process of identifying the narrator can be complicated, because the same text may include various different voices and the speaker may be more or less anonymous and difficult to detect” (Bogren, 2010, p. 77). It was on these grounds that speech transcripts were determined to be more appropriate in terms of answering the research questions.

To further filter the results, I then entered the keyword ‘carbon’. From these results, I determined to only include speech transcripts that had been uploaded to the website in July, August or September 2011. The reasoning behind this was that from my initial reading of the speech transcripts, it seemed evident that Gillard’s ‘selling’ of the carbon price to voters commenced with a speech delivered to the New South Wales Branch of the ALP at their State Conference in Sydney (Gillard, 2011a) on 9 July 2011. It also seemed evident that this positioning strategy reached a conclusion of sorts when Gillard introduced the Clean Energy Bill 2011 to the Australian Federal Parliament (Gillard, 2011i) on 13

118 September 2011. This timeframe was thus deemed appropriate because it established, in the first instance, how a carbon price was to be packaged and sold to discourse consumers (Roper, 2005), and concluded with the introduction of the carbon pricing policy in legislative terms. Limiting the speech transcripts to this timeframe resulted in a total of four speeches that had been uploaded in July; three in August, and four in September (n=11). Of these, one speech transcript had been uploaded twice (i.e. it was a duplicate), and another speech transcript fell outside of the study period. Both were subsequently omitted from the data. This resulted in a total of nine (n=9) speech transcripts that had been delivered by Gillard and these were included in the study.

The remaining study sample consisted of 13 speech transcripts that had been uploaded to the website of (former) Leader of the Opposition and Federal Member for Warringah Tony Abbott (www.tonyabbott.com.au). The search for data of this website commenced with a sequential search using the links: ‘Latest News’, ‘Speeches’, ‘Search Articles’. As with the search of Gillard’s website, I then entered the search term ‘carbon’. This search returned 97 speech transcripts. To refine this selection, another search using the ‘Speeches’ link, but instead selecting the ‘Archives’ option (that allows a search of speech transcripts by the month and year in which they were delivered), returned a total of thirteen speeches (n=13) that fell within the study timeframe. These 13 speech transcripts were then cross-referenced against the previous search results (i.e. speeches that contained the search term carbon) to ensure they were relevant to the study. Finding that they were, these 13 (n=13) speech transcripts were included in the case study. In combination, twenty-two (n=22) speech transcripts were downloaded, and then copied and pasted into Microsoft Word documents and digitally stored on a computer. These 22 speech transcripts formed the case study data.

119 4.6 Methods for data analysis and synthesis

This study applied James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) Frameworks in two distinct stages. Phase one, in which I applied James’ (2010, 2011) Framework, took place between late 2011 and mid 2014. Phase two, in which I applied James’ (2014) Framework, took place from 2014 onwards. The formal process of data analysis consisted of a recursive process of studying the texts for meaning, and applying James’ (2010, 2011) Framework in phase one, and repeating this process by applying James’ (2014) revised Framework in phase two. The data to which the framework was applied was that generated by a textual analysis. Indicators were sought within the texts for evidence of strategic positioning or “processes of intentional representation” (Berger, 1999, p. 186), defined by Berger (1999) as “the purposeful expression of organisational voice(s) and appearance(s) to influence others” and, whereby, “legitimation is gained or lost with others” (p. 186). This process of examining the texts enabled me to establish how the opposing positions of Gillard and Abbott in relation to the carbon price or tax were discursively constructed, and wherein the goal was to shape understanding about the issue.

4.6.1 Overview of James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) Frameworks James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) Frameworks are built on the concept of four core domains, wherein a practitioner or scholar can work to design or analyse public relations techniques and processes. The four domains of James (2010, 2011) Framework are the Goal Domain; the Positioning Purpose Domain, the Positioning Type Domain, and the Positioning Triangle Domain that consists of the mutually determining poles of position, speech act/action, and storylines. When devising a public relations campaign, the entry point is at the goal domain, and this process is followed by sequentially applying the remaining three domains in the order listed. When applying the Framework to analyse a public relations campaign, following the directions of James (2011), the framework is, in effect, ‘flipped’. This, then, was the approach taken in this

120 study wherein the flipped (2010, 2011) version of James’ Framework was applied in phase 1 of this research project. The following table (4.3) shows James (2011, p. 105) Framework as it was originally conceptualised and applied. The findings from this first application and an evaluation of applying James (2010, 2011) Framework are discussed in detail in Chapter 5.

Table 4.3 Provisional conceptual framework for intentional positioning in public relations.

Positioning Triangle Domain

Evidence of first Evidence of Evidence of the third positioning triangle pole of second positioning triangle pole of position, i.e. entity’s point positioning storyline i.e. a style of narrative of view of its own and triangle pole of that the entity has chosen to stakeholders’ actual and speech promulgate through its public potential positions e.g. act/action, i.e. relations activities i.e. determine the desired language/action construct meaning through position. used to achieve a storylines about the position specific declared. consequence or outcome e.g. declare the desired position.

Positioning Type Domain

Evidence of situations of Evidence of Evidence of Evidence of deliberate self-positioning situations of situations of situations of forced self- deliberate forced positioning positioning of positioning others of others

121 Positioning Purpose Domain

Evidence of Evidence of Evidence of Evidence of Evidence of positioning positioning positioning for positioning for positioning for the for the the purposes of the purposes of for the purposes of purposes of self- promotion exemplification purposes of ingratiation intimidation supplication

Positioning Goal Domain

Evidence of intended positioning related to a desire to achieve a specific goal

Source: James, 2011, p. 105

Since 2010/2011 and James’ initial development of a positioning framework for public relations, the framework has continued to be refined. One of the key refinements has been recognition of the importance of rights, duties and obligations. Indeed, as James (2014) argues, the concept of rights and duties is what Positioning Theory most brings to public relations. From a public relations positioning perspective “the possession of rights and duties in a positioning context” is “part of an organisation’s symbolic capital” and wherein discourse, “in these terms, is the mediational means through which speakers are able to realise their embodied symbolic capital as power in action” (James, 2014, p. 42). Organisations or entities cannot, however, “adopt or assign any position they like, instead they are only able to position in ways in which their symbolic capital (Bourdieu, 1991) is recognised by others operating within the local moral order” (James, 2014, p. 42). By ‘local moral order’ James (2014) is referring to the social norms that determine what is appropriate to say and do in a particular situation. As such, and to align with this increased understanding, the definition of a position has also been changed to incorporate these linked concepts. A ‘position’ in a public relations sense is therefore now defined as, A point of intentional representation discursively constructed for the purposes of achieving an intended outcome, and from where

122 possibilities for action are established, or in some cases denied, in terms of the local moral order/s wherein the public relations activity is taking place. Positioning comprises the actions taken to achieve the position (James, 2014, p. 19).

The other key refinement has been the removal of the Positioning Purpose Domain. Instead, James’ (2014) Framework now includes a Strategic Pre- positioning Domain. This change has largely resulted from the continued refinement of Positioning Theory by Positioning Theory scholars (see, for example Lee, 2010, and Moghaddam & Harré , 2010). Consequently, it is now generally accepted that positioning occurs in two phases. Phase one, or pre- positioning, refers to "the attribution of qualities such as character, intellect, or temperament" supported by biographical reports or evidence of past behaviour of the person in question (James, 2014, p. 210). However, James (2014) differs from Positioning Theory scholars by also drawing on public relations theory to propose that pre-positioning in public relations contexts is much more about "intentional representation" (i.e. Berger, 1999) and, citing Weaver, Motion and Roper (2006) "the strategic attempt to control the agenda of public discussion and the terms in which discussion takes place (p. 17, cited in James, 2014, p. 63). Pre-positioning, then, in public relations, is "central to the purposive construction of meaning with the strategic intention of an organisation achieving its goals" (James, 2014, p. 63). The following table (4.4) shows James (2014) Framework as it was applied in phase 2 of this research project. The findings from this latter application of James (2014) Framework are discussed in detail in Chapter 6. An evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of this process are also discussed in Chapter 7.

123

Table 4.4 The framework for intentional positioning in public relations

Positioning Triangle Domain

Evidence of first Evidence of second Evidence of the third positioning triangle positioning triangle pole positioning triangle pole vertex of position, i.e. of speech act/action, i.e. of storyline i.e. a entity’s point of view of language/action used to storyline that the entity its own and achieve a specific has chosen to stakeholders’ actual consequence or outcome promulgate through its and potential positions e.g. enact the desired public relations activities e.g. determine the position. e.g. construct meaning desired position. through storylines about the position enacted

Strategic Pre-positioning Domain

Evidence of the attribution of qualities of character, intellect, or temperament, of the person/entity/organisation in question

Positioning Type Domain

Evidence of situations Evidence of Evidence of situations Evidence of deliberate self- situations of of deliberate of positioning forced self- positioning of others situations positioning of forced positionin g of others

Positioning Goal Domain

Evidence of intended positioning related to a desire to achieve a specific goal

124 Source: James, 2014, p. 60

A core component of James’ Frameworks (i.e. the original 2010/2011 Framework and the revised 2014 Framework) is the Positioning Triangle Domain. In both iterations, this domain has remained largely unchanged apart from the naming of vertices (formerly referred to as poles in the 2010/2011 Framework). James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) Positioning Triangle Domain consists of: 1. The position pole/vertex or the actual and the desired position(s) of an entity and its stakeholders; 2. The speech act/action pole/vertex or the declaration of a desired outcome through speech acts and actions; and 3. The storyline pole/vertex that supports and achieves the position declared in the speech acts/actions.

The concept of a positioning triangle or a “position/act-action/storyline triad” (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 6) underpins the conceptual and methodological framework originally proposed by Harré and van Langenhove (1999), and it was drawn on by James (2010, 2011, 2014) in her development of a framework for analysing positioning in public relations. Harré and van Langenhove (1999, p. 10) describe their positioning triangle as a “basic apparatus”, however central to this triad is the concept of “dynamic stability between actors’ positions, the social force of what they say and do, and the storylines that are instantiated in the sayings and doings of each episode (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 10). James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) adaption of this triad for public relations also consists of a positioning triangle domain and, wherein, if all three poles/vertices of the triangle fail to align (i.e. are inconsistent) the positioning will likely fail (James, 2010). The following figure (4.8.1) shows James’ conceptualisation of a Positioning Triangle Domain and the concept of dynamic stability.

125

Figure 4.1 James’ Positioning Triangle Domain and the concept of dynamic stability

4.6.2 The process described (Phase 1) An ongoing challenge throughout the data collection and analysis process was making sense of a large quantity of data. T0 reduce this volume of information I sought significant patterns in the data by undertaking a textual analysis. This was the method James (2010) used to examine how Australian government agencies used intentional positioning techniques in communication campaigns. Textual analysis is an “educated guess at some of the most likely interpretations that might be made of that text” (McKee, 2003, p. 1) and, as such, does not aim to uncover cultural ‘truths’ contained within a text, but rather aims to explore the possible meanings made by the people who consume them (McKee, 2003, p. 1). As is commonplace when undertaking a textual analysis, I began by undertaking a ‘close reading’ of the case study texts in order to gain an “initial

126 and immediate, common sense-based understanding” (Bogren, 2010, p. 75) of what the texts were about. Once I had gained a feel for the study data, I then begin to map and summarise the various themes and identify the central concepts within these themes (Bogren, 2010) using the computer program Hyper Research. Hyper Research was selected because it is a leading program used widely in qualitative research, and its ease of use and its availability as a program that can run on University of Newcastle issued Mac computers were also important considerations.

Each of the speech transcripts was entered as an individual ‘source’ in Hyper Research, and each source/speech transcript was then reviewed to identify the themes (known in Hyper Research as codes). I began by entering subject codes such as tax or price, good or bad, carbon or environment. Hyper Research permits researchers to auto-code for key terms and then counts them, so I was able to identify the prevalence of some subjects over others. I was also mindful, however, that counting the frequencies of key terms or subjects can deflect attention away from subjects that are important, but that are not used frequently or repetitively (Silverman, 2011). On this understanding the use of subject codes in Hyper Research was undertaken solely to provide a grid to assist with organising the data analysis, and this is the approach recommended by Silverman (2011).

Using James’ (2010, 2011) Framework and the four positioning domains as a guide, I then entered a range of pre-set codes into Hyper Research. These codes were: positioning goal; positioning purpose (facilitation, ingratiation, exemplification, intimidation, self-promotion, and/or supplication); speech acts (assertives, commissives, declarations, directives, and/or expressives) (Searle, 1979, p. 29); positioning types (deliberate positioning of others, deliberate positioning of self, forced positioning of others, or forced positioning of self). The positioning type codes were only applied to either Gillard or Abbott, or, in their roles as exemplars for their respective political parties, the Liberal National Coalition Opposition (Abbott), or the Australian Labor Party Government (Gillard). All other characters or actors in the narratives were

127 coded as mass actors – for example as ‘Australians’.

In addition to these pre-set codes, I also sought to identify themes that suggested the positions of Gillard and Abbott, and the storylines and discourses that supported these positions. Hence, the coding of the case study texts/sources was not led by word searches, but rather I sought to identify key phrases or speech acts in which meaning about the carbon price or tax was constructed in a more thematic approach. Because Positioning Theory and James’ (2010, 2011) Framework is multi-faceted and permits an analysis of texts on multiple layers via the various domains, most phrases/speech acts were coded multiple times, for example a speech act was also typically coded as being a positioning type, purpose, position, a positioning goal, a speech act type, and a storyline. Often these individual themes or codes were overlapping, for example often storylines were found to be overlapping or “braided” (Davies & Harré, 1999, p. 38). New themes (codes) were also added as they emerged in the data. This process allowed me to identify the prevalence of themes within the texts and, as Bogren (2010) recommends, “the chains of association that define these concepts” (p. 75). These are the “other concepts and attributes that are closely linked with the central concept” (Bogren, 2010, p. 75). From this I identified that the carbon price (Gillard) and the carbon tax (Abbott) were central concepts in each of the texts, and the associated attributes were about the merits (Gillard) or the risks (Abbott) of the carbon pricing package. These associations contributed to the construction of a good versus bad dichotomy in terms of the positioning of the carbon price/tax, and the political polarisation of the actors involved. To sum up, and following the guide offered by Bogren (2010, p. 75), I undertook the following steps:

1. I recorded what I perceived to be a common sense-based summary of what the texts were about; 2. I identified themes in the data; 3. I mapped important concepts and social categories within each theme; 4. I identified chains of association that defined the meaning of central

128 concepts and categories.

When this process was completed I had more than 100 codes that had emerged from the data. From this, it was evident that there were over-arching themes or concepts, particularly in terms of storylines, positions and positioning purposes. Bloomberg & Volpe (2008) argue that the process of synthesis involves piecing together these various fragmented themes in order to

“reconstruct a holistic and integrated explanation” (p. 85). This phase involved grouping together the themes and concepts by applying the various domains of

James (2010, 2011) Framework and drawing on the relevant literature. To test out this approach I presented my research very early in the research process at the 3rd New Zealand Discourse Conference (NZDC#3) held in Auckland, New

Zealand, in December 2011. The feedback I received from my academic peers was encouraging and this was further validated when the findings from the following chapter (5) were published in the academic journal Public Relations

Inquiry. Based on the constructive feedback I received, and the knowledge that

James’ was about to publish a book on strategic positioning that included a revised framework, so it was that I determined to continue with this research project.

4.6.3 The process described (Phase 2) The second stage (phase 2) took place in late 2014 following the publication of James’ (2014) book detailing strategic positioning in public relations, that also included a revised positioning framework for public relations. Thus, in this second phase, I used the same case study texts (i.e. 22 speech transcripts), however I applied and evaluated James more recent (2014) Framework against these texts. Also, as in phase 1, I commenced the data analysis by undertaking a close reading of the case study texts to re-acquaint myself with the key themes and the concepts and social categories within each theme. I then copied and

129 pasted each phrase within each speech transcript into a Microsoft Word table. This resulted in 22 separate tables for each of the 22 speech transcripts. The following table (4.8) is a sample of how tables were prepared and used in phase 2.

Table 4.5 Sample of phase 2 coding (Source: Gillard, 2011a, n.p.).

Position- Position- Position- Position- Strategic Position- ing ing Triangle ing Triangle ing Type Pre- ing Goal Triangle Domain: Domain: Domain position- Domain Domain: Speech Position ing Domain Storylines Act/Action

It’s time to Delegates, A carbon price The N/A To position a act democracy is is good audience/ carbon price not one long delegates as a fair and opinion poll (deliberate necessary (Assertive) other; economic deliberate reform self- positioning)

Its fair We’ll look A carbon price The N/A To position a after the is good audience; carbon price battlers the battlers as a fair and (Commissive) (deliberate necessary other; economic deliberate reform self- positioning

I then used these tables, and the same sub-headings, to code the speech transcripts following James’ (2014) guide for undertaking a positioning analysis. James (2014) adapted her approach from the work of Harré and Slocum (2003) and argues that such an approach can “provide deep insights into the situation at hand and the discourses that were operating in the situation/episode being examined” (p. 161). The process I followed was as follows:

1. Texts (e.g. as defined by Kress, 2012), as the data to be analysed, are

130 collected from diverse sources. 2. These are read and analysed many times, with each time being used to incorporate new insights and new information from the new materials. 3. The perceptions of the parties to the communication episode must be identified by trying to discern each party’s view of what the episode is about in terms of the main issues, and the short and longer term goals. 4. Look for the answers by searching for the start and end points of specific narratives in the text, the events contained in the narrative, and “the qualitative character of the measures used to categorize and evaluate the parties involved” (Harré and Slocum, 2003: 131) and, the central issue of the narrative. 5. Identify all the parties that appear in the narratives as the main actors. 6. Are the parties identified in the narrative a group, an organisation, an individual or some other entity? How are these defined? Are there parties who are excluded from the narrative? It is suggested that these parties are those who will be taking up and defending their positions, or themselves being positioned by others (Harré and Slocum, 2003). 7. The next stage is where the researcher would be using the positioning triangle domain of the Framework to guide analysis. The aim is to ascertain what parties to the episode perceive to be areas of disagreement or conflict – this is not about trying to see what is actually happening but how people are ascribing meaning to what is happening, their subjective reality. The goal of this phase, which aligns with the positioning triangle domain of the Framework is to identify: i. The various storylines that constitute the collection of narratives – what storylines are being used to frame the episode in certain ways, e.g. if an organisation has chosen to position itself as being exemplary, is the storyline one of “an award winner” or “going beyond the call the duty” that includes a narrative telling of exemplary proof points crafted as key messages? Are other parties’ storylines indicating that they accept or reject the organisation’s positioning? ii. The positionings of parties in each of the storylines: What positions are being taken and assigned by the parties? Is one

131 party being positioned by others as a “bully”? A model member of the community? Which party has self-positioned or actively positioned others? iii. The social forces of utterances in the storylines, that is, what social forces are the words or actions having in the episode? For example, if a video shows one party kissing another on the cheek is it a kiss of greeting, affection, betrayal or something else? If a transcript reports someone saying, “Come in” is it an order, a welcome or a question?

8. The analysis then turns to examining whether any party to the episode being researched has, as the episode has unfolded through the various storylines, taken a step back and taken a position “with respect to the positionings already accomplished” (Harré and Slocum, 2003, p. 132). In adopting such a position, the party is claiming a right and maybe even a duty to comment on the positionings accomplished to date – the researcher can ascertain whether in the local moral order that is at work in the episode, such a right or duty exists or has been constructed. 9. The researcher can then report on a catalogue of positions, storylines and speech acts/actions in relation to each of the parties involved in the communication episode. The aim here is to make comparisons between parties’ positions and storylines, report on shared positions and storylines, what the various parties are doing in taking or assigning positions and what are the social forces of the speech acts that have been used. 10. From here the researcher can then ascertain what strategic framing of the position/s was undertaken by the parties, especially in terms of what rights and duties were taken up or assigned. What attributes were taken up or assigned to others in the framing or pre-positioning stage? This aligns with the strategic pre-positioning domain of the Framework for Intentional Positioning in Public Relations. 11. An assessment of the power relations at work in the episode can then be made. Which party/ies possessed positioning power? Harré and Slocum (2003) recommend interrogating the data to ascertain on what basis

132 such power was allocated and what role did differences in positioning power play in the unfolding of the episode. Much of this relates to the positioning type domain, that is, were parties forced into positioning or were they proactively positioning? 12. The intention of the positioning, that is, what goals were being sought in the public relations positioning efforts in terms of specific aims but also what social constructions of reality were parties seeking to shape (James, 2014, pp. 161-162).

The findings were then contextualised within the broader context of the academic literature. In particular, the process of applying James’ (2014) Framework raised several theoretical issues and the process of writing up the findings and the analysis was thus a recursive process of returning to the data and applying this to the literature. I also continued to document the problems I encountered applying James’ (2014) Framework in my research journal, and I documented the process of synthesising the findings throughout this process. This suggested, based on the strengthening of several key features of James’ original (2010, 2011) Framework, that there was more than sufficient evidence of strategic positioning within the speech transcripts. It also seemed that this positioning was being undertaken to construct meaning not only about the carbon price/tax, but also about Gillard and Abbott themselves. It seemed, further to this, that at stake was their personal legitimacy and the associated rights and/or duty to discursively position themselves, and the carbon price/tax, in the manner they did. The findings from this second phase are reported on in Chapter 6, and my evaluation of James’ (2014) Framework is discussed in Chapter 7.

In the interim I published another research paper that emanated from phase 2, and I continued to present my research at various international conferences. In mid 2016, I attended the inaugural Positioning Theory Research Symposium in Brugge, Belgium, where I presented my findings from this phase of the research project to positioning theorists from around the world. The constructive

133 critique I received was enlightening and it convinced me of the potential of James’ (2014) Framework as a device for examining positioning in public relations.

4.7 Ethical considerations

The use of naturally occurring data downloaded from the Internet has raised new ethical problems that have left some researchers struggling to absorb the full ethical implications (Bryman, 2016) of this approach. There is also debate around whether some electronic communications are public or private with Pace and Livingstone (2005) recommending that, as a guide, electronic texts should be used only if the following is observed: Content is publicly archived and freely available; Content is not password protected; Content is not likely to be considered sensitive; The site does not contain a policy explicitly forbidding the downloading or use of documents or texts (p. 36).

Further to this the Association of Internet Researchers (2012) recommends that researchers consider a range of ethical considerations when undertaking research that uses Internet sourced texts, for example “authored texts, naturally occurring discourse, interview transcripts” (Markham, 2012, n.p.). Although there are no recommendations that specify how to address ethical considerations in terms of political speech transcripts, a key recommendation for most Internet texts is that researchers observe how the “terms of service articulate privacy of content and/or how it is shared with 3rd parties” (Markham, 2012, n.p). Bryman (2016) suggests that researchers examine the site for policies that notify users “that the site is public and specifies the limits to privacy” (p. 139).

Based on these recommendations, I read the websites of Gillard and Abbott to ensure that by downloading and using the speech transcripts, I did not violate

134 any privacy or terms of service conditions. Tony Abbott’s website (http://tonyabbott.com.au) does not provide any details in terms of privacy or special conditions that apply when using the site’s content. The Prime Minister’s official website, which currently contains information about the current (i.e. 2017) Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australian License. This is a standard form license agreement that permits users “to copy, distribute, transmit and adapt” publications provided users “attribute the work” (https://www.pm.gov.au/copyright). Accordingly, in this study, the speech transcripts of Gillard and Abbott were attributed throughout the thesis. Bryman (2016) also argues that “the more the venue is acknowledged to be public, the less obligation there is on the researcher to protect the confidentiality and anonymity of individuals using the venue, or to seek their informed consent” (p. 15) and this was influential in terms of reassuring me that I had given the research project, and the study data contained therein, adequate ethical consideration.

4.8 Discussion of issues relating to trustworthiness

Qualitative researchers seek to inspire in readers confidence that they have reached “right interpretations” (Lindlof, 1995, p. 238). In this study I have strived to apply different strategies to persuade readers of the authenticity of the research findings (Merriam, 2009). As is commonplace in case study research, I also offer this case study without making over-stretched claims about its generalisability or its transferability (Yazan, 2015).

4.8.1 Triangulation One of the most commonly used methods to assist researchers to reach “plausible interpretations” (Lindlof, 1995, p. 238) is through the use of triangulation. Defined by Lindlof (1995) as the “comparative assessment of more than one form of evidence about an object of inquiry” (p. 239)

135 triangulation is said to offer “a more ‘complete’ picture” (Daymon & Holloway, 2011, p. 90) of what is going on. There are four primary ways in which triangulation can be undertaken: data triangulation; investigator triangulation; theory triangulation; and methodological triangulation (Denzin, 2009). In essence, and what these various approaches have in common, is that they are each a “process of using multiple perceptions to clarify meaning” (Bloomberg & Volpe, 2008, p. 72). Yin (2009) argues that by using multiple sources of evidence you are essentially providing evidence of “multiple measures of the same phenomenon” (p. 116). Triangulation, then, is based on an assumption that by using multiple methods, and if the findings all correspond and “draw the same or similar conclusions, then the validity of those findings and conclusions has been established” (Silverman, 2011, p. 369). Importantly, triangulation is not undertaken in an attempt to find evidence of the same result (Patton, 2002). Rather, in gaining an understanding of inconsistencies that may arise across different data, the relationship between the phenomenon being studied and the methodological approach taken can be illuminated (Patton, 2002).

However, there is also considerable criticism of triangulation. Richardson and St. Pierre (2005) propose a “post-modernist deconstruction” of triangulation, based not on a triangle which they view as “a rigid, fixed, two-dimensional object”, but instead they argue that “the central imagery is the crystal, which combines symmetry and substance with an infinite variety of shapes, substances, transmutations, multidimensionality’s, and angles of approach” (p. 963). They therefore refute the existence of a “‘fixed point or an ‘object’ that can be triangulated” instead arguing that “what we see depends on our angle of response” (Richardson & St. Pierre, 2005, p. 963). Richardson and St. Pierre (2005) conclude by stating, “we do not triangulate; we crystallise” (p. 963). Silverman (2010) raises similar concerns arguing that triangulation “refers to the attempt to get a ‘true fix’ on a situation by combining different ways of looking at it (method triangulation) or different findings (data triangulation)” (p. 277). From a social constructionist perspective this concept is “not

136 compatible with the assumption that ‘true’ fixes on ‘reality’ can be obtained separately from particular ways of looking at it” (Silverman, 2010, pp. 277-278). Silverman (2010) is not suggesting that multiple methods or data sets should not be used, but rather they should not be used as a method of establishing validity. Triangulation is thus better understood as a strategy to add “rigour, breadth, complexity, richness and depth to any inquiry” (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005, p. 5) and this is the approach taken in this study.

In this study, triangulation is achieved through the application of James’ Public Relations Positioning Framework. James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) does not specifically refer to triangulation in her conceptualisation of a positioning framework. However, the concept of a positioning triangle or a “position/act- action/storyline triad” (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 6) underpins the conceptual and methodological framework originally proposed by Harré and van Langenhove (1999), and is also drawn on by James (2010, 2011, 2014), wherein Positioning Theory has been applied to triangulate data. For example Zelle (2009) applied Positioning Theory to analyse the varying positions taken in relation to organisational change at an Australian University, and argues that “data triangulation for this purpose refers to comparing, cross-referencing or cross-examining of positions that are found in the data on each level of analysis”. In this study the positioning triangle domain (James, 2010, 2011, 2014) was applied to triangulate data according to the three levels or vertices of storylines/discourses, speech acts/actions, and positions taken as a comparative method of cross examination and investigation.

4.8.2 Peer reviews/debriefings Another common strategy in qualitative research is the use of member checks (also known as respondent validation) with key persons to help “refine and test propositions that emerge in the analysis of field data” (Lindlof, 1995, p. 168). Typically this involves taking the findings to the subjects being studied, and asking them if your interpretation “rings true” (Merriam, 2009, p. 217). If

137 participants verify the findings it is then argued that this means one can be more confident about the validity of the findings (Silverman, 2011). A criticism of this method, however, is that no participant is ever totally dispassionate or “fully informed” in terms of their own culture (Lindlof, 1995, p. 241) and this raises questions about the authenticity of claims to validity using this method. In this study, also, I did not use interviews or research methods with participants, and using member checks or respondent validation was therefore not possible. Instead I relied upon peer review (Daymon & Holloway, 2011; Merriam, 2009) to provide validity and credibility throughout the course of the study.

Concepts, findings and interpretations were peer reviewed throughout this study. Conceivably, these peer processes are not dissimilar to peer auditing (Bryman, 2004), a process where manuscripts are submitted to outside researchers “to criticise the project for lack of sufficient data for drawing its conclusions if they saw such a void” (Belk, Sherry & Wallendorf, 1988, p. 456). Daymon & Holloway (2011) use the term “peer debriefing” to explain a similar process whereby colleagues reanalyse raw data and discuss any concerns about the interpretations. The benefits of engaging in peer debriefings are:

peers may detect bias or inappropriate subjectivity;

peers might provide alternative explanations to your own;

peers may warn against inappropriate attempts to produce interpretations that are not substantiated by the data;

peers keep you ‘honest’ about the meanings and interpretations you assign to participant’s statements (Daymon & Holloway, 2011, p. 91).

One of the first peer debriefings/reviews undertaken as part of this study occurred as a requirement of my undertaking a Research Higher Degree at the University of Newcastle. Known as confirmation, it required my submitting a

138 written research proposal and giving an oral presentation to a panel of my peers. As a result of this process my original application to undertake a Masters degree was upgraded to a PhD. A further requirement of my candidature was to present my research at Faculty conferences, and this provided an annual forum for further peer review. Whilst completing this thesis I was employed as the National Public Relations Officer for Australia’s largest community service organisation, and in this role I attended networking events that provided me with additional opportunities to discuss my work in these settings. In addition to my work as a public relations practitioner, I worked as a public relations academic and engaged with colleagues in the public relations academic field on numerous occasions. To date, manuscripts emanating from this thesis have been peer reviewed at seven international conferences, and by two academic journals (see appendix x: Peer reviewed research papers emanating from this thesis). Each provided valuable critical feedback that contributed to strengthening this research project.

4.8.3 Reflexivity Malterud (2001) defines reflexivity in qualitative research as “an attitude of attending systematically to the context of knowledge construction, especially to the effect of the researcher, at every step of the research process” (p. 484). Thus, a key question posed throughout this research project concerned the epistemological question of how I was located as a subject within the research (Gray, 2003). I was aware that my lived experience had influenced the selection of a research topic, and that in qualitative research this requires making explicit “our politics and our intellectual frameworks” (Gray, 2003, p. 63). I am also a climate change ‘believer’ by which I mean I believe in the scientific evidence showing that the earth is warming, and that the most likely cause is due to the influence of humankind. Accordingly, I was faced by a dual dilemma. On one hand I had chosen a topic that resonated with my interests and beliefs (Taylor, 2010) and, on the other hand, I was concerned that this could influence my view of the politics being played out over carbon pricing. This, in turn, could

139 potentially affect what I had chosen “to investigate, the angle of investigation, the methods judged most adequate for this purpose, the findings considered most appropriate, and the framing and communication of conclusions" (Malterud, 2001, p. 484). In this study, it was hoped that in acknowledging my own reflexivity and the potential pitfalls, these issues were at the very least minimised, if not entirely neutralised.

Thus, I further recognise that in qualitative research the researcher is the research tool and that I bring my own unique lens to this project, shaped by my “background, personality and understanding of the subject” (Daymon & Holloway, 2011, p. 20). I also appreciate that human experience is multi-layered and fluid, and I understand that my knowledge cannot be entirely separated from my role as a researcher and that this shapes my perceptions (Corbin, Dwyer & Buckle, 2009, p. 60). One of the key debates in qualitative research is the binary view that a researcher’s “positionality” within their research project is that of being either an insider or outsider (Corbin, Dwyer & Buckle, 2009). Having an “insider” positionality notionally suggests that in being or becoming an ‘in-group’ member with a study’s participants, there is the potential for the study findings to be invalidated due to the researcher’s insider bias (Corbin, Dwyer & Buckle, 2009). In this research project, there were no other participants apart from myself so the problem of insider bias was largely negated. In totality, these experiences and factors mean that as a qualitative researcher, I am neither an insider nor outsider but rather I occupy a place that is somewhere in between (Corbin, Dwyer & Buckle, 2009).

By way of my background I was born in New Zealand to Anglo Celtic parents and I am the eldest of four children. I moved to Australia when I was nineteen and this is where I have mostly resided for more than thirty years. During this time, I have worked in the fashion industry and I am tertiary educated in fashion design. I have also worked in customer service and marketing roles, and I have owned a small business. I graduated with a Bachelor of Communication (Honours) degree in 2011, majoring in journalism and public relations from the

140 University of Newcastle, Australia. Upon graduating I worked briefly in a public relations capacity in the tourism industry, and until recently I was employed as the National Public Relations Officer for Australia’s largest community service organisation. I am currently employed as an Associate Lecturer teaching various public relations courses at the University of Newcastle, Australia. I am a single parent to four children, the youngest of whom is in his teens. Currently I live in the city of Lake Macquarie which, together with the adjoining city of Newcastle, is the second most populated area in NSW. Famous for its coal, Newcastle is the largest coal exporting harbour in the world.

In addition to lived experiences, Gray (2003) writes about the influence of institutional contexts in terms of the impact that they have on shaping research and the access or denial to certain “kinds of knowledge” (p. 55). When this doctoral project commenced in 2011, the (then) Labor Gillard Government had established various programs and initiatives to tackle the issue of climate change, including the funding of research programs to investigate clean energy technologies. One initiative is The University of Newcastle's Clean Coal research program, and in 2011 they were offering funding for Higher Research Degree scholarships for students wanting to undertake research in the area of clean energy. My former Honours supervisor, Dr Melanie James, had informed me about the scholarship and agreed to be my supervisor if I was successful in my application. Dr James discussed with me, at our initial meeting, her work on applying Positioning Theory to public relations and I was intrigued by the possibilities that this new approach might offer. As eventuated I was successful in my application for a scholarship and, although I was later awarded an Australian Post-graduate Award (APA) (a prestigious and competitive scholarship) these institutional influences were hugely instrumental in shaping this thesis. In 2012, I was also part of a small research team led by Dr James to investigate the application of James’ Public Relations Positioning Framework to clean energy communication. This experience, similarly, contributed to the shaping of this thesis.

141 4.9 Limitations of the research study

No research project is without limitations (Bloomberg & Volpe, 2008, p, 79) and this study, similarly, contains certain limitations that are common to qualitative research, as well as some that are particular to this project. To address these shortcomings requires acknowledging limitations and demonstrating, where possible, how these have been addressed (Bloomberg & Volpe, 2008, p. 80). Based on this understanding I have given careful consideration to the limitations of this study and how they can be addressed to reduce their impact.

One limitation common in qualitative research is the problem of researcher bias (Bloomberg & Volpe, 2008). Typically this criticism originates from “those holding to a quantitative research orientation” and, wherein, qualitative research is accused of being “too impressionistic and subjective” (Daymon & Holloway, 2011, p. 10). One of the key limitations of this study, then, is my subjectivity and potential bias regarding my political ideology, including how that might frame my assumptions and perceptions (Bloomberg & Volpe, 2008, p. 87). However qualitative researchers should also not “hide behind the myth about the neutrality of research” (Alvesson, M., & Sköldberg, 2015, p. 293). Indeed, Daymon and Holloway (2011) argue that “subjectivity can be a resource for the qualitative researcher” (p. 10). In recognising these strengths and limitations I took steps to ameliorate my potential subjectivity and bias by critically reflecting on my assumptions, as well as any conflicts that arose, throughout the research process (Daymon & Holloway, 2011). I also critically reflected on my role in the “reproduction or questioning of social institutions and ideologies” (Alvesson, M., & Sköldberg, 2015, p. 293) by stating my assumptions up front, and by having my research regularly peer reviewed.

Another limitation of this study, and common in qualitative research, is the problem of knowing if the findings are generalisable beyond the particular case studied. Focusing on a single phenomenon (the case) results in the issue of generalisability looming larger than with other types of qualitative research

142 (Merriam, 2000, p. 51). Some critics even argue that a single case is not a sufficient base from which to draw generalisations (Yin, 2009, p. 43). As such, in addition to generalisability, there are related limitations within this study. These include limitations concerning the restricted sample size, a reliance on a single sample selection, and the use of a single technique for gathering data. However, while acknowledging that a different sample size could have led to different findings, it is not the goal of this study to be generalisable (Bloomberg & Volpe, 2008). Furthermore, “the general lies in the particular” and what is learnt from a particular case can often be extrapolated to similar situations because it is the reader, not the researcher, who reconstructs knowledge in ways that they find personally useful to them (Merriam, 2000, p. 51). By providing detailed information about the context and background of the case study, my hope is that other researchers will assess this thesis for its applicability and then apply this knowledge in other contexts and in ways that they find useful to them (Bloomberg & Volpe, 2008).

Aside from these limitations, this thesis does not examine the perspectives of audiences or publics. As such it cannot make any claims about the beliefs, intentions, acts or any other manner of behaviours that may or may not have ensued as a result of the speeches analysed in the case study. The authors of the speech transcripts are also unknown. Some, it can be presumed, are examples of “ad hoc” speeches (for example Abbott’s ‘Address to the Melbourne Fish Markets’) and, as in this case, it is likely that these speeches were authored by the orator. Regardless, I have relied on the fact that all of the transcripts are primary source original documents “authored by individuals who had direct access to the information that they are describing, or experienced a particular event” (Lamont, 2015, p.80). Recognising this and the other limitations outlined, I further ensured that coding schemes, transcripts and coded documents were scrutinised by my thesis supervisors throughout the research process (Bloomberg & Volpe, 2008).

143 4.10 Chapter summary

This chapter has provided a detailed description of my doctoral research methodology. I have taken a social constructionist research approach encompassing methods of textual and positioning analysis to examine how strategic positioning was undertaken to construct meaning about a carbon price or tax. The research sample consisted of 22 speech transcripts that were downloaded from the websites of former Australian Prime Minister Julia

Gillard, and former Federal Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott. The data collection methods consisted of an examination of these texts. The themes and concepts that emerged from the data were reviewed against the relevant literature. Credibility and issues of trust were addressed through strategies of reflexivity, peer reviews and debriefings. These strategies were further supported by applying James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) Positioning Framework which permits an analysis of public relations texts using four core domains. This, in effect, provides a triangulation of methods, particularly in terms of the concept of the positioning triangle domain. In detailing the research design and data analytical processes, I have described how the project was undertaken and how the resulting conclusions were drawn. In Chapters 5, 6 and 7 I will report on the research findings.

144 5. Major findings from applying and evaluating James’ (2010, 2011) Provisional Conceptual Framework for Intentional Positioning in Public Relations

RQ1 Did applying James’ Framework provide answers into how a carbon price/tax was strategically positioned in the case study and if so how?

RQ2 What are the strengths and weaknesses of applying James’ Framework?

RQ3 Could James’ Framework be improved upon and if so how?

RQ4 Does public relations need a positioning ‘framework’ at all?

This chapter addresses these questions and reports on the first evaluation of James’ framework as it was originally conceived in 2010, 2011, through an examination of political positioning as presented in a case study of 23 political speech transcripts. The transcripts are of speeches delivered in 2011 by former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, and former Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott. Following repeated in-depth readings of these

145 texts, the key themes that emerged were noted and documented. The purpose was to determine how positioning was enacted and the manner in which this was achieved. Overall the study found that applying the framework was useful for evaluating strategic positioning in public relations texts, and offers a potential framework for analysing how government communication about carbon mitigation polices are constructed in public relations texts.

Finding 1: Applying James’ (2010, 2011) Framework provided insights in terms of how a carbon/price tax was strategically positioned according to four core domains. However, it also raised questions about the utility of some of the domains (see Finding 2).

Finding 2: The strengths associated with applying James’ Provisional Conceptual Framework for Intentional Positioning in Public Relations (2010, 2011) as an analytical heuristic were that it facilitated analysis across four core domains and demonstrated how positioning was undertaken. However, there were also some domains that were identified as areas of possible weakness.

Finding 3: Applying James’ (2010, 2011) Framework demonstrated that some aspects of the Framework are useful as an analytical heuristic, however based on Finding 2, it was determined more research was needed to fully explore if the Framework could be improved upon and, if so, how this should be undertaken.

Finding 4: The research findings indicate that a positioning framework has potential for analysing public relations positioning. However, questions remain in terms of whether James (2010, 2011) Framework, in this earliest iteration, is capturing the nuances and dynamism of positioning in the contested environment in which public relations positioning takes place.

What follows is a description of the findings with supporting details, categorised according to each of the four domains of James’ (2010, 2011)

146 Provisional Conceptual Framework for Intentional Positioning in Public Relations. That is: (i) the positioning goal domain; (ii) the purpose positioning domain; (iii) the positioning type domain; and (iv) the positioning triangle domain consisting of position, speech act/action and storylines. Where relevant a selection of excerpts from the case study texts has been included to facilitate the reader’s understanding. The full transcripts of the 23 speeches included in the case study are available in the appendices, and are referenced throughout this chapter.

5.1 Finding 1

Applying James’ (2010, 2011) Framework provided insights in terms of how a carbon price/tax was strategically positioned according to four core domains. However, it also raised questions about the utility of some of the domains.

5.1.1 Positioning Goal Domain The speech transcripts of former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, and former Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott, suggested opposing goals in terms of the carbon price or tax. In Gillard’s speech transcripts, the goal suggested was one of positively positioning a carbon price as a benefit for Australia and for the environment. This was borne out in statements such as: a carbon price is “a major reform to build a clean energy future” (Gillard, 2011d, n.p.) and, “by 2020 our carbon price will take 160 million tonnes of pollution out of the atmosphere every year” (Gillard, 2011b, n.p.). The goal of Abbott’s speech transcripts was to intentionally position a carbon tax as being a risk for Australia. This goal was evident in various speech acts including, for example, the assertion that a carbon tax will “make everything cost more” (Abbott, 2011a, n.p.); that it’s “trying to do something which the rest of the world is not doing” (Abbott, 2011c, n.p.); and it’s “a moonbeam from a larger lunacy” (Abbott, 2011c, n.p.). He also further asserted, “Australians want less tax … there should be no carbon tax” (Abbott, 2011f, n.p.).

147 The goals of Opposition Leader Abbott could thus be seen to position the carbon tax in a negative light, to discredit the very idea of a price or tax on carbon and the benefits for Australia of addressing climate change issues. Abbott can be seen to be drawing on the discourse of people’s general aversion to additional taxes and the discourse of truth (in that dishonesty is bad) to convey the desired positioning goal. The goal of then Prime Minister Gillard could be seen to position the carbon price as something positive for Australia that would set the country on the course to address climate change issues. She is drawing on the discourses of leadership through providing vision for the country, and also a clean energy discourse to convey her government’s desired future.

These examples also demonstrate the discursive use of the term ‘tax’ in relation to placing a value on carbon by Abbott, and the contrasting discursive use of ‘price’ by Gillard. On the few occasions when Abbott did use price in relation to carbon he linked it to increases in electricity/power/gas/transport prices that he argued would result from a carbon tax. On one other occasion Abbott also used ‘price’ when he directly quoted the government (‘the Government’s plan to introduce a carbon price’ Abbott, 2011m, n.p.). Gillard also used the term tax in relation to carbon, however this was mostly in relation to ‘tax cuts’, ‘tax free’, ‘tax reform’ and ‘less tax’. The exception to this was in her speech to the National Press Club (Gillard, 2011e, n.p.) when she did not shy away from directly using ‘carbon tax’, ‘the tax’ and ‘new tax’ in relation to placing a value on carbon. However, from this speech onwards, Labor’s plan to price carbon was never again referred to as a ‘tax’.

The use of ‘price’ by Gillard and ‘tax’ by Abbott constructs social reality by shaping how people perceive the issue as being either good (as connoted through Gillard’s use of price - a relatively benign term), or as being bad (as connoted through Abbott’s use of tax which, in Australia, is often viewed pejoratively). The strategic use of these terms aligns with Hallahan’s (1999) conceptualisation of framing whereby “some aspects of perceived reality” are

148 selectively made “more salient in the communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation and/or treatment recommendation for the item described” (p. 207) (original italics). From a public relations Positioning Theory perspective, the respective positioning goals of Gillard and Abbott can be seen as overarching frames from which story lines, positions, speech acts, positioning types and positioning purposes were developed and enacted.

5.1.2 Purpose Positioning Domain Applying the Purpose Positioning Domain provided insights into how positioning was undertaken according to five different purposes. Each of Gillard’s speech transcripts suggested an over-riding positioning purpose of exemplification (n= 9). This positioning purpose describes “an entity” (James, 2011, p. 104) (my italics) that desires to be seen as “going above and beyond the normal call of duty to appear dedicated, upstanding, and highly moral” (James, 2011, p. 104). This finding was supported by speech acts such as, “Let us be the party of reform in all that we do. A party always determined to be its best self”. However, it is also important to note that this (assertive) speech act is positioning Gillard and the Labor Party, and not the carbon price per se. Similarly, in another speech to the Green Capital Business Breakfast (Gillard, d), Gillard stated, “I want Australia to be a nation that finds itself standing on the right side of history”. However, while this (expressive) speech act is related to the positioning of the carbon price, it does not directly position the policy.

To provide a further example, Gillard asserted that the carbon price would “set Australia on the path to a clean energy future” (Gillard, 2011c, n.p.), and that it was “a modern policy approach, with efficient allocation and incentive to innovate, linked to global markets” (Gillard, 2011i, n.p.). These speech acts are examples of visionary/exemplary discourses that clearly aimed to position Gillard and Australia as taking global leadership on climate change, embedded in an economic narrative of future prosperity for

149 Australia. This, then, was one of the problems encountered with applying this domain; namely that it cannot be claimed that a carbon price or tax has a positioning purpose, as only entities with agency can have a ‘purpose’ however this is defined. This problem is also discussed in more detail in Finding 2(2).

Typically, the exemplification positioning purposes of Gillard were accompanied by positioning for the purposes of self-promotion. For example, in her address to the Tasmanian Branch of the ALP State Conference (Gillard, 2011f), Gillard claimed,

This Federal Parliament has done what the last could not: made the decision to put a price on carbon (Gillard, 2011f, n.p.).

In so saying the Prime Minister was promoting the achievements of the Labor Party, and she was also suggesting that this was only achieved as an outcome of her Party’s exemplary efforts. It is also important to note that, once again, this positioning is about the Labor Party and Gillard and not about the carbon price itself - although it could also be argued that this distinction is difficult to ascertain applying James’ (2010, 2011) Framework in this iteration. This finding is also explored in Finding 5.2.2: Purpose Positioning Domain.

There was also evidence of positioning for the purposes of ingratiation. For example, in the ‘Introduction of the Clean Energy Bill 2011’ Gillard stated “the Government understands there is nothing more important to families than having a job” (Gillard, 2011i, n.p.). Applying the positioning purpose domain, it could perhaps be argued that the Government is attempting to ingratiate itself with Australian families by purporting to understand the pressures they face in terms of having jobs. However, this speech act also draws on a discourse of caring that positions the Gillard/the Government as caring about Australian families, as well as employment discourses wherein having a job is discursively constructed as being a human right, and it is the Government’s duty to ensure everyone has the opportunity for full

150 employment. Fairclough (2000) argues that this discourse strategy was widely used in Blair’s positioning of New Labour in Britain, and it is arguably a key foundation of Australian Labor Party strategies. This finding also suggests, however, that the Positioning Purpose Domain can only be attributed to an entity with agency, and not a carbon price or tax when applying James (2010, 2011) Framework.

This problem, then, of attributing ‘actorness’ (Slocum & van Langenhove, 2004) to non-human entities (for example a carbon price/tax) applied equally in terms of the analysis of Abbott’s speech transcript where, although many of the speech acts were ostensibly about the carbon tax, the positioning purpose could only be attributed to a human or a human-like entity (for example the Liberal Party). Arguably the most prominent positioning purpose in these instances was positioning for the purposes of ingratiation (n=11). Positioning for the purposes of ingratiation was also found to be more evident in speeches delivered to the general public where this positioning purpose was often the only one evident. For example, in his address to the ‘Convoy of No Confidence Rally’ (Abbott, 2011i), Abbott told rally attendees,

Our democracy will be in safe hands as long as the people of this country continue to care about it and you care about it (Abbott, 2011i, n.p.).

This speech act, while perhaps an example of ingratiation, also draws on a discourse of democracy and is similar to Gillard’s use a discourse of caring. Both of these discourses could be argued as being examples of “positioning for the purposes of ingratiation” (James, 2011, p. 110). In a further example of this caring/ingratiation discourse, Abbott (2011n) asserted at an address to the Australian Steel Convention,

I know this is a desperate time for your industry … please don’t lose hope. Please don’t despair. Please don’t give in (Abbott, 2011n, n.p.).

Interestingly there were only two occasions, Abbott’s Address to Consilium 2011 (Abbott, 2011d), and his Address to the Committee for Economic

151 Development of Australia (Abbott, 2011l), in which positioning for the purposes of ingratiation was not evident. On these two occasions Abbott instead primarily relied upon positioning for the purposes of self-promotion and/or exemplification. For example, one consistent self- promotion/exemplification discourse was that of having ‘a better way’ in terms of dealing with carbon pollution (see for example Abbott, 2011c, 2011e). On another occasion Abbott (2011e, n.p.) asserted,

We are looking for savings, and that’s not something that we’re embarrassed about, that’s something that we’re proud of because the taxpayers of this country expect governments to get value for their money, and they expect government not to call on them anymore than is absolutely necessary (Abbott, 2011e, n.p.).

This speech act positions the Coalition as economically exemplary relative to the Government, and calls on a neo-economic discourse of less taxation. There was also a separate occasion in which the sole positioning purpose being proposed was (arguably) that of intimidation. The following statement is offered as evidence of this claim however it is also conceded that another researcher may interpret this finding differently.

I am allowing this matter to go to the public for a vote as it should without the prospect, indeed under the current circumstances the probability, of an election producing a change of government (Abbott, 2011j, n.p.).

This speech act was difficult to categorise in terms of belonging to one of the five speech act categories proposed by James (2010, 2011). Nevertheless it can be seen that Abbott is seeking to position as conciliatory and thus, in addition to positioning for the purposes of intimidation, this suggests he is also claiming the moral high ground, or, of undertaking positioning for the purposes of exemplification.

Discerning the positioning purposes in Abbott’s speech transcripts as they pertained (indirectly) to the carbon tax was much less clear. As the previous example shows, it was often difficult to analyse the positioning purpose using any of the existing positioning framework categorisations (i.e.

152 ingratiation, intimidation, self-promotion, exemplification, supplication or facilitation). Perhaps the most that might be claimed is that in negating the necessity of introducing a carbon tax, Abbott’s positioning purpose was primarily to position the Coalition’s alternative direct action plan (see, for example, Abbott, 2011d; 2011e) as exemplary by comparison. This positioning strategy is borne out by statements such as “the Coalition’s plan to cut emissions means more trees, better soil and smarter technology” (Abbott, 2011a, n.p.) and, again in reference to the Coalition’s plan, “there is a better way on the environment” (Abbott, 2011c, n.p.).

James (2011) “tentatively” (p. 110) suggests that a further categorisation of facilitation be added to the positioning purpose domain, with the proviso that “it would require further examination in future research before formally adding the category to the provisional conceptual framework but indications are at this stage that such an addition may be necessary” (James, 2011, p. 110). In this research project, to test the utility of this category, the positioning purpose of facilitation was included as one of the six positioning purpose categorisations. Applying this positioning purpose suggested that each of the speeches of Gillard and Abbott can be seen as being examples of positioning for the purposes of facilitation. The findings also suggested little variance in terms of exemplification and self-promotion positioning purposes between Gillard and Abbott. However, the positioning purpose domain is not without some inherent complications when used as an analytical heuristic. These are elaborated on in Finding 5.2.2 where the problems encountered with applying the purpose positioning domain are discussed in more detail.

5.1.3 Positioning Type Domain The findings suggested little evidence of entities being forced into positioning others, however there was evidence of deliberate self- positioning, and this was exemplified in speech acts such as:

153 We will put a price on carbon pollution. We will cut pollution, we will protect the household budget, and we will support jobs (Gillard, 2011a, n.p.), and, I say “no” to this carbon tax because I say yes to a future for manufacturing in this country. I say yes to affordable power in this country (Abbott, 2011h, n.p.).

There was also evidence of forced self-positioning and of attempts by both politicians to deliberately position one another. What follows is a chronological mapping of some of the different positioning types enacted in the speeches of Gillard and Abbott throughout the study period. It begins with Gillard’s The courage to be new, Speech to the New South Wales Branch of the ALP State Conference, Sydney (Gillard, 2011a, n.p.), and concludes with Abbott’s Second Reading Speech: Clean Energy Bills 2011, House of Representatives (Abbott, 2011n, n.p.).

In the first speech transcript analysed as part of this case study, Gillard asserted,

Our opponents have the temerity to call our carbon price a toxic tax (Gillard, 2011a, n.p.).

This speech act could suggest she was being forced to reposition her Government’s carbon pricing policy as a consequence of previous positioning by the Opposition or “our opponents” (Gillard, 2011a, n.p.). In the same speech Gillard went on to say,

when the only thing that’s toxic is the carbon pollution warming our planet and threatening our children’s future (Gillard, 2011a, n.p.).

This speech act served two purposes: firstly, it positions the Prime Minister as caring about children, carbon pollution and the future of the planet while, at the same time, it deliberately positions the Opposition and Abbott as not caring about these things (i.e. children, the planet, carbon pollution). Gillard further deliberately self-positioned her Government as doing what is (morally) right by introducing a carbon tax, and asserted that the Labor Party was “the party of reform” (Gillard, 2011a, n.p.). In this same speech, the

154 Prime Minister also deliberately positioned the Coalition as using stunts and gimmicks and “lies and distortion” (Gillard, 2011a, n.p.) which has the social force, in terms of a speech act, of being an accusation.

The following day both Gillard and Abbott delivered their respective Address to the Nation speeches (Gillard, 2011b; Abbott, 2011a) in which their primary purpose was to position the carbon price/tax and to deliberately self- position themselves and their respective parties. Gillard gave the first address followed by Abbott later in the evening. Gillard’s deliberate positioning of the carbon price consisted of statements such as,

By 2020 our carbon price will take 160 million tonnes of pollution out of the atmosphere every year;

All up, the carbon price will support $100bn worth of investment in renewables in the next forty years;

Putting a price on carbon is a big change for our country; and most of the money raised from the carbon price will be used to fund tax cuts, pension increases and higher family payments (Gillard, 2011b, n.p.).

In response to Gillard’s positioning of a carbon price as providing positive benefits, Abbott was then (arguably) forced in his speech (Abbott, 2011a) later that same day to deliberately position a carbon tax (my italics) as something that was “just going to make a difficult situation worse” (Abbott, 2011a, n.p.). However, it is also highly probable that Abbott’s use of the term tax was a deliberate and strategic rhetorical choice, that calls on an ideological discourse whereby increased taxation is viewed negatively. He was also (again arguably) forced to position Gillard’s positioning of the carbon price as providing benefits in terms of pension increases and tax cuts by arguing that the Coalition’s plan was better. For example, Abbott asserted,

The Coalition’s plan means a fair go for pensioners – without a carbon tax. And tax cuts funded from savings – not from a carbon tax (Abbott, 2011a, n.p.).

Notably Abbott did not respond to Gillard’s earlier positioning of the Coalition as using stunts and gimmicks (Gillard, 2011a, n.p.) instead, and in a

155 final salvo, Abbott deliberately positioned Gillard as being untrustworthy on the grounds that she had shifted from her earlier position of promising not to introduce a carbon tax. Abbott asserted:

The Prime Minister says that the tax won’t hurt you but why should we trust her now when we couldn’t before the election? (Abbott, 2011a, n.p.)

In terms of a social force, this speech act, similar to Gillard’s earlier in the day, also has the effect of being an accusation.

During Abbott’s next speech (Remarks at the Melbourne Fish Markets, 13 July) Abbott asserted that,

One of the real problems with this carbon tax is that there’s supposed to be compensation for households (Abbott, 2011b, n.p.).

This deliberate positioning of the carbon tax as not providing adequate compensation for households arguably forced the Prime Minister, in her ‘Address to the National Press Club’ (Gillard, 2011c) the following day, to again position the carbon price as providing compensation for households. This was expressed as,

Nine in 10 households will get a combination of tax cuts and payment increases. For almost 6 million households this will fully meet the average extra costs. And of these, more than 4 million Australian households – including every older Australian who relies solely on the pension – will get a “buffer” (Gillard, 2011c, n.p.).

Gillard was further forced to respond to Abbott’s positioning of her as breaking her earlier “promise” to not introduce a carbon tax (Abbott, 2011a, n.p.), which she did by stating,

I said what I said before the election and I can’t unsay it. But when it became clear the only way to achieve action on climate change was to introduce a temporary carbon tax moving to an emissions trading scheme, the choice was this: I either stuck exactly to what I said just before the election, got no action on climate change, and did the wrong thing for the nation or I found a way to get climate change action, to do right for the country and to deal with the consequences (Gillard, 2011c, n.p.).

156

This is an obvious self-positioning strategy wherein Gillard is attempting to persuade (a social force) various targeted publics of her authenticity in terms of the decisions she has made. In an attempt, perhaps, to deliberately position the Coalition, Gillard also used this speech to assert that the LNP was similarly guilty of changing its mind over the need for a carbon-pricing scheme saying,

To 2007 when John Howard decided to price carbon, supported by Tony Abbott, Julie Bishop, Joe Hockey and Greg Hunt, to 2008 and 2009 when Kevin Rudd tried to negotiate with Malcolm Turnbull in good faith to get a bipartisan reform (Gillard, 2011c, n.p.).

This speech act has the social force of an assertion and positions key members of the Opposition as reneging on their earlier consensus that pricing carbon emissions was important and necessary. It thus seeks to deligitimise the Coalition Opposition while simultaneously it legitimates the position/stance of Gillard and her Government.

On 16 July 2011, Abbott gave an address to the Liberal National Party (LNP) State Council in Brisbane (Queensland) where, rather than being forced into self-positioning about the Coalition’s change of mind over the carbon tax (for example by providing a justification as to why they had changed their position as Gillard had done, see Gillard, 2011c, n.p.), Abbott deliberately positioned the Labor Government as incompetent saying,

This Government is utterly incapable of managing the most complex change in Australia’s history. This is the most incompetent government in our history (Abbott, 2011c, n.p.).

Abbott was, however, arguably then ‘forced’ into deliberately positioning the carbon tax in relation to households stating that,

Even on the Government’s own figures three million Australian households will be worse off under this carbon tax (Abbott, 2011c, n.p.).

157 Two days later, in a Speech to the Green Capital Business Breakfast, Gillard was then ‘forced’ into positioning the economic benefits of carbon pricing. Amongst the statements she made were that,

Pricing carbon will have powerful economic effects … it will give us a stronger economy, because it will put us on a stronger competitive footing, and because it will allow us to take advantage of economic opportunities as they arise … it will attract billions of dollars of international investment … $13.2 billion for new investments (Gillard, 2011d, n.p.).

These speech acts, while being examples of assertions, wherein Gillard can be seen to be constructing particular views of reality about the benefits of a carbon price, could also be interpreted as being a form of defence in terms of being forced to position in this way.

In what could perhaps be further viewed as taking a leaf out of the Coalition’s book, Gillard did not respond to Abbott’s positioning of her Government as incompetent (for example by pointing out her Government’s successes), and instead once again reiterated a self-position of acting in Australia’s best interests, and again deliberately positioned the LNP as having once been in favour of a carbon pricing scheme. This was variously expressed as,

I won’t let this country surrender in the face of the challenge of climate change. Our nation will act to cut carbon pollution and seize a clean energy future; and,

By 2007, even John Howard found it prudent to respond as the tide of evidence continued to grow (Gillard, 2011d, n.p.).

As before, these speech acts position the Opposition as reneging on their earlier stance/position, while legitimising Gillard’s decision to introduce a carbon price.

In Abbott’s next speech, (Address to Consilium, Queensland), Abbott, like Gillard before him, responded by self-positioning the former Howard Coalition Government (of which he was a Minister) as taking the higher

158 moral ground saying,

Governments and prime ministers are entitled to change their mind but on something as important as a tax designed to transform the way everyone lives and works, they can’t reverse their position without seeking a new mandate – as John Howard did when he changed his position on the GST (Abbott, 2011d, n.p.).

Abbott can thus be seen to be attempting to shift the narrative away from Gillard’s positioning of the Opposition towards one in which their change of mind becomes a virtue rather than a moral failing. Abbott also co-opted Labor’s own self-positioning by stating the LNP was the party of reform. This was expressed as,

The Coalition will go to the next election as the party of reform – the reform that can appeal to voters as well as to public policy experts (Abbott, 2011d, n.p.).

He was once again forced to deliberately position the carbon tax as not providing economic benefits, stating for example that, “in economic terms, it’s not a reform at all” (Abbott, 2011d, n.p.). In response to Gillard’s positioning of carbon pricing as providing economic opportunities, Abbott deliberately positioned the carbon tax as “a money tree for government” (Abbott, 2011d, n.p.). However much of Abbott’s speech was dedicated to deliberately positioning the carbon tax as being an impost on business, and as being unnecessary. For example he stated that,

Without a carbon tax Australia has reduced its emissions intensity by nearly 50 per cent as enterprises take common sense steps to reduce their power and fuel bills (Abbott, 2011d, n.d.); and, None of this required an additional price signal. In fact, imposing pseudo-environmental costs on business might make genuine environmental improvements harder as businesses’ margins shrink and environmental protection becomes the business of government rather than of citizens (Abbott, 2011d, n.p.).

Abbott concluded his address to Consilium asserting,

159 If the Prime Minister really thinks that the carbon tax is good for Australia, she should have taken it to the people at the last election (Abbott, 2011d, n.p.).

In this speech act Abbott is clearly returning to his earlier narrative about Gillard having said, prior to the 2010 election, that she would not introduce a carbon tax. This suggests he is forcing this issue as much as he is forcing Gillard into taking a defensive position/stance.

Gillard’s next two speeches consisted of an Address to Per Capita (Gillard, 2011e) and an Address to the Tasmanian branch of the ALP State Conference (Gillard, 2011f). In both speeches, Gillard maintained a self-positioning strategy of taking the moral higher ground for the betterment of Australia’s future, but she was undoubtedly forced into addressing Abbott’s positioning of the carbon tax as something she should have taken to the previous federal election. She did this by asserting, for example,

We’ve achieved agreement for a carbon price, to cut carbon pollution and build a clean energy economy (Gillard, 2011e, n.p.); and,

This Federal Parliament has done what the last could not: made the decisions to put a price on carbon (Gillard, 2011f, n.p.).

She was also forced into (again) positioning the carbon price as being good economically for business stating that,

If you are able to kick-start productivity, unlock ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ infrastructure investment, and put a price on carbon, you will have played your part in a proud Australian tradition of progressive reform” (Gillard, 2011e, n.p.); and, Carbon finally has a price, where economic growth is decoupled from emissions growth, where the clean energy jobs of the future are created here and created now (Gillard, 2011f, n.p.).

These speech acts suggest that Gillard is once more being forced into defending her decision to introduce a carbon price by promoting the benefits through economic discourses, that are tied to clean energy and visionary/leadership discourses.

160 From 13-29 August 2011, Abbott delivered a further eight speeches while Gillard delivered none that were within this research project’s parameters (i.e. speeches that contained the key term “carbon” and were uploaded to either politician’s website within the research period). Thus, Abbott had a free run in terms of deliberatively (negatively) positioning Gillard, the Government and the carbon tax, while simultaneously (positively) deliberately self-positioning himself, the Coalition and their “better way” on the environment. For example, in his next speech to the Western Australia Liberal Party State Conference in Perth (Abbott, 2011e) Abbott deliberately positioned the carbon tax as being particularly negative for Western Australia asserting that,

The carbon tax targets the burning of fossil fuels and given the importance of gas to the west’s future, this is another anti-Western Australian tax (Abbott, 2011e, n.p.).

The carbon tax was also positioned as “a bad tax based on a lie” and that, not only was it,

A bad tax based on a lie, not only is it an unfair bad tax based on a lie, but…the craziest thing about this tax is that it is not going to work (Abbott, 2011e, n.p.).

This deliberate self-positioning of the carbon tax as “crazy” was supported by the further claim that it (the carbon tax) was “a moon beam from a larger lunacy” (Abbott, 2011e, n.p.) – a phrase he had used in an earlier speech (see also Abbott, 2011c, n.p.). Abbott also reiterated his positioning of the carbon tax as being unnecessary (see Abbott, 2011d, n.p.) saying,

Over the last 15 years, without a carbon tax, without an emissions trading scheme, our emissions intensity has reduced by almost 50 per cent (Abbott, 2011e, n.p.).

However, while I have based my claim that a carbon tax has been positioned and attributed with person-like qualities such as being ‘crazy’, it should also be noted that from a traditional Positioning Theory perspective, not all theorists would agree with this argument. Instead they might argue that

161 what is actually being positioned is the entity or entities behind the introduction of the carbon price/tax. Taking this approach would suggest that rather than a government policy being “crazy” (Abbott, 2011e), it is in fact Gillard and her government that are being attributed these qualities. These points are referred to again in Finding 5.2.

The positioning of the carbon tax as causing rising prices was also reiterated in Abbott’s Address to the No Carbon Tax Rally (Abbott, 2011f, n.p.). The rally, which was held in the Australian capital of Canberra, reportedly drew a crowd of 1000 people (although organisers claimed 3000 people attended) and eventually led to the police being involved when protestors hung signs above the front doors of Parliament. Abbott told the rally,

We don’t want them going up and up and up. We can’t afford them to go up and up and up and we don’t need them to go up and up and up to protect the environment. It’s not a fair tax (Abbott, 2011f, n.p.).

Abbott also used this speech to position the carbon tax as being unworkable by stating,

The other point I want to make is that it won’t actually work. It won’t actually work (Abbott, 2011f, n.p.).

He also repeated his positioning of the carbon tax as “crazy” (also see Abbott, 2011e.) stating,

What kind of craziness is this, ladies and gentlemen, to tax every single Australia and still see emissions going up and up and up (Abbott, 2011f, n.p.).

However, to return to the earlier discussion about Abbott’s use of ‘crazy’ (i.e. Abbott, 2011e) this speech act more overtly suggests that what Abbott is really doing is positioning those responsible for the introduction of the tax, rather than the tax itself.

On 19 August 2011, Abbott gave an address to workers at Seeley International (an air-conditioning manufacturing plant in Adelaide, South Australia)

162 where he deliberately positioned the carbon tax as “all bad news for Australian manufacturing” (Abbott, 2011g, n.p.). Citing a power bill increase of $700,000 per year for the Seeley factory, Abbott positioned the carbon tax as “enormous economic pain, I think, for very limited environmental gain” (Abbott, 2011g, n.p.). The following day, on 20 August 2011, he gave an address to the South Australian Liberal Party State Council in Adelaide, where he repeated his positioning of the carbon tax as: “a bad tax based on a lie” and that “not only is this a bad tax based on a lie, it is unfair and it won’t work” (Abbott, 2011h, n.p.). He also stated “there should be no new tax collection without an election” (Abbott, 2011h, n.p.).

Two days later, on 22 August 2011, Abbott gave an address to the Convoy of No Confidence Rally (Abbott, 2011i, n.p.). Abbott used his address to position the carbon tax as causing negative impacts on the “manufacturing industry ... affordable transportation ... affordable energy and affordable power” (Abbott, 2011i, n.p.). The tax was further said to be,

the most complex tax change in Australia’s history, a tax that will just go up and up and up if it gets in and if it stays in (Abbott, 2011i, n.p.).

Later the same day Abbott addressed the Parliament calling for a Plebiscite in his Second Reading Speech Carbon Tax Plebiscite Bill, Parliament House (Abbott, 2011j, n.p.). In this speech Abbott positioned the carbon tax as lacking,

the kind of democratic mandate which any government seeking to make such a change should have for a change of this magnitude (Abbott, 2011j, n.p.).

He repeated his positioning of the carbon tax as “bad” saying,

This is the worst possible time to proceed with what is a bad tax based on a lie and this bill of mine is a way of ensuring that the public have their chance to have their say (Abbott, 2011j, n.p.).

Abbott reiterated that “there should be no new tax collection without an

163 election” (Abbott, 2011j, n.p.). These speech acts/actions were enacted at diverse events that attracted widespread media attention suggesting that, in terms of the success of Abbott’s positioning strategy, his key messages and narratives about the tax were highly successful and arguably are evidence of Abbott achieving his public relations positioning goal(s).

On 27 August Abbott gave an address to the Tasmanian Liberal Party State Council in Hobart (Abbott, 2011k, n.p.) where he again deliberately positioned the carbon tax as causing prices to rise. For example, he asserted that,

Now the whole point of the carbon tax is to make doing things in this country more expensive, whether it’s driving your car or turning on your heater or running your business the whole point of a carbon tax is to make that more expensive ... The whole point of a carbon tax is to make it more expensive to burn coal and to burn oil and, as we know, burning oil and coal and gas is how we produce our power and our transport and power and transport are at the heart of modern life (Abbott, 2011k, n.p.).

Abbott used this speech to again deliberately position the carbon tax as “a bad tax based on a lie” and reiterated that it “is an absolutely crazy policy. It is an absolutely crazy policy” (Abbott, 2011k, n.p.). The repetition of these key messages to this audience reinforces the suggestion that Abbott’s key messages and narratives must have been proving to be effective and hence there was little reason to change his position.

Abbott’s next address was to the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA). Abbott used this address to deliberately position the “prospect of a go-it-alone-carbon tax” as “making a bad situation much worse” (Abbott, 2011l, n.p.). Throughout this period Abbott continued to reiterate his party’s self-position of having a ‘better way’ in terms of acting on climate change, and promised to rescind the carbon tax legislation once the Coalition was in Government (Abbott, 2011j; 2011l.).

In Gillard’s next speech, an address to the Financial Services Council (Gillard, 2011g, n.p.), she restated she had,

164 A plan for a clean energy future in which economic growth is decoupled from carbon growth, and Australians have clean energy jobs (Gillard, 2011g, n.p.).

This speech act could be viewed as an example of forced self-positioning given that, in the previous two weeks, Abbott more or less had a free run in terms of deliberately (negatively) positioning the carbon tax, Gillard, and the Government. However, there was no evidence of deliberate positioning of the Coalition or of Abbott. It would be almost another two weeks before either politician gave an official speech, or at least a speech that was transcribed and uploaded to their respective websites.

In Abbott’s next address to the Australian Steel Convention (Abbott, 2011m) Abbott was not forced into a self-positioning situation. As a result, he maintained his deliberate self-position of,

No carbon tax … because there are much better ways to reduce our emissions and improve our environment than making manufacturing in this country almost unviable (Abbott, 2011m, n.p.).

Abbott repeated his position about Labor’s carbon tax (albeit modified for steel industry delegates) saying the tax was,

A dagger aimed at the heart of manufacturing in this country generally but … particularly a dagger aimed at the heart of the steel industry (Abbott, 2011m, n.p.).

The following day Gillard also gave an address to the 2011 Australian Steel Convention, in which she announced that,

In a few hours time I will be introducing historic legislation to put a price on carbon and accelerate our transition to a low carbon economy (Gillard, 2011h, n.p.).

However, arguably as a result of Abbott’s deliberate positioning of Labor the previous day, Gillard was forced into self-positioning telling delegates that,

Our carbon package contains special measures to support employment and keep our nation competitive internationally … we’ve made our Jobs

165 and Competitiveness Program a centrepiece of the Government’s carbon pricing scheme … we will provide free permits to the steel industry covering 94.5 per cent of the impact of the carbon price. This will assist the sector to transform into an increasingly efficient and sustainable industry in a low-carbon economy (Gillard, 2011h, n.p.).

Gillard further deliberately positioned the Coalition as not supporting the manufacturing industry stating,

Those who stand against the clean technologies that come with a price on carbon are no friends of Australia’s manufacturing sector (Gillard, 2011h, n.p.).

These opposing positioning strategies enacted at the same Convention are evidence of the contested environment wherein public relations activities take place, and they also show the importance of constructing narratives that “reach out and connect with audiences” (James, 2011, p.103) in public relations positioning episodes.

On 14 September 2011 Gillard introduced the Clean Energy Bill 2011 (Gillard, 2011i) to the Federal Parliament. In her speech Gillard asserted:

If we can do all this: Cut carbon pollution. Keep growing our economy. Keep growing jobs. Why wouldn’t we act? So the Government will act. And the Parliament should support us (Gillard, 20111i, n.p.); and, Nothing hard ever gets easier by putting it off. And if you don’t do what is right for the nation, then you shouldn’t be in Parliament (Gillard, 2011i, n.p.).

Both of these statements deliberately self-position the Government as doing the (morally) right thing for Australia’s future. They also position the Coalition as immoral by comparison, and thus as not deserving to be in Government. The following day Abbott was (arguably) ‘forced’ into deliberately positioning Gillard as being immoral, and that she needed to change her position/stance saying,

What she hasn’t done is the decent, honest thing which would have been to take a change of position, had that genuinely taken place, to take a change of position to the people at an election (Abbott, 2011n,

166 n.p.).

Finally, in what he claimed was “a good faith attempt by a democratic opposition to allow the Government to do the right thing by the Australian people”, Abbott proposed a Bill so “that we can have a vote on the carbon tax without an election” (Abbott, 2011n, n.p.). This speech act signals Abbott’s intention to challenge the legitimacy of the introduction of a carbon tax at the forthcoming federal election; an election Abbott subsequently won largely because of the success of this positioning strategy.

However, there were also several weaknesses identified while applying this domain to the speech transcripts. One of these is that there were multiple factors impinging on the range of positioning types enacted by Gillard and Abbott in their speeches. This, then, is a limitation of this study overall. Moreover, all positioning acts necessarily position an interlocutor (in this case study as represented by Gillard and Abbott) as well as other entities to which the communication is directed. This then raises the question of why there is a need to categorise positioning as being either self or other since this implies it will always, necessarily, involve both. This is especially relevant in public relations contexts wherein an organisation will always have a purpose in communicating to their publics, or why engage in communicating at all? These weaknesses are discussed in more detail in in Finding 5.2.

5.1.4 Positioning Triangle Domain

5.1.4.1 Positioning Triangle Domain: Position Pole The findings that emerged in this chapter were based on my understanding of how James, in 2011, defined a position in public relations positioning, which is that it is,

The entity’s point of view of its own and stakeholders’ actual and potential positions, e.g., the entity determines the desired position … informed by research and stakeholder analysis informing the campaign’s design and or implementation (James, 2011, p. 101).

167 This indicated that Gillard’s overall position was that a carbon price was good for Australia, and Abbott’s contrary position was that a carbon tax was bad for Australia (my italics). Abbott’s position was enacted through a range of assertive speech acts wherein the term ‘bad’ was often used, for example he asserted that a carbon tax was a “bad idea” (Abbott, 2011f, n.p.), and a “bad tax based on a lie” (i.e. Abbott, 2011f, n.p.); (Abbott, 2011d, n.p.); (Abbott, 2011e, n.p.); (Abbott, 2011i, n.p.); (Abbott, 2011n, n.p.). Gillard’s position was less overtly expressed (for example Gillard did not use the term “good”) however her position in terms of the benefits of a carbon price was evident in statements such as “Carbon pricing is important” (Gillard, 2011b, n.p.); (carbon pricing) is “historic legislation” (Gillard, 2011h, n.p.); and a carbon price is the “best way” (Gillard, 2011i, n.p.).

These positions were consistently held throughout the study period, with little or no variance evident. However, it was frequently difficult a) to determine the differences between the concept of a position and the concept of a goal; and b) to determine if there were any differences between when a carbon price/tax was a position, or when it was the entities themselves that were adopting positions/being positioned. These difficulties were made evident in the findings, wherein I often found myself referring to the entities’ positions (as it is understood in more traditional approaches to Positioning Theory) rather than the carbon price or tax as a point of intentional representation. There were also occasions where the term ‘position’ could be interchanged with the term ‘stance’ without this affecting the findings (these were highlighted in the findings by being labelled as being examples of a ‘position/stance’. These weaknesses are also addressed in Finding 5.2.

5.1.4.2 Positioning Triangle Domain: Speech Act/Action Pole The respective positions of Gillard and Abbott were enacted through speeches delivered to a range of audiences (actions) in various venues around Australia. One point of difference was in terms of where Abbott gave

168 addresses or speeches, with many enacted in more informal surroundings. For example, Abbott delivered a speech to workers at the Melbourne Wholesale Fish Markets (Abbott, 2011b, n.p.); to protestors at the No Carbon Tax Rally in Canberra (Abbott, 2011f, n.p.), and he addressed protestors in an Address to the Convoy of No Confidence Rally, Canberra (Abbott, 2011i, n.p.). Gillard’s speech acts essentially set out the key messages of the Government in relation to the economic benefits of a price on carbon, and Abbott differed by deploying speech acts that asserted there were economic risks associated with a carbon tax. There was evidence of both Gillard and Abbott “telling people how things are” (Searle, 979, p. viii) through the use of assertive speech acts. For example:

This Federal Parliament has done what the last could not: made the decisions to put a price on carbon (Gillard, 2011f, n.p); and,

This carbon tax is a bad idea because everything will cost more (2011b, n.p.)

There was evidence of trying to get people “to do things” (Searle (1979, p. viii) through the use of directives. For example:

Together, we can fight this tax before it becomes law (Abbott, 2011b, n.p.).

There was also evidence of committing “ourselves to doing things” (Searle, 1979, p. viii) through commissive speech acts. For example:

I will be introducing historic legislation to put a price on carbon and accelerate our transition to a low carbon economy (Gillard, 2011g, n.p.); and,

I want to give you this absolutely categorical assurance on behalf of the Coalition I lead: we will oppose the carbon tax in opposition and we will rescind it in government (Gillard, 2011a, n.p.)

There was also evidence of expressing “feelings and attitudes” (Searle (1979, p. viii) through the use of expressives, for example:

169 Nothing hard ever gets easier by putting it off. And if you don’t do what is right for the nation, then you shouldn’t be Prime Minister (Gillard, 14 July 2011); and, Like you, Margie and I want a better future for our children. We only have one planet and I want to preserve it (2011b, n.p.)

There was evidence of declarations or speech acts that sought to bring about “changes in the world through our utterances” (Searle, 1979, p. viii). For example:

There will be a price on carbon from 1 July 2012 (Gillard, 2011)

These speech acts were largely determined by the first two positioning poles (position and storylines) and essentially set out the key messages of Gillard/the Government and Abbott/the Opposition to support their respective goals. However, it is difficult to ascertain the social force of these speech acts when taken out of their context. This shows the importance of “dynamic stability” of the positioning triangle (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p.10) in terms of the alignment of speech acts/actions, storylines and positions in positioning episodes, but it also raises question about the efficacy of the approach taken in this chapter.

5.1.4.3 Positioning Triangle Domain: Storyline Pole James (2011) argues that “a storyline is essentially a style of narrative that contains, first, a conventional flow of events and secondly, characters” (p. 103). Based on the finding that Gillard’s position or point of intentional representation was that a carbon price was good, and Abbott’s opposing position was that a carbon tax was bad, the characters in the storylines were taken to be the carbon price (Gillard) and the carbon tax (Abbott). Gillard’s storylines supported the desired position by drawing primarily on economic and taxation discourses, in storylines about the benefits that would flow from a price on carbon. Abbott’s storylines supported the opposing desired position that the carbon tax was bad and, like Gillard, primarily drew on

170 economic and taxation discourses in storylines about the economic risks. However, as Finding 3 argues, James’ (2010,2011) definition of a position in a public relations context differs markedly from traditional Positioning Theory definitions, and because of this it poses questions about applying the (2010, 2011) Framework to analyse the texts in the case study.

5.2 Finding 2

The strengths associated with applying James’ Provisional Conceptual Framework for Intentional Positioning in Public Relations (2010, 2011) as an analytical heuristic, were that it facilitated analysis across four core domains and demonstrated how positioning was undertaken. However, there were also some domains and poles that were identified as areas of possible weakness.

5.2.1 Positioning Goal Domain Commencing the analysis at the positioning goal domain, in hindsight, was not the ideal entry point. Although, as was argued, starting at this domain provided a ‘big picture’ or over-arching theme that linked the research together, for example that a carbon tax was bad (Abbott) or that a carbon price was good (Gillard), it also became evident as the research progressed that other positioning goals were possibly at play. This finding was made even clearer when analysing the positioning type domain, which required looking at each speech individually as opposed to examining each speech as part of a single data set. As a result, it became apparent that each of Gillard’s and Abbott’s speeches may have had different goals depending on the audience they were addressing, where the speeches were held, and the timing of the speeches relative to the speeches of one another. It is also possible that multiple or overlapping goals were present in some speech transcripts.

171 For example, Strömbäck and Kiousis (2014) argue that “in the context of strategic political communication … it is often assumed that the primary goal” is maximising political support (p. 111). However, “in most cases, parties have numerous goals” (Strömbäck & Kiousis, 2014, p. 111). Moreover, there is little agreement or consensus within public relations scholarship about what the goals of public relations actually are. Dühring (2015) argues that public relations contributes to organisational goals through such things as “creating and promoting intangible assets such as reputation and brands … and identifying future opportunities and risks” (p. 9). Hon and Grunig (1999), and Ledingham and Bruning (2000) suggest that public relations goals centre on building strategic relationships with key stakeholders and publics. Taylor and Kent (2014) differ again arguing that “behavior change is generally the goal of … public relations communication” (p. 82). What this suggests is that while, “in the context of strategic political communication, the strategic goals of political parties and campaigns are thus crucial” (Strömbäck & Kiousis, 2014, p. 111), applying the positioning goal domain to analyse the positioning goals as I have done in this initial evaluation of James (2010, 2011) Framework, is not straightforward. Primarily this relates to the probability that in addition to the goal of positioning a carbon price/tax as either a benefit or risk, the goals of Gillard and Abbott could have included maximising political support, or they may have included any one of a number of other positioning goals.

5.2.2 Purpose Positioning Domain One of the strengths of applying the Purpose Positioning Domain was that it provided insights into how the positioning purposes supported, or not, the positioning goals of Gillard and Abbott. As with the work of James (2011), it was found that there were several positioning purposes potentially at play in any one social episode, and that often these occurred simultaneously or in tandem with one another. James (2011) also found in her study of public relations campaigns, that the majority had a positioning purpose of self-

172 promotion. Promotion is a key part of public relations practice and, in the political speech transcripts analysed in this study, promotion would undoubtedly have been a key consideration in terms of Gillard and Abbott’s positioning of the carbon price/tax. Accordingly, each transcript was found to have evidence of this positioning purpose.

Positioning for the purposes of self-promotion and/or exemplification was found to be more prominent in the speeches delivered by Gillard (n=9/9), and less evident in the speeches delivered by Abbott (n=8/14). For example, in her Address to the Tasmanian Branch of the ALP State Conference Gillard stated, “This Federal Parliament has done what the last could not: made the decision to put a price on carbon” (Gillard, e). It was argued that this speech act was an example of positioning for the purposes of exemplification, whereby its enactment positioned Gillard and her Government as going above and beyond what would be typically expected of a Government with the power to enact such legislation. However, not only could this example equally be viewed as positioning for the purposes of self-promotion but, moreover, each of the speeches of Gillard and Abbott could be viewed as attempts to deliberately self-position as exemplary leaders, and indeed each of the speeches, in and of themselves, is arguably an act of self-promotion from a public relations positioning perspective.

It was also found that the over-riding positioning purpose in Abbott’s speeches was ingratiation (n=11/14), and that this was especially evident in his speeches delivered to the general public (n=5/14), where positioning for the purposes of ingratiation was the only positioning evident. Abbott’s statement that, “Our democracy will be in safe hands as long as the people of this country continue to care about it and you care about it” (Abbott, i) was cited as an example of positioning for this purpose. However, if, as argued, one accepts that the action of delivering a political speech will almost always be necessarily an act of self-promotion, this finding does not carry much weight. In addition to considerable slippage between the range of categorisations and a degree of ambivalence about how these could be

173 interpreted, these categories also, at the same time, stifled other possible categorisations. For example, the term facilitate refers to making “(an action, process etc.) easy or easier; to promote, help forward; to assist in bringing about (a particular end or result)” while the opposite “impede” refers to “the act of impeding, hindrance … to retard in progress or action by putting obstacles in the way, to obstruct, to hinder” etc. (OED Online, 2016, n.p.). Arguably ‘impeding’ is a more appropriate term for some of the positioning purposes enacted by Abbott in his speeches; for example by applying this categorisation Abbott’s positioning purpose could have been to impede the passing of the carbon pricing Bill. Perhaps another possible positioning purpose for a political leader might be one of contrition (e.g. a speech apologising for past actions) however there is no categorisation for this purpose within the framework in the 2011 iteration.

It was also difficult to determine where ‘facilitation’ began and ended when coding the speech transcripts; the most obvious question being why would a political leader deliver a speech unless it was to ‘facilitate’ something? Based on a series of studies by public relations scholars Broom (1982), Broom & Dozier (1986), Dozier and Broom (1995), and Broom and Smith (1979), it was suggested that there are four primary roles for public relations practitioners: communication technician, expert prescriber, communication facilitator and problem-solving facilitator (my italics). Dialogic theory argues that a key role of public relations is to facilitate dialogue (my italics) by opening up opportunities for dialogic communication (Taylor & Kent, 2002). Moreover, the facilitation role of public relations has only strengthened with the rise of social media, which has brought “about substantial increases in stakeholder strength through facilitating communication within stakeholder groups and between different stakeholder groups” (James, 2007, p. 137). Given this, it would be difficult to find many situations where facilitation would not be a positioning purpose from a public relations perspective.

Lastly, as mentioned in Finding 5.1, a major complication that occurred when applying the Purpose Positioning Domain, was that it cannot be

174 claimed that a carbon price or tax has a positioning purpose, as only entities with agency can have a ‘purpose’ however this is defined. This ontological problem of ascribing agency to a ‘thing’ (a carbon price or tax in this instance) was a recurring problem throughout the evaluation of this first iteration of James’ (2010, 2011) Framework. Each of these findings thus raised questions about the overall utility of this particular domain as it stood in 2010, 2011, especially when applying the framework as an analytical heuristic. That being so, James (2014) has since revised the Framework to no longer include the purpose positioning domain. My contribution to her rethinking of this domain, as part of the next iteration of the Framework (i.e. James, 2014), is discussed in James’ book (2014, p. 59), and our work together, which led to much of this rethinking, was published in 2013 (Wise and James, 2013). The following chapter (Chapter 6) evaluates James’ (2014) revised Framework to determine if these changes have addressed some of the shortcomings outlined in this chapter.

5.2.3 Positioning Type Domain A strength of applying the Positioning Type Domain was that it was useful in terms of teasing out the various positioning ‘types’ and ‘mapping’ these over time. However, this initial testing of James’ (2010, 2011) Framework found that the positioning type domain is not without weaknesses when applied as an analytical heuristic. One weakness stems from the fact that all social interactions consist of situations of deliberate self-positioning or situations of forced self-positioning (van Langenhove & Harré, 2003). This aspect of Positioning Theory holds whether the entity is a person or an exemplar for an organisation or a nation, and whether it is part of a strategic public relations campaign or not. As van Langenhove and Harré (2003, p. 23) argue, all four positioning types (i.e. “(i) situations of deliberate self-positioning; (ii) situations of forced self-positioning; (iii) situations of deliberate positioning of others; and (iv) situations of forced positioning of others”) are always intentional.

At the same time, other persons or entities in a given social episode or

175 interaction will always be intentionally positioned as well. As van Langenhove and Harré (2003) further argue, in oral conversations (for example between someone delivering a speech and the audience) some reciprocal positioning will always be implied. To demonstrate this further, in situations where a speech is being delivered the orator will always necessarily be deliberately self-positioning (or perhaps being forced to self- position) as someone with the associated rights and duties to speak/deliver a speech. The implied deliberate positioning of the audience (the “other” in this context) is that they, according to the prevailing local moral order of socially acceptable norms and values, may or may not interrupt the speaker whilst they are speaking. The audience, either collectively or individually, may of course challenge this deliberate positioning, for example, by calling out (a speech act) or by leaving (an action), and in so doing may be deliberately positioning the speaker as not having the right to speak. At this point it would be up to the speaker to accept the positioning (perhaps by finishing speaking or leaving) or they may attempt to reposition (i.e. be forced into deliberately positioning) and so it goes on.

Equally problematic was the coding of examples of forced positioning of both self and of others. Although it was found that there were numerous examples of forced positioning through an examination that mapped the speeches chronologically over time, it is difficult to assess if, in fact, an entity was being forced to position, or being forced to position others, relying solely on the research sample of speech texts. This was because at any one time there are numerous ‘forces’ circulating in society that may cause an entity to be forced into positioning themselves or other entities (the mass media and social media being a couple of examples). It could also be argued that each of Abbott’s speeches were an example of forced positioning since, if Gillard had never announced her Government was introducing a carbon price, he would not have been forced to position the carbon tax at all.

Likewise, it could be argued that Gillard was forced into positioning the

176 carbon price since she was not only locked into a positioning battle with Abbott over its merits, but she was also forced to position the policy in her role as Prime Minister. A further possibility is that given in every speech both Gillard and Abbott were speaking not only for themselves, but also as exemplars for their respective political parties, both were unarguably subject to forces from within their own political parties. In this evaluation of the first iteration of James’ Framework (i.e. 2010, 2011), qualitatively coding (Saldana, 2013) each utterance, according to positioning types, not only seemed to add little to the findings, but those findings could also be viewed, given this discussion, as perhaps being somewhat tenuous. This, then, raises a question in terms of why is there a need to categorise public relations positioning types when applying James’ (2010, 2011) Framework to conduct a positioning analysis.

5.2.4 Positioning Triangle Domain

5.2.4.1 Positioning Triangle Domain: Storyline Pole The positioning triangle domain was found by James (2010, p.134) to be the most “challenging” aspect of the framework, a premise that this initial testing of James’ (2010, 2011) Framework largely supports. One weakness was James’ (2010, 2011) recommendation that when using the framework as an analytical heuristic, the entry point of the positioning triangle domain should be at the position pole. However, as the research progressed, it became apparent that commencing at this pole was problematic. One reason for this is that van Langenhove and Harré argue that adopting a position involves “the use of rhetorical devices by which oneself and other speakers are presented as standing in various kinds of relations” (1994, p. 362). From an analytical standpoint, this suggests that understanding the rhetorical devices at play could be advantageous prior to analysing an entity’s position. This is not to suggest that the framework is unworkable when developing a public relations campaign. In these circumstances, it may be entirely logical to first ‘determine’ the position an entity wishes to take, and then to

177 ‘determine’ the speech acts/actions and storylines to support the positioning. However, based on this finding and when applying the framework as an analytical heuristic, it suggested that the entry point should be at the storyline pole as opposed to the position pole.

Other researchers have similarly found that commencing the analysis at the storyline pole is valuable. Bartlett (2008) proposes that, “probably the easiest place to begin analysing narratives is with the characters, events and relations within them, the storyline” (p.176). Slocum Bradley (2008, 2010) applied a positioning triad in two studies, and on both occasions, began with an analysis of storylines. More recently James’ (2014) has also recommended this approach suggesting that when using the revised ‘Positioning Framework for Public Relations’ to conduct a positioning analysis, the analysis should start with identifying “the various storylines that constitute the collection of narratives”, followed by identifying “the positioning’s of parties in each of the storylines” and the “social force of utterances in the storylines” (James, 2014, p. 160). Chapter 6 of this thesis reports on the findings from an analysis using this order of storyline, position and speech acts/action.

5.2.4.1 Positioning Triangle Domain: Speech Act/Action Pole Speech acts are used strategically by public relations practitioners to “achieve a desired goal or positioning” by bringing about social consequences such as informing, promising, persuading and so forth (James, 2011, p. 102). However, the second pole of the positioning triangle is not without complexities. As James (2010, 2011) also noted, the most challenging aspect of developing the intentional positioning framework in terms of the three triangle poles, was the speech-act/action pole. The specific issue was with “the inclusion of aspects of speech act theory” that “are not straightforward, especially as they relate to the concept of perlocutionary effects and the active role of audiences in the co-construction of meaning” (James, 2010, p. 13). These difficulties are largely reflected in the findings of this chapter.

178 A key finding, then, of this initial evaluation of James (2010, 2011) Framework, is that there is not much to be gained by simply coding a speech act as being an assertive, commissive, directive, expressive or declaration et cetera. Indeed, Gies (2006) argues that “there is nothing to be gained, and much to be lost, if we continue to think of speech acts or illocutionary acts as acts performed in saying something” (p. 10). Not only do the “social features of context play a critical role in the differentiation of communicative actions” (Gies, 2006, p. 13), but from a Positioning Theory and public relations perspective the social force of speech acts plays a large part in how power is manifested and thus how legitimacy is gained, maintained or indeed lost. As these findings have shown, analysis of the speech act/action pole, without considering the social context, would seem to add little to the findings.

5.2.4.3 Positioning Triangle Domain: Position Pole However perhaps an even greater challenge of applying James’ (2010, 2011) Framework was in terms of developing an understanding of the concept of a position from a public relations Positioning Theory perspective. Primarily this resulted from the tension experienced in attempting to conflate what may be considered more traditional concepts of Positioning Theory, with James’ (2010, 2011) conceptualisation. For example, in Positioning Theory a position refers to,

A complex cluster of generic personal attributes, structured in various ways, which impinges on the possibilities of interpersonal, intergroup and even intrapersonal action through some assignment of such rights, duties and obligations to an individual as sustained by the cluster (Harré & van Langenhove, 2003, p. 1).

Of significance, in this description, is the assignment of “rights, duties and obligations” (Harré and van Langenhove, 2003, p. 1) (my italics). In contrast James (2011) defines a position as “the entity’s point of view of its own and stakeholders’ actual and potential positions” (p. 101). Applying this definition thus led to the finding that, in terms of Gillard’s speech transcripts, the position taken was that a carbon price was good. In terms of

179 Abbott’s speech transcripts, the position taken was that a carbon tax was bad. However, as discussed in Finding 5.1.4, it was frequently found that it was difficult to tease out the positioning of a carbon price/tax, from the positioning of entities or human-like entities. It was also feasible to transpose the term ‘position’ with the term ‘stance’ (this was indicated at various sites throughout this chapter using ‘position/stance’) and, unusually, this would not affect the findings. James (2011) allowedly, states she has borrowed from Positioning Theory to develop a framework specifically for public relations and, as such, does not claim that her framework or her descriptions are the same as those offered by other positioning theorists. James (2011) further acknowledges that the concept of rights and duties offered possibilities “for an exploration of the ethical dimensions of positioning in public relations” (2011, p. 112) and that this was beyond the scope of her initial work on the Framework. Nevertheless, the omission of the core concepts of rights, duties and obligations (Harré & van Langenhove, 2003) could be seen as quite odd given the centrality of these concepts to Positioning Theory.

There was also considerable overlap between the position pole i.e. the point of view of the entities “own and stakeholders’ actual and potential positions” (James, 2011, p. 101) and the goal domain. James (2011) argues that “intentional positioning, invariably, is linked to having a specific goal and this is the positioning most relevant to public relations campaigns” (p. 99). Nevertheless, how to analyse the positioning goal is not elaborated on. For example, the finding that Gillard’s goal was to position a carbon price as a benefit for Australia could also (arguably) be a point of intentional representation i.e. Gillard’s ‘position’ was that a carbon price was a benefit for Australia and not ‘good’ for Australia. Likewise, the finding that Abbott’s goal was to position as a carbon tax as a risk for Australia, could be argued to be a position i.e. Abbott’s position or point of intentional representation was that a carbon tax was a risk for Australia (see Finding 1:4). This confusion between the goal domain and position pole raises questions not only in

180 terms of the necessity of applying both this particular domain, and the positioning pole, when applying James’ (2010, 2011) Framework as an analytical heuristic, it also raises further questions about the definition of a position in James’ (2010, 2011) Framework.

5.3. Finding 3

Applying James’ (2010, 2011) Framework demonstrated that some aspects of the Framework are useful as an analytical heuristic, however, based on Finding 2, it was determined more research was needed to fully explore if the Framework could be improved upon and, if so, how this should be undertaken.

One of the strengths of applying James’ (2010, 2011) Framework was that it facilitated an depth analysis of positioning by applying four different domains to the speech transcripts. However, it was found that often this required asking different questions when applying each domain/pole. For example, when I applied the positioning goal domain, rather than the question being ‘how was a carbon price or carbon tax positioned in the speech transcripts of Gillard or Abbott?’ the question instead became ‘was the goal of positioning a carbon price or tax evident in the speech transcripts of Gillard or Abbott?’ Likewise, when I applied the positioning purpose domain, the question became ‘what positioning purposes were evident in the speech transcripts of Gillard and Abbott?’ And, applying the positioning type domain, similarly required posing the question of ‘what positioning types were evident in the speech transcripts?’ When I applied the positioning triangle domain, the questions were then in terms of each pole, that is, what were the storylines about a carbon price/tax? What were the speech acts/actions about a carbon price/tax? What were the positions about a carbon price/tax? Consequently, the analysis consisted of looking for congruency between these different domains and, while these findings often supported one another, it sometimes resulted in an overlap between some

181 positioning domains and poles. It also raised questions about applying the framework in the way that I did in this chapter.

On this basis, it could be argued that some domains were/are superfluous in terms of answering the original and over-arching question about the strategic positioning of a carbon price/tax. Chiefly this seems to be in the area of the positioning goal, purpose and type domains where I found a) considerable overlap between James’ (2010, 2011) concept of a position and that of a positioning goal; b) an overlap between the concept of a position and the various positioning types that led me to consider the value of separating the two; and, c) there were limitations in terms of the available positioning purposes. The following chapter (Chapter 6), evaluates James’ more recent iteration of the (2014) Framework to ascertain if some of the changes that have been made address some of these weaknesses, and also if the revised Framework differs in terms of its strengths and weaknesses.

As the name implied, the Provisional Conceptual Framework for Intentional Positioning in Public Relations (James, 2010, 2011) was still at the conceptual stage when this research project commenced in mid 2011, thus leaving the door open for further revisions and testing. This, then, was the over-riding purpose of conducting this thesis. As Finding 5.2 outlined, applying the Framework to the case study texts demonstrated that the Framework had both strengths and weaknesses when applied as an analytical heuristic. On this basis, further research was indicated to determine if the Framework can be improved upon, and how this should be undertaken.

5.4. Finding 4

The research findings indicate that applying a positioning framework has potential in terms of analysing public relations positioning. However, questions remain in terms of whether James’ (2010, 2011) Framework, in this first iteration,

182 is capturing the nuances and dynamism of positioning in the contested environment in which public relations positioning takes place.

This chapter has shown that James’ (2010, 2011) Framework has potential in terms of analysing how positioning takes place in public relations contexts. In particular, it has shown that applying the positioning triangle domain has the potential to tease out the variances and nuances of positioning as a form of discursive enactment, but undertaking this evaluation has also pointed to several weaknesses with James’ (2010, 2011) Framework in this first iteration. This suggests that further research and testing was indicated to reevaluate James’ more recent (i.e. 2014) Framework. It is anticipated that doing so will add to the findings of this chapter, and will help to assess if there is value in having a framework specifically designed for public relations positioning.

5.5 Chapter summary

This chapter has reported on an evaluation of James’ Provisional Conceptual Framework for Intentional Positioning in Public Relations (2010, 2011), by applying it to analyse how a carbon price or tax was strategically positioned in twenty-three speech transcripts. It has shown that applying the framework was useful for analysing strategic positioning in public relations, and that it offers a potential framework for examining how political communication about carbon mitigation polices is constructed in public relations texts. Gillard’s speech transcripts indicated her position was that a carbon price was good for Australia, and she had an overall goal of positively positioning a carbon price as an economic benefit. Abbott’s transcripts indicated a countervailing position of a carbon tax being bad for Australia, and the overall goal was to position the tax as an economic risk. The goals of the Opposition Leader, Abbott, could thus be seen to position the carbon tax in a negative light, to discredit the very idea of a price or tax on carbon and the benefits for Australia of addressing climate change issues. Abbott can be

183 seen to be drawing on the discourse of people’s general aversion to additional taxes and the discourse of truth (in that dishonesty is bad) to convey the desired positioning goal. The goal of the Prime Minister, Gillard, could be seen to position the carbon price as something positive for Australia that would set the country on the course to address climate change issues. She is drawing on the discourses of leadership through providing vision for the country, and also a clean energy discourse to convey her government’s desired future.

However, it also became clear as this research project progressed that there were other factors at play in the speech transcripts of Gillard and Abbott, and this raised the possibility that there were aspects of James’ (2010, 2011) Framework that weren’t quite capturing the nuances of Positioning Theory as it stood in 2010, 2011. James (2010, 2011) argues that when the poles of the positioning triangle (i.e. position, speech act/action and storylines) are not aligned the outcome, potentially, is a loss of believability of key messaging. My research indicated that both Gillard and Abbott had maintained their respective positions, and had supported these with storylines and speech acts that, conceptually at least, seemed to fit within James’ (2010, 2011) explanation of dynamic stability, that reflects the explanation of van Langenhove and Harré (1999). This finding thus raised questions in terms of why Gillard’s positioning of the carbon price had ultimately failed. In an attempt to answer these questions the next chapter revisits the same research questions but applies them to evaluate James’ more recent and revised (2014) Framework.

184 6. Major findings from applying James’ (2014) Intentional Positioning Framework for Public Relations

The aim of this doctoral research project was to evaluate James’ Provisional Conceptual Framework for Intentional Positioning in Public Relations (2010, 2011), and the Framework for Intentional Positioning in Public Relations (James, 2014), as a model for examining and explaining public relations positioning and to extend theory in the discipline. The study consists of a single case study using James’ Frameworks and positioning analysis as methods to focus on how former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, and former Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott, positioned a carbon price or tax in political speeches. It was anticipated that a deeper understanding of these phenomena would afford new insights into how Positioning Theory (Davies & Harré, 1990; Harré & van Langenhove, 1999) is used in and adapted to public relations scholarship, and that this could further inform the development of public relations research, practice and education. The study addressed four research questions overall:

(a) Did applying James’ Framework provide answers into how a carbon price/tax was strategically positioned in the case study and if so how?

(b)What are the strengths and weaknesses of applying James’ Framework?

(d) Does public relations need a positioning ‘framework’ at all?

This chapter addresses the first of these questions (the remaining three questions are answered in Chapters 7 and 8) and builds on the major findings from Chapter 5 to evaluate the more recent iteration of James’ (2014) Framework, forthwith referred to as the Framework for Intentional Positioning in Public Relations (2014), or the Framework (2014). As with the

185 previous chapter, the case study consists of an examination of political positioning as presented in twenty-three political speech transcripts, delivered in 2011 by former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, and former Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott. Where this chapter differs is that since writing Chapter 5, and partly because of the Chapter 5 findings, James’ Framework (2010,2011) has been substantially reworked. Included amongst the changes is the removal of the positioning purpose domain, which has been replaced by the strategic pre-positioning domain. James’ latest (i.e. 2014) framework also places more emphasis on the importance of speech acts and the description of a position now incorporates the core Positioning Theory concept of local moral orders. These are, in this iteration of the Framework, central to understanding positioning from a public relations perspective.

This chapter, while informed by the Chapter 5 findings, is intended as a stand-alone chapter that reexamines the case study texts by applying a reworked and thus different framework. In this chapter, following repeated in- depth readings of these texts, the key themes that emerged were noted and documented. The purpose was to determine how positioning was enacted and the way this was achieved. Overall the study found that applying James’ (2014) Framework was useful for evaluating strategic positioning in public relations texts, and offers a potential framework for analysing how government communication about carbon mitigation polices is constructed in public relations texts.

What follows is a description of the findings with supporting details, categorised per each of the four domains of James’ (2014) Framework for Positioning in Public Relations. That is:

the Positioning Triangle Domain;

the Strategic Pre-positioning Domain;

the Positioning Type Domain; and,

186 the Positioning Triangle Domain consisting of position, speech act/action and storylines.

Where relevant, a selection of excerpts from the case study texts has been included to facilitate the reader’s understanding. The full transcripts of the twenty-three speeches included in the case study are available in the appendices, and are referenced throughout this chapter.

6.1 Finding 1

Applying James’ (2014) Positioning Framework for Public Relations (2014) to analyse the speech transcripts of Gillard and Abbott demonstrated how positioning was undertaken to achieve a strategic goal, and underlined how the positioning triad of storylines, speech acts/action and position must each align if positioning is to succeed. It also demonstrated how the central concept of rights, duties and obligations underpins the success, or not, of positioning in public relations contexts.

6.1.1 Positioning Triangle Domain

6.1.1.1 Positioning Triangle Domain: Storyline Vertex Based on the findings discussed in Chapter 5, the entry point in this chapter was at the storyline vertex. Many positioning theorists, for example Harré and Moghaddam (2003), Slocum-Bradley (2010b) and Bartlett (2008), suggest that this is the preferable entry point when undertaking a positioning analysis, and it is the entry point that James (2014) now recommends when applying the latest iteration of the Framework as an analytical heuristic. To facilitate the identification of storylines, James (2014) advises looking “for the answers by searching for the start and end points of specific narratives in the text, the events contained in the narrative” (p. 160). In terms of the carbon price or tax, this process identified eight specific

187 narratives in Gillard’s speech transcripts, and nine specific narratives in Abbott’s speech transcripts.

Evidence of narratives (Gillard) The eight narratives in relation to a carbon price that were identified in Gillard’s speech transcripts were:

(1) Our carbon price is good because big polluters will pay: this narrative told how the cost of the carbon price would be borne by “big polluters” (Gillard, 2011a, 2011b, n.p.). For example, Gillard (2011i, n.p.) asserted that her government had,

A plan for a carbon pricing mechanism which means around five hundred big polluters to pay for every tonne of carbon pollution they put into our atmosphere (Gillard, 2011i, n.p.).

(2) Our carbon price is good because it’s fair: this narrative was about how any rising costs associated with the carbon price would be mitigated by economic compensation for pensioners and other economically disadvantaged groups. This was exemplified in speech acts such as,

Most people will find that when all is said and done, they are not a cent behind. Any many will come out ahead (Gillard, 2011a, np.).

(3) Our carbon price is good because jobs will be safe: this narrative centred on the measures the government would be taking to support jobs as part of its carbon pricing package. This narrative was frequently linked to other narratives such as those about big polluters paying, as well as the narrative about fairness. This is an example of “braided storylines” (Davies & Harré, 1999, p. 38) or narratives and the following speech act is offered as an example of the inter-twining of these narratives:

We will cut pollution, we will protect the household budget, and we will support jobs (Gillard, 2011a, n.p.).

(4) Our carbon price is good because it will deliver “a clean energy future” (see, for example, Gillard 2011a, 2011b, 2011c, 2011d, 2011e, 2011f, 2011g, 2011h,

188 2011i, n.p.). This narrative centred on how the introduction of the carbon pricing scheme, and the associated revenue derived through its pricing mechanism, would deliver funding for various clean energy technologies. This was expressed in a range of speech acts including, for example,

All up, the carbon price will support $100bn worth of investment in renewables in the next forty years (Gillard, 2011b, n.p.)

(5) Our carbon price is good because it’s the right thing to do: this narrative suggested that above all else, the introduction of a carbon price was the (morally) right thing to do. For example, the framing of a carbon price as a moral imperative was expressed in the following speech act as,

Long after the opinion polls have been forgotten, I want to look the next generation of Australians in the eye and tell them: we did the right thing by you (Gillard, 2011d, n.p.).

(6) Our carbon price is good because it will work: this narrative was primarily about informing different audiences about the carbon pricing package and how it would work in practical and legislative terms. For example, Gillard (2011i, n.p.) asserted,

So this is the plan for Australia’s carbon price. A modern policy approach with efficient allocation and incentive to innovate, linked to global markets (Gillard, 2011i, n.p.).

(7) Our carbon price is good because it’s time to act: these narratives centred on how the time for discussion and debate was over, and that it was time to act on climate change. This was variously expressed in statements such as,

We know we must lead because the science says we must (Gillard, 2011a, n.p.).

Our carbon price is good because I/we are the party of reform: this narrative drew on the ALP history of progressive reform in Australia and sought to position the Labor Government, on this basis, as the best party to introduce a carbon pricing scheme. This was variously expressed through a

189 range of speech acts that included, for example,

We’ve signed the national health reform agreement, created a single funding pool and a new efficient price, and the benefits are flowing today. And this Federal Parliament has done what the last could not: made the decisions to put a price on carbon (Gillard, 2011f, n.p.).

The following table (6.1.1) is a chronological timeline of Gillard’s speeches and includes evidence of the various narratives about a carbon price that were enacted within each of these public relations episodes or contexts.

Table 6.1.1 code: A. 'The courage to be new', Speech to the New South Wales Branch of the ALP State Conference, Sydney (9 July 2011) B. Transcript of Address to the Nation (10 July 2011) C. ‘A great clean energy future, a great reform agenda’, Address to the National Press Club, Canberra (July 14, 2011) D. Speech to the Green Capital Business Breakfast, Sydney (18 July 2011) E. Address to Per Capita: The Reform Series, Melbourne (4 August 2011) F. Address to the Tasmanian branch of the ALP State Conference, Hobart (7 August 2011) G. Speech to the Financial Services Council Breakfast, Sydney (31 August 2011) H. Address to the Australian Steel Convention, Canberra (13 September 2011) I. Introduction of the Clean Energy Bill 2011, Canberra (13 September 2011)

Table 6.1.1 Evidence of narratives (Gillard)

190 Narratives enacted in Gillard’s speeches (see code above)

Narratives: A B C D E F G H I

(1) Big polluters will x x pay

(2) It’s fair x x x x

(3) Jobs will be safe x x x

(4) A clean energy x x x x x x x x future

(5) It's the right x x x x thing to do

(6) It will work x x x

(7) It’s time to act x x x x x

(8) (we are) the x x x party of reform

In this table one can readily see how Gillard used narratives about a clean energy future in each of her speeches. Indeed, in several speeches this was the only narrative about a carbon price that was evident. It is further evident that at the commencement of the period in which this case study is set, when Gillard established her position on the carbon price, there was consistency in terms of the use of most narratives and key messaging to support the position taken. After this period when Gillard introduced the carbon pricing package to the Federal Parliament, these same narratives and key messages were reiterated. For much of this time, however, Gillard’s narratives were less about arguing the case for why a carbon price was needed in terms of the benefits, and instead were more about positioning

191 the Government and herself as having a vision for Australia’s future. Arguably, as Abbott’s narratives (below) suggest, this response was based on Abbott’s consistent positioning of Gillard and the Gillard Government as untrustworthy. It is also clear, then, and as was alluded to in Chapter 5, that there is more going on in Gillard’s speech transcripts than just the positioning of the carbon price or tax.

Evidence of narratives (Abbott) The nine narratives in relation to a carbon tax that were identified in Abbott’s speech transcripts were:

(1) Their carbon tax is bad because everything will cost more: these narratives asserted that the carbon tax would continue to rise and, thus, prices would also increase across a range of essential everyday items. These items included:

Electricity/power (Abbott, a, f, g, h,) Coal, gas and oil (Abbott, a, h) Refrigeration, ice and transport (Abbott, b) The “cost of a modest home” (Abbott, c) Steel, plastic and paper (Abbott, g) The cost of running your business (Abbott, b, h, k) Transport (heavy transport/haulage) (i) The cost of driving your car (Abbott, k, n) Turning on your heater (Abbott, k, n) Turning on your air conditioner (Abbott, n) Public transport (Abbott, n) Abbott did not provide any economic details in these examples apart from when he described the negative impact a carbon tax would have on the Victorian state economy ($2.8 billion); the NSW state economy ($1 billion); and NSW and West Australian state electricity prices ($498 and $600 respectively, per household). Evidence of this narrative was found in speech acts such as,

192 This carbon tax is a bad idea because everything will cost more: at $23 a tonne, power prices will immediately rise by 10 per cent and the cost of living of average households will rise by $515 a year that you can’t afford (Abbott, 2011a, n.p.).

(2) Their carbon tax is bad because it’s unfair: this narrative told how Australians would be worse off because the Government’s proposed compensation package for low and middle income households would not adequately, and fairly, recompense them economically. For example, Abbott (2011a, n.p.) asserted,

Even on the government’s own modelling, millions of Australians will be worse off – including a single income family with one child on just average weekly earnings (Abbott, 2011a, n.p.).

(3) Their carbon tax is bad because it will cost Australian jobs: this narrative centred on how higher prices and higher taxes ensuing from the carbon tax would cause job losses across a range of industries. It was also asserted that traditional Australian industries (such as the coal industry) would move overseas taking Australian jobs with them, while any new jobs brought about by investment in new green technologies would not employ the same numbers of people. This was variously expressed in a range of speech acts including,

There are any number of intelligent ways to reduce our emissions which don’t involve a great big new tax on everything and don’t involve a big hit on Australian jobs (Abbott, 2011e, n.p.).

(4) Their carbon tax is bad because it’s a fraud: this narrative variously told how introducing a carbon tax wouldn’t work because, for example, it wasn’t an economic reform; no one else in the world was doing it; even with a carbon tax Australia’s carbon emissions would continue to rise; and the European-based carbon market was a fraud to line the pockets of foreign carbon traders. For example, Abbott asserted that,

The only way, in fact, that we get our five per cent reduction by 2020 is by spending some $3.5 billion on foreign carbon traders (Abbott, 2011k,

193 n.p.).

(5) Their carbon tax is bad because there’s a better way: this narrative told how ‘clever’ Australians were already doing the right thing and reducing their carbon emissions and that therefore the carbon tax was an unnecessary economic impost. Abbott also argued that the Coalition (should they win government) were going to help people do more of what they were already doing (i.e. more of the right things such as planting trees). An example of this was in Abbott’s Address to the South Australian Liberal Party State Council (2011h, n.p.) where he asserted,

So, ladies and gentlemen, we will reduce emissions and we won’t send any money offshore. We will spend about a billion dollars from savings in the Budget to encourage Australian businesses and farms and enterprises to plant more trees on suitable land, to continue the move from chemical to organic fertiliser and to keep using the kind of smart technology that companies like Visy are increasingly introducing (Abbott, 2011h, n.p.).

(6) The carbon tax is a bad because it’s the Green’s tax: this narrative centred on the accusation that the carbon tax was being introduced solely because of a deal that Gillard had done with the Australian Greens political party, as well as three Independent Members of Parliament, to form government following the 2010 federal election. For example, Abbott (2011k, n.p.) asserted,

It is an absolutely crazy policy and only a government which has sold its soul to the Greens could possibly embrace it (Abbott, 2011k, n.p.). (7) Their carbon tax is bad because it’s undemocratic: this narrative primarily asserted that the carbon tax should have been/should be taken to an election to allow people the opportunity to vote for it (or not). For example, Abbott (2011j, n.p.) asserted,

This argument should we or shouldn’t we have a carbon tax is so important that the public must have their say and it’s important that the public should have their say before the Government proceeds with legislation not afterwards (Abbott, 2011j, n.p.).

194 (8) Their carbon tax is bad because the government can’t be trusted: this narrative asserted that the government had a history of mismanagement when introducing a range of other policies and schemes, and hence could not be trusted to introduce “the most important legislation in our country’s history” (Abbott, 2011i, n.p.). For example, Abbott (2011c, n.p.) told delegates at an address to the LNP (Liberal National Party) State Council:

You’ve always got to be suspicious about a Government which on its own figures says that families will be $9.90 a week worse off and then says ‘but we are going to give you $10.10 back’ (Abbott, 2011c, n.p.).

(9) Their carbon tax is bad because the Prime Minister can’t be trusted: this narrative asserted that the Prime Minister couldn't be trusted on the basis that she had previously stated, prior to the election, that she would not introduce a carbon price. This was asserted by Abbott in a range of speech acts such as,

Let’s be absolutely blunt about the bills now before the parliament: this is a bad tax based on a lie (Abbott, 2011j, n.p.).

The following table (6.1.2) shows how these narratives were enacted at various events or public relations episodes within the three-month timeframe in which this case study is set.

Table 6.1.2 code: A. Address to the Nation (10 July 2011) B. Remarks at the Melbourne Wholesale Fish Markets, West Melbourne (13 July 2011) C. Address to LNP State Council, Brisbane (16 July 2011) D. Address to Consilium 2011, Queensland (29 July 2011) E. Address to the WA Liberal Party State Conference, Perth (13 August 2011) F. Address to the No Carbon Tax Rally, Canberra (16 August 2011) G. Address to Workers at Seeley International, Adelaide (19 August 2011)

195 H. Address to the South Australian Liberal Party State Council, Adelaide (20 August 2011) I. Address to the Convoy of No Confidence Rally, Canberra (22 August 2011) J. Second Reading Speech, Carbon Tax Plebiscite Bill, Parliament House (22 August 2011) K. Address to the Tasmanian Liberal Party State Council, Hobart (27 August 2011) L. Address to the Committee for Economic Development of Australia, Melbourne (29 August 2011) M. Address to the Australian Steel Convention 2011, Canberra (12 September 2011) N. Second Reading Speech: Clean Energy Bills 2011, House of Representatives (14 September 2011)

Table 6.1.2: Evidence of narratives (Abbott)

Narratives enacted in Abbott’s speeches (see code above)

Narratives: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N

(1) Everything will x x x x x x x x cost more

(2) It’s unfair x x x x x x x x

3) It will cost jobs x x x x x x x x x

(4) It’s a fraud x x x x x x x x x x x x x

(5) There’s a better x x x x x x x x x way

6) It's the Greens tax x x x x x

7) Its undemocratic x x x x x x x x

196 (8) The Govt. can’t x x x x x x x x x x x be trusted

(9) The PM can’t be x x x x x x x x x x trusted

This table readily demonstrates the consistency of narratives and key messaging in each of Abbott’s speech transcripts, and provides insights into the differences between Gillard and Abbott in terms of their narratives and key messaging about the carbon price or tax. It is obvious that Abbott not only used more narratives and key messages, but they were also repeated more consistently in most of the speech transcripts. The exceptions were his Remarks at the Melbourne Fish Markets (Abbott, 2001b), and his Address to Workers at Seeley International (Abbott, 2011g, n.p.), Australia’s largest air conditioning manufacturer. In both instances Abbott spoke about how the carbon tax would cause prices to rise - the implication being that this would affect the price of electricity, and that this would have flow on effects for people working in these places and for their customers. As with the previous table (6.1.1: Evidence of narratives: Gillard) that showed how Gillard enacted a range of narratives, this table demonstrates how applying the storyline vertex provided insights into how the communication efforts of both political leaders unfolded over time. This finding supports James’ (2014) proposition that Positioning Theory, and more particularly the storyline vertex, has potential in terms of public relations scenario planning and issues management.

Evidence of accepting or rejecting positioning In addition to benefits in terms of scenario and issues management planning, applying Positioning Theory to public relations texts also permits an examination of how different parties “accept or reject the organisation’s positioning” (James, 2014, p. 160). In this study, “strategic differentiation” (Motion, 1999, p. 474) was evident through the enactment of various narratives that were opposing or contradictory; that is, they directly opposed the narratives and positions of the other. For example, Gillard’s narratives

197 about how big polluters would pay for any increase in costs associated with the carbon price was opposed, and arguably negated, by Abbott’s narrative that the carbon tax would cause everything to cost more across a range of essential consumable items. Gillard’s narrative that the carbon tax was fair in terms of how any economic costs to low-income families would be mitigated by a compensation package, was effectively countered by Abbott’s narrative that a carbon tax was unfair because the compensation package was inadequate. Gillard’s narrative about how jobs would be safe was contradicted by Abbott’s narrative that the carbon tax would cost Australian jobs, and her narrative about a clean energy future was opposed through the promulgation of narratives about the Coalition’s ‘better’ plan for the environment.

Similarly, Gillard’s narrative about the carbon price being the right thing to do, was contested by Abbott’s narrative that the carbon tax was being introduced through undemocratic processes. Gillard’s narrative that centred on how Australian Labor Party (ALP) was the party of reform, was counteracted by Abbott’s narrative that the ALP Government couldn’t be trusted. Lastly, Gillard’s narratives about how the carbon price would work, and that it was a policy whose time had come, was challenged by Abbott’s narrative that the carbon tax was a fraud that wouldn't work. A summary of the opposing narratives of Gillard and Abbott is outlined in the following table (6.1.3).

Table 6.1.3 Evidence of accepting or rejecting positioning Gillard’s narratives: Abbott’s narratives:

Big polluters will pay It will cause prices to rise

Its fair It’s unfair

Jobs will be safe It will cost jobs

It will deliver a clean energy future There’s a better way

198 It’s time (to act) It’s the Green’s tax

It will work It's a fraud (it won’t work)

Labor is the party of reform The Government/PM can’t be trusted

It’s undemocratic (it’s the wrong thing It's the right thing to do to do)

From a strategic public relations perspective, these opposing narratives demonstrate the discursive struggle being played out over a policy to price carbon emissions, and whereby, as is common in most conflict situations, the right of an entity to take a position or to “gain his ends” (Murphy, 1991, p. 117) is largely reliant on the position of the other entity or the “choices or decisions the other participant will make” (Murphy, 1991, p. 117). It can be seen, then, that Gillard and Abbott are adapting their respective narratives, and with these their positions, in an attempt “to meet (or pre-empt) the perceived positions” (Murphy, 1991, p. 197) of the other.

The opposing narratives of Gillard and Abbott, as examples of strategic differentiation (Motion, 1999) also demonstrate how, because of an increasingly contested political sphere, politicians are forced into taking opposing positions to differentiate their political products (Roper, 2005). Such marketing-type conceptualisations of contemporary politics are indicative of a growing trend towards “political consumerism” that has shifted the established ideological concerns of voters “that present values and policies as coherent packages”, towards one in which political parties position themselves as service providers (Brants & Voltmer, 2011, p. 9). Thus “daily activities like buying certain products, … patterns of consumption and lifestyle choices are used as manifestations of political preferences that cut across the established lines of partisan politics” (Brants & Voltmer, 2011, p. 9). Abbott’s use of this discursive tactic was especially evident in his narratives about rising prices, where the linking of consumption and lifestyle

199 choices with the carbon tax ranged from costs associated with steel, plastic, and paper (e.g. Abbott, 2011g, n.p.) to the cost of driving a car (e.g. Abbott, 2011k, 2011n, n.p.), or to turning on a heater (e.g. Abbott, 2011k, 2011n, n.p.). Given that the Coalition, led by Abbott, won the 2013 Federal election based largely on his promise to repeal the Gillard Government’s carbon pricing legislation, suggests that these narratives and supporting key messages were influential in ‘cutting across’ traditional Labor/Liberal/National and possibly Greens, party lines.

Overlapping or braided narratives There was further evidence of considerable overlap between many of Gillard’s and Abbott’s narratives. For example, Abbott’s narrative about the carbon tax being undemocratic was often tied to narratives about the Government and Prime Minister being untrustworthy. Similarly, Gillard’s narrative about jobs was often linked to narratives about fairness and that big polluters would pay. An example of this is Abbott’s (2011a, n.p.) statement that combines his narrative about rising prices with his narrative about job losses i.e. “But you don’t protect the environment by making everyday life more expensive and by exporting Australian jobs” (Abbott, 2011a, n.p.). Davies & Harré (1999) discuss how storylines are frequently braided whereby “each storyline is organized around various poles such as events, characters and moral dilemmas” (p. 38). In this study, the narratives enacted by Gillard and Abbott can be conceptualised as being braided around various poles in terms of: events - for example the enactment of the speeches themselves to different audiences in different places and at different times; characters - for example in addition to the characters involved in each of these speech events/social episodes, there were a host of other characters included in each of Gillard’s and Abbott’s narratives. Gillard and the Gillard Labor Government featured as central organising characters in many of Abbott’s narratives, particularly those about trust; and there was also evidence of a central organising pole/moral dilemma in terms of the

200 carbon price or tax.

Storylines Narratives, however, “are not the storyline itself” (James, 2014, p. 125). Rather storylines in public relations contexts, and from a Positioning Theory perspective, “inform the development of these narratives and key messages in the context of communication program design” (James, 2014, p. 125). Thus, while the narrative is invoked by the storyline, storylines “scaffold the narrative to be more encompassing than what is merely said or written” (James, 2014, p. 132). Storylines are “developed and promulgated by the public relations practitioner to support the positioning” (James, 2010, p. 134) and are underpinned by the desire to achieve a pre-determined outcome as part of a program of communication. This concept differs from what may be considered more traditional approaches to Positioning Theory because, in public relations contexts, practitioners “use specific storylines or combinations of storylines strategically” (James, 2014, p. 127). In making this distinction James (2014) defines storylines in public relations contexts as, “schematic representations that contain abstracted information about the cultural standards in operation within local moral orders that are used for positioning purposes” (p. 125).

James (2014) provides several suggestions in terms of schematic representations or storylines that are applicable to public relations. For example: the hero storyline; the rich and famous storyline; the boys will be boy’s storyline; the formal apology storyline; and the responsibility storyline (James, 2014, p. 124). Such over-arching storylines may also be conceptualised as plots. Hanlon (2011) suggests several master plots for organisations that James (2014) argues have relevance to public relations. They include “the doing the right thing” plot wherein “conscious capitalism wins out” and the “Us vs. Them” plot that has the story ingredients or narrative of two pitched rivals slugging it “out in public, to the merriment of all” (Hanlon, 2011, n.p.). A further example is the David and Goliath storyline

201 wherein a weaker entity pits itself against a stronger opponent (James, 2014). Applying this storyline, a community group (for example), could exploit this storyline in their fight against (for example) a large mining corporation (James, 2014). In so doing, the community group could then invoke storylines such as “the little guy fighting back; sustaining belief it could win against the odds … to its benefit” (James, 2014, p. 158). Analysis of storylines therefore provides rich insights into how power is “wielded and ascribed” (James, 2016, p. 125) and this was an important consideration given the political context in which this case study is set.

Many of Gillard’s and Abbott’s narratives, then, can be conceptualised within a “villain and hero” (James, 2014) storyline. This storyline was especially evident in the trust narratives promulgated by Abbott wherein Gillard/the Gillard Government were positioned as the villain, and Abbott self- positioned as the hero fighting to “save” Australians from the risks posed by a carbon tax. This was exemplified through speech acts such as, “together we can fight this tax before it becomes law” (Abbott, 2011a, n.p.) and,

These are decent Aussie battlers who will be worse off under this tax, even on the Government’s own figures, even on the Government’s own figures a school teacher married to a shop assistant will be worse off, a policeman married to a part-time nurse will be worse off, decent, struggling, aspirational Australian families will be worse off under this tax, even on the Government’s own figures (Abbott, 2011e, n.p.).

Thus, Abbott is positioned as the hero fighting for “battlers” or those on lower incomes (who are traditionally Labor Party voters), while Gillard/the Gillard government (the villains) are positioned as deserting this, their electoral base. Gillard was also not averse to using the hero/villain storyline. For example, she asserted,

Our opponents have the temerity to call our carbon price a toxic tax when the only thing that’s toxic is the carbon pollution warming our planet and threatening our children’s future (Gillard, 2011a, n.p.).

This speech act positions the Prime Minister/the Government as the hero,

202 fighting for the future of children by acting on climate change, while simultaneously it works to position Abbott/the Opposition as the uncaring villain. Within the prevailing local moral order this speech act should have gained traction with families who had children, however, one of the key challenges faced by Gillard in her role as Prime Minister was in terms of her gender and her unmarried and childless status; a factor that can be seen to be putting her at a disadvantage and arguably called into question her legitimacy when talking on behalf of families and what families may have considered important. As a “point of intentional representation” (James, 2014, p. 19) it could be argued that Gillard’s positioning of herself as a hero within this storyline opened up possibilities in terms of the available narratives that she could rightfully utter. However, it could also be argued that Gillard, based on her childless status, was not accorded the right to take this position by some voters.

Likewise, Abbott’s positioning of Gillard as a villain could also be seen as being a “point of intentional representation” from which possibilities for speech acts and narratives emerged (James, 2014, p. 19). For example, in what was perhaps a response to Gillard’s (2011a, n.p.) statement cited above, Abbott asserted,

Like you, Margie and I want a better future for our children. We only have one planet and I want to preserve it (Abbott, 2011a, n.p.).

This speech act reminds audiences that Abbott is married (Margie is his wife) and the use of “our children” (Abbott, 2011a, n.p.) can be taken to mean his and Margie’s three daughters, as well as the children of those listening. Thus, he is claiming the space in terms of positioning himself as a family man who shares with other parents a common concern for the well-being of children and of the planet, and he would likely be accorded the right to take this position based on his role as a father, husband and Leader of the Opposition.

In Chapter 5, it was suggested that there was more going on in the speech

203 transcripts than just the positioning of a carbon price/tax. Applying a hero and villain storyline has assisted in unpacking the positioning of Gillard and Abbott as actors or characters within this overarching storyline, but it has only done so by examining storylines within the context of speech acts and positions. Thus, although the remainder of this chapter is segmented per the different vertices of the positioning triangle domain and the other domains of James’ (2014) Framework, the findings suggest that this approach may not be optimal when undertaking a positioning analysis. The findings also suggest that in addition to the positioning of the carbon price or tax, there was significant personal positioning occurring. An ongoing conundrum of undertaking this analysis then, was that it was often not possible to separate out this more personal or identity positioning from the positioning of the carbon price/tax. Moreover, and perhaps most importantly, these findings underline that it is not possible to attribute rights and duties to a carbon price or tax, and rather these are actions that can only be undertaken by persons or person-like entities. This finding is addressed in finding 6.2.1.

A further master storyline identified in this study can be broadly grouped within the ideological discourse of “Our good things, their bad things” (van Dijk, 2006, p. 359). Van Dijk (2006) argues that such biased strategies of “positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation” are typical in political discourse wherein facts are presented in “favour of the speaker’s or writer’s own interests, while blaming negative situations and events on opponents or on the Others” (p. 359). This storyline was evident in each of the speech transcripts analysed, with both Gillard and Abbott using “ideological discourse” (van Dijk, 2006, p. 359) to legitimise their own (and their political parties) positions, while de-legitimising the positions of the Other.

This storyline was particularly evident in Gillard’s “party of reform” and the “it’s right” narratives where she asserted, for example,

Let us be the party of reform in all that we do … A party always determined to be its best self … a party of vision and leadership capable

204 of delivering the big reforms ... To be the “navigators to the future” ... The courage to make decisions for the long term … And the courage to stick to them … Fight for the right, and truth and justice will prevail (Gillard, 9 July 2011). Gillard can thus be seen to be invoking what is essentially a moral storyline of fighting “the good fight” and of doing what is right; in short, positioning the Labor Party as exemplary and of going above and beyond what others are prepared to do in their fight to be “its best self” (Gillard, 2011a, n.p.). Abbott also invoked storylines that can be conceptualised within an over-arching storyline of “our good things” but differed by citing the Liberal Party’s history of economic management. This was contrasted against what he argued was the Labor Party’s “bad things” in terms of a history of economic mismanagement. For example, Abbott (2011e, n.p.) asserted, in defence of the Liberal Party’s “good things”,

Sixteen members of my Shadow Cabinet were Ministers in a government that turned a $10 billion budget black hole in 1996, into a $20 billion surplus by 2007, which consistently delivered surplus after multi-billion- dollar surplus, the most consistently fiscally successful government in Australian history (Abbott, 2011e, n.p.)

This speech act has the social force of asserting that the Coalition is fiscally responsible, and thus it draws on the ideological discourse that the Liberal Party is a better economic manager than the Labor Party. In support of this, Abbott further asserted,

But ladies and gentlemen, think of the current national Government, think of the current Prime Minister, think of the current Ministry, what a piece of work it is, what a piece of work it is, it is almost certainly the worst Government Australia has ever had. Now, some people only say that this Government is the worst since Whitlam, but this is very unfair to Gough Whitlam, who was only administratively incompetent and who never sold the soul of the Labor Party to Senator Bob Brown and the Greens. And everywhere you look this Government and this Prime Minister have the Midas touch in reverse. There are the pink batts which caught fire in people’s roofs. There are the school halls, so many of which, not in this state I’m pleased to say, but the school halls so many of which were built at twice the fair market price. There is the National Broadband Network which is connecting fibre to every home, whether

205 that home wants it, needs it or can afford it, which is spending some $50 billion of money which the Federal Government no longer has, to do something which we don’t need, while our roads are clogged, in many respects our railway systems are unexpanded over a century and our ports cannot simply cope with the load upon them. There’s the live cattle trade with Indonesia, an industry vital for our farmers, vital for northern Australia, which has been killed by a Government which panicked in the face of a TV programme – and I want to congratulate Senator Chris Back for the good work he’s done to protect that industry and expose the flawed reasoning behind the Government’s decision making. And then of course there’s the border protection disaster which just gets worse and worse with every passing week (Abbott, 2011e, n.p).

Applying the “Our good things, their bad things” (van Dijk, 2006, p. 359) storyline to the speech transcripts of Gillard and Abbott suggested that in terms of power, Abbott’s narratives about the risks of carbon tax, when combined with narratives that questioned Gillard and the Gillard Government’s trustworthiness, proved to be influential in shaping the discourse not only about the carbon tax, but also about the legitimacy of Gillard and her government. What emerged was that once again a major component of both parties’ positioning efforts was the positioning of themselves and one another, and the associated rights and duties to do so.

6.1.1 Positioning Triangle Domain

6.1.1.1 Positioning Triangle Domain: Position Vertex The key difference in terms of applying the position vertex in this evaluation of James’ (2014) Framework, was that the concept of a position in public relations contexts has been revised to include the concept of local moral orders “wherein the public relations activity is taking place” (James, 2014, p. 19). Local moral orders are “the understood framework of rights, duties and obligations in any social interaction” that are “dependent on culture, history, topic and so on, which means that positions can be very complex” (James, 2014, p. 39). Although James (2014) does not specifically mention the associated concept of rights and duties in the context of this specific positioning triangle vertex, she has defined a position in public relations

206 contexts as a,

point of intentional representation discursively constructed for the purposes of achieving an intended outcome, and from where possibilities for action are established, or in some cases denied, in terms of the local moral order/s wherein the public relations activity is taking place. Positioning comprises the actions taken to achieve the position (James, 2014, p. 19).

As points of intentional representation, and despite the revision of the definition of this vertex, the positions of Gillard and Abbott were found to be the same as in Chapter 5; that is that a carbon price was good (Gillard) or, conversely, that a carbon tax was bad (Abbott). These positions aligned with the ‘our good things’ (Gillard) and ‘their bad things’ (Abbott) storylines, as well as the villain and hero storyline discussed previously. Adopting these positions opened up possibilities in terms of supporting narratives and key messaging, and the evidence suggests that, conceptually at least, these positions were sound. By applying the concept of rights and duties and local moral orders, these positions are situated within a wider socio-cultural context, and this is where James’ (2014) Framework is perhaps most enlightening in terms of its applicability for public relations.

However, as discussed in the previous discussion of storylines, this evaluation of James’ (2014) Framework found that something else was going in the speech transcripts of Gillard and Abbott. This was suspected and alluded to in Chapter 5, and the added concept of local moral orders assisted in teasing out some of these nuances. Namely this was that in addition to the positioning of the carbon price/tax, both politicians were simultaneously positioning themselves and one another. This suggests that there can be multiple positions undertaken at any one time, however it is difficult to accommodate this concept by applying James’ (2014) Framework as it stands. It also raises questions about a position being described as a point of intentional representation which suggests a singularity of purpose that, while it may be appropriate when devising a public relations campaign, is limiting when undertaking a positioning analysis. These problems are

207 addressed in more detail in the following chapter.

6.1.1.2 Positioning Triangle Domain: Speech Act/Action Vertex The “Our good things” and “Their bad things” (van Dijk, 2006, p. 359) storyline can be applied to the construction of discourse across multiple levels, including through an analysis of speech acts (van Dijk, 2006). From a public relations Positioning Theory perspective, this requires examining “which storyline the parties took themselves to be embedded within” (James, 2014, p. 110). Thus, in the ‘our good things, their bad things’ storyline, this was evident in the speech transcripts of Gillard and Abbott using:

Assertive Speech Acts: In the discussion of narratives it was shown how Gillard told various audiences how things would be in terms of the benefits of a carbon price including asserting that: big polluters would pay; that jobs would be safe, that it was fair for everyone; that a carbon price would deliver a clean energy future; that it was time to act; that it was the right thing to do; that it would work; and that Labor was the party of reform with the experience necessary to deliver the carbon pricing package. These narratives were constituted by speech acts that primarily asserted the ‘good’ things about pricing carbon as well as the ‘good’ things of the government. Abbott, similarly, primarily used assertive speech acts but differed by telling audiences about their ‘bad things’. For example by variously asserting that a carbon tax would cost Australian jobs; that it was fraudulent; that it was the Green’s (political party) tax; that it was undemocratic; that it was unfair for everyone; and that the Coalition had a ‘better way on the environment’. Abbott also frequently asserted that the Gillard Government, and Gillard herself, were ‘bad’ through speech acts that constituted the trust narratives that were discussed previously.

Directive Speech Acts: Gillard and Abbott sought to get people to do things. For example, the following directive was given in Abbott’s (2011n, n.p.) Second Reading Speech: Clean Energy Bills 2011, House of Representatives:

208 Now, Mr Speaker, every member of this parliament should go to page 18 of the Government’s Carbon Sunday documents: Strong Growth, Low Pollution: Modelling a Carbon Price” (original italics).

There was also evidence of directives in Gillard’s Address to the Nation (2011b) where she directed audiences to look at a government website. This was expressed as:

But we have now had the debate, 2011 is the year we decide that as a nation we want a clean energy future. Now is the time to move from words to deeds. From 1 July next year, big polluters will pay $23 for every tonne of carbon they put into our atmosphere. And they can start planning to cut pollution now. When you have some time, you should have a look at the cleanenergyfuture.gov.au website (Gillard, 2011b, n.p.).

Commissive Speech Acts: Both Gillard and Abbott committed either themselves or their respective parties to doing things. For example, Gillard committed to the following actions in her Address to the Nation:

So I have decided we will take special measures to support jobs and keep Australia competitive internationally (Gillard, 2011b, n.p.); and, So I have decided most of the money raised from the carbon price will be used to fund tax cuts, pension increases and higher family payments. These will be permanent, matching the carbon price over time. That’s why 9 in 10 households will get a combination of tax cuts and payment increases. And of these, 4 million Australian households – including every older Australian who relies solely on the pension – will get a “buffer” for your budget, with the extra payments being 20 per cent higher than your average extra costs (Gillard, 2011b, n.p.).

Abbott also committed the Coalition to the following action:

What we want to do is work with the good people of our country, the creative people of our country, get them doing more and doing better what they want to do (Abbott, 2011c, n.p.).

And, in an Address to the Australian Steel Convention, Abbott told delegates,

The Coalition says “no” to a carbon tax because we say “yes” to manufacturing industry and “yes” to affordable power and transport … Obviously, under the Coalition, spending specifically associated with the

209 carbon tax and the mining tax won’t go ahead other than that to which the government has been contractually bound (Abbott, 2011m, n.p.).

Expressive Speech Acts: Abbott’s feelings and attitudes were expressed in the following speech acts:

Now, I am all in favour of doing the right thing by the carbon traders of Equatorial Guinea and Kazakhstan and all the other places that Kevin Rudd likes to visit. I am sure they are very decent, honest people (Abbott, 2011c, n.p.); and, Well never, ladies and gentlemen, have I seen something that is better described by that phrase than this carbon tax; a moon beam from the larger lunacy (Abbott, 2011c, n.p.).

Gillard also expressed her attitudes and feelings, for example she stated,

I also understand that there is nothing more important for families than having a job (Gillard, 2011b, n.p.).

In this same speech Gillard further stated,

I see a great clean energy future for our great country. I know we can get there together (Gillard, 2011b, n.p.).

Declarative Speech Acts: There was evidence of declarative speech acts whereby utterances “brought about changes in the world” (James, 2014, p. 14). This was evident in Gillard’s Introduction of the Clean Energy Bill 2011, Canberra (Gillard, 2011i) wherein the carbon pricing Bill was introduced to the Parliament, and was enacted in the following speech act” “I commend the Bill to the House” (Gillard, 2011i, n.p.).

Each of these speech acts was delivered at various pre-planned events and, in terms of being a series of public relations activities or actions, they are examples of how public relations strategises such events with the intention of facilitating various targeted publics to co-construct particularised meanings and “achieve specific outcomes” (James, 2014, p. 106). Gillard and Abbott either sought to position a carbon price as good (Gillard), or a carbon

210 tax as bad (Abbott), and this was primarily enacted through the promulgation of assertive speech acts; “that is telling people or asserting the way things were or should be” (James, 2014, p. 116). From a public relations Positioning Theory perspective, this finding does not differ significantly from the Chapter 5 findings wherein various speech acts/actions were mapped to show how the respective positions of Gillard and Abbott “were taken up by the parties” (James, 2014, p. 110). In both Chapter 5 and this chapter, this was taken to be Gillard and Abbott themselves, and not the audiences at the various events in which the speech acts/actions were enacted. Speech acts, however, are more than “the act of saying something” (James, 2014, p. 106), and they are more than what is achieved by what is being said (for example by declaring, asserting et cetera). Speech acts are intended to “affect one’s audience” (James, 2014, p. 106) and this “social force” (James, 2014, p. 110) is wholly dependent “to the degree that it is taken up by those involved in the encounter” (James, 2014, p. 110). This, then, is one of the limitations of this thesis; namely that it is not possible to ascertain or to analyse how various audiences within these encounters took up the intended meanings of these speech acts or, indeed, how various audiences were affected. In short, a reception analysis was not undertaken as part of this research project.

However, when applying Positioning Theory to undertake an analysis as it is more traditionally understood, the aim is not to predict how people might think or act, it is about “making sense of social episodes” (Slocum-Bradley, 2010b, p. 58) and this approach ‘made sense’ in terms of this case study. For example, Gillard’s speech act, “I see a great clean energy future for our great country. I know we can get there together” (Gillard, 2011b, n.p.) means little unless one understands the audience to whom this speech act is intended to reach or affect, and her rights and duties to assert a position. In this instance, it was uttered as part of her Address to the Nation (Gillard, 2011b.) meaning this speech act was uttered with a broad national audience in mind. In knowing this, it can be seen that this speech act was intended to position

211 Gillard (and not the carbon price per se) as a visionary leader to this national audience. As inferred by getting “there together” (Gillard, 2011b, n.p.), the nation was simultaneously positioned as sharing this vision i.e. of being brave visionaries. In her role as Prime Minister and Leader of the Australian Labor Party, Gillard arguably had the right, in this context, to make this assertion. The positioning by the Opposition, of Gillard/the Gillard Government as villains, is also clearer if the following speech act is analysed within its context or social episode:

Even on the government’s own modelling, millions of Australians will be worse off – including a single income family with one child on just average weekly earnings (Abbott, 2011a, n.p.).

This speech act was uttered as part of Abbott’s Address to the Nation and it has the social force of a warning in terms of warning Australians about the risky actions of the Gillard Government. Not only can the use of “average” (Abbott, 2011a, n.p.) be taken to mean widely differing things by different audiences, but, in terms of its effect or social force as a speech act, it delegitimises the actions of the government by positioning them as acting against the best interests of citizens by increasing taxation (an immoral act). It can also be seen that Abbott, as Leader of the Opposition, had the right to make this assertion and possibly a duty or obligation to his own party-room, who may have co-jointly decided to attack the government’s carbon pricing package. Crucially, in making these findings, I am applying a different and arguably more traditional concept of positioning wherein a position is understood not as a single point of intentional representation in a public relation sense as James (2014) argues, but rather it is being applied as ways of thinking, speaking, or acting in a wider social context (Slocum Bradley, 2009).

6.1.2 Strategic Pre-positioning Domain The strategic pre-positioning domain replaces James’ (2010, 2011) positioning purpose domain, and is one of the other major changes that has been made to James’ Framework. Pre-positioning has recently emerged as an important

212 facet of positioning that, as the first phase of a positioning act, takes place “prior to the actual positioning activity” (James, 2014, p. 59). Thus, positioning now has two phases:

The first phase involves the attribution of qualities of character, intellect, or temperament, sometimes supported by biographical reports on the past behaviou of the person in question. In the second phase (‘positioning’ in the original sense of Davies and Harré, 1990), the person being positioned is assigned or refused a cluster of rights and duties to perform certain kinds of acts, thus constraining what someone, so positioned, can rightly do and say. Both phases presume the existence of a local moral order, a cluster of collectively located beliefs about what it is right and good to do and say (Moghaddam & Harré , 2010, p. 10).

In public relations contexts, similarly, strategic pre-positioning is undertaken “through the attribution of characteristics to the self or others” (James, 2014, p. 59). This concept was particularly evident in Abbott’s strategic pre-positioning of Gillard, wherein she told voters prior to the 2010 Federal election that she would not introduce a carbon tax. An example of strategic pre-positioning was evident in Abbott’s Address to the WA Liberal Party (Abbott, 2011e, n.p.), where he asserted,

Ladies and gentlemen, the carbon tax is a bad tax based on a lie. All of us should remember the phrase; ‘there will be no carbon tax under the government I lead,’ and every moment we get we should repeat that phrase because that is the phrase that will haunt this Prime Minister and this Government to its political death. No government can say one thing, clearly, categorically with all forethought before an election and do the opposite after an election. No government can retain democratic legitimacy when it does that and that is why I say there should be no carbon tax collection without an election (Abbott, 2011e, n.p.).

What is evident in the enactment of these speech acts is the attribution of qualities of untrustworthiness to the Prime Minister (Gillard) and her government, based on Gillard’s past behaviour. Abbott also used this underlying attribution of untrustworthiness and of lying to tie the introduction of the carbon tax, to what he argued were previous Labor Government policy failures. For example, at the Address to the No Carbon Tax Rally, Canberra Abbott asserted,

213 This is the statement which has reverberated around this country and will continue to reverberate around this country – There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead. This is the Government that couldn’t put pink batts into your roof without setting your houses on fire; they couldn’t build school halls without rip-off after rip-off; they can’t keep the live cattle trade going because they panic in the face of a television programme (Abbott, 2011f, n.p.).

In an Address to the South Australian Liberal Party State Council, Adelaide (Abbott, 2011h.) the strategic pre-positioning of Gillard also included Gillard’s pre-election plan for a Citizen’s Assembly to discuss climate change. For example, Abbott told Liberal Party members,

What she ruled in, remember, was a climate change citizens’ assembly and this citizens’ assembly was going to meet and meet and meet and meet and meet and debate and deliberate and debate and deliberate and nothing was going to happen, not a single thing was going to happen – there would be no carbon tax, there would be no emissions trading scheme, there would be no change she assured us then – until, remember it, a ‘deep and lasting consensus’ was achieved (Abbott, 2011h, n.p.).

However, as much as the government was attributed these qualities, it was Gillard herself who was particularly singled out as the villain. For example, Abbott told the Federal Parliament, in his Second Reading Speech, Carbon Tax Plebiscite Bill, Parliament House (Abbott, 2011j.):

How can decent, honest members of a Government not feel embarrassed and ashamed of the fact that their Prime Minister said one thing before the election and is doing the complete opposite afterwards? (Abbott, 2011j, n.p.).

This speech act attributes moral qualities of decency and honesty to Gillard Government members while, simultaneously, it attributes Gillard as not being these things, thereby warning (a social force) them about their association with her. Gillard is thus positioned as failing in her duty in her leadership role as Prime Minister, and it calls into question her right (power) and legitimacy to hold this role. This, then, points to a major complication for Gillard in terms of her positioning of the carbon price. Applying the

214 strategic pre-positioning domain suggests that despite Gillard making various valid assertions in her speeches about her motivations and intentions about why she would introduce a carbon price, this was done so against the backdrop of her previous speech act of saying she would not introduce a carbon tax, which had the social force of being a promise. Not only was this successfully capitalised on by Abbott through the promulgation of trust narratives and supporting speech acts, including the (social force) accusation that Gillard was a liar, the perception that Gillard lacked legitimacy took hold. It can be seen then, and what each of these examples further demonstrates, is that strategic pre-positioning plays a crucial part in the construction of legitimacy and the associated rights and duties of entities to take positions within the prevailing local moral order.

This finding becomes more important in stage 2 positioning wherein “matters of fact” may be germane (Moghaddam & Harré, 2010, p. 11). Moghaddam and Harré (2010) argue that,

The authenticity of positions is often at the root of disputes, in which one of the parties denies someone a right on the grounds that there is no such right, or refuses a duty on the grounds that there is no such duty. In real life, arguments over the legitimacy of positioning acts are not symmetrical between reminders, demands, or assignments of rights and duties. An individual claims a right, and an authority denies it. An authority assigns a duty, and an individual refuses it (p. 11).

This finding is returned to in Chapter 8, where the central question of legitimacy in public relations, and the relevance of Positioning Theory to this core concept, is explored in more depth.

Applying the strategic pre-positioning domain was instrumental in clarifying one of the ongoing problems of applying James’ (2014) Framework; namely that it is not possible to attribute qualities to a non-human or human-like entity. Consequently, based on the previous finding that one of the positions held and maintained throughout the speech transcripts was that a carbon tax was bad (Abbott) and that a carbon price was good (Gillard), the only possible finding in terms of attributes was a good versus

215 bad dichotomy. Applying this new domain served to reinforce this finding and suggested that without accepting that a position is something that can be taken up by a person or a person-like entity, applying the strategic pre- positioning domain is problematic. This problem is also elaborated in the following chapter that discusses the strengths and weaknesses of applying James’ (2014) Framework.

6.1.3 Positioning Type Domain All utterances work to deliberately position the orator or the writer. Thus, in terms of deliberate positioning as a positioning type, each of Abbott’s and Gillard’s utterances, and indeed each of their speeches both individually and collectively, can be seen as being attempts to deliberately self-position. For example, when Abbott asserts “You cannot trust Julia Gillard” (Abbott, 2011d, n.p.), he is positioning Gillard as lacking in the moral attribute of trustworthiness (this speech act thus has the social force of an insult) but he is, simultaneously, self-positioning as having the right to make this judgement. It was therefore assumed that each speech act, storyline and position was indicative of this positioning type. Slocum-Bradley (2010a) argues that narrators can not only talk about persons, including him or herself, but they can “also talk about things and concepts as if they were persons, thereby creating “characters” or “actors” out of the inanimate. In the process of naming, describing, and/or interacting with these “characters”, the narrator constructs “identities” for them” (Slocum-Bradley, 2010a, p. 92). In terms of the carbon price/tax, as an example of a thing or concept, this was categorised as deliberate positioning of others, since the way it was talked about (through storylines/speech acts et cetera) created an identity or character about the policy as either good (Gillard) or bad (Abbott). It was also found that often these two positioning types (self- positioning and other positioning of the carbon price/tax) occurred simultaneously.

In Abbott’s narratives and speech acts, there was evidence of much more

216 overt deliberate self-positioning and deliberate positioning of Others using the first-person plurals “our” and “we”. This positioned those singled out as being part of an inclusive group who would be negatively affected by the carbon tax. For example, Abbott stated,

We won’t be able to get on a bus or a train, ultimately to drive our cars, without being impacted by this tax” (Abbott, 2011m, n.p.) (my italics).

Abbott also frequently used the second person singular possessive adjective “your” to deliberately position the problems he viewed as being associated with the carbon tax as belonging to Australians individually. For example, he stated,

What was also noticeable, and where Abbott and Gillard most differed, was that Abbott referred to the term ‘carbon tax’ much more frequently, and when he did so he linked the policy to numerous other entities – thereby positioning these entities as well.

One way of exploring this phenomenon is by drawing on the work of positioning theorists Slocum and van Langenhove (2004), who discuss positioned actors in terms of their “actorness” or the way in which actors are positioned by either “being directly referred to or implied in the text of a speech act. These are accomplished through the use of indexers, such as (personal) pronouns” (Slocum and van Langenhove, 2004, p. 234). Thus, when Abbott asserts in a speech to the Convoy of No Confidence Rally (Abbott, 2011i, n.p.), “Our democracy will be in safe hands as long as the people of this country continue to care about it and you care about it” (n.p.), he is attributing actorness to this audience as being people who care about Australia and the values of democracy, and as having the right to oppose the carbon tax based on these principles. Abbott, simultaneously, is positioned

217 as the upholder of these values; the implied counter position being that Gillard/the Gillard Government does not value democracy and is not acting in Australia’s best interests. In another example, in an address to the Australian Steel Convention, Abbott (2011m, n.p.) told delegates, “I know this is a desperate time for your industry … please don’t lose hope. Please don’t despair. Please don’t give in” (n.p.). It can be seen then, that Abbott is attributing actorness to delegates by deliberately positioning them as (metaphorically) ‘fighting the good fight’ against powerful forces that are threatening their livelihoods. Again, within the context of the overall speech, it is implied that those forces are Gillard/the Gillard Government who is doing nothing to help steel-workers in a time of despair.

However, as was discussed in Chapter 5 (Finding 5. 2. 3,) there were some difficulties encountered when applying this domain in the initial analysis using James’ (2010, 2011) Framework. They included questions around the necessity of coding each utterance as various positioning types (which seemed to add little to the findings), as well as broader questions about the findings themselves. As it stands James’ (2014) Framework does not differ in terms of this domain and consequently many of the questions raised in Chapter 5 were equally salient in this chapter. These are discussed in the following chapter.

6.1.4 Positioning Goal Domain James’ (2014) more recent work on the Positioning Framework is clearer in terms of the positioning goal domain, wherein it is now suggested that when applying this domain as an analytical heuristic, the research seeks to examine not only the specific aims of the positioning episode, “but also what social constructions of reality were parties seeking to shape” (James, 2014, p. 161). This is valuable in terms of applying Positioning Theory to public relations texts because much of what public relations practitioners do consists of deploying discourse “as a political resource to influence public opinion and achieve political, economic, and sociocultural transformation”

218 (Motion & Weaver, 2005, p. 52). In so doing,

They are attempting to gain a position of power for the client by establishing a “regime of truth” (Foucault, 1972/1980, p. 131). The ultimate strategic aim of being the “voice of truth” is to gain public consent for particular material practices (Motion & Weaver, 2005, p. 52).

On this basis, it could be argued that, in addition to the goals around the carbon price/tax, the ultimate strategic goal of both Gillard and Abbott was to socially construct perceptions of reality in terms of being ‘the voice of truth’ about the risks (Abbott) and the benefits (Gillard) of a policy to price carbon emissions. Apart from this new understanding, which offers a new potentiality in terms of the positioning goal domain and is of relevance to the personal positioning goals of political identities, the findings in terms of the carbon price/tax did not differ from those discussed in Chapter 5; namely that Gillard’s goal was to position a carbon price as a benefit for Australia, and Abbott’s goal was to position a carbon tax as a risk for Australia. These findings were arrived at through an analysis of the discourses present in the speech transcripts and, whereby, both the benefits and risks of a carbon price/tax were discursively constructed primarily in terms of economic and taxation discourses. Nevertheless, there remains a level of ambiguity between the goal domain and the position vertex within the positioning triangle domain. This complication is also discussed in the following chapter.

6.2 Discussion of key discourses

Viewed within the broader socio-cultural context of Australia in mid 2011, there were several “local moral orders” (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999; James, 2010, 2011, 2014) that may have impacted on the strategic positioning of the carbon price/tax. One of the key discourses promulgated by Abbott was a risk discourse that constructed increased taxation as a moral dilemma and a threat to the Australian way of life. According to Burton and Dabner (2009), for most Australians, taxation is seen as a “compulsory expropriation of a person’s private

219 property, and … the tax authority is at least potentially a ‘predatory ruler’” that operates to maximize government revenue (p. 13). Taxation is thus viewed as the state putting “its shovel” into the wealth of individuals (Burton & Dabner, 2009, p. 13). In terms of the Liberal Party and Liberal Party voters (Abbott’s electoral base), one of the core values of the Party is a belief in,

Government that nurtures and encourages its citizens through incentive, rather than putting limits on people through the punishing disincentives of burdensome taxes and the stifling structures of Labor's corporate state and bureaucratic red tape (The Liberal Party of Australia Federal Secretariat, N.D.).

When viewed from a Positioning Theory perspective, it can be seen that Abbott, as the leader of the Coalition Opposition, arguably had a right and possibly even a duty to the Coalition and Coalition supporters, to uphold these values. Most Australians also have an individualist ideology (Wannell, 2011), and by drawing on this ideology and taxation discourses, Abbott was acquiesced the right (and the legitimacy) to argue against ‘a great big tax on everything’ by most Australians at the time.

Gillard’s strategy, on the other hand, differed from Abbott’s because she attempted to mandate the introduction of a carbon price through taxation discourses that were, conceivably at least, an attempt at “open and honest discourse with citizen-taxpayers” (Barrett, 2012, p. 92). Gillard’s narratives about how the carbon price would work is an example of strong hypothecation (Barrett, 2012), wherein the yield from the carbon price was earmarked for specific purposes, including compensation payments to low and middle income households. Barrett (2012) argues that governments are usually “hesitant to link revenues with expenditures” however “if citizens understand the sources of revenue and how it is spent … greater democratic participation becomes likely”, and the most socially feasible economic goals should come to the fore (p. 103). Through such processes of “active communication, governments should ensure taxpayers have sufficient information to confirm or refute their assumptions” and be “prepared to argue for them and persuade the public to their cause” (p.

220 104). For those on the political left (typically Labor voters in Australia), earmarking of taxes is held as being a way of encouraging people to pay for improved social outcomes, and is “seen not only as a means of legitimization, but also as a way of funding expanded governmental reach through extended taxation” (Barrett, 2012, p. 112). Nevertheless, despite Gillard’s attempt at “active communication” (Barrett, 2012, p. 104), through the promulgation of discourses that constructed a carbon price as an economic benefit, applying James’ (2014) Framework suggests that this strategy failed because it did not align with the prevailing local moral order(s) in terms of the individualist ideology of most Australians at the time.

One further way of examining this phenomenon is in terms of hegemony and the role that public relations play in constructing “power/knowledge processes” (Motion & Leitch, 2007, p. 266). Originally conceived by Gramsci, “hegemony refers to power over society exercised through the dominance of particular ideas, theories, or ideologies” (Heath, 2005, p. 258). Hegemonic ideas or “systems of thought” (Motion & Leitch, 2007, p. 266) are those that are supported by the dominant institutions within a society, and are entrenched to the point that they achieve a taken for granted or common sense status (Heath, 2005; Motion & Leitch, 2007). Roper (2009) suggests that hegemony is “domination without physical coercion through the widespread acceptance of particular ideologies and consent to the practices associated with those ideologies” (p. 70). When these discourse strategies are successfully implemented, “the resulting discursive change may achieve hegemonic status; in that it becomes so pervasive that it is perceived as common sense” (Motion & Leitch, 2007, p. 266). Moreover, challenging such ingrained beliefs or ideologies is akin to challenging much that a society stands for in terms of its political, social, and economic structures (Heath, 2005). Arguably, then, one of the obstacles faced in prosecuting the case for a carbon price was the “common sense” notion that any increases in taxation are “bad” and an attack on much that Australia stands for in terms of its long- standing neo-liberal national episteme (Wannell, 2011).

It is also impossible, therefore, to overlook the role of public relations working

221 on behalf of, or within, the fossil fuel industries in Australia. Through the deployment of public relations discourse strategies, large fossil fuel Trans National Corporations (TNCs) have created, and continue to maintain, neoliberal hegemony throughout much of the developing and developed world (Dutta & Pal, 2010) including Australia. Such is their hegemonic power, it has allowed them to not only shape policy and political environments to advantage their business interests, but it has also resulted in their having enormous influence in terms of shaping climate change discourses (Dutta & Pal, 2009). In Australia, the influence of the coal industry, through “lobbying, political donations and favours” (Leahy, Bowden, & Threadgold, 2010, p. 857) means it is “one of the most politically powerful players” (Pearse, McKnight, & Burton, 2013, p. 129). Thus, in a nation where any discussion of climate change is historically linked to economic prosperity and industrialism, and whereby successive governments have constructed climate change primarily as an economic discourse (Wannell, 2011, n.p.), the economic risk discourses about a carbon tax promulgated by Abbott arguably fell on already fertile “systems of thought” (Motion & Leitch, 2007, p. 266) and assumed a hegemonic or taken for granted status.

The further ‘elephant in the room’ of any discussion of former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, also necessarily concerns the issue of her gender, and it would be remiss to not briefly mention the role that gender played in the carbon price/tax debate, particularly as it relates to her personal legitimacy and identity. As discussed in this chapter, one of the key storylines/discourses was that of the villain (i.e. Gillard, as deliberately positioned by Abbott) and hero (as self- positioned by Gillard). Through supporting “coherent” narratives (James, 2014, p. 137) they can be seen as constructing identities for Gillard and Abbott. It is clear, however, that while Gillard sought to construct an identity as a hero through narratives that extolled the Labor Party’s history of reform and its plan for a clean energy future, and through the promulgation of visionary and leadership discourses, it was further clear that Abbott’s strategy was to construct an identity for Gillard of a villain. Primarily this was achieved through narratives

222 that framed her as being untrustworthy, and speech acts that accused her (a social force) of lying. However, there was also evidence of Abbott’s use of masculine leadership discourses that, in terms of his identity, positioned him as a leader. They simultaneously worked to underscore Gillard’s gender and as lacking leadership on this basis.

From a Positioning Theory perspective, it could be argued that Abbott had the right to position Gillard as untrustworthy and lacking leadership because of her prior commitment (a social force) to not introduce a carbon tax. It could also be argued that, to a lesser extent, he had the right to position her thus because of her deal with the Greens to form government. However, Gillard is not the first politician to backflip in terms of saying one thing and then doing another. And while majority governments may be the norm in Australia (New Matilda, 2011), globally minority governments are commonplace (Warhurst, 2016). This then raises questions in terms of the local moral order(s) operating in Australia, and it particularly begs the question in terms of was Gillard being held to a higher ideal because of her gender within these moral orders? Wright and Holland (2014) argue that women politicians, and in their study they specifically refer to Gillard, experience a “double-bind” wherein “the qualities traditionally associated with leadership, such as assertiveness and authority, tend to be read very differently depending on whether they are displayed by men or women” (p. 457). “Women doing leadership ‘too well’ face repercussions” wherein they “risk these qualities being framed negatively” (Wright & Hollard, 2014, p. 457). As such, for women politicians “to be seen to ‘do gender well’” requires that they,

Embrace communal characteristics constructed outside of (and often in opposition to) the role of a leader … Qualities frequently associated with women and femininity, such as communality, compassion and empathy, are not associated with leadership and do not imbue the individual with agency (Wright & Hollard, 2014, p. 457).

From a traditional Positioning Theory perspective, then, just as legitimation occurs through the attribution of rights and duties, the withholding or

223 rescinding of rights and duties leads to delegitimisation (Slocum-Bradley, 2008). Actors may be also “de-legitimised when positioned as having failed to fulfil duties attributed to them” (Slocum-Bradley, 2008, p. 210); the key term here being ‘actors’. For Gillard, this meant that despite attempting to legitimate her role through the enactment of leadership and visionary discourses, and by asserting through various speech acts and narratives that she had “properly fulfilled the duties” (Slocum-Bradley, 2008, p. 210) of ‘doing’ a female Prime Minister, she was not attributed the right to enact a leadership identity. Clearly this was based in no small part on her gender and wherein, according to the prevailing socio-cultural moral orders in Australia, leadership in political contexts is largely held as being a masculine attribute.

6.3 Chapter summary

This chapter has reported on an examination of public relations positioning as evidenced in a case study of 23 political speech transcripts. It has shown that positioning was undertaken to achieve strategic goals relating to a carbon price or tax, and that underpinning the success or not of these aims was the legitimacy (or not) of the actors so positioned through storylines, narratives and speech acts. Gillard and Abbott enacted a range of discursive positions that called on broader socio-cultural discourses in terms of fairness, employment, trust, taxation, clean energy, leadership, and of having a vision for Australia’s future. These positions were enacted in various places with the intention of having targeted publics construct particular meanings about the carbon price/tax, and suggested that in terms of dynamic stability, the positions of Gillard and Abbott were sound and well-conceived. However, as with Chapter 5, this then raised further questions in terms of why Gillard’s positioning strategy had largely failed from a public relations Positioning Theory perspective.

As was stated at the outset, this doctoral research project has largely been a

224 process of way-finding. Applying James’ (2014) Framework in this chapter was no different. In large part this was because I sought to find a way of applying, on the one hand, the concept of a position as defined by James (2014) and as it was understood in this study, and wanting, on the other hand, to apply a more traditional understanding because of the potential added insights this approach might offer. The outcome was a chapter in which I found myself attempting to straddle both. In so doing, I have possibly raised as many questions as I have answered. That said, a key issue appears to be with the position vertex within the positioning triangle domain of the framework that, as it stands, is not fully capturing the nuances of positioning in terms of the attribution or withholding of rights and duties. This is critical to understanding how legitimacy is attributed or withheld in public relations contexts. Given the importance of this finding, it is now discussed in the following chapter which details the strengths and weaknesses of applying James’ (2014) Framework.

225 7. The strengths and weaknesses of applying James’ (2014) Framework

RQ1 Did applying James’ Framework provide answers into how a carbon price/tax was strategically positioned in the case study and if so how?

RQ2 What are the strengths and weaknesses of applying James’ Framework?

RQ3 Could James’ Framework be improved upon and if so how?

RQ4 Does public relations need a positioning ‘framework’ at all?

This chapter follows Chapter 6 to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of applying James’ (2014) Framework as an analytical heuristic, against the backdrop of the case study. As with previous chapters, this chapter also discusses, where relevant, political positioning as presented in a case study of 23 political speech transcripts delivered by former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, and former Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott. It

226 also, where applicable, provides suggestions for improvements to James’ (2014) Framework. Overall the study found that applying James’ (2014) Framework as an analytical heuristic offers much in terms of analysing public relations strategies, but it appears to be less successful at analysing how, through the enactment of these strategies, discourse is used to shape meaning. The key finding in this chapter (answers research questions RQ2 and RQ3) that James’ (2014) Framework appears to be very good at analysing strategy, however, falls short of being able to analyse the social consequences of such strategy. Further research is needed to fully explore if the Framework could be improved upon and, if so, how this should be undertaken.

What follows is a description of the findings with supporting details, categorised according to each of the four domains of James’ (2014) Framework for Positioning in Public Relations. That is:

the Positioning Triangle Domain;

the Strategic Pre-positioning Domain;

the Positioning Type Domain; and,

the Positioning Triangle Domain consisting of position, speech act/action and storylines.

However, taking this approach was not unproblematic. Chiefly this related to how, by separating out these domains and/or the vertices of James’ positioning triangle domain, the mutually determining contribution that each makes to the actual positioning act became somewhat muddied. This finding was particularly evident in the positioning triangle domain, where the “dynamic stability” (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 10) of positioning is reliant on the mutuality and alignment of each of the vertices of the triangle. Although this has always been a central plank of van Langenhove’s and Harré’s original positioning triangle (1999), this doctoral research suggests that James’ placement of the triangle within its own

227 domain in her Framework has been one of the central problems for the Framework as an analytic heuristic from the start. On this basis, the following discussion, while loosely categorised per the domains of James’ (2014) Framework, has also, necessarily at times, included a discussion of ways in which the domains could be clarified or in some cases removed from the Framework.

In keeping with this integrated approach, I have collapsed the findings in terms of answering if James’ Framework could be improved upon and if so how this might be undertaken. Thus, the findings in terms of the strengths and weaknesses of applying James’ (2014) Framework, also include, where applicable, a discussion about whether the Framework can be improved upon and, if so, how this should be undertaken. Where relevant a selection of excerpts from the case study texts has been included to facilitate the reader’s understanding. The full transcripts of the twenty-three speeches included in the case study are available in the appendices, and are referenced throughout this chapter.

7.1 Finding 1 James’ (2014) Framework appears to be very good at analysing strategy however further research is indicated to fully explore if the Framework could be improved upon and, if so, how this should be undertaken.

7.1.1 Positioning Triangle Domain

7.1.1.1 Positioning Triangle Domain: Storyline Vertex One of the key strengths of applying James’ (2014) Framework as an analytical heuristic was found to be with applying the storyline vertex of the positioning triangle domain. Applying this vertex showed how the use of storylines opened up possibilities for a range of narratives and key messaging that underpinned master narratives (the term used by van Dijk,

228 2006) or storylines (the term used by James, 2014) in terms of “our good things” and “their bad things” (van Dijk, 2006, p.359). It also showed how Gillard and Abbott positioned one another within ‘hero’ and ‘villain’ storylines, and this again showed “how storylines are used to frame the episode in certain ways” (James, 2014, p. 160). However, there were aspects of this vertex that could be further clarified when applying James’ (2014) Framework as an analytical heuristic, and one of these relates to clarifying differences between storylines and narratives in public relations positioning episodes.

The terms ‘storyline’ and ‘narrative’ are often used interchangeably and “are synonymous concepts” (Kent, 2015, p. 482). Consequently, there is often some confusion between the two (Kent, 2015). In this study, this confusion primarily manifested in terms of how a narrative and a storyline are conceptualised from a public relations Positioning Theory perspective (i.e. James, 2014), with how a storyline is conceptualised in more traditional approaches to Positioning Theory (for example as conceptualised by Harré and van Langenhove, 1999). From the perspective of the latter, storylines are “a working hypothesis about the principles or conventions that that are being followed in the unfolding of the episode being studied” (Harré & Moghaddam, 2003, p. 9). Often these storylines are grouped around various poles such as events, characters or moral dilemmas (Davies & Harré, 1999). In this study, the concept was found to be useful in categorising various narratives around the theme of the carbon price/tax, and the characters of Gillard and Abbott. This organising principle could be equally applied to the analysis of storylines. For example, the villain/hero storyline is clearly an organising pole in terms of being a moral dilemma, with Gillard and Abbott as central characters in what is essentially a morality storyline. Similarly, the

“Our good things, their bad things” (van Dijk, 2006, p. 359) storyline is an example of a moral dilemma with Gillard and Abbott again cast as the central organising characters. However, having already applied this principle to the analysis of narratives, and guided by James (2014) who argues “a

229 positioning analysis yields narratives that people or organisations use to position one another and themselves” (p. 157), how storylines were understood in Chapter 6 differed from how they are often understood in non-public relations, and arguably more traditional, approaches to Positioning Theory.

The key distinction between storylines as they were applied in Chapter 6, and what might be considered more traditional approaches to storylines in Positioning Theory, relates to “the discursive contexts in which the actors are acting” (Slocum & van Langenhove, 2004, p. 234). For example, in a social episode where the Prime Minister is delivering a speech to State Labor Party members, this could be conceptualised as constituting a storyline of ‘Prime Minister delivering a speech to the party faithful’. Irrespective of the title given to this storyline, there would be contextually different moral orders at play that differ from when the Prime Minister is delivering a speech to the National Press Club to journalists. This is because, within these storylines, both the narrator (in this study either Gillard or Abbott), as well as audience members, would be simultaneously positioned in particular ways. Thus, for the orator/narrator and the audience alike, there are socially constructed norms of rights and duties in terms of what each may do (actions), and what each may say (speech acts). Such rights and duties can differ markedly depending on the context in which the social episode is being played out, and consequently the ‘positions’ (as they are traditionally understood) of the actors relative to one another within the episode.

To demonstrate this further, Prime Minister Gillard had the right, as the leader of the Australian Labor Party, to give a speech to Labor Party delegates and to enact particular discourses, storylines, narratives, speech acts and key messages to this audience. One of the expectations in this context, then, is that Gillard will display attributes of leadership as befits the role of Prime Minister. Delegates may accept or reject the positioning of Gillard as possessing these attributes; this is their right within the

230 contextually bound local moral order. An extreme example of the rejection of Gillard’s position might include jeering (a speech act with a social force) and/or standing up and shaking a fist (an action that also has a social force). One of the weaknesses, then, of James’ (2014) Framework as it stands, is that it is not clear how to analyse the storyline, positions and acts as they are narrated within a text, as well as the storylines, acts and positions that are being enacted “in real time through the act of telling” these narratives (Bartlett, 2010, p. 176).

The problem of addressing multiple contexts across different timescales is addressed by Bartlett (2008) who argues that,

In essence, a speaker is not free to take up any position they wish with regard to the evolving storyline; rather, each speaker can only adopt those positions to which they are entitled through their symbolic capital (Bourdieu, 1991) as recognised by those present according to the subject matter and the setting. Moreover, this positioning will only be successful if the speaker is able to realise their social status through the appropriate linguistic means. To put it simply, speakers must use a style of language that makes clear their social standing, and this standing must carry currency with the audience in context, as must the various acts they perform. This brings in deeply-rooted structural constraints that are not apparent in the basic positioning triangle (Bartlett, 2008, pp. 169-170).

Furthermore,

(as) each act of positioning occurs in a unique context, we have to conclude that positioning over different timescales implies differences of contextual constraints and affordances, and things become complex and messy when we consider that social actors may be operating over different timescales, and hence operating according to the strictures of different positioning triangles, simultaneously (Bartlett, 2008, p. 171).

This suggests that without a way of coherently analysing positioning across time, as well as within contextually bound social episodes, the analysis overlooks the storylines that were enacted in the act of saying and doing ‘delivering a speech’ (for example). This then overlooks the role of public relations in strategically arranging such events for the purposes of

231 communicating key messages to targeted audiences. That said there is no “silver bullet” that “can provide a complete and coherent description and understanding of the complexities of contextualised social action” (Bartlett, 2006, p. 171) and this was understood within the context of evaluating James (2014) Framework.

Another aspect of the storyline vertex of the Positioning Triangle Domain that requires further clarification is the concept of key messaging. Key messaging is vital in public relations contexts (Hallahan, 1999; James, 2011, 2014; Mahoney, 2008; Pfau & Parrott, 1993) because this technique is a primary method of conveying an organisation’s story (James, 2014). Key messaging comprises “two basic things”: “a theme, thesis or slogan that is the single idea around which all communications revolve” and “copy points that serve as the basic proof or substance for detailed arguments that support the theme/thesis/slogan” (Courtwright & Smudde, 2010, p. 66). James (2014), drew on Courtwright and Smudde (2010) to propose that from a Positioning Theory perspective, the first ‘thing’ (themes or slogans et cetera) is encapsulated in the positioning triangle domain (i.e. the speech act/action, storylines, position triad) and copy or proof points are the ‘things’ that ensue from narratives “told as result of invoking a specific storyline” (p. 134). The findings suggest that in terms of key messaging, a carbon tax is bad/ a carbon price is good are ‘things’ or a theme or slogan around which all of Gillard and Abbott’s communications revolved. If one accepts this premise, it allows for copy or proof points to be conceptualised as the various narratives that supported the key slogans (a carbon price is good/a carbon tax is bad). This finding ties into the previous discussion where it was argued that the various narratives of Gillard and Abbott were organised around the central theme of the carbon price/tax. However, in making this argument, I am also arguing that the concept of a position, as it is currently defined by James (2014), is not unproblematic. This problem is further elaborated in the discussion of the Positioning Triangle Domain: Position Vertex.

232 Lastly, and equally importantly, is the question of whether framing can be conflated with positioning and vice versa. In public relations contexts, framing can be approached from a rhetorical perspective, where the concern is with how messages are created using “key words, metaphors and concepts in the text that encourages audiences to develop certain understandings of events or issues” (Howard-Williams, 2009, p. 30). According to Entman (1993)

Framing essentially involves selection and salience. To frame is to select some aspects of perceived reality and make them more salient in communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation (p.52).

In addition to this rhetorical approach, framing can also be understood as “conceptually connected to the underlying psychological processes that people use to examine information, to make judgments, and to draw inferences about the world around them” (Hallahan, 1999, p. 206). As a social constructionist approach to communication, it also draws on social interactionism and the idea that human behaviour results from our interaction with symbols to create meaning (Hallahan, 1999). It thus shares some similarities with Positioning Theory concepts of framing.

This relationship is evident, James (2014) argues, when people sometimes confuse the analysis of storylines with the analysis of frames. To distinguish between the two, and drawing on Hallahan (1999), James (2014) argues that in public relations, a frame is a process of inclusion, exclusion and “adding emphasis to certain elements” (p. 150) and that framing occurs within the context of storylines (James, 2014). Storylines “constitute the collection of narratives- what storylines are being used to frame the episode in certain ways” (James, 2014, p. 160). An example of this is the storyline of an award winner, with an accompanying narrative “telling of exemplary proof points crafted as key messages” (James, 2014, p. 160). In this doctoral research project, this understanding was applied to argue that the use of villain and hero, and ‘our

233 good things, their bad things’ storylines, framed the narratives about the carbon price/tax. However, it is also feasible that narratives are, in turn, ‘framed’ whereby some aspects of a discourse are accentuated while others are downplayed or excluded altogether. This argument could also be applied to the speech act/action vertex and, if one accepts a position as being a point of intentional representation, it too can be seen to be a frame of sorts. For example, the ‘position’ that a carbon tax is bad can be seen to be a frame because it a) emphasises the term ‘tax’ that connotes something quite different from that implied by the term price and b) the use of ‘bad’ similarly stresses a pejorative connotation.

There is also a complex relationship between framing as defined by Goffman (1968), and traditional approaches to Positioning Theory. This relationship is acknowledged by Davies and Harré (1990), and Harré and van Langenhove (1999), who agree there are connections between Goffman’s (1968) framing theory, and the associated concept of a footing, with their concept of positioning. A ‘frame’, as defined by Goffman (1974) refers to the principles of organisation (concepts and themes) that govern social events “and our subjective involvement in them” (p. 11). Definitions about the situation are then described and analysed in accordance with these principles (Goffman, 1974, p. 11). But while conceding that Goffman’s (1968) work “provides a powerful and mature sociology for the analysis of episodes”, Harré and van Langenhove (1999) also argue that his analysis of interactions fails to focus “on the idiosyncratic aspects of that interaction” (p. 5). What they are asserting is that what people do is understandable not only in terms of their particular roles in the episode, but also in terms of their shared history of interactions. A further criticism is that Goffman’s (1968) framing theory is overly static (Gordon, 2015, p. 336) and that Positioning Theory potentially offers more in terms of analysing framing in public relations contexts than other theories might offer. This is particularly pertinent when the definition of a position, rather than as James (2014) has defined it as “a point of intentional representation” (p, 19), instead is conceptualised as being a person or person-like entity. In these circumstances

234 entities are “assigned or refused a cluster of rights and duties to perform certain kinds of acts, thus constraining what someone, so positioned, can rightly do and say” (Moghaddam & Harré , 2010, p. 10).

7.1.1.2 Positioning Triangle Domain: Position Vertex One of the weaknesses identified in Chapter 5, in which the first iteration of James’ (2010, 2011) Framework was evaluated, was that within the Positioning Triangle Domain of the Framework, in terms of the Position vertex or pole, there were no clearly identifiable differences between this pole and the Positioning Goal Domain. Partly as a result of these findings, and a paper that emanated from that chapter (Wise & James, 2013), as well as more recent work on positioning in public relations (i.e. James, 2014), the definition of a position has been substantially revised. A strength, therefore, of James’ (2014) revised Framework, is that by incorporating the concept of local moral orders, it now distinguishes this vertex from the Goal Domain. However, despite the inclusion of this core Positioning Theory concept, applying the Position Vertex of the Positioning Triangle Domain, as it is defined by James (2014), remains complex when undertaking a positioning analysis.

The initial question that sparked this study was how a carbon price/tax was positioned in the speeches of Julia Gillard (former Prime Minister), and Tony Abbott (former Leader of the Opposition). This question informed the first evaluation of James’ (2010,2011) Framework, and it subsequently informed the second evaluation of the most recent framework (i.e. James, 2014). However, as reported in Chapter 5, there were some issues identified in terms of applying this pole/vertex, and this seemed to be in terms of how a position was defined. James (2011) originally proposed that a position is “the entity’s point of view of its own and stakeholders’ actual and potential positions, e.g., the entity determines the desired position” (p. 10). This definition suggested that James’ (2010,2011) Framework could potentially provide insights into the positioning of a government policy to price carbon

235 emissions. On this basis, and based on my understanding of how a position is conceptualised when applying this vertex to analyse public relations positioning, it was argued that Gillard’s position or point of intentional representation was that a carbon price was good, and Abbott’s countervailing position was that a carbon tax was bad.

The evaluation of the more recent iteration of the James’ (2014) Framework discussed in Chapter 6, similarly found that despite the revised definition of a position, the positions of Gillard and Abbott in relation to the carbon price or tax, conceptually remained the same; that is that a carbon price was good (Gillard) or that a carbon tax was bad (Abbott). These positions were found to be supported by narratives and storylines that supported these positions, suggesting that in terms of “dynamic stability” (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 10), the positions of Gillard and Abbott were equally sound and well- conceived. However, as was discussed in Chapter 5, this then raised further questions in terms of why Gillard’s positioning strategy had failed from a public relations positioning perspective. This second analysis of James’ (2014) Framework suggests that the problem appears to be primarily in terms of the position vertex of the triangle that, as it stands, is not fully capturing the nuances of Positioning Theory as it is more traditionally understood. To demonstrate this the following table applies the concept of a position as it was understood in this study, and contrasts this with how it might be applied from a more traditional Positioning Theory (i.e. Harré and van Langenhove, 1999) approach.

Table 7.1 Comparison between different conceptualisations of a position Applying James’ (2014) Framework Applying James’ (2014) Framework as an analytical heuristic wherein as an analytical heuristic wherein a position is conceptualised as a a position is conceptualised as a point of intentional cluster of rights, duties & representation. obligations (i.e. Harré & van Langenhove, 1999).

Positioning Triangle Domain

236 Storyline #1: Villain and Hero Storyline #1: Villain and Hero

Not applicable to a thing. Only Frames narratives about trust, job applicable to persons or person- losses, rising costs et cetera like entities. Constructs identities/personas through narratives Storyline #2: ‘Our good things their Storyline #2: ‘Our good things their bad things’ bad things’

Frames narratives about trust, Frames narratives about trust, jobs, costs et cetera jobs, costs et cetera Constructs identities/personas Constructs identities/personas through narratives through narratives Positions Positions

A carbon tax is bad/a carbon tax Gillard as a villain/bad; Abbott as is good (storyline #1). a hero/good (storylines #1 and Positions are strategic but largely #2). static and not necessarily bound Potential for multiple positions by social episodes. within each social episode Rights and duties cannot be Positions are legitimised or attributed or withheld so not delegitimised through the possible to analyse legitimacy in attributing or withholding of public relations texts rights and duties in specific As a single speech act it contexts. contributes to constructing an Constructs identities/personas identity/personae through speech acts Speech acts/actions Speech acts/actions

A position cannot enact speech The entity constructs versions of acts or take actions (an social reality about the carbon ontological impossibility) tax/other entities and/or things. Unclear where the entity is Speech acts construct identities located/how identity is constructed Strategic pre-positioning domain

Not applicable as cannot attribute e.g. Gillard as bad/a villain based characteristics to a non ‘self’ or on her actions prior to the self-like entity introduction of the carbon Cannot construct price/tax identity/personas Constructs identities/personas (through speech acts)

237 Positioning Type Domain

Raises questions in terms of The entity undertakes deliberate where the entity is located within positioning of others, deliberate the Framework i.e. how or where positioning of self; these types are identities/personas may be forced. Must be tied to constructed? the positioning triangle domain to be workable. Goal Domain

Over-arching goal is to align with To position a carbon tax as bad/a position taken (a carbon tax is risk (Abbott) bad/a carbon tax is good) To position a carbon price as good/a benefit (Gillard). Possibility of multiple goals to align with various positions taken

What this table shows is that applying the concept of a position, as I initially attempted to apply it in this research project i.e. as a point of intentional representation about a carbon price/tax, limited the findings in terms of analysing the available storylines and positions, and the strategic pre- positioning domain could not be applied at all. There are also questions about where identity is accounted for within the Framework (James, 2014) as I have applied it. This was alluded to in Chapter 6, where I frequently found myself applying what I consider to be a more traditional Positioning Theory approach to the analysis of the case study texts, because it was often the only approach that “made sense” (Slocum-Bradley, 2010b, p. 58) both in terms of the data, and ontologically.

The key issue seemed to stem from my understanding that an underpinning argument of James’ (2014) approach to Positioning Theory is that ‘things’ such as products, services or government policies for example, can be positioned in much the same way that persons or person-like entities are positioned. James (2014) argues that in adapting Positioning Theory to public relations, she drew on data and reports by public relations practitioners in which they reported how their work consisted of

238 intentionally shifting their “client/organisation (or its service, idea, product, project etc.)” from the position it/they currently “occupied”, to one they wanted to “occupy, or assign to another,” (p. 4). The merging of the positioning of things with people or people-like entities is also suggested in statements such as, “any organisation can decide it would like to position itself or one of its products, personnel or services anyway it likes” (James, 2014, p. 85). Similarly, James (2014) argues that “determining a position for an organisation or one of its services, programs or products ... e.g. positioning the immunization of babies as a positive thing to do” should be a relatively easy sell to Mums and Dads in a “fairly straightforward environment” (p. 83). This proposition of things (services, programs or products et cetera) draws on the work of Ries and Trout (1981) who suggested that all ‘things’ were products that could be positioned in people’s minds (James, 2014, p. 20).

Ries and Trout (2001) argue that positioning starts with products, and here they include “merchandise, a service, a company, an institution, or even a person” (p. 2). However, for Ries and Trout (2001) positioning is not what is done to a product but rather it is “what you do to the mind of a prospect. That is, you position the product in the mind of the prospect” (Ries & Trout, 2001, p. 2). In other words, positioning something is more than a cosmetic ‘fix’ done to a product (for example new packaging or pricing to make it more enticing or appealing) but rather it is the act of making a product more marketable by connecting it with the pre-existing beliefs and cognitions of prospects. According to Ries and Trout (2001) the only reality is what exists in people’s minds and the aim of positioning in a marketing scenario is not to “create something new and different, but to manipulate what’s already up there in the mind, to retie the connections that already exist” (Ries & Trout, 2001, p. 5). Thus, in the baby immunisation campaign scenario, it can be seen that by tying vaccination to people’s pre-existing beliefs about the health benefits of vaccination in general, it would be a relatively easy sell to convince parents of the merits of immunising their children. However,

239 whether this is the same as positioning, as it is more traditionally understood from a Positioning Theory perspective, is less clear.

This is because, if one applies a more traditional Positioning Theory approach wherein a position is broadly conceptualised as consisting of the rights or duties to think, or to act and speak in particular ways (Slocum Bradley, 2009) the immunisation campaign example is less straightforward. By applying the premise that a position consists of ways of speaking, thinking and acting (Slocum-Bradley, 2010a) and that these ways are bound by rights and duties specific to social episodes, suggests that whether or not parents buy into this campaign rests with the rights and duties of the organisation to make such claims (my italics) and not, as James (2014) seems to be suggesting, because their ‘position’ (as a point of intentional representation) is that immunising babies is “a positive thing to do” (p. 83). While it can be seen that, this ‘positioning’ would most likely tie into the pre-existing cognitions and beliefs of parents about immunisation, it could also be argued on this basis that James’ (2014) definition of a position is more aligned with the marketing approach of Ries and Trout (1981; 2001) than with how a position has been more traditionally conceptualised by some positioning theorists including Slocum-Bradley (2010a).

From this perspective, a position is ostensibly concerned with the rights and duties of social actors, with the agency to do so, to position themselves and others. If one accepts this premise, the immunisation campaign can be viewed as an example of public relations positioning inasmuch as it consists of key messaging and the framing of narratives to support this key messaging, and manipulating “what’s already up there in the mind, to retie the connections that already exist” (Ries & Trout, 2001, p. 5). James (2014) further argues that “the things that public relations episodes are about, that is, organisations, programs, products, services, people, ideologies, ideas and so on are actors in a narrative that provides a context within which public relations positioning occurs” (p.84). However, the claim that a thing (a non-

240 person) is an actor, is questionable. Positioning theorists Slocum and van Langenhove (2004) argue that “states and regions can be attributed ‘actorness’ in much the same way that persons are” (p. 234), however these are “actorness properties” (p. 236) (original italics) that confer:

a certain degree of autonomy and … powers to engage in some sort of purposive action (p. 236). Actorness ultimately depends upon the power (that is, the rights) of the actor to act at various levels, in various realms (issues), toward various ends (goals). These are the actor’s positions (Slocum & van Langenhove, 2004, p. 237).

Given this, it would be nonsensical to argue that a policy to price carbon emissions can be attributed actorness properties or that it has autonomy or power to engage in purposive action. On the contrary, it is an ontological fact that all discourse is uttered by persons and, as such “neither ‘States’, nor institutions, nor groups of people (‘collectives’) can actually say or do things” (Slocum-Bradley, 2010a, p. 92). Clearly this is an aspect of James’ (2014) Framework that requires further clarification.

Positions are also, in a more traditional Positioning Theory sense, dynamic discursive constructions that are in a constant state of flux as people, or people-like entities, adopt positions relative to one another within social episodes. James’ (2014) concept of a position currently fails to account for this moment to moment dynamism. This, in turn, further complicated the analysis, especially in terms of applying the speech act/action vertex, wherein each speech act, potentially, is a discursive tool deployed by actors to “accomplish tasks” that includes “the evocation of storylines, identities, rights, and duties” (Slocum-Bradley, 2010b, p. 56). This is further discussed in the next section.

7.1.1.3 Positioning Triangle Domain: Speech Act/Action Vertex It became apparent as the research progressed that the problems encountered while applying the position vertex within the Positioning Triangle Domain, were also negatively impacting on the analysis of speech

241 acts. Primarily this was related to the finding that Gillard’s position was that a carbon price was good, and Abbott’s position was that a carbon tax was bad, and this had flow-on implications in terms of how speech acts were analysed. This finding became clearer when I applied the concept of a hero and villain storyline to the speech transcripts, and it was found that the speech acts enacted by Gillard and Abbott sought to position them as heroes, and the Other as villains. Quite obviously, this finding either contradicted the earlier finding that positioning was about a carbon price/tax, or it raised the possibility that there were multiple positioning acts being undertaken. This, in turn, raised further questions regarding whether positioning, as James (2014) defines it, is about positioning things (such as a carbon pricing policy package), persons or person-like entities (as suggested by positioning theorists such as Slocum-Bradley (2010a), or is it about both?

To find answers I turned once more to traditional approaches to Positioning Theory, wherein speech acts are conceived of as being enacted “in the context of a particular storyline being enacted by actors with particular identities and a particular distribution of rights and duties” (Slocum- Bradley, 2010b, pp. 57-58). In these more traditional approaches, the term ‘position’ has been used to account for “the kinds of acts that a person in that position can be ‘seen’ or ‘heard’ to perform” (speech acts) within a social episode (Harré & Moghaddam, 2003, p. 8). Positioned actors, the types of acts they can perform, and the storylines they enact share a mutually influential relationship. According to Slocum & van Langenhove (2004, p. 227), storylines are constituted by patterns of acts that are recognised as such by the members of a culture and simultaneously “provide the context within which an action is interpreted as an act”. They state further, “it is through acts (which have a social force), within the contexts of storylines, that the players are positioned” while, at the same time, “the positions of the actors influence how an action is interpreted as an act” (Slocum & van Langenhove, 2004, pp. 227-228). This approach clearly places actors,

242 identities and persons at the centre of positioning episodes, and it was often difficult to reconcile this more traditional approach with the approach taken by James (2014) in terms of applying her Framework to undertake a positioning analysis.

Applying this more traditional approach would mean that, for example, when Abbott is speaking to a crowd in a public outdoor area outside Parliament, the storyline might be one of a conservative political leader addressing a rally of anti-carbon tax protesters. This storyline is constituted by patterns of speech acts that are recognised by rally members as being appropriate (or not) depending on the local moral order of what is acceptable for all those present to do and say in this context. Without a clearer understanding of positioning as being something done by persons or person-like entities, the speech act/action vertex within the positioning Triangle Domain of James’ Framework (2014) cannot be properly applied. It could also be argued then, that without this understanding, the very rationale for including a speech act/action vertex is undermined because the social force of speech acts cannot be examined. As this case study has shown, instead what results is essentially a reportage of speech acts that adds little in terms of “make(ing) sense” (Slocum-Bradley, 2010b, p. 58) of how positioning is undertaken in public relations contexts.

7.1.2 Strategic Pre-Positioning domain A strength of James’ (2014) Framework as it stands is the inclusion of the Strategic Pre-positioning Domain. The inclusion of this domain aligns with contemporary Positioning Theory scholarship, wherein authors such as Moghaddam and Harré (2010) have advocated that strategic pre-positioning is an essential factor in positioning. Specifically, phase 1 or pre-positioning refers to “the attribution of qualities of character, intellect, or temperament, sometimes supported by biographical reports on the past behaviour of the person in question” (Moghaddam & Harré , 2010, p. 9). Applying this domain suggested that Abbott drew on people’s pre-existing cognitions regarding

243 statements Gillard made prior to the 2010 Australian federal election, in which she committed (a social force) to not introducing a carbon tax (my italics). Applying this understanding suggested that Abbott positioned Gillard as possessing attributes of untrustworthiness, thereby delegitimising her by redacting her power (her rights) to enact her government’s carbon pricing package. As Moghaddam and Harré (2010) argue, and as this chapter has confirmed,

This distinction between positioning phases is useful in that, oftentimes, phase 1 is the ground of phase 2. Or to put this more discursively, the discursive procedure by which a person is positioned as having (or not having) certain rights and duties is initiated and grounded or justified by an act of positioning as in phase 1 - that is, as competent/incompetent, trustworthy, untrustworthy, and so on with respect to performing the type of act in question (p. 10).

Nevertheless, I also found that these findings could only be arrived at by applying a more traditional approach to the concept of a position. For example, if I applied James (2014) concept of a position, the positions held and maintained throughout the speech transcripts were found to be either that a carbon tax was bad (Abbott) or that a carbon price was good (Gillard). As such it could be argued that the attributes of a carbon price/tax were that it was either good or bad. However, whether these are attributes, or are instead adjectives that frame how a position is understood, is more difficult to discern. Applying the strategic pre-positioning domain was thus instrumental in further clarifying one of the ongoing problems of applying James’ (2014) Framework; namely that attributing qualities to a thing (a product or service et cetera) is problematic. Applying this new domain suggested that without accepting that a position is only something that can be taken up by a person or a person-like entity with “actorness” (Slocum & van Langenhove, 2004, p. 234), applying the strategic pre-positioning domain using James’ (2014) Framework as an analytical heuristic is not without some inherent difficulties.

244 7.1.3 Positioning Type Domain One of the most challenging aspects of applying James’ (2014) Positioning Framework for Public Relations as an analytical heuristic continues to be with the Positioning Type Domain. One of the key problems again centred on James’ (2014) definition of a public relation position as a point of intentional representation. Applying this understanding suggested that each of Abbott’s speech acts that used the term ‘tax’ could be taken to be an example of forced positioning. This was predicated on the view that if the Gillard Government hadn’t announced its decision to introduce a price on carbon emissions, there would have been no need for Abbott to be engaging in a debate over the problems, as he saw them, with its introduction. It could also be argued that Gillard, similarly, was forced into positioning a carbon price because of her party’s decision to introduce a carbon pricing mechanism. Or, indeed, that she was forced into introducing a carbon price because of her deal with the Greens Party and three independent Members of Parliament that permitted her to form a minority Government. However, not only does this then open the door to arguing that all manner of ‘things’ were forcibly positioned, it suggests that a ‘thing’, so conceptualised, can not only adopt a position, but that it can position others. Moreover, in taking a historical view of events in this way, the ‘forced’ positioning of the carbon price/tax could be traced back to when discussions first began about pricing carbon emissions in Australia in the 1980s!

In this second evaluation, every speech act was also analysed according to a positioning type in terms of whether there was evidence of deliberate self- positioning, deliberate other positioning, forced self-positioning or forced positioning of others. This method differed from Chapter 5 wherein only selected speech acts were used as evidence of positioning types. However, not only did this second approach not provide any additional insights, separating out the positioning types in this way overly complicated the analysis. This is because, by applying a separate ‘type’ domain, it effectively removes the context provided by the storyline/speech acts/actions, and the

245 positions (the positioning triangle domain) from the analysis. It was also apparent, as argued in Chapter 5, that every speech act can be seen to be an example of (deliberate) self-positioning, and the (deliberate) positioning of others. Whether or not a speech act is ‘forced’ is also debatable given it implies a lack of agency on the part of those being so positioned. These latest findings suggest that the Positioning Type Domain (James, 2014) is not without weaknesses when applied to conduct a positioning analysis of public relations texts.

Thus, a potential area for further research could examine the speech act/action vertex, particularly in terms of the restricted range of available speech acts. Although, as it stands, James’ (2014) Framework has five broad speech-act categories, and while agreeing that these same categories may be useful when devising a public relations campaign, they were less successful when attempting to capture the range of possible illocutionary acts. Searle (1969) suggested that in the English language there are more than 1000 possible illocutionary acts and here he includes “state, describe, assert, warn, remark, comment, command, order, request…” (p. 23) and so forth. Public relations is a globalised profession wherein building relationships with key publics must necessarily consider a diversity of cultures and beliefs. This aspect of practice has been accentuated by the growth of digital and social media, whereby there are potentially multiple global audiences that public relations communications may be targeting or reaching. Any application of speech act theory to public relations, therefore, must necessarily consider that different cultures will potentially have different speech act categories that may be applicable when applying James’ (2014) Framework.

7.1.4 Goal Domain The definition of a goal in the Goal Domain has been revised in the latest iteration of James’ (2014) Framework and this has resulted in a much clearer understanding of how to apply this domain. Nevertheless, there remains a

246 degree of ambiguity between the goal domain, and the position vertex of the positioning triangle domain, and how they both might be interpreted and applied when using James’ (2014) Framework to undertake a positioning analysis. Of relevance is that the definition of a position as being something that is “discursively constructed for the purposes of achieving an intended outcome” (James, 2014, p. 19) could be (mis)interpreted as being a goal. Equally, analysing a text to understand how entities sought to shape social constructions of reality (a goal) (James, 2014, p. 161), could also be understood as being entities seeking to discursively shape social constructions of reality in terms of a position, or indeed of storylines and narratives. Moreover, as was found in Chapter 5, it is possible (and even likely) that there were multiple goals at play in different contexts. This suggests that while having a Goal Domain may be a strength when applying James’ (2014) Framework to devise a public relations campaign, it is less successful when applied to analyse the social consequences of positioning.

7.2 Chapter summary

This chapter presented two findings uncovered by this study, with the findings organised around two research questions. Data collected from an evaluation of James’ (2014) Framework, as reported on in Chapter 6, as well as data collected from an evaluation of James’ (2010, 2011) Framework, revealed the strengths and weaknesses of applying these frameworks as an analytical heuristic. As is typical in qualitative research, samples of data from Chapters 5 and 6 were included in this report. By drawing on this data, the aim was to build the confidence of readers by accurately presenting the findings and situations studied.

The primary finding of this study is that James’ most recent (i.e. 2014) Framework offers a potential model for examining legitimacy in public relations. This finding emanated from an evaluation of James’ (2014)

247 Framework across four core domains. This chapter has presented evidence of both the strengths and weaknesses of these domains. The strengths identified relate to a high degree of “dynamic stability” (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 10) between narratives/storylines, speech acts/actions, and the position and goals an entity determines that they want to hold or assume. Another identified strength was the Storyline and Speech Act/Action vertex that permitted an examination of how the carbon price/tax was discursively communicated and enacted, and showed how these communications worked to construct particular versions of social reality.

The weaknesses that were identified were with the Position vertex within Positioning Triangle Domain, and the Strategic Pre-Positioning domain. These vertices/domains were found to be impractical if the concept of a position as a “point of intentional representation” (James, 2014, p. 19), and as argued by James (2014), was applied. As such, while James’ (2014) Framework has merit in terms of analysing strategy and assessing if there is coherence between each of the domains and vertices to align with the goals taken, the findings from this chapter suggest that in adapting positioning for public relations, ‘something’ has been lost in translation. Thus, the other major finding of this chapter is that further research is indicated to determine how, or if, James’ (2014) Framework requires further adaptation.

The following chapter (Chapter 8) answers the last of the research questions; namely given the findings discussed in this chapter, is there a need for a Positioning Theory framework for public relations at all? In this chapter I explore the core public relations and Positioning Theory concept of legitimacy to propose that James’ (2014) Framework potentially provides a model for analysing legitimacy in public relations texts.

248 8. Discussion

RQ1 Did applying James’ Framework provide answers into how a carbon price/tax was strategically positioned in the case study and if so how?

RQ2 What are the strengths and weaknesses of applying James’ Framework?

RQ3 Could James’ Framework be improved upon and if so how?

RQ4 Does public relations need a positioning ‘framework’ at all?

These four research questions were not completely answered in Chapter 5 that evaluated James’ initial ‘Provisional Conceptual Framework for Positioning in Public Relations’ (2010, 2011), in that one of the key findings that emerged was the possibility that legitimacy was at the centre of positioning episodes. Chapter 6 then evaluated James’ more recent (2014) Framework for Intentional Positioning in Public Relations. In this chapter (Chapter 6), the first of the research questions was largely answered. Positioning was undertaken to achieve strategic goals relating to positioning a carbon price or tax, and

249 underpinning the success or not of these aims was the legitimacy of the actors so positioned through storylines, narratives, and speech acts. In Chapter 7, the second and third questions were also answered.

What follows is a discussion of the key areas that my research indicates need to be considered in a future iteration of James’ Positioning Framework (2014) and, at the end of this discussion, I conclude that public relations would benefit from a positioning ‘framework’, thus answering RQ 4. The discussion takes into consideration the literature on legitimacy within public relations and Positioning Theory scholarship, and augments understanding into why legitimacy underpins public relations positioning. This chapter is organised as follows:

1. James’ (2014) Framework and legitimacy

2. Using Positioning Theory to examine legitimacy

3. Linking legitimacy and public Relations Positioning

4. Integrating critical PR scholarship into a future Framework

8.1 James’ (2014) Framework and legitimacy

One of the questions that informed the review of the public relations literature in this thesis project concerned the role of public relations in society or, as Berger (1999) questions, “Why do organizations practice public relations at all?” (p. 186). Berger (1999) provides the following “tentative answer” i.e.,

Public relations provides organizations with dynamic and comprehensive methods and processes of intentional representation in contested sites in which information is exchanged, meaning constructed and managed, and consensus, consent, and legitimation gained or lost with others. Representation refers to the purposeful expression of organizational voice(s) and appearance(s) to

250 influence others (p. 185).

Central to this definition is legitimation which Berger (1999) specifies is something that is “gained or lost” in contested sites with others (p. 185). James (2010, 2011, 2014) drew on Berger’s definition in her development of a Positioning Theory-based framework for public relations, and although she did not consider legitimacy in detail, her use of this definition and the work of Berger throughout her 2014 book, suggests it underpins the success or not of strategic positioning efforts in public relations.

Where James (2014) does discuss legitimacy in detail is in relation to issues that have the potential to damage the organisation’s reputation, and whereby the organisation’s legitimacy is challenged. For example, an organisation may find itself under attack for an issue wherein,

An activist group positions farmers who allow miners onto their land as ‘selling out’ and say they should lock out mining company representatives, the group is attributing to the farmers the duty to lock out the miners. The group can be seen to be attempting to de-legitimise both the action of allowing miners onto farms as well as the farmers who have allowed this to happen. Another example would be when health department spokespeople position parents who are seeking homeopathic immunisation as placing their children at risk. The parents are being accused of not fulfilling their duty to their children and society. The department is thus de-legitimizing the action of getting homeopathic immunisation as well as the parents who have taken such action (James, 2014, p. 48).

In these circumstances, the organisation may elect to issue a strongly worded statement, using assertive speech acts to “set the record straight” and thereby legitimating “the organisation’s actions” (James, 2014, p. 48). Applying James’ (2014) Framework in this doctoral research project showed how legitimacy was constructed through speech acts/actions, and this was found to be a strength of James’ (2014) Framework as it stands. However, if one has not engaged in detail with the extended discussion in James’ (2014) publication, it would not be

251 obvious that the speech act vertex of the Positioning Triangle Domain could be used to examine legitimacy.

My study also identified that a further strength of James’ (2014) Framework is the Storyline Vertex of the Positioning Triangle Domain. From a public relations perspective storytelling is a legitimation strategy that “may improve internal loyalty to the corporate brand that ultimately strengthens internal and external reputation” (Gill, 2015, p. 663). Yet currently, “the benefits of corporate storytelling as a calculated and deliberate stakeholder engagement strategy” are “under-theorised” in public relations scholarship (Gill, 2015, p. 664). James’ development of Positioning Theory, and in particular her work on storytelling in public relations contexts, is valuable in this regard as it permits an analysis of storytelling as a legitimation strategy, and it does so by also considering the context in which discourses are articulated. This is an area of public relations scholarship that is often overlooked (Leitch & Motion, 2010). James herself did not make this link but my research findings support these assertions linking public relations storytelling and legitimacy.

As discussed in previous chapters my research also identified weaknesses in James’ Frameworks (2010, 2011, 2014). It was in applying the 2010, 2011 iteration of the Framework that I first identified a problem. I had applied the Framework as suggested by James (2010, 2011) but in doing so my initial findings indicated that both Gillard’s and Abbott’s public relations positioning strategies were well conceived and should have resulted in delivering their desired positioning goals. However this was clearly not the case in Gillard’s situation with national political polling taken at the time suggesting that her key messaging in relation to the carbon price was failing. In looking for an explanation as to why Gillard’s positioning had failed, the issue of rights and duties that James (2011) had not addressed in her work, but had alluded to in her 2011 article, was identified as an area which should be considered in any further public relations positioning research came to mind. In discussing this at the time with James, in the context of her being my doctoral thesis supervisor, it became apparent that it may have been that Gillard did not have the right, nor had she constructed the right,

252 according to the local moral order, to position a carbon price as a desirable policy direction for Australia.

This then raised the question of why Gillard did not have the right to position the carbon price in this way. The public relations literature suggested that legitimacy, being a core concept that underpins public relations practice, may have been a factor. With this in mind, when I commenced the second study that evaluated the 2014 iteration of James’ Framework, I specifically looked for evidence to support this. Importantly, this is the point that flaws in the Framework became apparent.

This necessitated my turning to James’ (2014) book which examined the application of Positioning Theory to public relations in detail. Although this work provided a basis on which to undertake a deeper analysis of the case study, it was notable that James’ (2014) chapter on the Position Vertex of the Positioning Triangle Domain did not address the fundamental Positioning Theory concept of rights and duties being integral to the definition of a position. As indicated in the previous chapter, the weakness in the Position Vertex was the absence of an entity with the agency to undertake positioning acts. This meant I was unable to apply the James’ (2014) Framework to conduct a positioning analysis to identify issues relating to legitimacy, a concept that is at the crux of an entity’s ability to enact their rights and duties, i.e. their power.

Due to these limitations in applying James’s Framework and her theoretical discussion on the Position Vertex, I considered the more traditional Positioning Theory literature in order to make sense of the concept of a ‘position’. In addition, I drew heavily on the other chapters of James’ (2014) book, including the chapter on rights, duties and power in public relations positioning (which although it covered key areas of the topics, it did not inform in any overt sense the Framework itself or how to apply it). It was only by taking this approach that it was possible to unpack how legitimacy in conflicts or disputes was to some extent manifested. In this process I have identified that there is a major

253 ‘disconnect’ between James’ detailed exploration of Positioning Theory and public relations, and her efforts to conceptualise such concepts in a framework.

8.2 Using Positioning Theory to examine legitimacy in public relations positioning

In Positioning Theory, “issues of legitimacy and entitlement are intertwined with the allocation of rights and duties” (Andreouli, 2010, p. 6), and this is not present in public relations academic literature, apart from James’ work (2014) and the work that cites her. Positioning Theory also “conceptualises power dynamics and legitimacy in terms of entitlements for action and participation” (Andreouli, 2010, p. 6), another concept that is not addressed in the public relations literature. From a Positioning Theory perspective, to be perceived as legitimate requires entities to act in ways that align with the local moral order, that is, the “cluster of collectively located beliefs about what it is right and good to do and say” (Moghaddam & Harré, 2010, p. 10).

Through my detailed examination it became evident that issues of legitimacy needed to be considered at each vertex of the positioning triangle as it is defined by van Langenhove and Harre (1999). My research findings indicated that James’ positioning triangle, that sits as part of her Frameworks, was in part unworkable. This was due to the way that a position is defined by James as a point of intentional representation and the position vertex referring only to the “desired position” that is being pursued (James, 2014, p. 65). Any notion of an actor with the agency to perform certain kinds of acts is missing from James’ Frameworks. This is central to definitions of a position within Positioning Theory and it appears that in adapting the theory to public relations, James has ‘lost something in the translation’.

In Positioning Theory, a position is defined as a ‘cluster of rights and duties that limits the repertoire of possible social acts available to a person or person- like entity (such as a corporation) as so positioned” (Moghaddam et al., 2008, p.

254 294). Other positioning theorists have similarly defined the concept of a position, and common to each, is that an actor/entity is assigned or refused a cluster of rights and duties to perform certain kinds of acts.

From a moral perspective, a person or group may be positioned as “'trusted' or 'distrusted', 'with us' or 'against us', 'to be saved' or 'to be wiped out'" (Moghaddam & Harré, 2010, p.2). James (2014) described how in public relations, entities are positioned in various ways such as villains and heroes. This is achieved using the culturally recognised ‘villain and hero’ storyline. Being so positioned the entity may refute or contest the assigned position, leading them to question the legitimacy not only of the position itself, but of the entity/actor that assigned it (Harré, Moghaddam, Pilkerton Cairnie, Rothbart & Sabat, 2009). This is a key point in that it is through the application of Positioning Theory that the legitimacy of public relations positioning, and those entities conducting positioning acts, can be examined.

In addition, an entity may also call into question the ‘authenticity’ of the assigned position, which can be seen as inauthentic “in so far as it(s) taken to be fabricated or fraudulent or even imaginary” (Harré, et al, 2009, p. 11). Such inauthenticity relates to the rights and duties that exist in any assigned position. If the assigned position is considered to be inauthentic, for example a dishonest claim that a right or duty exists, this enables the entity to call into question the legitimacy of the positioning actor (Harré et al, 2009). In terms of this study, Gillard’s commitment made prior to the 2010 Federal election that she would not introduce a carbon tax (my italics), and her subsequent proposal post-election of a carbon price (my italics) was perceived by many Australians as being inauthentic. This then gave Abbott the right to question Gillard’s legitimacy and thus not only her right (power) to introduce such a policy but more significantly her right to hold the Prime Ministership. In identifying this in my research I have made another original contribution to the public relations positioning body of knowledge; I have shown that through the application of Positioning Theory the authenticity of positions can be examined, which relates to the way the intertwined concepts of legitimacy and

255 power are exercised in public relations.

Positioning Theory can thus be seen as offering insights in terms of the authenticity of public relations positions, which is tied to legitimacy, and “is often at the root of disputes” (Moghaddam & Harré, 2010, p. 11). In many situations, this involves an individual claiming “a right and an authority denies it. An authority assigns a duty, and an individual refuses it” (Moghaddam & Harré, 2010, p. 11). One of the parties may also deny “someone a right on the grounds that there is no such right, or refuses a duty on the grounds that there is no such duty” (Moghaddam & Harré, 2010, p. 11). Conflicts from a Positioning Theory perspective can be examined in two phases (Moghaddam & Harré, 2010) but this has not been addressed at all by James. My research indicates that this is an area from which future iterations of a Framework for public relations positioning could draw from to accommodate aspects of legitimacy.

Phase 1 positioning “involves the attribution of qualities of character, intellect, or temperament, sometimes supported by biographical reports on the past behaviour of the person in question” (Moghaddam & Harré, 2010, p. 9). Phase 2 positioning is when “the person being positioned is assigned or refused a cluster of rights and duties to perform certain kinds of acts, thus constraining what someone, so positioned, can rightly do and say (Moghaddam & Harré, 2010, pp. 9-10). I am suggesting that Gillard’s pre-election commitment to not introduce a carbon tax is an example of Phase 1 positioning. Further I suggest that Abbott’s positioning of Gillard as a ‘liar’ (because she then introduced a carbon price/tax post-election) is an example of Phase 2 positioning. It can be seen that in these two positioning phases Gillard was constrained in terms of her ability to say and do certain things and that this led to a loss of her legitimacy. It also shows how Gillard’s power i.e. her hierarchical, rhetorical and social power (Smudde & Courtright, 2010) was seriously compromised. The denial by Abbott of Gillard’s rights and duties (power) to introduce a carbon price was based on what were (arguably) “factual claims … made by the one

256 refusing the duty” (Moghaddam & Harré, 2010, p. 14). Gillard’s ‘lie’ further demonstrates the importance of the local moral order in terms of what is morally acceptable to say and do, and her failure to disprove the veracity of Abbott's positioning of her was influential in her failure to stabilise her own position and resolve their ‘legitimacy dispute’.

8.3 Linking legitimacy and public relations positioning

One often-cited definition of legitimacy is that proposed by Suchman (1995) who argues that legitimacy in public relations is the,

Generalized perception or assumption that the actions of an entity are desirable, proper, or appropriate within some socially constructed system of norms, values, beliefs, and definitions” (p. 57).

Gregory (2013), in a similar vein, argues that organisations,

Strive to obtain and maintain their legitimacy or “license to operate” by seeking the approval of society as whole for their operations (what they do) and activities (how they do what they do). At this level, organisations attempt to determine their purpose and place in the world and whether their endeavours will gain support (pp. 83-84).

This definition is not dissimilar to that proffered by Metzler (2001), who defines organisational legitimacy as “an organisation’s right to exist and conduct operations” (p. 322). The importance of legitimacy to public relations is further evident in statements such as that by Bartlett (2005), who describes legitimacy as the “foundation for organisational success” (p. 4). Coombs (2000) likewise argues that legitimacy is the centrepiece of neo-institutionalism and Metzler (2001) suggests that “establishing and maintaining organisational legitimacy is at the core of most, if not all, public relations activities” (p. 322). Pearson (2009) further argues that of all the questions surrounding public relations as a profession most are to do with legitimacy, and Vos (2011), argues that “cultural values, attitudes, and ideas are central to legitimation” (p.135). What can be

257 drawn from these various definitions then, is that underpinning legitimacy are societal norms and values; a concept that is not dissimilar to the Positioning Theory concept of local moral orders.

In line with a corporatised view of public relations, most scholarship on legitimacy has been conducted from a functionalist or systems theory approach. From this perspective, to be perceived as legitimate, requires that the organisation successfully garners the resources upon which its survival depends (Bartlett, 2005; Broom, Casey & Ritchie, 1997; Mirabeau & Maguire, 2014). However, it is not sufficient for an organisation to merely participate in appropriate activities (Bartlett, 2005; Broom, Casey & Ritchie, 1997). On the contrary, the actions and activities of the organisation must align with the prevailing “norms, rules, beliefs, or expectations of external constituents” (Broom, Casey & Ritchie, 1997, p. 91) and conform “to certain roles or expectations” (Coombs, 2000, p. 76). This requires that organisations meet “the social rules or expectations of stakeholders” so that stakeholders, in turn, perceive “that the organisation is meeting their expectations” (Coombs, 2000, p. 76). Although not theorised as such, clearly these concepts of aligning with societal norms and values are not significantly different from the inter-twined Positioning Theory concepts of rights and duties and the local moral order.

The concept of mutual legitimacy is a critical factor in two-way symmetrical communication (Grunig & Ehling, 1992; Ledingham, 2003) wherein effective organisations are those that use public relations to develop strategic relationships with key publics by: a) recognising the legitimacy of the public; b) listening to its concerns; and c) dealing with any unfavourable impacts it may be having on these publics (Grunig et al, 2002). Organisations must also continuously monitor their operating environment to avoid ‘legitimacy gaps’ that may threaten their survival (Sethi, 1977 p. 58). Legitimacy gaps occur when an organisation’s legitimacy is called into question because their practices,

258 products or services have failed to meet the expectations of publics (Heath, 1993; Sethi, 1977; Quesinberry, 2005). As a result, the organisation may be perceived as failing to abide by societal norms and values (Metzler, 2001), thus requiring the use of public relations strategies and tactics to shape public opinion and public policy to legitimize their activities (Olasky, 1987). These strategies may incorporate education, symbolically changing how the organisation is described to align with public perceptions, or, lastly, should either of these measures prove ineffective, the organisation may elect to “bring about changes” to their performance (Sethi, 1977, p. 58). As can be seen, legitimation strategies are a complex blend of organisational behaviours that, in the event organisational publics fail to see that the organisation has their best interests as an uppermost consideration, could result in a “crisis of legitimacy” (Quesinberry Stokes, 2013, p. 519) and whereby the organisation will lose the right (in both a positioning theory and public relations sense) to exist.

Ultimately an organisation’s legitimacy (and ergo survival) relies on, and results from, public relations practitioners being aware of societal expectations and understanding “appropriate strategies to achieve acceptance” (Bartlett, 2005, p.2) However, legitimacy also lies at the epicentre of a moral tension (Merkelsen, 2011) between balancing the interests of organisations with those of publics or audiences (Pearson, 1989). This “double edged sword” (Merkelsen, 2011, p. 126) means that public relations practitioners are dually confronted on the one hand “with legitimate claims of the clients” (Merkelsen, 2011, p. 126), while, on the other, they are confronted with the competing claims of publics (Merkelsen, 2011). Meanwhile, public relations itself is “subject to challenges of legitimacy in its relations with clients as well as with the public” (Merkelsen, 2011, p. 126). This is where Positioning Theory and James (2014) Framework potentially offers a model for balancing these competing interests, through an understanding of local moral orders and the associated concept of rights, duties, and obligations. As James (2014) argues, an understanding of the local moral orders can assist with advising clients on their rights, duties and

259 obligations as well as “possible ways forward and associated risks and benefits” (James, 2014, p. 45) and these are considerations that are critical to maintaining legitimacy.

In public relations contexts, and from a Positioning Theory perspective, many “situations can come about through debates regarding rights and duties” (James, 2014, p. 47). Metzler (2001), developed a framework for situations where organisational legitimacy is at risk as the result of a dispute. Like James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) Framework, Metzler’s (2001) Framework is offered as a method “for examining the discourse of organisations and publics and for examining and designing public relations activities’ (p. 321). Consisting of four core questions, the first question concerns the “root issue” of the dispute which Metzler (2001) argues are all, in varying degrees, based on “social norms and values” (p. 325). One example of a root issue is the social expectation that organisations operate within the law and, wherein, organisations that do so are conferred legitimacy (Metzler, 2001). Metzler (2001) argues that disputes can then arise when an organisation breaks the law, and key publics question their legitimacy (Metzler, 2001). From a public relations positioning perspective, public relations practitioners manage public perceptions of legitimacy by constructing “zones of meaning and tying what meanings they would like audiences to construct to that which they already know” (James, 2014, p. 99). This relates to the desired position that the organisation wishes to construct, and whereby once a “shared meaning has begun to be co-constructed” it is then possible for the organisation “to build on that meaning, introducing new incremental information to help deepen understanding of the position being taken or assigned” (James, 2014, p. 99).

Also from a Positioning Theory perspective, positions and roles are bound by “knowledge of what is right and proper” to do and say within a community, a family, an organisation, and so forth (Moghaddam, Harré & Lee, 2008, p. 11). However, “positions are not supported by regulations, edicts or laws” (Moghaddam, Harré & Lee, 2008, p. 11). As such, when an entity breaks the law, this impacts on their legitimacy in terms of their role and is not reflective of

260 their position as it is traditionally understood in Positioning Theory. For example, an organisation that promotes itself as having ‘green’ credentials, and then is found to have broken environmental laws, will likely suffer a loss of legitimacy because they have not lived up to the role that the organisation has established for itself. Metzler (2001) also discusses the performance of organisational roles and rules, and argues that just as with societal laws, an organisation’s publics expect that the organisation will live up to the roles and rules that the organisation has established for itself, for example as represented in a mission statement (Metzler, 2001). Importantly, roles and rules cannot be created in isolation, but instead must be “framed within the larger social value system to be legitimate” (Metzler, 2001, p. 322). Failure to abide by such societal norms and values may result in a role performance legitimacy dispute “based on the discrepancy between an organisation’s performance and social expectations of it” (Metzler, 2001, p. 322). Clearly there are confluences between Positioning Theory and the concept of rights and duties within roles, with Metzler’s (2001) conceptualisation of roles and social norms in the construction of legitimacy.

The second question Metzler (2001) poses concerns how the communicative context affects the dispute and includes “the publics involved in the dispute, any strategic interests they may have, and the communication forums used” (Metzler, 2001, p. 323). Metzler (2001) argues that identifying who is questioning the organisation’s legitimacy, helps to assess what their values may be, and identifying relationships and strategic interests can assist with assessing “the discourse toward certain issues and away from others (Metzler, 2001, p. 323). For example, “a public might be trying to maintain or enhance its own legitimacy, might have other agendas that it is trying to further through the dispute, or might need the approval of one public to enhance its efforts with another” (Metzler, 2001, pp. 323-324). The forum in which legitimacy disputes are aired will also affect the outcome. While some forums are dictated by the nature of the dispute, others may be the result of the choices made by the various parties (Metzler, 2001). Most parties to a dispute will also attempt to

261 operate in forums that either benefit their point of view, or that they can control (Metzler, 2001). When considered together, the various elements of the communicative context influence “not only how a dispute is resolved, but also the legitimacy and acceptance of that resolution” (Metzler, 2001, p. 324). From a Positioning Theory perspective, the communicative context can be conceptualised as the storyline and what Positioning Theory and, particularly James’ (2014) Framework adds to this understanding, is that public relations practitioners can apply the Framework to “interpret the local moral order and use this interpretation to analyse the rights and duties associated with various positioning options that could be open to an organisation” (James, 2014, p. 52). Such knowledge would be advantageous to organisations when caught up in disputes that threaten their legitimacy, including situations that occur out of ‘real time’ such as in the media and on social media platforms.

In public relations positioning contexts, often an entity positioned as legitimate/illegitimate by other entities, for example Abbott’s positioning of Gillard as illegitimate in her role as Prime Minister, will not be physically present in the episode in which the positioning takes place (James, 2014). This is because “much of the communication effort used in public relations positioning acts is written text-based and this has limitations” (James, 2014, p. 98). Chiefly this relates to the fact that in public relations, “especially with written or recorded texts, communication takes place through time and space and is not immediate, as it would be in a conversation or in a live debate” (James, 2014, p. 98). Thus, debates or ‘conversations’ carried out in the media and on social media platforms, can quickly escalate to become issues that threaten the legitimacy of an organisation or an entity. And while, on one hand, the use of engagement media “a combination of new, social and owned media” (James, 2014, p. 99), offers organisations an unprecedented opportunity to “engage directly with stakeholders to deliver content and build relationships” (James, 2014, p. 99), the increasing use of these platforms by stakeholders also places organisational legitimacy at increasing risk. Applying James’ (2014) Framework could potentially assist practitioners by a) providing a framework to

262 develop strategic positioning strategies to ‘manage’ perceptions of legitimacy and b), it could also provide a framework to understand the motivations of stakeholders/publics and their rights and duties to self-position and position others within the moral orders operating within these mediums.

This then leads to Metzler’s (2001) third question; that is ‘How are communication strategies used in organisational legitimacy disputes?’ - a question Metzler (2001) argues is “pivotal to understanding how a dispute progresses” (p. 324) and as argued it is a concept that is equally important in terms of positioning. Metzler’s (2001) Framework conceptualises strategy as a rhetorical concept whereby rhetorical strategies are examined in terms of “speaker choice, appeals to reason, and identification” (p. 324). Examining speaker choice reveals the way in which “a party is approaching the dispute and what constitutes an appropriate speaker in a given situation” (Metzel, 2001, p. 324). Thus, “choice of speaker in and of itself express what an organisation or public values” (Metzler, 2001, p. 324). At the crux of identification, then, is what the performance of a role says about the organisation to its publics (Metzel, 2001). From a Positioning Theory perspective, this relates to the storyline that “influences the rights of that actor to position others” and whereby “an actor who is positioned as authoritative will have greater positioning rights than one who is not (Slocum-Bradley, 2010a, p. 107). In public relations contexts, similarly, the “issue of who delivers a storyline is also integral to how the overall storyline functions in the sphere where meaning is co-constructed by the organization and intended and unintended audiences” (James, 2014, p. 67). Thus, the choice of spokesperson is crucial in terms of the successful delivery of key messages (James, 2011, 2014), and to the perceived legitimacy of the organisation and its spokespersons.

Lastly, and the question that ties the previous questions posed by Metzler (2001) together is: ‘How are legitimacy disputes resolved?’ Metzler (2001) advocates a comprehensive approach requiring examining “the interaction of

263 the aspect of legitimacy in dispute, the publics involved and overall communicative context of the dispute, as well as the manner in which communication strategies are used to understand why the efforts of an organisation did or did not resolve a legitimacy dispute and with which publics” (p. 331). Positioning Theory, and James’ (2014) application of the theory for public relations, likewise offers a comprehensive way of examining disputes and their resolution through “the understood framework of rights, duties and obligations in any interaction” (p. 281). This, then, is not dissimilar to Metzler’s (2001) concept of social norms and values and it is relatively straight-forward to see that Metzler’s (2001) Framework could indeed be drawn upon in a future iteration of James’ (2014) Framework. However, Neilsen and Rao (1987) argue that functionalist concepts of legitimacy are oversimplified, and that legitimacy is much more than “something to be managed in a functional sense” (p. 525). This, then, is where critical public relations scholarship offers important insights into conceptualising legitimacy.

8.4 Integrating critical PR scholarship into a future framework

From a discursive/critical perspective, legitimacy is a core concept in political public relations positioning. Political identities are constructed through the deployment of political discourse by discourse technologists (Motion & Leitch, 1996) who “use data from opinion polls, focus groups and demographic sciences to articulate campaign messages with voter discourses and concerns” (Roper, 2005, p. 142). Such processes of articulation work to unite disparate “ideals or concepts to form a new, unified discourse” which, it is hoped, will not only “be accepted as common sense” but moreover are essential “if identification between candidates and voters is to be achieved” (Roper, 2005, p. 142). My research showed that these processes of discourse articulation were implemented by both Gillard and Abbott as described by Roper. Importantly, my research findings strongly suggested that there were significant differences in the effectiveness of these articulations that can be mapped to the rights and duties to construct such articulations through discourse.

264 My findings support the case for taking a critical approach to conceptualising legitimacy in public relations in that this focuses on “power relationships and the ongoing work by public relations practitioners to legitimate truth claims within discourse contexts” (Leitch & Motion, 2010, p. 103). From this perspective, “subject positions that are familiar and acceptable to members of a public may be lifted from one discourse and articulated onto another as a way of adding legitimacy to new ideas or changing what existing ideas mean” (Leitch & Motion, 2010, p. 105). Leitch and Motion (2010) provide the example of the subject position of “taxpayer” that, when articulated with a health discourse, may result in members of the public viewing health from an economic perspective (p. 105). In my doctoral thesis, a similar example can be seen in the articulation between climate change discourses and the subject positions of taxpayers, that eventuated in many Australian voters viewing climate change from an economic perspective. In this way, “the articulation and disarticulation of both ideas and identities may then be seen as part of the ‘training’ of publics by public relations practitioners” and whereby “the goal of training is always to establish new ways of thinking and acting as legitimate” (Leitch & Motion, 2010, p. 105). Ultimately, the result of a discourse achieving legitimacy is that it also achieves a ‘truth’ status (Leitch & Motion, 2010). My research has mapped, through the application of Positioning Theory, how the climate change discourse in Australia changed in 2010. This was evident in that viewing climate change from an economic perspective achieved ‘truth’ status, wherein the very idea of action on climate change became an economic risk that took precedence over any concern for the environment.

My finding also supports the argument that “some subject positions within a discourse context may offer strategic options to express personal and social identities, or to adopt a moral stance, while others may confer power and legitimacy (Leitch & Motion, 2010, p. 106). Leitch and Motion’s (2010) discussion of subject positions extends to a discussion of Positioning Theory and the “central importance” of this theory “to public relations work” (p. 106).

265 They also note that some subject positions may be “forced or involuntary” (Leitch & Motion, 2010, p. 106) and this is clearly the same proposition that led James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) to develop a Positioning Type Domain within her Frameworks. This relates to concepts of power in positioning, however, my research does not support James’ claim that a Positioning Type Domain within her Frameworks was required. Instead, my research points to power issues residing throughout the positioning process and particularly in the realm of rights and duties. This relates to how power underpins the rights and duties to use discourse to position oneself and others. As Demetrious (2013) states “public relations manufactures discourse to control and manipulate the meaning making process” and she highlights to need to pay greater attention to the “analysis of the social apparatus of public relations and its effects” (p. 31). The findings in my thesis strongly suggest that applying Positioning Theory is an effective way to do this and further, I suggest that a framework for public relations positioning that incorporated the core concept of legitimacy would be a valuable tool with which to undertake such analysis.

8.5 Chapter summary

This chapter discussed the relevance of James’ (2014) Framework for Intentional Positioning in Public Relations, as a way of examining the core public relations concepts of legitimacy and power. It also drew together the areas of my original contributions that have emerged from this doctoral research project. In summary:

• I was unable to apply the James’ (2014) Framework to conduct a positioning analysis to identify issues relating to legitimacy, a concept that is at the crux of an entity’s ability to enact their rights and duties, i.e. their power.

• There is a major ‘disconnect’ between James’ (2014) detailed exploration of Positioning Theory and public relations, and her efforts to

266 conceptualise such concepts in a framework.

• James’ development of Positioning Theory, and in particular her work on storytelling in public relations contexts, is valuable as it permits an analysis of storytelling as a legitimation strategy. James herself did not make this link but my research findings support these assertions linking public relations storytelling and legitimacy.

• I have shown that through the application of Positioning Theory the authenticity of positions can be examined, which relates to the way the intertwined concepts of legitimacy and power are exercised in public relations. My research indicates that this is an area from which future iterations of a Framework for public relations positioning could draw from to accommodate aspects of legitimacy and power.

• I identified there are confluences between Positioning Theory’s conceptualisation of rights and duties within roles and Metzler’s (2001) conceptualisation of roles and social norms in the construction of legitimacy. I suggested that further work be undertaken to investigate how, by drawing on aspects of both James’ (2014) and Metzler’s (2001) Frameworks, the way in which rights and duties within positions are constructed and how the local moral orders within which positioning is taking place constrain or leverage possibilities for action.

• My research strongly suggested that significant differences in the effectiveness of discourse articulations could be mapped to the rights and duties of entities to construct such articulations through the enactment of speech acts/actions and storylines.

• I identified how the climate change discourse in Australia changed in 2010 and how viewing climate change from an economic perspective achieved ‘truth’ status, wherein the very idea of action on climate change became an economic risk that took precedence over any concern for the environment.

267 • I concluded that a framework for public relations positioning that incorporated the core concept of legitimacy would be a valuable tool with which to undertake a public relations positioning analysis.

The concluding chapter will summarise the overall research project and the conclusions drawn from my research. It will also include my final reflections on the study.

268 9. Conclusion

The aim of this doctoral research project was to evaluate James’ Provisional Conceptual Framework for Intentional Positioning in Public Relations (2010, 2011), and the Framework for Intentional Positioning in Public Relations (James, 2014), as a model for examining and explaining public relations positioning, and to extend theory in the discipline. This study consisted of a single case study using James’ Framework(s) to focus on how former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, and former Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott, positioned a carbon price or tax in political speeches. It was anticipated that a deeper understanding of this phenomena would afford new insights into how positioning theory (Davies & Harré, 1999; Harré & van Langenhove, 1999) is used in and adapted to public relations scholarship, and that this could further inform the development of public relations research, practice and education. In this chapter I will summarise the overall research project and the conclusions drawn from my research. I will also include my final reflections on the study.

9.1 Summary of the project

As it stands in early 2017, Australia has the dubious distinction of being the first developed nation to repeal its carbon pricing legislation that prices carbon emissions. At the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris, Australia was rated third last out of the 58 countries assessed in the latest Climate Change Performance Index (Australian Conservation Foundation, 2015). And, while most Australians now consider global warming to be a “serious and pressing problem”, 35% continue to say that the Government “should not make significant commitments on emissions reductions ahead of other countries” (Oliver, 2015). At the epicentre of this debate are “the coal industry and its allies” that, for almost thirty years, “have had the upper hand on just about all

269 the key elements of Australian government climate policy (Pearse et al., 2013, p. 134). Little wonder then, as Christoff (2010) argues, that Australia’s climate change policies have spectacularly failed to hit the mark in terms of reducing carbon emissions and, on the contrary, have largely ensured that Australia does “not contribute fairly to the global effort to combat climate change” (p. 214). Regrettably there is little indication that this stance is likely to change in the foreseeable future.

As part of its 2030 target of reducing carbon emissions t0 26-28 per cent below 2005 levels, the government also committed to holding a review in 2017 (Department of the Environment and Energy, 2017, n.p.). In December 2016, and with the release of the climate review's terms of reference, Federal Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg suggested that the government was considering an emissions intensity scheme (a widely-supported form of carbon pricing). Australian political journalist, Lenore Taylor, writing in The Guardian states that “it took Prime Minister Turnbull just 36 hours to can it … he ruled it out before the review had even considered it” (Taylor, 2017, n.p.). Hudson (2017) argues Turnbull’s back tracking was “in part due to pressure from conservatives within the Coalition” (n.p). Taylor (2017) supports this view, stating, “those same climate sceptics in the Coalition still don’t want to do anything about climate change, and even though Abbott is no longer prime minister they still seem to be calling the shots” (n.p).

Interest groups are also concerned that there is nothing in the review’s terms of reference “about an expanded and lengthened renewable energy target (RET)” (Hudson, 2017, n.p.). Instead, there is only a suggestion about a “potential long term emissions reduction goal” (Department of the Environment and Energy, 2017). Given that the outcome of the review will shape Australia’s responses to climate change for the foreseeable future, and that it will also potentially influence the political actions of other

270 nations, research into political public relations strategies about climate change has never been more crucial, or more pressing.

9.1.1 The literature review The literature presented evidence that showed that public relations strategy was inextricably linked to power, even if this connection was not always observable or theorised as such. Positioning Theory was shown to provide a way to examine how power is strategically deployed in public relations contexts. James’ work applying Positioning Theory to public relations showed that although there was some overlap between ideas of framing and positioning, the intertwined Positioning Theory concepts of rights and duties and local moral orders distinguishes framing theory from Positioning Theory in public relations scholarship. The evidence presented suggested that despite efforts to conceptualise public relations within various frameworks, including James’, in large part Hallahan’s (1999) assertion that there are no approaches that represent “a comprehensive foundation for fully understanding the processes or consequences of public relations” (p. 205) remains valid.

9.1.2 Methodology The methodology provided a detailed description of my doctoral research project. I have taken a social constructionist research approach, encompassing methods of textual and positioning analysis to examine how strategic positioning was undertaken to construct meaning about a carbon price or tax. The research sample consisted of 23 speech transcripts that were downloaded from the websites of former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, and former Federal Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott. The data collection methods consisted of an examination of these texts. The themes and concepts that emerged from the data were reviewed against the relevant literature. Credibility, and issues of trust, were addressed through strategies of reflexivity and peer reviews and

271 debriefings. These strategies were further supported by applying James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) Positioning Framework which permits an analysis of public relations texts using four core domains. This, in effect, provides a triangulation of methods, particularly in terms of the concept of the positioning triangle domain. In detailing the research design and data analytical processes, I described how the project was undertaken and how the resulting conclusions were drawn.

9.1.3 The findings of study 1 (i.e. Chapter 5) Chapter 5 reported on an evaluation of the first iteration of James’ (2010, 2011) Provisional Conceptual Framework for Intentional Positioning in Public Relations. The Framework was applied to analyse how a carbon price or tax was strategically positioned in twenty-three speech transcripts. It showed that applying the Framework was useful for analysing strategic positioning in public relations, and it offers a potential framework for examining how political communication about carbon mitigation polices are constructed in public relations texts. Gillard’s speech transcripts indicated her position was that a carbon price was good for Australia, and she had an overall goal of positively positioning a carbon price as an economic benefit. Abbott’s transcripts indicated a countervailing position of a carbon tax as being bad for Australia, and the overall goal was to position the tax as an economic risk. The goals of the Opposition Leader, Abbott, could thus be seen to position the carbon tax in a negative light, to discredit the very idea of a price or tax on carbon and the benefits for Australia of addressing climate change issues. Abbott can be seen to be drawing on the discourse of people’s general aversion to additional taxes and the discourse of truth (in that dishonesty is bad) to convey the desired positioning goal. The goal of the Prime Minister, Gillard, could be seen to position the carbon price as something positive for Australia that would set the country on the course to address climate change issues. She drew on discourses of leadership through providing

272 vision for the country, and also a clean energy discourse to convey her government’s desired future.

However, it also became clear as this research project progressed that there were other factors at play in the speech transcripts of Gillard and Abbott, and this then raised the possibility that there were aspects of James’ (2010, 2011) Framework that weren’t quite capturing the nuances of Positioning Theory. James (2010, 2011) argues that when the poles of the positioning triangle (i.e. position, speech act/action and storylines) are not aligned the outcome, potentially, is a loss of believability of key messaging. My research indicated that both Gillard and Abbott had maintained their respective positions, and had supported these with storylines and speech acts that, conceptually at least, seemed to fit within James’ (2010, 2011) explanation of dynamic stability, that reflects the explanation of van Langenhove and Harré (1999). This finding thus raised questions in terms of why Gillard’s positioning of the carbon price had ultimately failed. Recognising that in the interim there had been a new iteration of James’ (2010, 2011) Framework, I then evaluated James’ (2014) Framework against the same speech transcripts.

9.1.4 The findings of study 2 (i.e. Chapter 6) An evaluation of the second iteration of James’ (2014) Provisional Conceptual Framework for Intentional Positioning in Public Relations showed that positioning was undertaken to achieve strategic goals relating to a carbon price or tax. Underpinning the success or not of these aims, was the legitimacy of the actors so positioned through storylines, narratives and speech acts. Gillard and Abbott enacted a range of discursive positions that called on broader socio-cultural discourses in terms of fairness, employment, trust, taxation, clean energy, leadership, and of having a vision for Australia’s future. These positions were enacted in various places with the intention of having targeted publics construct particular meanings about the carbon price/tax, and suggested that in terms of dynamic stability, the positions of Gillard and Abbott were sound

273 and well-conceived. However, as with the evaluation of the first iteration of James’ (2010, 2011) Framework, this then raised further questions in terms of why Gillard’s positioning strategy had largely failed from a public relations Positioning Theory perspective. The key issue was with the position vertex within the positioning triangle domain of the framework that, as it stands, is not fully capturing the nuances of positioning in terms of the attribution or withholding of rights and duties. This is critical to understanding how legitimacy is attributed or withheld in public relations contexts.

9.1.5 The strengths and weaknesses of the framework (i.e. Chapter 7) The findings from an evaluation of the two iterations of James’ Framework indicated there were both strengths and weaknesses of applying these frameworks as an analytical heuristic. These findings emanated from an evaluation of James’ (2014) Framework across four core domains. The strengths identified related to a high degree of “dynamic stability” (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 10) between narratives/storylines, speech acts/actions, and the position and goals an entity determines that they want to hold or assume. Another identified strength was the Storyline and Speech Act/Action vertex that permitted an examination of how the carbon price/tax was discursively communicated and enacted, and showed how these communications worked to construct particular versions of social reality.

The weaknesses that were identified were with the Position vertex within the Positioning Triangle Domain, and the Strategic Pre-Positioning domain. These vertices/domains were found to be impractical if the concept of a position as a “point of intentional representation” (James, 2014, p. 19), and as argued by James (2014), was applied. As such, while James’ (2014) Framework has merit in terms of analysing strategy and assessing if there is coherence between each of the domains and vertices to align with the goals taken, the findings from this chapter suggest that in adapting positioning for public relations, ‘something’ has been lost in

274 translation. Thus, the other major finding is that further research is indicated to determine how, or if, James’ (2014) Framework requires further iteration and/development.

9.2 Thesis conclusion: The case for incorporating power and legitimacy in a positioning framework for public relations

In public relations positioning, an entity’s rights equate with its power to position, or to assign positions to others. If one doesn’t have the right, or doesn’t construct the right to position, it is clear that one lacks positioning power. James (2014) discussed positioning power and used Smudde and Courtright’s (2010) three dimensions of power to structure this discussion. I built from this using Smudde and Courtright’s (2010) work in my literature review. I have therefore mapped this thesis conclusion to Smudde and Courtright’s (2010) three dimensions of power, i.e. hierarchical, rhetorical and social power in public relations. It is evident that each of these dimensions plays a part in constructing an entity’s right to position, and to the social construction of perceptions of legitimacy according to the local moral orders in operation.

In this doctoral thesis case study it can be seen that as Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition, Gillard and Abbott, held the highest roles in Australia in terms of the political hierarchy. These roles gave both political leaders the right (i.e. the power) to take and assign positions. From a Positioning Theory perspective, these roles also brought to the fore the duties associated with their hierarchical power. The duties brought forward are those that are ‘owed’ to those who have bestowed hierarchical power to these two roles. In this case, it included the leaders’ own political parties, the stakeholders that fund or otherwise support the parties (e.g. individual businesses, unions and industry and other lobbyists), together with the voting public of Australia. These entities specifically influenced

275 and shaped the construction of the macro-level local moral order in which the carbon price/tax debate occurred.

My research showed (as did the subsequent federal election result) that the Leader of the Opposition’s (Abbott) positioning was more successful than the Prime Minister's (Gillard). Abbott effectively delegitimised Gillard in her role as Prime Minister by attacking her hierarchical power, which then negated her right to take a position on a carbon price. On examination of the specific local moral orders in which both were operating, Abbott, more effectively exercised his rights that came with his high political office. He better fulfilled his duties from a hierarchical power perspective to those who facilitated his rise to that role.

These factors suggest that the dimension of hierarchical power be included in any future iteration of James’ Framework because it will assist in designing how such power could be used (or abused) in strategy design, as well as in guiding the analysis of how hierarchical power is wielded or withheld in public relations contexts. Investigating how, within the local moral orders that are operating, hierarchical power can contribute or detract from an entity’s legitimacy will contribute to the successful design of positioning strategies. At this time there is little practical guidance on how legitimacy can be constructed and integrated into public relations strategy.

In addition to hierarchical power, rhetorical power played a key part in legitimising Abbott’s anti-carbon tax position, and concurrently positioned himself and his party as a better alternative for Australia. He stated, “our task as members of the Liberal and National parties is to give Australia the better government that a great people deserve” (Abbott, 2011, c). His rhetoric resonated and aligned with his supporters that included Australia’s largest industry lobby, the coal and minerals industry, and the most powerful sections of Australia’s media. In Positioning Theory, a

276 position is defined as a cluster of rights and duties from which possibilities for action originate. In fulfilling the duty he had to his supporters, Abbott then had the right to make an array of assertions relating to the tax, the Prime Minister, and Australia in a globalised context. Abbott’s rhetorical strategy aligned with the local moral order within which he and his supporters operated. He was astute in the use of consistent rhetorical narratives that he then customised for the particular audiences he was addressing. He firstly drew on the rhetoric that positioned him as ‘a man of the people’, a father, a husband and someone in touch with ‘everyday values’ who was across the concerns of the strata of Australian society. Secondly he drew on business rhetoric to position himself and his political party as being the better economic managers.

In contrast, Gillard’s speeches showed a tendency to use highly structured political rhetoric that detailed the workings of a carbon price and how this would primarily impact stakeholders and the general public. She articulated a long-term vision for a ‘clean energy future’ for Australia using abstract rhetoric. As Gillard’s positioning efforts progressed, inconsistencies in the rhetorical choices made by her, or possibly her public relations advisors, did not draw effectively on rhetorical power to persuade, engage and influence. Significantly she was unable to use the rhetoric of the ‘everyday woman’. This was because she was seen as ‘less than typical’ in that for a woman around 50 years of age, she had never married, and was childless. From a rhetorical power perspective this closed off many narratives that were open to Abbott, narratives that legitimised his position as a future leader who was more in touch with the needs and concerns of ‘everyday’ Australians. Although outside of the scope of this thesis project, gender was an issue in the positioning of the leaders and future research is needed to determine to what degree this contributed to the leaders’ rhetorical power. My research has contributed to understanding how, within public relations, rhetorical power is specifically exercised, an area in which

277 research is not plentiful (Smudde & Courtright, 2010). It reinforces my finding that an object or ‘thing’ cannot position itself, as the ability to exercise rhetorical power is directly related to human agency. Wielding rhetorical power in a public relations sense centres on choice (Smudde & Courtright, 2010). It can be seen that the choices made by those practitioners advising on, or writing, the actual speeches in my research sample have contributed to the success or otherwise of the positioning strategies. Rhetorical power both informs the design of public relations strategies and is a factor in identifying concepts that contribute to the legitimacy that underpins positioning. This suggests that the dimension of rhetorical power must be included in any future iteration of James’ Framework.

The final dimension considered in determining an entity's positioning power, is that of social power. My research confirms the assertion of Smudde and Courtright (2010) that the social dimension of power binds together the hierarchical and rhetorical dimensions. The social dimension of power “relies on people conferring on other people certain ‘powerful attributes’” (Smudde & Courtright, 2010, p. 180). My findings showed that Abbott successfully positioned Gillard by conferring on her the attributes of being a liar and being untrustworthy. This contributed to a legitimacy- deficit for Gillard that was a significant factor in her inability to successfully prosecute the case for pricing carbon. Abbott’s positioning strategy held throughout the case study period and was key to undermining Gillard’s legitimacy as a Prime Minister with the rights or duty to introduce a carbon price. Indeed it undermined her very right to the Prime Ministership itself, i.e. by denying her the right to hierarchical power. In doing so, Abbott elevated his own social power, as by positioning Gillard this way, it was implicit that he was positioning himself as honest and trustworthy. This subsequently continued to build his hierarchical power throughout the case study period, i.e. the right to a

278 future Prime Ministership, and with that his right to wield rhetorical power.

My research confirms that, as stated by Smudde and Courtright (2010), all three dimensions of power occur simultaneously. It further confirms James’ (2014) assertion that the mix of what types of power are being exercised, and to what degree this is occurring, may differ depending on a number of factors that include the different stages of the situation and the emphasis on which dimension of power is taking precedence (James, 2014). Abbott was more successful in wielding each of the three dimensions of power in his positioning strategies, with evidence throughout the speeches indicating times when he privileged social power, for example, over hierarchical power. Gillard on the other hand largely relied on wielding hierarchical power and did not fully utilise the other dimensions, especially social power. Although the narratives of the ‘everyday woman’ were not available to Gillard, there was little evidence that she tried to enact social power using other narratives. This omission undermined the legitimacy of her argument/key messages for supporting a carbon price, and may have been a contributing factor to her losing the Prime Ministership of Australia.

This result was not just unfortunate for Julia Gillard, but has had huge implications for Australia in terms of lack of action on climate change and the ‘dumbing down’ of public debate on the issue. Australia’s carbon emissions are increasing and there is little in the way of policy direction to reverse this trend. The world watched in 2012 as Australia became the first country to remove its carbon pricing legislation. This has since worked to legitimise other countries not taking climate change action and has negatively impacted the global effort to address anthropogenic global warming. This state of affairs emphasises the role that public relations plays in constructing climate change discourses and demonstrates how the wielding of positioning power can shape the very future of the planet.

279

My thesis has shown that power and legitimacy, although being the bedrock on which public relations positioning is built, remains under- researched. James’ Framework (2014) does not overtly address these fundamentals and so its usefulness and application to the field is currently limited. I conclude that a future iteration of James’ Framework needs to include a way of addressing each of the dimensions of power. This inclusion will expand the field’s understanding of how power needs to be accommodated in the design of positioning strategies and how this links to legitimacy in public relations. This is not as straightforward as simply a separate framework component for each dimension, but involves developing a way in which each is both individually and collectively considered. This would assist in accounting for each of the dimensions of power and the way they could be used to leverage legitimacy in positioning efforts. For example, an organisation could research whether drawing primarily on its hierarchical power to legitimise a position rather than its social power would be more effective.

This approach of both individually and collectively considering each dimension would also assist in identifying constraints on such leveraging. For example, an organisation may identify that it has a high level of social power, but in its assessment may find that key resources are lacking in their capacity to enact rhetorical power (e.g. no PR department; no access to media; no social media following). This would subsequently negatively impact on their ability to activate their social power. It is evident that applying a positioning framework that included the power dimensions would better enable an organisation to identify constraints and allocate resources towards strategic positioning efforts.

Developing an iteration of James’ Framework in which each power dimension is both individually and collectively considered would also provide a way to more comprehensively undertake a public relations

280 positioning analysis, where issues of power and legitimacy are paramount. A Framework iteration of this nature would fill the current vacuum that exists not only in public relations scholarship but more generally in Positioning Theory, which to date has not comprehensively engaged with concepts of either power or legitimacy. Given the clear relationship between power and legitimacy, such an iteration would further theoretical conceptualisations of these concepts in public relations, and inform further development and application of Positioning Theory more widely.

9.3 Final observations and reflections

In completing this research project I have contributed to the body of knowledge in the public relations field in a way that will help advance future research amongst the global community of scholars. I have made original contributions to both the public relations and Positioning Theory fields through this doctoral research project. In terms of the public relations field I have explained, through the application of a positioning theoretical framework and Positioning Theory, how the intertwined concepts of power and legitimacy underpin public relations positioning. I provided an evaluation of James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) Frameworks, which although had been variously tested and applied since 2010, had not been evaluated using an in-depth case study approach. My work provides a point of reference from which other public relations researchers can further develop conceptualisations and applications of public relations positioning.

The outcomes of this doctoral research project provided insights into how public relations positioning is undertaken to achieve strategic outcomes and specific organisational goals. The implications of this are that a reconsideration of the prominence of these concepts in current public relations curricula, research foci, and practice design could be advantageous to the field.

281 From the perspective of Positioning Theory, I have contributed to a growing body of theoretical work that is occurring in a multidisciplinary context. By applying critical scholarship from the public relations field I have confirmed the prominence of power dimensions in the positioning episodes within my case study. Power overall has not been addressed in depth in the wider body of Positioning Theory scholarship. I suggest that a critical approach that drew on Smudde and Courtright’s (2010) work on the hierarchical, rhetorical and social power dimensions, together with my work presented above, provides a sound basis from which to further investigate this phenomenon in contexts wider than public relations.

My work strongly suggests that the concept of legitimacy be given more prominence and be considered as a core factor in Positioning Theory. By putting forward ways in which this factor could be incorporated into a framework for public relations, I have provided a platform from which a more general conceptual framework for intentional positioning could be developed.

Further to these contributions to the public relations and Positioning Theory fields, my thesis has contributed to furthering understanding of political discourse in relation to government policies on climate change. I identified how the climate change discourse in Australia changed in 2010 and how viewing climate change from an economic perspective achieved ‘truth’ status, wherein the very idea of action on climate change became an economic risk that took precedence over any concern for the environment.

In presenting this thesis, I trust, I have made a valuable contribution to the field.

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308 11. Appendices Appendix A: 'The courage to be new', Speech to the New South Wales Branch of the ALP State Conference, Sydney (Gillard, 9 July 2011)

Prime Minister

Thanks so much Michael Lee for that generous introduction.

I begin with honouring the Gadigal people, the traditional owners of this land - we walk with you on the road of Reconciliation together.

I acknowledge all my Federal Ministerial and Parliamentary colleagues here today.

And I offer a special greeting to the heroes of 2010 who held our marginal seats and helped Federal Labor continue its journey in government: David Bradbury, Mike Kelly, John Murphy, Deb O’Neill, Michelle Rowland, Craig Thomson.

I acknowledge also, the man who helped destroy Workchoices, John Robertson.

The families of NSW can have no better champion or friend.

I acknowledge all of John’s team and especially the new MPs who will share Labor’s long road back.

I acknowledge Michael Lee, Sam Dastyari, John Graham and the whole NSW Party office team.

I honour all the proud and faithful party members who are here today to join John and his team on that long road back.

I offer a very special greeting to those attending their first conference or who are new Party members.

Welcome to the ranks of the “true believers”.

Delegates, the ALP is Australia’s oldest political party.

We formed the world’s first Labor Government.

Matters for pride today as much as they were then.

But friends, we are not here to discuss history.

We are here to make history.

And we make history by learning from it, especially the recent past.

Labor has always been a Party of reform.

And if we are to reform the nation and the State, we must also reform ourselves.

Reform begins by understanding what happened in March: a defeat as bad as we’ve ever known.

NSW Labor cannot – and should not – ever be the same again.

Let’s not imagine we can just ‘move on’.

That would only be denying the judgement of the people.

Rather let’s absorb the lessons and learn what it means to be Labor once again.

In 16 years of government, the NSW Labor Government did a lot of good: the best ever Olympics, great school literacy results, historic environmental achievements like saving the South East forests, the remarkable victory over James Hardie, and so much more.

Be proud of these achievements.

Hold fast to them.

As for the faults and failings, learn from them.

Understand what happened.

Ask the hard questions.

And use this time in Opposition to renew.

Because, friends, NSW Labor will renew.

NSW Labor will rebuild.

On the path of reform, we know that Labor’s values can never change.

But our rules and practices can.

In fact, as the ALP National Review argues, they must change.

We need to find what the poet Robert Frost called “the courage to be new”.

We need to shape a new party.

With more members in revitalised branches.

Who represent a wide cross-section of society.

Who are more engaged with their local communities.

And who enjoy a greater say in a more democratised party structure.

Renewal is not an end in itself.

This is about ensuring that Labor remains a Party which reflects and represents the aspirations of the Australian people.

That makes the progressive case for reform over the back fence, over the shop counter, street by street, suburb by suburb.

A Party also capable of making the case for reform over the digital “back fence” of the new social media where so much of our public conversation now occurs.

That convinces ordinary Australians that Labor has their interests at heart and can be trusted to represent them on the big issues.

I know Sam Dastyari has proposed some reforms for the NSW Party.

They are significant reforms deserving of consideration.

And for those who think reform needs to go further, I say build on these reforms in the years leading up to Labor’s return to office in NSW.

Let us be the party of reform in all that we do.

A party always determined to be its best self.

Delegates, if we are a party of reform, we are also a party of ideas.

Labor’s greatest achievements – and toughest decisions – arose from passionate engagement and debate.

I remember the epic debates about uranium in the 1980s, and economic reform in the 1990s.

We’ve become a better party for the debates we’ve had.

I know there are people who are frustrated their voices aren’t always heard.

And I say to them: I want the Australian Labor Party to be a place where you feel you belong.

A Party where you can express progressive views in a wider conversation about Australia’s future.

A Party where we have free and open debates conducted in a climate of respect.

A Party that can discuss complex policy proposals at the same time as governing for all Australians.

Because friends, if we are a party of reform and a party of ideas, we are also a party

of government.

It is the very core of who we are.

When our forebears created the ALP in 1891, they deliberately created a party that would seek to gain and hold elected public office.

We would not be a fringe party or a party of protest.

We would be a party of government with all the compromise and gradualism that entails.

But also a party of vision and leadership capable of delivering the big reforms that only governments can achieve.

Being a party of government means balancing the need for a strong economy and strong national security with Labor’s progressive intent and values.

That is why John Curtin took a tough decision on conscription.

Why we must take a tough decision on the security of our northern borders.

These are the responsibilities that come from being in government.

And with those responsibilities come great opportunities.

Delegates, we stand at a remarkable time in Australia’s history.

Our export income is at a 140-year high.

We’ve created over 750,000 jobs since Labor came to office.

And profound structural change in the world economy is opening up amazing possibilities.

Think about it.

Having led the nation through the biggest global downturn since the Depression, Federal Labor now gets to govern in times of hope.

To be the “navigators to the future” we have always wanted to be.

A future that honours the dignity and potential of every Australian.

Friends, the truth is that even at the peak of the last boom when unemployment fell to 4 per cent, there were still places where 12 or 14 per cent of people were out of work.

Still families that had not known employment for three generations.

It offends me to think that behind the windows in so many poorer homes are young

people who could be tomorrow’s Peter Dohertys or Fiona Stanleys.

But the cycle of generational disadvantage means they never get the chance.

Friends, I want every Australian to have the chance.

Just as our predecessors sought ‘cradle to grave’ welfare, I want to see ‘cradle to grave’ opportunity.

I want every Australian child to grow up with the certainty of a great education.

A place in training or university if they want it.

Incentives to retrain and relocate as the workforce changes.

Capacity for older employees to stay in a job if they wish.

And a welfare system that doesn’t allow people to lapse into the corrosive aimlessness of long-term unemployment.

In Labor’s Australia, no-one should be left behind.

Friends, to be a party of government requires the vision to see things not just as they are, but as they could be.

Being a party of government also requires courage.

The courage to make decisions for the long term.

And the courage to stick to them.

If we didn’t have leaders in the past who were prepared to do this, we would not have had post-war migration.

We would not have ended capital punishment.

Abolished the White Australia Policy.

Or opened up our economy in the 1980s.

This country never got anywhere without hard decisions.

And do you think Labor ever made any hard or big decisions without the Liberals opposing them at every turn?

The Snowy scheme – opposed.

Medicare – opposed.

Saving the Franklin river – opposed.

Universal superannuation – opposed.

Native title – opposed.

They resisted every one.

Always on the wrong side of history.

Always on the side of fear and negativity.

Delegates, democracy is not one long opinion poll.

It is about leadership.

And on climate change, Labor chooses to lead.

We know we must lead because the science says we must.

And friends, we’ve known for an awfully long time.

Bob Carr warned of climate change in this very hall back in 1988.

Even Margaret Thatcher and John Howard recognised the danger and accepted the need to act.

And yet our opponents have the temerity to call our carbon price a toxic tax.

When the only thing that’s toxic is the carbon pollution warming our planet and threatening our children’s future.

Friends, as members of the Labor family, you know all too well that our opponents have thrown everything at us for the past year:

Stunts and gimmicks.

Lies and distortion.

Attacks on our economists and scientists.

A cynical campaign of fear designed to scare Australian families.

And a nonsense of a policy that subsidises big polluters off the backs of ordinary taxpayers.

After all that, I simply say to our opponents: Is that the best you can do?

Because if you think that’s enough to knock us off course, you’ve got another think coming.

We’re still here. We’re still ready to fight for the nation’s future.

In fact, after months of calm and methodical preparation, I’m proud to say our carbon package can now be placed before the Australian people.

Friends, for the first time in Australian history, we will put a price on carbon pollution.

No longer will the nation’s biggest polluters be able to pollute our atmosphere for free.

From July 1 next year, the freedom to pollute our skies will cease.

Two decades of denial and delay will come to an end.

Polluters will have to pay.

And friends, as we set Australia on the path to a clean energy future, we will do it in the Labor way - with fair and generous assistance to ease the path of change

We will stick up for the people we have always stuck up for.

We’ll look after the families.

We’ll look after the battlers.

We’ll look after the pensioners.

We’ll look after the people who need that extra bit of help.

The people who are doing it tough.

And why?

Because our plan to price carbon pollution comes from deep within Labor’s progressive roots.

It is about our responsibility to Australians right now – and our responsibility to future generations.

I know that many Australians are worried.

Tomorrow, the facts will be laid out for all to see – and they will tell a very different story to the one our opponents have tried to tell.

Nine in ten households will get a combination of tax cuts and payment increases.

Most people will find that when all is said and done, they are not a cent behind.

And many will come out ahead.

Millions of households struggling with tight family budgets will get an extra 20 per cent safety net.

Millions of pensioners will come out ahead, with extra money for the essentials we know they sometimes struggle to afford.

The most exposed industries will receive assistance to protect jobs.

Because jobs are what Labor is all about.

We will cut pollution, we will protect the household budget, and we will support jobs.

We will do it because it is right for this country.

And we will do it the Labor way.

Because friends, if cutting taxes for the rich and slashing workers’ entitlements are deep in the DNA of the Liberal Party, progressive reform in the nation’s best interests is deep in Labor’s DNA.

We are a Labor government doing unmistakably Labor things.

We are the ones who dumped Work Choices and protected workers’ entitlements.

We are the ones who have doubled education funding.

And delivered the nation’s biggest ever mental health package.

We are the ones who are investing $3 billion to skill Australians for the mining boom.

And bringing high speed broadband to every community.

We are the ones spending more on public transport than all previous Commonwealth Governments combined.

And putting an extra $4000 a year into the pockets of families with teenagers at school or TAFE.

And, friends, we are the ones who will do even more as the budget comes back to surplus to extend opportunity in this country to every Australian who will grasp their chance.

My great predecessor, Ben Chifley, in this very hall, talked about “the things worth fighting for”.

These are the things worth fighting for.

These are the things that make us who we are.

Friends, Chifley said something else in this place too.

It was 60 years ago last month.

Chifley was in failing health but there was no self-pity.

Just the uncompromising message:

“Fight for the right, and truth and justice will prevail.”

Delegates, six decades later, the nation has been lastingly transformed by the work of successive Labor governments, but Chifley’s message endures still.

Fight for the right.

Never give in.

Never lose faith.

Because, friends, this is our time.

Time for Labor to govern in an age of prosperity.

Time for Labor to drive fairness and opportunity deep into the fabric of Australian society.

Time for our nation to build the clean energy economy of tomorrow.

Friends, we are heirs to great history.

Let us be makers of history too.

A Party of reform.

A Party of ideas.

A Party of government.

And always finding the “courage to be new”.

Appendix B: Transcript of Address to the Nation (Gillard, 10 July 2011)

Prime Minister

Subject(s): Carbon price; Clean energy future PM: Good evening.

I want to talk to you tonight about why the Government is putting a price on carbon and what this means for you. The decisions I announced today mean: Around five hundred big polluters will pay for every tonne of carbon

pollution they put into our atmosphere.

By 2020 this will cut carbon pollution by 160 million tonnes a year.

And because some businesses will put prices up, there will be tax cuts, increased pensions and increased family payments.

We have had a long debate about climate change in this country. Most Australians now agree our climate is changing, this is caused by carbon pollution, this has harmful effects on our environment and on the economy – and the Government should act. Economists and experts agree that the best way is to make polluters pay by putting a price on carbon. The first Australian Government to announce a plan for a carbon price was John Howard’s back in 2007. A lot has happened since then; the debate has been difficult and divisive. And no government – no political party or leader – can claim to have got everything right during this time. But we have now had the debate, 2011 is the year we decide that as a nation we want a clean energy future. Now is the time to move from words to deeds. That’s why I announced today how Australia’s carbon price will work. From 1 July next year, big polluters will pay $23 for every tonne of carbon they put into our atmosphere. They now know how much they will pay unless they cut their pollution. And they can start planning to cut pollution now. By 2020 our carbon price will take 160 million tonnes of pollution out of the atmosphere every year. That’s the equivalent of taking forty five million cars off the road. Some of the cost paid by big polluters will be passed through to the prices of the goods you buy. The price impact will be modest but I know family budgets are always tight. So I have decided most of the money raised from the carbon price will be used to fund tax cuts, pension increases and higher family payments. These will be permanent, matching the carbon price over time. Not everyone will be financially better off – there is no money tree. The budget has to add up. But I want people who need help most to get the help they need. That’s why 9 in 10 households will get a combination of tax cuts and payment increases. For almost 6 million households this will fully meet your average extra costs. And of these, 4 million Australian households – including every older Australian who relies solely on the pension – will get a “buffer” for your budget, with the extra payments being 20 per cent higher than your average extra costs. When you have some time, you should have a look at the cleanenergyfuture.gov.au website. It’ll help you find out what you’re entitled to. And it will link you to ideas for how to cut power bills and cut pollution without cutting back on life’s essentials.

I also understand that there is nothing more important to families than having a job. So I have decided we will take special measures to support jobs and keep Australia competitive internationally. And some of the money paid by polluters will also fund billions of dollars of investments in clean technologies like solar, wind and geothermal. All up, the carbon price will support $100bn worth of investment in renewables in the next forty years. Putting a price on carbon is a big change for our country. I know we can do it together. Our economy is the envy of the world. We have world-leading renewable technology, a coal industry determined to cut pollution among the world’s richest reserves of natural gas. And we are a confident, creative people. I see a great clean energy future for our great country. I know we can get there together.

Appendix C: "A great clean energy future, a great reform agenda", Address to the National Press Club, Canberra (Gillard, 14 July 2011)

Prime Minister

Thanks for that kind introduction.

The issues that have brought me here to the Press Club as Prime Minister have been big ones. Laying out my vision for Australia in a national election campaign and making my case in the leaders’ debate. Reflecting on the formation of a new Government and announcing our plan to rebuild Queensland.

I come here again today because pricing carbon is surely as important as these. As Joe Biden no doubt wishes he’d said: this is a big deal.

In my own service in Government, I stand on my record as a reformer. A new workplace relations system which locked in modern Labor values: fairness at work and flexible enterprise bargaining. Education reforms which gave parents information and offered them choices they’d never had before.

Difficult reforms – reforms I knew were in the long term national interest, and under our Fair Work Act, employment is growing. Under our school reforms, school performance is improving. Time has vindicated the reform case. It always does.

Now, pricing carbon is this Government’s biggest reform yet.

When I look at this decision in the context of Australia’s post-1983 reform project it does take on interesting dimensions. Compared with a change like the GST, it’s smaller in the short term and more important in the long term. Vastly less complex, applying to hundreds of businesses – not millions. Modest in its impact on household budgets, estimated to add 0.7 per cent to CPI – not 2.5 per cent as did the GST.

But for the long term it achieves a change of far greater structural significance: decoupling the growth of carbon pollution from the growth of our economy.

Amara’s law is the idea that when we think about a new technology, we tend to overestimate its effect in the short run and underestimate its effect in the long run.

Real structural reform is often like that.

The dollar float is the paradigm example: the big enabling decision, the big change which sets the ball rolling for all the others, the big call for the future which demands courage at the time ... and which when we look back, no one would seek to undo.

The carbon price is our dollar float.

A vital economic reform which will build our clean energy future.

So I want every Australian to know why I am pursuing this.

Yes, climate change is a threat to our environment. Yes, being left behind as the world moves is a threat to our economy. But I am not just doing this to protect Australia against threats.

I am doing this because I see a great opportunity we can seize.

I see a great clean energy future for our great country.

Within a few years, we’ll be seeing big changes on the energy supply side, big changes in industrial production, changes among consumers and households as well.

Energy producers investing more and more in gas and in renewable, manufacturers and commercial buildings and hospitals converting boilers from coal-fired to gas. Tenants chasing space in energy-efficient buildings and chemical plants installing “scrubbers” to reduce nitrous oxide emissions.

The capture and use – or “flaring” – of emissions from mining and gas extraction, industry installing more efficient motors. And yes, we’ll see smart light bulbs in every

home and probably every beer fridge in the country will have a five star rating too.

These are the changes we can already predict.

And I know these changes are upon us because I have seen them beginning already.

This week I’ve seen geothermal power at work in Brunswick in Melbourne’s inner north. Where a source of energy which we usually associate with hot rocks in the central desert is at work in a city we hardly think of as hot in July.

This week I’ve seen energy being produced from landfill in suburban Brisbane. Where rubbish from households and businesses generates methane gases – gases which in the past have been carbon pollution released into the atmosphere. Gases which are now being captured for power to feed the city’s electricity grid.

These are the changes we can already see – and there are changes coming which we can hardly imagine today.

In our lifetimes, think of how information technology has transformed itself and transformed our lives.I wrote my first university essays on a manual typewriter.

I remember the first mobile phone I saw, as big as a brick, and I wondered why anyone would want such a thing. Now I visit classrooms where children use a phone to take a photo of me and share it with the world via the internet before I’m in the car and on the way back to the office.

We walk around with more computing power in our purses and jacket pockets than NASA used for the moon landings. And we apply that technology to new purposes which were never thought of until the power to do them existed.

Information technology has given us the productivity and prosperity which means our children can afford to travel before they’ve even really started a career. It has given us social networks which let us look at the photos they took of themselves in Thailand an hour ago and then we can send them an instant message saying “is that another tattoo?” And it has created whole new occupations and industries for them to work in when they come home and settle down in life.

Clean energy is sure to transform itself and in turn transform our lives in just such extraordinary ways.

We talk about “baseload power” today but smart grids and distributed energy production may fundamentally reshape the way we move energy from the production point to the power point. In less time than we can know, millions of homes may be

Tidal in WA, solar in Queensland, wind in New South Wales, geothermal in South Australia, clean coal in Victoria, cogeneration in Tasmania. But behind all those changes, behind what we do see, will be the big reform – the price on carbon pollution.

Revenue from the carbon price will be funding new investments in clean technology.

The economic incentive the price creates will be driving private investment.

We can already forecast $100 billion going into renewables by 2050, the power of a market mechanism driving investment in the power of the earth, wind, water and sun.

We’ve heard a bit of talk about how carbon permits are “an invisible product”.

They’re not – they’re just the “invisible hand”.

This decision, to put a price on carbon, is a major reform to build a clean energy future, and because I lead a Labor Government, it is a reform done fairly.

Economic and environmental reform, with help for those who need it most.

Because that is how Labor does reform, that is how Australia does reform, that is the way that reform works best.

As we did with currency and trade liberalisation, as we did with indirect taxation, we have had a long debate about the clean energy future of this country.Barry Jones and Bob Carr – overseas, even Margaret Thatcher! – spoke about this in the 1980s. We debated Rio and then Kyoto in the 1990s. And through the 2000s, there was growing public support for action on climate change, public support which did ultimately lead to bipartisan support for pricing carbon.

To the then-Coalition Government and the then-Labor Opposition both taking carbon pricing plans to an election.

Now in the final weeks of 2009, the last Parliament had its Maxwell Smart moment, we missed it by that much. And what followed was the 2010 campaign as difficult and

divisive as any we have known.

It has been a long debate.

And as Isaid on Sunday, no government – no political party or leader – can claim to have got everything right during this time. But the Parliament the people elected in 2010 has found the path to the clean energy future our country so badly needs.

Some were sceptical, but from the day I formed Government I had no doubt this Parliament would prove capable of the task.

I know that for the aficionados the mechanics of how we got here are fascinating: the cross-party nature of this process is unusual and the makeup of the House of Representatives in particular is novel.

I accept that’s interesting to the commentators.

But for me, this is a reform.

And in reform, what matters is having the right vision for the country’s future, making the big decisions which get us there, bringing people together to get it done.

So now we have had the debate.

Now we move from words to deeds.

We’re going to get this done.

This will be the package that comes to the Parliament and this will be the package that goes through the Parliament.

And there will be a price on carbon from 1 July 2012.

And here’s how it works.

I wanted a modern policy approach with efficient allocation and incentive to innovate.

So the price on carbon operates as a market mechanism, creates incentives we need.

For the first three years, the price for each tonne of pollution will be fixed at $23 per

tonne then rise by 2.5 per cent in real terms, effectively a carbon tax. I wanted the end point to be a flexibly priced emissions trading scheme.

So from 1 July 2015, there’ll be a “cap and trade” market creating the incentive to cut pollution at the lowest cost. I knew there was no environmental benefit in emissions intensive, trade exposed production simply moving offshore.

So we will allocate some permits to some businesses without charge, supporting jobs and competitiveness, and helping strongly affected industries make the transition to a clean energy future.

I also wanted to link our carbon price to the emerging international market, keeping Australian industry competitive. So Australian business will be to be able to buy permits which represent credible, additional, offshore pollution reductions.

I wanted our emissions reduction targets to be based on the best expert advice.

So the independent Climate Change Authority, headed by Bernie Fraser, a great servant of the Australian public, will recommend on the year-by-year steps, as well as the longer-term path, that Australia should take towards the 2050 target.

This is how our carbon price will work.

A fixed price for the first years, a well designed market from 2015, assistance for emissions intensive, trade exposed industries.

Evidence-based emissions targets, abatement at the lowest economic cost.

A new bottom line, where polluters pay.

Our plan makes polluters pay but we know some of the costs will be passed through, and while the price impact will be modest we do know family budgets are always tight.

So in the last few days, as many people have asked me how their family will benefit, I’ve said this often.

People who need help most will get the help they need.

That’s why 9 in 10 households will get a combination of tax cuts and payment increases. For almost 6 million households this will fully meet the average extra costs. And of these, more than 4 million Australian households – including every older Australian who relies solely on the pension – will get a “buffer” for the budget,

with the extra payments being 20 per cent higher than their average extra costs.

Because delivering this help to households meant cutting tax and lifting payments, I decided at the outset we would take the opportunity for tax reform as well.

I saw an opportunity to use a new tax on pollution to cut an old tax on work.

Just as I did in the Budget, so in this household assistance package, I wanted to reward work.

So we’ve more than tripled the tax free threshold – lifting it from $6 000 per year to $18 200 per year. And combined with other changes, this means that 450 000 people – who earn between $16 000 and $20 500 – will have all their tax cut.

They will now pay no tax.

This doesn’t just help people moving from welfare to work.

It also helps women who work part-time as well.

Take a family where the kids are at primary school and mum is working part time earning, say, $16 000 a year. Currently she has no net tax liability. But she does have some tax withheld from her take home pay – and she can’t claim it back until after the end of the financial year. What’s more, if she gets an extra shift or takes on extra regular hours worth, say, an extra $4 000, that’ll lift her over the tax free threshold and cost her $600 a year in tax. Now, because of our tax cuts, she’ll pay no tax at all on that extra income and have very little tax withheld as well.

She’s among half a million people who go from having to pay tax to paying no tax – and of those, three hundred thousand are women. And while forty four per cent of taxpayers are women – sixty per cent of the people who get this tax cut are women.

This is a tax cut for working women.

A tax reform which rewards work.

And it builds on our Budget reforms to lift workforce participation and build the capacity of our economy to grow faster over time.

And because we do want to reward work, we’ve also made special provision for self- funded retirees.

I think by now many people will know that our plan will help pensioners – but our plan also ensures that many self-funded retirees – all those who have a Commonwealth Health Care Card – receive a payment equivalent to the pension increase. And some others will also benefit from our tax cuts and other payment increases as well.

Australians understand the importance of cutting carbon and understand how their own household budget works, so the best question I’m often asked is this: If so many households are compensated, how does the price signal work – isn’t the shoe meant to pinch?

There are two key points here.

First, the price signal operates on the polluters.

They compete against each other and if they pollute less they’ll pay less tax compared to other polluters. And they compete against producers who don’t pay the tax, so if they pollute less their disadvantage will be less. That means there is a very significant incentive effect on the “supply side” of carbon emissions.

Second, the price signal operates on consumers through the relative costs of goods.

So yes, the overall increase in consumer prices is just under ten dollars per week, and yes, the average household assistance is just over that. But that help is provided in cash and it can be used to buy relatively lower carbon products which will cost relatively less.

So yes, you may be no worse off if you stay with your existing basket of goods, but you do have an incentive to save by switching to other products.

And the bottom line: with this price signal in place, we will cut at least 160 million tonnes of carbon out of our atmosphere in 2020.

That’s the equivalent of taking 45 million cars off the road.

Or put another way: in just nine years’ time, that is a cut in every Australia’s carbon footprint of almost one quarter , compared to where we would be without a price on carbon.

That’s why we’re doing it.

To cut our carbon pollution, to build the clean energy future we need.

I’ve met some interesting people and heard some interesting things in the last few

days.

When you give Australians a chance, they give it to you pretty straight. I love that about our country. I enjoy the scepticism and respect the scrutiny. And I also love that Australians in our suburbs and towns are taking on the serious task of judging what is the best approach for our country’s future.

Everyone involved in politics and government can learn something from that.

And if we listen to Australians, we’re going to learn a lot more in the coming months, we’re going to learn about more than the carbon price.

We’re going to learn something about this country’s capacity for reform.

I don’t agree with those who say this country is not up to it and I certainly don’t agree with those who say we were a better country thirty years ago. No – I just believe this is what the reform road is. What reform is always like for Labor. If change was easy, a conservative government would already have done it.

I talk a lot about walking the reform road.

About the fact our country should be walking it together, with government bringing business, workers and communities along with us. About the fact it’s a long walk, not a short sprint, a road toward long term goals for the good of our nation, where the measure is in the years. But I still think some of you picture the reform road as an easy way through a wide gate. It is anything but.

The reform road has many obstacles, pot holes to get around and hard hills to climb, the wind is not always at your back.

But I’ve got my walking shoes on.

Because as I think about Australia at the end of this year, and beyond in the decade ahead, I don’t only see a country which will be building a clean energy future, I see a country which will have rebuilt its faith in its own capacity to reform.

It’ll be a realistic faith – which knows what the reform road is like.

It’ll be a determined faith – an optimistic and activist creed – that drives us forward.

And it will be a faith shared between a creative and confident people and a

Government ambitious for the future we share.

I’ve been Prime Minister for a year now and as well as governing and reforming, it has been a period of learning.

I’m learning more about Australians, meeting people and getting to know them.

It’s really a great privilege.

Australians do want to know more about me and how I’ll lead this government in coming years.

Especially when confronted with new challenges in the future, and that means they do want to know what kind of person I am. And look, I’m a decision-maker by nature and I have tended to let the decisions speak for themselves.

It doesn’t come easy to me to expose my feelings as I make these decisions. I was the shy girl who studied and worked hard, and it took time and effort but I got from Unley High to the law and as far as here, where I am today. I’ve brought a sense of personal reserve to this, the most public of professions. And the rigours of politics have reinforced my innate style of holding a fair bit back in order to hang pretty tough.

If that means people’s image of me is one of steely determination, I understand why.

But I don’t forget where I come from, why I’m here, or what I’ve learned along the way. I don’t forget Unley High, where I saw kids who sat at the back of the room and did “make work” and were left behind. I don’t forget how I felt at Slaters when I won my first case on behalf of an outworker, I got her paid what she deserved, and she just said, quietly, “thanks”.

I don’t forget September 2008 when the world stood on the brink of economic disaster and it took a Labor Government and urgent action, decisions right in the moment, to save jobs and businesses.

What I learned and believed through all of that was that it’s one thing to hang tough and hold a bit of yourself back.

But nothing hard ever gets easier by putting it off to later.

And because of that, in the moment I truly believed I was going to be Prime Minister I told myself: don’t ever put off a hard call, because it will only get harder every day.

Be a Prime Minister, a leader, who sees the future our country can have and has the strength to put in place the plan to get us there, that’s the leader I’m determined to be for you.

So I’m walking that road now, walking the road of reform.

This reform is necessary for our country.

We must look beyond the next opinion poll and the next election to the clean energy future of the next generation.

It is time to get on with it.

This has been an issue in Australia for a decade.

There have been plenty of missteps and false starts, no leader of Government has been perfect, I take my share of responsibility for that.

And I said what I said before the election and I can’t unsay it.

But when it became clear the only way to achieve action on climate change was to introduce a temporary carbon tax moving to an emissions trading scheme, the choice was this: I either stuck exactly to what I said just before the election, got no action on climate change, and did the wrong thing for the nation or I found a way to get climate change action, to do right for the country and to deal with the consequences.

And what I knew in my heart was this.

Nothing hard ever gets easier by putting it off.

And if you don’t do what is right for the nation, then you shouldn’t be Prime Minister.

So it’s now time to get in and get this done, time to deliver the action on climate change we need.

Time to focus on the crucial debate now facing this country, because in reality, the choice I faced after the elect ion is the same choice Australia faces.

To do what is best for Australian families, what is best for future generations, what is best for this country.

To act on climate change. To cut carbon pollution. To build a clean energy future.

I can’t – I won’t – just say no.

That’s why I’m putting a price on carbon.

I know this is a big change for our country, I know we have the courage to do it together.

And as we do it together, I think we’re going to prove to ourselves that the courage to reform isn’t beyond us and that there are more opportunities for us to seize together.

I see a great clean energy future for our great country and a great reform agenda for this country’s government too. I know we can get there.

Appendix D: Speech to the Green Capital Business Breakfast, Sydney (Gillard, 18 July 2011)

Prime Minister I thank Jeff for his acknowledgement of the traditional owners of this land. And on behalf of us all, I pay my respects to the Gadigal people, whose long journey of caring for this land continues proudly to this day. Friends, That’s why we’re here today Because we love this land. We respect its people. And we care profoundly for its future. Since 1972, the Total Environment Centre has been at the forefront of preserving our precious natural heritage. Working with visionary leaders like Neville Wran and Bob Carr, you’ve achieved miracles: The great forests of north-east and south-east NSW protected forever. The Blue Mountains not only saved but inscribed on the World Heritage List. A world class chain of marine parks. But what we didn't know in 1972 was that greenhouse gases were threatening the future of our environmental wonders. We know now, and we’ve known for some time. Leaders like Bob Carr and Margaret Thatcher raised the alarm in the late 1980s. By 2007, even John Howard found it prudent to respond as the tide of evidence continued to grow. Just like the conservative leaders of the UK, France, Italy, Germany and New Zealand have as well.

Today, in 2011, we know in abundant and undeniable detail the threat that carbon pollution poses to our way of life. And I can tell you this: there is no leader on earth who is getting briefings that tell them anything different. All of them have faced or are facing the same tough choices we are, with all the political difficulties they entail. And each of them needs to answer to their own people – to humanity at large – and to the future ... for the decisions they make or fail to make. When I am advised that we will face more days of extreme heat, more bushfires, more droughts, coastal flooding, loss of agricultural land in the Murray Darling Basin, devastating effects for the Great Barrier Reef and Kakadu, then the time has come to act. And act we will. I won't let this country surrender in the face of the challenge of climate change. Our nation will act to cut carbon pollution and seize a clean energy future. The costs of acting are manageable. And the opportunities from acting are great. Indeed, it is those very opportunities that bring us here today. New investment and new technology. New jobs and new skills. Since 2002, the Green Capital program has connected business and NGOs to debate how we make these opportunities a reality. And I’m here today to affirm your great work and to say: The time for words is over. The time for action has arrived. The environmental imperative to cut carbon pollution is strong, the economic imperative to modernise our economy is strong too. And I say this with full awareness of global economic conditions. As we have been reminded this week, Europe is still struggling will high unemployment and excessive sovereign debt. The US recovery is also showing renewed signs of weakness. We are not immune to developments in the global economy. Here, consumers are still more cautious than they were before the global financial crisis, and credit conditions remain tight for some borrowers - and this is not surprising. At the same time the strong dollar and competition for labour puts pressure on the non-mining sector and contributes to softness in the short-term. Yet while there are heightened risks in the US and Europe, the fundamentals in Australia and our region are very different. We are located in the right part of the world at the right time. The prospects for our region remain much stronger as the weight of global activity continues to shift in our favour. Just last week we saw China reporting growth of almost 10 per cent for the past year. Our fundamentals are strong - we have low unemployment, strong job creation, and record terms of trade that are driving an unprecedented pipeline of business investment - $430 billion forecast in resources alone. We also have a strong budget position, very low debt and a resilient financial system which all position us well for the future.

This fundamental economic strength has its ultimate roots in our creative and confident people ... but thirty years of economic modernisation has been vital. The floating dollar is a vital safety valve on inflation in our resource-rich, export- oriented country. Flexible enterprise bargaining lifts productivity and competitiveness in every sector of the economy. Successive reforms to education and training and the system of skilled migration help lift the productivity of our people. Superannuation ensures the country's savings, and insures the country's future. And just as we are economically stronger now for the modernising reforms of the past three decades – so we must embrace economic reform now to have a strong modern economy in decades to come. Just as this Labor Government took steps to protect jobs during the Global Financial Crisis - and just as we have kept the economy strong since, while hundreds of thousands of jobs have been created - we will continue to undertake the reforms this country needs to keep jobs growing. Pricing carbon will have powerful economic effects. It will mean we use our energy more productively - producing more output for a given level of energy input. It will direct domestic capital - steering it towards new clean industries which will thrive in a carbon constrained world. It will attract billions of dollars of international investment from firms looking to produce in economies which have certain, efficient policies to tackle the carbon challenge. In years to come, carbon productivity will be as important to luring investment from multinationals as labour costs, tax rates, human capital, and levels of technological sophistication have been in past decades. That's why carbon pricing is part of our broader economic agenda - because it will give us a stronger economy, because it will put us on a stronger competitive footing, and because it will allow us to take advantage of economic opportunities as they arise - rather than playing catch-up in the years to come. This is an important part of our broader economic agenda for the country. Such as building high speed broadband - to ensure Australia thrives as global growth is increasingly driven by the production, distribution and exchange of information. Or reforming our schools, universities and TAFEs to drive faster accumulation and more efficient allocation of our human capital. And introducing an efficient price to fund hospital services, so this large sector of our domestic economy remains efficient – and so our long-term fiscal settings are not threatened by the challenges of our ageing society. And increasing superannuation, to ensure that the benefits from the mining boom continue to be felt in the Australian economy well beyond the mining boom itself. In the midst of uncertain global economic conditions, we should not lose sight of this country's strong economic backbone - a backbone that has been constructed by reforming governments over decades. And we should not lose sight of the need to ensure that backbone stays strong in the years to come. The costs of inaction are greater than the costs of action - both immediately, and in

the longer term. That is true of climate change - as it is true of economic reform more generally. One of the messages of recent economic history is this: stay on the reform road – keep modernising your economy – or pay a high price. Retreat is not an option. Friends, the contours of the Government’s “Clean Energy Future” plan will be familiar to you all. It can be summarised in a single concept: Making the biggest polluters pay. Or in the language of economists - pricing externalities. Pricing carbon is a catalyst for a clean energy investment boom. As a result of the government’s plan, renewables (excluding hydro) will grow by 1700 per cent to 2050. At that stage, renewables will make up 40 per cent of electricity generation, from a base of just 10 per cent today. The bulk of that transformation will be driven by our price on carbon. Starting at $23 a tonne next July and moving to what we expect will be around $29 a tonne when the emissions trading scheme commences in 2015 and reinforced by a nation-wide cap on the total amount of emissions allowed in the Australian economy. That will change behaviour and therefore drive investment. And to give the transition an extra boost, we have decided to establish a Clean Energy Finance Corporation to drive private investment. Call it a catalyst – call it an impetus. It will do amazing things for renewables in this country. Similar to the UK’s Green Investment Bank, CEFC will invest in the commercialisation of renewable and clean energy technologies. It will provide loans, guarantees and equity to help make these projects a reality. The Corporation will be independent from government like the Future Fund and be run on a commercial basis. Investment decisions will be made on a rigorous case-by-case analysis. And projects that are financed will be expected to pay their own way. Alongside the Corporation, we’ll also establish a new independent Australian Renewable Energy Agency or ARENA to manage $3.2 billion in clean energy initiatives. This represents funding that is currently being administered at the departmental level across different programs and agencies. We want to bring that funding together and put it on a more transparent and systematic basis. The $10 billion allocated to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation will go to mature technologies that are ready to be scaled-up. The $3.2 billion to ARENA will go to more early stage technologies to assist them towards commercial viability. As a third complementary measure, we will also close down 2000 megawatts of high polluting electricity generation in south-eastern Australia. To preserve market integrity, this will be done by tender. And no generator will be turned off until we are satisfied that alternatives are in place to keep the lights on.

And we will stand shoulder to shoulder with affected workers and communities. Friends, put those measures together: Closing down the worst sources of coal fired power $13.2 billion for new investments Our 20 per cent Renewable Energy Target Plus the impetus from the carbon price, and clean energy will be turbo-charged in this country. Solar, wind, geothermal, tidal power, natural gas, co-generation. And, yes, clean coal too. I’ve seen some of these projects for myself and glimpsed through the curtain what a clean energy future will look like. Some, like the CSIRO experimental solar facility at Newcastle, almost seem like something out of sci-fi. The trial plant at Mayfield West has 4000 square metres of mirrors all facing onto a single tower where compressed air is heated to 900 degrees in order to drive a turbine and create electricity. Because it doesn’t use water, this will be great for remote towns and villages in dry regions of Australia and indeed the world, allowing them to replace diesel generators with clean, green power from the sun. Other models, like piping methane out of rubbish dumps and using it to generate electricity are so simple it’s hard to think why we didn’t do them before. Last week I went to the Rochedale Renewable Energy Facility in Brisbane and saw exactly how it works. I know the clean energy industry is ready to roll. And my message today is: “Go for it”. I thank all of you at Green Capital for playing such a central role in helping to define the way Australian business thinks about sustainability. You have shown courage. You have shown responsibility. Today, I stand with you on the side of science and reason. On the side of good economics. On the side of the future. With you, I’m focused on cutting carbon pollution, tackling climate change and getting Australia a clean energy future. Long after the opinion polls have been forgotten, I want to look the next generation of Australians in the eye and tell them: we did the right thing by you. In the years to come I want Australia to be a nation that finds itself standing on the right side of history. A nation secure in the knowledge that it has risen to the challenge and tackled carbon pollution. A nation with a clean energy economy that gives our people the jobs and the opportunities of the future. We’re closer to that future because of the great work of the Total Environment Centre and the Green Capital program. Thank you.

Appendix E: Address to Per Capita: The Reform Series, Melbourne (Gillard, 4 August 2011)

Prime Minister

Thank you Josh. Can I acknowledge also Per Capita’s Board, Fellows and friends, as well as Corrs, our hosts.

It’s good to be with the Per Capita circle again this morning.

And here with all of you, I do want to pay particular tribute to David Hetherington’s thoughtful, progressive leadership, which has driven Per Capita’s growing success for four years now.

In 2007, in your post-election Memo to a Progressive Prime Minister, you reminded us:

Successful government demands strategic vision, policy experimentation, embrace of risk and most importantly, an articulation of values.

And in 2010 you wrote to me:

A successful government delivers a small number of outstanding reforms each term.

Good advice at the time – and a year on from the election, a measure I’m happy to be tested against.

Because we’ve achieved agreement for a carbon price, to cut carbon pollution and build a clean energy economy

Inked a once-in-a-generation reform to health financing, unlocking the quintessential “soft infrastructure” investment.

Passed the flood levy, to pay for rebuilding the nation’s devastated “hard infrastructure”.

And the long-term push to get productivity growth going again informs every area of

our reform.

From cutting taxes on low-paid workers and improving training and incentive to get into work, integrating enduring Labor values and the economy’s contemporary needs – through to the structural separation of Telstra, a real “white whale” which has escaped many a reformer’s harpoon in the past.

While doing what needs to be done. A good solution, a regional solution, to the difficult problem of people smuggling.

So David, if you’re adding a one year report card to your Memo, I’m sure you’ll be kind!

But the real test for Government is not resolving issues on our to-do list or getting good reviews from commentators.

I don’t seek elegant policy solutions for their own sake: I seek better Australian lives.

And I also seek to make enduring changes, changes which will command the support of the community as a whole in the years to come.

So for policy to make a difference now and for it to endure for the future it must be grounded in a deep and sympathetic appreciation of the way our people live.

This is why the reform agenda for the Government I lead is alert to the hope, but also the uncertainty, felt by many Australians about the course of future events.

We know the fundamentals of the Australian economy are strong – very strong.

The Treasurer made some similar observations when he spoke at Per Capita following this year’s Budget.

Growing employment, low inflation, interest rates still well below those when we came to office four years ago.

Low public debt, a stable and liquid financial sector, $1.3 trillion under management in our super funds.

A strong pipeline of mining investment.

And we are in the right part of the world at the right time.

Ours is an advanced and educated economy at the outset of a new Asia-Pacific century – poised for long-term prosperity through trade with the new Asia-Pacific middle class.

The long-term story is one of long-term strength and I believe Australians know this.

But we are not immune to the uncertainties and risk in the global outlook – there are patchwork pressures in our own economy – the natural disasters of the summer have cost the economy more than we anticipated even in their immediate aftermath.

Australians sense these things too and are making adjustments in their own behaviour.

After the global financial crisis, there’s a new understanding of economic fragility: if we dodged a bullet in the GFC, perhaps it’s no surprise that when a car backfires, people duck again.

As the real economy globalises, so does economic and political sentiment.

We can see similar trends, indeed more sharply expressed, at work throughout the English-speaking world, in southern Europe and elsewhere.

And while the fundamentals of the economy remain strong, it’s also clear things aren’t as they were in the 2000s.

In the last decade, personal debt rose as people spent more than they earned but enjoyed the lifestyle benefits.

We had a long period of rising asset prices and rising superannuation returns.

Ten Budgets in a row starting in 2001 cut income tax.

In the last term of the former Government, revenues were so high and grew so fast that the Commonwealth Treasury had its own group who joked their job as the Budget was put to bed was to dump out the cash and keep the surplus down.

No more.

Decades of reform and a well-managed stimulus did mean no descent into recession – but with that, no soft gains in recovery.

Utility bills are the new petrol prices.

Decades of infrastructure underinvestment deliver not just the reality of increased costs but a ‘sticker shock’ which many suggest is having a disproportionate impact on sentiment and behaviour.

Australians are conscious of the importance of China’s demand for our resources and concerned about the malaise of the American economy.

They understand that our strong dollar is a true mixed blessing, both a reflection of strength and a cost to many sectors.

And from the Cabinet table to the kitchen table, fiscal consolidation is the order of the day.

This economic story – rich in opportunity, complex in detail, promising for the long term, challenging in the present – is of a piece with Australians’ wider experience of our times.

Consider our national security.

We have a “continent for a nation” with an enviable diplomatic and military strength, in a strong alliance with the strongest democracy, but we recognise the new threats of terrorism, rogue states and cyber attack, while the old threat, nation-state rivalry, never went away.

And it is rightly sobering to the national mood when Australians are dying for us in uniform overseas.

We had our summer of sorrow, as natural disasters here, in New Zealand and in Japan transfixed us and left us troubled about how violent and unpredictable our world can be.

Yes, these are rich and complex, promising and challenging years.

And as for individuals, so for nations:

Faced with challenge and change, we can pull the doona over our heads and leave the blinds closed all day, or we can get up and get our boots on.

I know what I’ll do.

Because we’ve got a chance now to do something pretty amazing: To take a once in 150 year mining investment boom and make of it a once in 150 year opportunity boom.

Offering a good education for every kid, a good job for every family, good choices and true security for every older Australian.

And also providing more information and choice – creating options for communities, citizens, parents – empowering them to insist on better, to insist on productive change.

My Child, My School, My Skills ... My Unis, My Hospital.

Helping mortgagers to switch banks.

Empowering regional communities to direct the various instruments of three levels of government in the one place they call their own.

Consider the way our Minerals Resource Rent Tax will fund future savings.

Funding contributions to 10 million sovereign wealth funds in which 10 million Australians make super investment choices of their own.

Not dumping cash into one big sovereign wealth fund controlled by the eminent and the grey.

Or the way we’ll cut carbon pollution through a well designed market, aggregating competitive responses on the energy supply side and price-driven consumer choices.

Not a giant taxpayer funded slush fund to pay polluters to do the right thing.

You’ll see the same approach over time as we work though new ways to extend the fair go to disabled Australians.

As we consider the best polices to provide reassurance to people with disability, and those who love and care for them.

It’s right to aspire to be a country where disability services are based on people’s need for those services, not the lottery of what kind of disability they have, how they acquired it or what postcode they live in.

Where parents of children with disability know that their children will be safe, well

caredfor and happy when they grow too old to provide that care themselves.

And where Australians with disability have good choices in their own hands – taking away the barriers to finding work, to being involved and active in their communities.

I believe seizing opportunity and offering choice lies at the heart of progressive responses to the emerging social reality of having two senior generations.

The ageing of our population is a big new change all over the developed world and I want to discuss it at some length today.

A cause of uncertainty – people see it in their own lives and know in part what it means for them.

But at the same time, they wonder what it means for the nation.

And an issue people do identify – and do nominate as a big challenge.

Not least, because Australia’s former conservative Government saw and said that this was a “problem”.

Now I don’t think the “burden” theory of ageing is right at all – nor do I think we have a “problem” of “too many old people” – or a “solution” which lies somewhere in the population policy menu.

I see a change: one driven by wonderful good things, by last century’s amazing collective achievements, victories over disease and squalor and want, with rising life expectancy for all.

People are living longer than ever before.

When Australian Labor introduced the aged pension and I won’t tell you what the conservatives said about the aged pension in 1909 but here’s a hint, it started with n and rhymed with “go” when Australian Labor introduced the aged pension, life expectancy – 57 years – was lower than the age for the pension itself – which was 65.

In the century since, life expectancy has gone up twenty years.

We hear that so often that we can race over the thought.

So for a moment, pause and think about it: twenty more years in your own life.

All the books that you can read, the time to teach nieces and nephews to sing or knit, the time to work with wood or to fish with grandchildren, the extra day to reconcile with your parents or partner or friend.

Time to see the Bulldogs win another flag.

Years of productive work, years of volunteering and caring, learning and leisure and years with loved ones too.

It’s an incredible change when you think about it.

Longer lives, more older Australians, this will never be a bad thing to me.

And as people live longer, we’ll have two senior generations.

A new group of people are retiring, while the already retired are living longer too.

Over the next forty years, the over 65 population goes from one in six Australians to one in four – a big change in our lives.

But the over 85 population will go from one in two hundred Australians to one in twenty – almost a new way of living.

For now, those two senior generations in practice are the parents of the baby boomers, and the boomers themselves.

Think of the 90 year old woman with the 65 year old son.

And that younger senior generation is the healthiest, best resourced and best educated ever to stop full-time work.

For the first time, there’ll be more part-pensioners than pensioners by 2030 – which tells us both what a significant shift there is to more affluent ageing but also the limits of that shift.

That private wealth will create new choices – while the state will retain a vital role in guaranteeing income and security for all.

Not everyone will have a Winnebago or a trip around the world.

Many will work hard: some will share caring responsibilities for frail parents and young grandchildren at the same time.

We will not do away with hard times or the long responsibilities of life, but ageing will change.

And the baby boomers do bridge a historic change in human life.

Their grandparents were born in the nineteenth century and their grandchildren are born in the twenty first.

Even fifteen years ago, retired Australians had lived through a period defined by Depression and war, today, people retiring whose life was defined by post-war prosperity and the sexual revolution.

They’re going to want different things.

Not just security, they’re going to want choice.

They changed what it meant to be young and they changed what it meant to form families and adult relationships and they’ll change what it means to be old in just the same way.

These two senior generations are with us now: we are living this way already.

It’s a big change, based on good things we have done together, creating a new opportunity in turn.

An opportunity to make choice and security the hallmarks of every older Australian’s life.

Where individuals, couples, families, will want new ways to make decisions for themselves – while no older Australian should be left behind.

This goal is implicit in many measures the Government has delivered since 2007.

Lifting the pension rate and lifting super, while lifting the pension age from 65 to 67 between 2017 and 2023.

Cutting effective tax on older workers who get the pension through the Work Bonus.

Broadband for Seniors, an amazingly popular grassroots initiative to introduce older Australians to the internet.

Almost 100 000 older Australians have used the popular Broadband for Seniors kiosks.

More than a third had never used a computer before, and almost half had never used the internet.

It’s a very good thing.

We’re also seeking new ideas.

Wayne Swan has appointed an Advisory Panel on the Economic Potential of Senior Australians, chaired by Everald Compton, to push along solutions as well as to sell the benefits of a seniors’ workforce to sceptical employers.

The Panel will examine how we can best harness the life experiences and intellectual capital of the older members of our community.

We need to look at our older Australians as an asset to be valued, rather than as a problem to be solved.

Next week, I’ll release the Productivity Commission’s final report on Caring for Older Australians.

We asked the Commission to make recommendations, not with a view to the next five years, but the next twenty, in one of the important areas that arise from two senior generations: caring for Australians as they age.

What I want to emphasise as we begin that debate – not just the debate on the Productivity Commission’s report but the debate about the wider implications of our two senior generations – is the values this Government will bring to judging the proposals.

Choice for each older Australian – and security for all older Australians.

New opportunities – while no one is left behind.

And we’ll apply some practical principles to new ideas as well.

First, older Australians have earned the right to be able to access the care and support that is appropriate to their needs, when they need it.

Second, older Australians deserve greater choice and control over their care arrangements than the system currently gives them.

And third, funding arrangements for aged care must be fair and they must be sustainable – both for older Australians themselves, and for the broader community.

I believe we can seize this opportunity of our ageing society – this new reality of the two senior generations – to build choice and security into the lives of every older Australian.

I know we can do this because of the things we have done before.

I think of what Australians did together when we created the aged pension in 1909.

The very meaning of ageing, what it meant to get older, changed, changing how people felt about their own future, by offering better standards of living, offering freedom from want.

I think of what Australians did together when we created universal superannuation in the 1980s.

The very meaning of ageing changed again, changing how people prepared for their future, by offering better standards of living again but offering new choices as well.

And I look forward to the things we will do together in coming years to seize the opportunity of the two senior generations.

Years when what it means to age will change again.

As a generation retires which changed everything it touched, we can be sure that what it means to age will never be the same.

Yet we can also be sure that the values we share will be our guide.

Just as they have been through the great changes of the past.

Opportunity for every older Australian.

Choice for each older Australian.

Security for all older Australians.

And leaving no one behind.

Appendix F: Address to the Tasmanian branch of the ALP State Conference, Hobart (Gillard, 7 August 2011)

Prime Minister

Thanks Nick for that warm Tasmanian welcome.

It’s so good to be among so many friends.

Some friends I’ve known for so many years that it’s best we pass over the detailed chronology, some friends I made here last night and I see again today.

It’s good to see my Federal colleagues.

Dick and Geoff, Julie and Sid, Anne and Catryna and Carol, Helen and Lisa and Nick.

I see them too rarely down here but I see them very often in Canberra.

And believe me when I tell you this is an unusual occasion, one where I’m talking and they’re listening.

Friends, Tasmania has the ten strongest voices in my ear in Canberra, every one of them is a Labor voice.

It’s good to be here in a Labor State and among so many state colleagues.

And it’s really good to see Lara.

I remember the first time I met your Premier.

A young EMILY’s List activist speaking passionately about her State. And as I listened, I thought “this one will go a long way”.

But as I’ve worked with her this last year – on health reform, on broadband, on forests – I’ve come to believe Lara will go all the way.

Your Premier, Lara Giddings, is not just going to govern this state well for the next three years, with your help I know she is going to lead this Party to victory in 2014.

I love coming to Tassie. It’s my kind of place.

In the faces I see and the places I go, I don’t just meet people I like, I find values I recognise.

Because hard work, education and respect run through the spine of the State.

Through this place where people work hard: in the trucks and the laboratories, the wineries and restaurants, at the factories and on the farms, feeling the benefits and dignity of making their own way.

And where people understand that everyone who can work, should.

Those values run through this place where people chase the fair go for the future by chasing education for their kids on the long drive to lift school retention rates.

And this is a place where respect is a thing to show not just a word to say.

Where you can feel in every pub and workshop and office that great Australian belief that just because you’re better-off doesn’t mean you’re better.

And these values of hard work, education and respect don’t only shine through in the people of your State.

They burn brightly in the Government of your country as well.

And they illuminate our vision for Australia.

We’re building a strong economy, where future growth is secured.

A new-technology, clean-energy, high-skill, high-wage economy for the future.

An economy where a small manufacturer of generic pharmaceuticals has a video conference with his supplier in Delhi and Shanghai every Monday.

An economy where an engineer visiting a mill in the northwest doesn’t have to drive back to Hobart to get in for a check up with his GP.

An economy where great ideas in a digital age aren’t born in Burnie and then raised in Seoul or Boston, they come to maturity in innovation hubs of our own.

An economy where carbon finally has a price, where economic growth is decoupled from emissions growth, where the clean energy jobs of the future are created here and created now.

And while we work to secure growth, we are determined to leave no one behind.

To build a fair society for the future, where all our people can make the choices which build them and their family a better life.

Where every principal has the authority and the incentive to lift school performance every year and every parent has the information to join in the task of school improvement too.

Where local clinicians can run the local hospital, responding to the economic incentives of our health reforms and where patients feel the benefits, in the emergency ward and in the operating theatre.

Where a teen mum can be studying her certificate three in child care services while her own baby is taken care of close by and where through the opportunity of new skills and new work she can create a new life for herself and her child.

Where every older Australian has security and choice where our two senior generations enjoy productive, positive older ways of life.

And where security and choice extend to every Australian person in every Australian State.

And it is when we govern well, driven by these Labor values, that this vision becomes reality.

When we make the hard decisions to build a strong economy.

Getting the Budget back into the black, walking the reform road.

Creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, lifting the living standards of millions of families and pensioners.

Not reforming policy for its own sake but modernising the economy to secure our strength into the future.

We have seen significant declines on markets over the week as Australia has been affected by events in both Europe and the US.

We know we are not immune from global developments - but we know our economic credentials are among the strongest in the world.

Low unemployment, low public debt, a strong pipeline of future investment and positioned in the region with the strongest growth.

And we know we have dealt with global instability before, through sound economic policies and the hard work and resilience of the community.

No economy is better placed than ours to remain strong in this environment.

This is the strength which enables us to continue making the investments which ensure no one is left behind.

$2.2 billion for mental health.

130 000 new training places and apprenticeships.

The parents of hundreds of thousands of teenagers with over $4000 a year extra in family tax benefit.

Millions of low-income workers with more in their regular pay packet through the reforms to the Low-Income Tax Offset.

Not just a Labor Government led by a Labor Prime Minister, a Labor Budget brought down by a Labor Treasurer.

We do these things for the living standards of our people, to give a hand to families, to give a hand to pensioners.

And these things we do speak not only of our Party’s deepest purposes at its

founding, they speak of our practical priorities today.

Because we are a prosperous country we have the resources, because we are a Labor Government we have the will to do what is necessary to make sure no one is left behind.

So Labor people can be proud that we are governing well.

Can be pleased with the decisions we have made and reassured by the delivery we have achieved already this year.

We’ve switched on the National Broadband Network on the mainland, in Armidale and Kiama and Brunswick – and we’ve signed up hundreds more subscribers across this State.

We’ve created new incentives and new support to extend the benefits and dignity of work to families and communities who have been excluded for far too long.

We’ve signed the national health reform agreement, created a single funding pool and a new efficient price, and the benefits are flowing today.

And this Federal Parliament has done what the last could not: made the decisions to put a price on carbon.

To cut pollution, to support the household budget, to protect Australian jobs, to build a clean energy future for Australia.

A strong economy – opportunity for all – no one left behind.

This is the vision we seek to build through so many areas of policy.

And this is the vision at the heart of the historic agreement on the future of forestry in this State.

You know well that changing market conditions, both in Australia and around the world, have created pressures on the industry which cannot be ignored.

And we know Gunns Limited’s own decision to exit from native forestry will have significant impacts on workers, communities and the Tasmanian economy.

So the State and Federal Governments, the representatives of industry, workers and

the environmental organisations, all recognise the need for change.

But together we’ve recognised that there is an opportunity here as well.

And that’s why we’ve taken deliberate steps forward together, to end the long- running conflict over native forestry in the state.

The Statement of Principles, the Heads of Agreement and now the Intergovernmental Agreement have brought certainty to Tasmania’s forestry industry.

And they bring hope of settlement in Tasmanian society as well.

The State’s been divided, sometimes bitterly, for decades.

There is a genuine chance now to heal that divide.

Not to abolish democratic differences, but to end the social conflict.

I don’t agree with those who say we can’t protect native forests and develop a sustainable timber industry in Tasmania.

I don’t agree with those who say the people of this State can’t settle this issue for the future.

I know there are political players still wanting to fight the war but I believe this community has had enough.

Tasmania is ready to move on.

The signatories to the Statement of Principles, the people who have endorsed the Heads of Agreement – the representatives of industry, workers and the environmental organisations – they see this possibility.

And I know many of you can see the opportunity as well.

A historic opportunity, now before each party in the Tasmanian Parliament, as it considers the passage of the required legislation between now and the end of June next year.

Under our agreement, the State Government will reserve native forest and both

Governments will support workers and their families affected by industry restructure.

Immediate assistance for workers and contractors who are losing their jobs and livelihoods as a result of industry restructure.

Employee assistance, retraining and relocation support and assistance for voluntary permanent exits for haulage and harvest contractors.

But more than this: a genuine partnership to develop and diversify the Tasmanian economy. To build resilience in the economy here, to add more strings to the economic bow.

With new opportunities for Tasmanian families, with job-creating projects in communities affected by forestry restructure.

A regional economic development partnership to create investment and jobs opportunities.

Tasmania’s economic future is a picture of Australia’s economic future: diversifying, adding value, balancing growth.

The whole economy strong, modernising for the future, driving clean energy, high technology, and productivity growth.

The Agreement is the end of a long policy debate. It can be the beginning of a new era in Tasmania’s public life.

As Prime Minister I’m proud of the opportunity we have created together because it is good for the State.

But as Federal Labor Leader I’m particularly proud of this process – and this outcome – because it shows so distinctively the Labor way.

Only Labor Governments could bring the whole community to the table – no other Party could genuinely include industry, workers and environmental organisations in the discussion.

Only Labor values could bring the solution to reality – no other Party has so deep in its DNA our faith that we can make prosperity, fairness and sustainability come together.

Only Labor’s vision – a strong economy and opportunity for all – could ensure that in

our progress toward these good things we leave no one behind.

The contrast with our opponents could not be more clear.

Sometimes we’re pretty tough on ourselves in the Labor Party but gee, things could be worse.

How’d you like to be the Liberals, who had a party review after the last election and had to turn to Peter Reith to do it!

And if having the godfather of Workchoices tell you what went wrong isn’t bad enough, what is seriously scary is that he actually made some good points!

Like the good point he made, when he said that the Liberals’ 2010 election Tasmania package – put out just 3 days before polling day – was “more insult than policy”.

But even more, the point he made when he agreed with the Leeser review of the Liberals’ policy on broadband, which said:

In the view of many, the [Liberal] Party’s policy amounted to a threat to come into people’s homes and rip the internet out of the wall ...

Tasmanians could see the NBN being rolled out, Tasmania is often behind the mainland in receiving new technology so being at the forefront of the NBN was seen as a boost to Tasmania ...

Jobs for Tasmanian contractors, people to Tasmania from the mainland, flow on effects for Tasmania’s tourism, hospitality and service industries ...

The [Liberal] Party needs to make a clear and unambiguous statement about its intentions on Broadband infrastructure in Tasmania in the future

Clever bloke, Peter Reith, and Tasmanians are pretty smart too.

They know Liberal policy on broadband is already clear and unambiguous. It’s the original one-word slogan: NO.

These things we have done together, not just in forests, but in health and education, in clean energy and new technology and so much more, they say something about who we are.

Not just about Labor’s vision for the kind of country we are determined to build but

about Labor’s determination for the kind of governments we are determined to be.

Not just what we are doing and why but how.

Yes, having a plan: seeing a vision, pursuing it with passion.

Not always taking the easy path, always putting the national interest first.

And also, governing for all: bringing people together.

Listening carefully, speaking honestly, showing respect.

That unique combination of progress and unity – of new ideas and sticking together – which has always been the Labor way.

In the 1890s, they called it “just being mates”.

When we do that, we can do good things together – good things like ending the conflict over native forests.

When we respect each other, respect the facts, and get on with the job, our country can reform health, deliver the NBN, get more Australians into work.

That’s how we’ll put a price on carbon as well.

And that’s how we’ll deal with the big challenges to come and how we’ll seize the big opportunities that lie ahead.

As the world changes, working together, to master change, and protect the things we hold dear.

Friends, ours is a great country.

And throughout our history, whenever our great country has had a government worthy of its great people, we have done great things.

And in this decade to come, we must do them again.

We live in a world in transition.

And in that world, the only way we can keep hold of the things we love about

Australia today is to shape change to the purposes we choose for ourselves.

To recognise the need for change and to take deliberate steps forward together to get us ready for tomorrow, to keep us strong.

To secure the things we all hold dear for all the years to come.

In the strong economies of the future, high speed broadband will be a matter of fact.

In the strong economies of the future, everyone who should work will work.

In the strong economies of the future, health systems will be sustainable.

In the strong economies of the future, economic growth will not mean pollution growth.

I am determined that Australia will be a strong economy like that.

That determination is written into everything we do.

And I am determined that in Australia there will be opportunity for all – that no one will be left behind.

The opportunities of new technology won’t only go to the people and places who get them now.

The opportunities of new jobs won’t only be created for those who already have a chance.

The opportunities of new kinds of care, new cures for disease, won’t only be there for people who can afford them.

The opportunities from new sources of energy, from the power of the wind, the water and the sun, will be driven through our whole nation in the best and most efficient way.

And I know, we know, that these good things will not just happen to our country.

We must make them so, together.

Together, I know we will.

Appendix G: Speech to the Financial Services Council Breakfast, Sydney (Gillard, 31 August 2011)

Prime Minister

Peter Maher, Chairman of the Financial Services Council.

John Brogden, Chief Executive Officer of the Financial Services Council

I thank Craig for that warm welcome.

It’s great to be here to speak with an industry that is so fundamental to the security and prosperity of our nation.

I want to acknowledge from the start of my address that my Government appreciates the contribution that the Financial Services Council and all of your members make to the reform agenda in superannuation, financial services and financial advice.

This month we celebrate 20 years since the introduction of the Superannuation Guarantee, the birth of modern superannuation.

Universal superannuation is one of the greatest social and economic reforms in Australia’s history.

And one of the major reasons we can stare global economic uncertainty in the face with confidence.

Behind it all were two remarkable Australians, described by David Love as the ‘Rudolph Valentino and Mickey Rooney’ of Australian politics – Paul Keating and Bill Kelty.

This remarkable pair charted a path of productivity and reform that helped set up the strong, open economy that today is the envy of the world.

Friends, because of those reforms and their continuation under successive governments, Australia’s economic outlook is strong.

Strong fundamentals based on sustainable growth, and low public debt.

A deep, stable and liquid financial sector.

Rapidly rising levels of education and skills.

An unprecedented investment pipeline, still building, with a staggering $430 billion planned in resource investment alone.

An economy that has created jobs while other nations were losing them - around 750,000 since Labor came to office.

All underpinned by our location in the right part of the world at the right time.

While fundamentally strong, the Australian economy is not immune to developments on international markets.

But it is essential to recognise that the real change underway in the Australian economy is that being driven by a sustained, unprecedented increase in Australia’s terms of trade.

A change which is reshaping the structure of our economy.

Global growth has long been shifting from West to East – and this is accelerating again.

Developing countries like China and India emerged from the GFC strong.

They are generating growth still at historic highs – and that growth is increasingly driven by their own internal demand.

This is driving our dollar to a new high - a push which is currently being exacerbated by the relative strength of the Australian economy, compared to the rest of the developed world.

The appreciation of the dollar has been good for some businesses which rely on imports, and good for many Australians purchasing cheaper overseas travel or imports.

But it is also putting many sectors of the economy, like education, tourism, some parts of retail and especially manufacturing, under pressure.

A reason that while much of our economy is booming, many Australians feel as though they have been left behind.

Doing what we can to relieve that pressure is essential.

Those decisions are in our hands.

Economic management must focus on unlocking productivity and enhancing Australia’s competitive position in the world – so that enough Australians have what we prize most – jobs and opportunity.

I am determined to make sure we not only put in place policies which drive us to do the things we do now more effectively; but also that we gear our economy to compete on the basis of its superior capacity to innovate, and seize new markets.

To help Australians to get ahead, by making sure that Australia gets ahead.

With this approach, we are building a dynamic, high-income modern economy.

An economy driven by:

Investments in skills - to make sure we have the smartest workforce, providing the services most in demand in the world. Clean energy - to attract international capital, and lure direct investment from businesses which want to set up long lived assets in economies like ours which will be managing the carbon challenge in the cheapest way possible. Technology, especially high speed broadband - to support advanced manufacturing, and allow our services industry to access clients anywhere, anytime. Tax reform – to drive growth in the non-resource sectors of the economy by using our resource wealth to fund company tax cuts across the board; and lifting workforce participation by tripling the tax free threshold. And of course super reform.

Friends, superannuation used to be the preserve of the wealthy or of tenured public servants and academics.

Universal super changed all that.

Jeremy Cooper called it “part of the democratisation of finance.”

In fact, it is the democratisation of wealth.

Until universal superannuation came along, most Australians had one source of

wealth – their home.

With super, they can have two.

But perhaps even more amazing is the role super plays in the wider economy.

Today superannuation provides a nest egg bigger than the size of our annual GDP or the entire market capitalisation of the ASX - $1.4 trillion.

As a result, Australia has the fourth-biggest pool of pension assets in the world.

About 40% of superannuation investments are in Australian shares or Australian fixed interest securities.

Our wealth management industry employs 60,000 people.

All of you are part of that achievement and should take immense pride in being part of Australia’s success as a modern, confident nation with an incredible story of reform to tell the world.

In the midst of global economic challenges, I want to focus for a minute on the crucial role that superannuation savings have come to play in Australia’s economic stability.

Superannuation savings have come to play a key macro-economic role alongside fiscal and monetary policy.

Our pool of superannuation savings has real consequences for economic management.

For a nation with a long-standing propensity to spend more than we earn, a super pool bigger than our GDP helps offset our current account imbalance, and fosters liquidity and stability.

For example, when the global financial crisis hit in 2008, our national savings were sandbags against the leakage of capital we saw elsewhere in the world.

At a time of desperation for many companies, super savings helped our listed companies overcome capital scarcity and recapitalise.

Almost $40 billion was raised in institutional share placements in 2008-09 alone, helping to keep Australia in business, our banks strong and our people in jobs.

15% of capital raisings in 2008/09 globally were here in Australia.

And the companies that recapitalised employed 1.6m Australians.

Since then:

Super fund investments accounted for nearly 30 per cent of total market capitalisation of the ASX in the 2009-10 financial year. Super funds are the largest contributor to managed funds. As at the June quarter 2011, super funds accounted for around 70 per cent of all consolidated assets in managed funds. The global economic uncertainty we face now should be a reminder to us of the importance of super.

In rocky international seas, super is an anchor.

And it should be a reminder to us that increasing super – increasing the weight and heft of that anchor – is the right goal.

Some say that in the current economic environment we should be considering establishing a sovereign wealth fund.

I take a different approach.

I believe that superannuation is already our trillion dollar sovereign wealth fund – but with market benefits.

That’s because it’s privately managed by thousands of trustees instead of a sovereign wealth fund managed centrally by a Canberra-appointed manager.

Or alternatively, you could say that Australia has 8 million sovereign wealth funds – the superannuation accounts of Australians across the country.

These are the very same superannuation accounts we want to make massive injections into.

But we can’t do it without an important piece of policy architecture, and that is the Minerals Resource Rent Tax.

We can only get to 12 per cent by 2020 if we use part of the proceeds of the Minerals Resource Rent Tax to mitigate the lost revenue incurred by taxing super at concessional rates.

Neither the goal of increasing universal super contributions from 9 to 12 percent, nor the MRRT itself, are supported by our opponents.

A risk for every Australian heading towards retirement – for every Australian under 65.

And a risk for our future economic stability – not now, but in decades to come.

And a risk to jobs.

Our opponents, as usual, are willing to squander long-term economic stability and jobs for Australians for the sake of short-term political gain.

Hacking into the retirement savings of generations to come would be an act of social and economic vandalism that we cannot allow.

Superannuation is also starting to have the fiscal benefits envisaged by Keating and Kelty.

Superannuation has helped ensure Australia spends one of the lowest amounts on age pensions as a percentage of GDP of any advanced economy.

Latest Treasury estimates are that 12% super will mean $10bn saved each year on pension outlays in 2030.

Our superannuation savings pool, standing at an incredible $1.4 trillion, has doubled in just seven years.

That wealth is held in retail and corporate funds, industry and government funds and self-managed funds.

No model has a majority.

Each model has its benefits.

What unites us all is the understanding that universal superannuation is here to stay.

Like Medicare, it is now a fundamental part of Australia’s social compact.

A glittering economic achievement which has created jobs and opportunity for millions of Australians.

And more proof, if anyone needed it, that strong economic management is not an end in itself – but a means to build a better nation, to provide work and the dignity that comes with it.

Our task is to build on that legacy.

To borrow a Keatingesque sentiment, superannuation policy is an unfinished symphony.

The Keating generation created the fundamentals of a system that will endure for decades.

It is up to us to take the next steps.

As our population ages, our expectations of quality of life in retirement will rise.

More than half of Australians now working would prefer to retire on an income of at least $40,000 a year, compared to the single age pension of just $17,000 a year.

Yet currently less than 10 per cent of Australians aged over 65 have incomes over $40,000 a year.

It must be the goal of government to do better.

And the fact is we can’t address that gap without increasing super contributions.

That is another reason we will increase superannuation contributions from 9 to 12 per cent over the next decade, adding half a trillion dollars to national savings by 2035.

This increase is affordable and sustainable for businesses if introduced in the right way.

That is why we have staged the increases with a gradual ramp up so they start from next year and reach 12 per cent by the middle of 2019.

I am thankful for your support in achieving our national goal of lifting superannuation.

Friends, our other key task is to make the system more transparent and efficient, so that fund members obtain the best possible service and value – and importantly have trust and confidence in the system

It doesn’t matter whether an employee is a member of an industry fund or a retail

fund, they deserve good service and real value for money. They also deserve to be placed in a super fund because it is in their best interests, not because of sales commissions being paid to advisers.

We need to strip away inefficiencies to ensure that as much money as possible flows into the hands of retirees.

Our SuperStream reforms address some of the most basic issues of improving the creaking back-office of the super industry.

On my advice SuperStream could deliver $1 billion worth of efficiencies, as well as giving employees greater peace of mind that their contributions have been paid securely and on-time.

Let’s get moving on SuperStream – an important part of the productivity agenda for the wealth management industry.

The other big reform, of course, is MySuper.

The reality is that most Australians are not active managers of their superannuation.

They should not have to pay for advice or products they simply don't require.

For most employees, simple and reliable no-frills, low-cost super funds will be all they need.

And all parts of the superannuation industry have a role to play in providing them.

I know that many in this industry have already responded to this challenge by launching simple, commission-free super products.

And we as the Government have a role to play as well. To listen to your concerns and explain our policies. Our efforts in this respect have been spearheaded by the Minister, Bill Shorten, but I want you to know that my entire Government is committed to working with you to deliver a competitive superannuation industry.

I understand that the issue of how administration fees will be calculated in relation to MySuper products as well as the manner in which existing superannuation accounts will be treated following the introduction of MySuper, is a significant matter for the FSC and your members.

I know the Minister is consulting with you and the Government looks forward to continuing our engagement with each of you on these important issues.

It is in this spirit that we also recently released the first tranche of legislation for our Future of Financial Advice reforms on Monday. We will be releasing further details in coming months and are on track to introducing the legislation into Parliament later this Spring.

A competitive superannuation industry benefits all Australians.

It is the right policy at the right time in our history.

Friends, private savings through super, backed by public saving through tough budget rules.

It’s all part of a whole.

A plan to modernise our economy for the future so Australians have jobs.

A plan to create opportunity for every Australian - the opportunity that comes through having a job.

A plan to transform innovation, skills and training – so Australians can get a better job.

A plan to build the infrastructure of the future, the NBN, to unlock the opportunities of the digital economy so we don’t export jobs to countries with better technology.

A plan for a clean energy future in which economic growth is decoupled from carbon growth, and Australians have clean energy jobs.

Tax reform, to better reward Australians who get a job and to help non-mining companies create jobs

Building the road and rail infrastructure that will reconnect and re-energise our cities, and create jobs.

And, of course, reforms in health, ageing and disability to meet the demographic demands of tomorrow and make sure we don’t leave Australians behind.

In uncertain times, it is these things that will decide the outcome.

These are the things that will secure our future as a nation.

A nation confident in the world – and confident in itself.

If, on the other hand, political short-sightedness wins the day, then Australia will lose the future

If we allow the insidious belief to creep in that Australia is not up to reform – that we should punch below our weight, rather than above - that we should always put off to tomorrow what we’d prefer not to think about today – then it is ordinary Australians who will feel the pain of that failure of confidence.

Just as it is those ordinary Australians who are benefiting today from the reforms in superannuation undertaken twenty years ago.

I am optimistic about Australia and Australians. I believe that our best days are ahead of us, and that the choices we make today will make that true.

Australians are rightly proud of our economic achievements.

We did big things before in tougher times than this.

Achievements like Medicare, tariff reform and universal super.

Walking the reform road together, there is nothing but fear preventing us from doing great things once again.

Appendix H: Address to the Australian Steel Convention, Canberra (Gillard, 13 September 2011) Prime Minister I thank you for your welcome today and for the opportunity to speak with you at a time when the Australian steel industry is thinking deeply about what the future holds. Steel, of course, is a major player in the national economy. In 2006-07 all major Australian steel manufacturing activities employed a total of over 91,000 people and generated revenues of $29 billion. As a government, we are determined to keep the whole economy strong. Every region. Every sector. Including manufacturing and including steel. The health of the Australian steel industry is critical to our infrastructure, energy,

defence, transport, automotive, communications, construction and consumer goods industries. In the new high-tech, low-carbon economy we’re creating, Australian steel has a strong and sustainable future. It will continue to be a source of well paid, high skill jobs for Australian workers. Because nothing matters more than bringing the dignity and benefits of employment to all who want to work. Friends, with the high dollar and lingering global instability, creating a new economic future won’t always be easy. But it is also a time of incredible opportunity as the rise of Asia brings the weight of global economic growth right to our doorstep. As we prepare to meet the future, our economic picture is one of fundamental strength and resilience. Last week’s National Accounts show our economy grew by a robust 1.2 per cent in the June quarter, the strongest quarterly growth in four years. Manufacturing was up 2.8 per cent and Transport, Postal and Warehousing rose by 4.4 per cent. Importantly for this gathering, metal products rose 14 percent for the quarter and 16 percent in the year to June. These quarterly results reinforce the broader signs of underlying economic strength we have seen since the GFC. Strong growth in corporate profits, rising incomes, strong savings, solid consumption growth, unemployment levels that remain low by world standards. And interest rates lower than when we came to office in 2007. Above all, business is investing with confidence. A record $120 billion in 2010-11, with a record $150 billion to follow in this financial year already underway. Now despite the strong growth figures released last week, it is true that not all sectors of our economy are growing as much as we would like. Many industries are doing it tough due to consumer caution and the higher dollar, and it is no secret that steel is one of those industries. That patchwork pattern is a reflection of a global economic transformation taking place all around us. Friends, for the first time in our history, Australia is not prisoner to the tyranny of distance. Over the last two centuries, Australia was stranded far from the centres of growth in Europe and North America. In this century we are in the right place at the right time. The shift of global growth from West to East is perhaps the biggest economic realignment since the Industrial Revolution. China is now the second largest economy in the world, and is expected to surpass the US in size by 2020 while India is on track to surpass the US by mid century. The transformation of the Asian economies from developing to developed economy status represents a massive and lasting shift in the global economic order. Asia’s growth will continue for decades as the nations of the region build homes, factories, roads, railways and power supplies to service billions of people. That growth means rising demand for Australia’s natural resources, lifting our terms

of trade to unprecedented levels. In the longer term, those billions of people will also demand the goods and services that come with life in a more advanced society. Goods and services like high-end manufactures, pharmaceuticals, legal and financial services, education, health care, fine food and wine. It is mixture of opportunities and challenges. The challenges are real and they are painful. We can face them with courage and determination, shaping events to meet our own ends. Modernising our economy to meet the demands of the future. An economy creating new jobs, new opportunity. With no person, no place, left behind. Friends, there’s been much talk about inquiries and reviews. Certainly the Coalition's policy review is no answer to the hundreds of millions they pledge to cut from industry assistance. I believe that manufacturing industry in Australia deserves action now. That is why this Government has a set of policies to lift productivity and to drive balanced growth across the whole of our economy. High speed broadband – linking every part of Australia to every part of the world. A tax on the minerals we all own to cut company tax, boost national savings and build regional infrastructure. Skills and participation, to lift the capacity of all Australians to find work and support a growing economy. Personal tax reform to reward participation and lift people out of welfare. Supporting regions like Tasmania and the Illawarra with new infrastructure, investment and partnerships. And direct support to help industry face the world and achieve its best. Friends, with world-class research, innovation and infrastructure, we can build a vibrant manufacturing sector as an integral part of the new economy. We want to see Australia manufacturing investing in new technologies, new business processes and new skills. Moving up the value chain, and accessing global supply and design networks. Manufacturing based on comparative advantage and value-adding. Building on our record of creating value-added products like Colorbond that meet a real market need. We know that you shouldn’t be left do all those things alone. Targeted, practical, effective assistance will help you get there. Targeted, practical, effective assistance that’s on the table right now. I am proud that the Australian Government is now spending $9.4 billion on R&D and innovation, 43 per cent higher than the level of spending when we came to office. Proud that we have redesigned the R&D Tax Incentive to make it a tax credit which will provide assistance to innovating companies when they need it most. And proud that we are making record investments in the CSIRO and continuing the Cooperative Research Centre program as engine-rooms of innovation in this nation. Indeed, there are six CRCs working in steel and steel related areas. But by far the biggest impact will come from our bold decision to set Australia on the path to a clean energy future.

Friends, in a few hours time I will be introducing historic legislation to put a price on carbon and accelerate our transition to a low carbon economy. For the first time since the Industrial Revolution, we will start decoupling emissions growth from economic growth. It’s an historic opportunity to propel our manufacturing sector to the forefront of smart, low emissions technology. Those who stand against the clean technologies that come with a price on carbon are no friends of Australia’s manufacturing sector. The Government understandsthat there is nothing more important to our economy than building strong industries that provide jobs and opportunity for all. So our carbon package contains special measures to support employment and keep our nation competitive internationally. Targeted assistance measures to ensure that our industries are in the best position possible to manage the journey. Forty per cent of the revenue raised from pricing carbon will go towards this purpose. Our $1.2 billion Clean Technology Investment Programs and the $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation will also provide a major stimulus to a whole new range of manufacturing businesses. As a result, Australia will be able to seize a competitive advantage in developing and applying the cutting edge technologies of the clean energy future. Make no mistake, future prosperity lies with those countries that grasp the new frontier of clean energy technologies. Australian manufacturing is well placed to gain its share of those opportunities. We saw last month at the Clean Tech Showcase 15 Australian firms telling the world what they can do. Each producing high-tech, clean energy products such as new lightweight materials that cut energy use. Exporting to the world. Employing high-skill staff – in high wage jobs. And giving a glimpse of what a clean energy future can look like. But for manufacturing and steel in particular, the challenges of transition demand a more targeted and immediate response. Friends, I know today there are hundreds of steel workers facing a different future as they leave the industry. There are more remaining in the industry who wonder what will happen to them as well. That’s why as soon as Blue Scope announced its plans, we were immediately on the ground with $130 million in assistance including $100 million as an advance facility of our $300 million Steel Transformation Plan: the first steel plan for Australia in almost 30 years. Friends, innovative and efficient manufacturing has great prospects in Australia’s economic future. That’s why we’ve made our Jobs and Competitiveness Program a centrepiece of the Government’s carbon pricing scheme. The Jobs and Competitiveness Program will provide assistance of $9.2 billion over the first three years. In addition, we will provide free permits to the steel industry covering 94.5 per cent of

the impact of the carbon price. The Government will kickstart investments in energy efficient capital equipment and low-pollution technologies, processes and products through the $1.2 billion Clean Technology Investment and Innovation Programs. This will assist the sector to transform into an increasingly efficient and sustainable industry in a low-carbon economy. That is what the Government’s Steel Transformation Plan is all about: transformation. Like the Button plans, it is a bridge to build industry resilience and competitiveness. It is not a handout. It is a way of helping your industry muscle-up and face the world with confidence. For Australian industry to compete in a global market, it must have access to opportunities and be internationally competitive. The Government has been assisting the sector to access these opportunities and we recognise that more can be done. We have already worked with almost 500 steel and metal fabricator businesses through Enterprise Connect in business development and technology access. We have provided $34 million for the Buy Australian at Home and Abroad initiative to ensure that local suppliers directly benefit from strong growth in the resources sector. And $19.1 million of investment through the 2009 Australian Government Procurement Statement. In support of those measures, we’ve appointed the Honourable Peter Beattie as Australia’s first Resources Sector Supplier Envoy to champion Australian industry participation in the resources sector. We’re also appointing respected industry leaders as Supplier Advocates, to champion suppliers in the government marketplace and help industry raise the competitiveness of firms and supply chains. Supplier Advocates have been appointed for the rail, IT, water and the built environment sectors, while Mr Dennis O’Neill was recently appointed as the Steel Supplier Advocate. We hope to appoint additional advocates in the coming year, including in the clean technologies and in the resources sector. Friends, we are serious about Australian industry being able to compete for work. From 1 January 2010, an approved Australian Industry Participation Plan has been required for all new Australian Government contracts worth more than $20 million. We are already working with the Western Australian Government on monitoring the implementation of AIP plans for Chevron's Gorgon and Wheatstone projects and now it’s time to look at the next steps. Firstly, we are considering publishing of AIP plans and outcomes. This would give industry more confidence about the effectiveness of the AIP approach. Secondly, we introduced AIP frameworks for Commonwealth procurement items with a value of over $20 million. We are now considering how to extend the AIP to other Commonwealth- funded projects and programs. These steps would create more opportunities for Australian industry to compete for the lucrative contracts being let in the resources sector and across the economy more generally.

We also want to ensure that Australian manufacturers aren’t forced to unfairly compete against product which has been dumped on our shores. In June we announced a balanced reform package that will better protect our industries and workforce from unfair trade practices. The reforms will improve the way we administer global anti-dumping rules and better align our laws and practices with other countries, while ensuring we meet our World Trade Organisation obligations. The changes will improve access to anti-dumping remedies for businesses, and investigations will be resolved more quickly. Greater resources and expertise will ensure greater consistency with anti-dumping practices in other countries. It’s one thing for a free trade nation like Australia to face fair competition in the global marketplace. But we won’t let our manufacturers be undercut by nations who supply goods below production cost. It’s not fair, and it’s not on. Friends, these are powerful measures, and they stem from the Government’s abiding commitment to strengthen Australian manufacturing and exports. Reflecting that commitment, the Government we will engage in a series of events between now and the end of the year to support our manufacturing and export industries. In November, Peter Beattie will organise a resources sector forum to provide practical leadership in linking Australian suppliers to opportunities in the resources sector. In October, the Tax Forum will have a strong focus on the issues of a two speed economy and whether the tax system can help to address them. And immediately afterwards, we will also host a Future Jobs Forum to generate a shared understanding of the opportunities and challenges in the economy, with a special focus on sectors under pressure. During this time of rapid change, dialogue between government, business and unions is essential to bullet-proof Australian jobs. This day-long event will discuss how Australia can build on its outstanding record of economic growth and job creation in recent years, and best position our nation to benefit from the changing global economy. It will focus on how to move manufacturing and other sectors further up the value chain - driving business innovation, accessing global export markets, and using the most advanced approaches to management and workforce development. Friends, in these first decades of the 21stcentury, the global economyis changing more rapidly and completely than any of us imagined was possible. Technology is also changing. So is the way we use and create energy. Each of these poses challenges. But each of them also offers us the opportunity to create new jobs and prosperity. My call to you is to continue working to turn this time of change to our advantage. Together we can build a new economy where manufacturing will always have a place. A strong economy – modernised, open, competitive.

Unafraid of the world. Unafraid of the future. I believe Australia is up for that challenge, and together we will succeed.

Appendix I: Introduction of the Clean Energy Bill 2011, Canberra (Gillard, 13 September 2011)

Prime Minister

Mr Speaker, this House has been debating climate change for decades. Parliamentary debate of this issue predates this building itself. My predecessor as Member for Lalor, Barry Jones, once said this about climate change: If we are only prepared to plan five years, 10 years, 15 years or 20 years down the track all the dangers that are feared can be avoided. Those words were spoken twenty four years ago next week. We have now had decades of heated public argument and political opinion. Alongside decades of enlightened scientific research and economic analysis. After all those opinions have been expressed, most Australians now agree: our climate is changing

this is caused by carbon pollution

this has harmful effects on our environment and on the economy

and the Government should act.

And after all that analysis has been done, most economists and experts also now agree the best way is to make polluters pay by putting a price on carbon. So that is the policy of the Government I lead. And that is the plan which is before the House now. A plan for a carbon pricing mechanism which means around five hundred big polluters to pay for every tonne of carbon pollution they put into our atmosphere. A plan to cut carbon pollution by at least 160 million tonnes a year in 2020. A plan for tax cuts, increased pensions and increased family payments. A plan for clean energy jobs and investment ... a plan for a clean energy future for our country. Today we move from words to deeds. This Parliament is going to get this done. There will be a price on carbon from 1 July 2012. The carbon pricing mechanism which begins its course through our Parliament today is the product of years of public policy discussion and development. In the late 1990s, the Australian Greenhouse Office published papers setting out how a carbon price might work and sought public submissions. Then the National Emissions Trading Taskforce established by the States and Territories, and the Shergold report set up by the Howard Government, embarked on extensive consultation processes. Each generated wide ranging recommendations on designing the mechanism for a

carbon price. Further consultation on detailed design issues occurred through the Garnaut Review, the Green and White Papers, and in response to draft legislation supporting the former Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, defeated in the Senate. In September 2010, the Government convened the Multi-Party Climate Change Committee to agree a way forward. In February this year, the Government released a Climate Change Framework for public discussion. In July, the Government announced the carbon pricing mechanism and, later that month, released draft legislation. We received over 300 submissions on the draft bills and had extensive discussions with businesses, non-government organisations, other governments and legal stakeholders. All adding to the literally thousands of submissions which have been made to Government on this issue over the years. Many advocates and advisers have worked enormously hard. I am grateful for the tremendous energy and seriousness with which so many have treated these exhaustive – even exhausting – discussions. All part of the years of research and analysis which underpin the policy embodied in the legislation I introduce today. I firmly believe no stone remains unturned, no voice unheard. So this is the plan for Australia’s carbon price. A modern policy approach, with efficient allocation and incentive to innovate, linked to global markets. A fixed price for the first years – a well designed market from 2015. Assistance for emissions intensive, trade exposed industries. Evidence-based emissions targets. Abatement at the lowest economic cost. All adding up to a new bottom line: Where polluters pay. Mr Speaker, let me turn to the main features of the Clean Energy Bill 2011. The Bill provides that the carbon price will be paid by liable entities, which have facilities that emit 25,000 tonnes or more of carbon pollution a year. It will also cover landfills that emit 10,000 tonnes or more, where these are within a specified distance of landfills that emit 25,000 tonnes or more. Large users of natural gas will be liable parties in their own right, while natural gas suppliers such as retailers will pay a carbon price for the emissions that arise from the use of the natural gas by smaller customers. Around 500 entities will have mandatory liabilities under the carbon pricing mechanism. Around 500 polluters will pay. To determine liability, the carbon pricing mechanism will draw on information reported under the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting System, an established measurement system for greenhouse gas pollution developed under the Howard Government and which commenced on 29 September 2007. The carbon pricing mechanism will not apply to agricultural emissions, legacy emissions from landfill facilities, and emissions from landfill facilities closed before 1 July 2012. The Bill recognises that there are different ways in which businesses structure their

affairs. It specifically deals with joint ventures – a common feature of resource and energy projects. And it allows businesses to transfer liability under the mechanism within their corporate groups. The Bill provides for a fixed carbon price for three years, starting at $23 per tonne of carbon pollution. A fixed carbon price, set out in legislation, provides business with certainty as our plan begins – and allows for a manageable transition to carbon pricing. After three years, the scheme automatically transitions to a fully flexible cap and trade emissions trading scheme. From this time on, a cap will be placed on national emissions and the carbon price will be determined by the market. The Bill also provides for a price cap and a price floor to apply for the first three years of the floating price period. This will limit market volatility and reduce risk for businesses as they gain experience in having the market set the carbon price. At the heart of an emissions trading scheme is a cap on carbon pollution. These caps will guarantee reductions in carbon pollution and allow us to achieve our long term target of an 80 per cent reduction from 2000 levels by 2050. Achieving this target will take more than 17 billion tonnes of carbon pollution out of the atmosphere between now and 2050. In 2050 this will cut 9 out of every 10 tonnes of pollution compared to what would happen without our plan. Under the arrangements that this Bill would put in place, pollution caps will be set by the Government with advice from the expert, independent Climate Change Authority. If caps are not set, then default caps will apply, which reflect Australia’s unconditional, bipartisan commitment to reduce our greenhouse gas pollution by 5 per cent below 2000 levels in 2020. To provide stability and notice for business, cap-setting regulations will be made well in advance. The Bill makes provision for the Australian carbon pricing mechanism to interact with credible international efforts to reduce carbon pollution. International linking gives liable parties access to a broader range of abatement opportunities, which helps contain costs and helps promote international action on climate change. Liable parties will be able to meet up to half of their obligation through the use of international carbon units. This will ensure that only robust, environmentally credible international units are allowed to be used for compliance. The Government understands that there is nothing more important to families than having a job. So we will take special measures to support jobs and keep Australia competitive internationally. The Bill makes provision for certain industry assistance measures, which will ensure that our industries are in the best position possible to manage a smooth transition to a clean energy future.

The Jobs and Competitiveness Program will assist emissions-intensive, trade- exposed industries in making that transition to a low-emissions economy, while protecting Australian jobs and competitiveness. It will allocate around 40 per cent of the revenue raised by the mechanism to this purpose. The effectiveness of the Program will be subject to ongoing review by the independent Productivity Commission. The many activities the Program may cover are dealt with in Regulations, to be published in draft by the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency later this month. These regulations have been designed in close consultation with the affected businesses and can be adapted over time as needed. The move to a low-emissions economy will pose an adaptive challenge for our energy supply industry. The Government will implement measures to underpin a successful energy market transition and maintain secure energy supplies. The Bill provides for an Energy Security Fund to provide assistance to Australia’s most emissions-intensive coal-fired generators. This will underpin ongoing confidence in the sector and support new – and much needed – investment in new energy sources and infrastructure. Assistance will be conditional on meeting tests relating to maintaining energy security, as well as publishing Clean Energy Investment Plans setting out their intentions for new investments and other matters. In addition to these legislative measures, the Government will seek to close around 2000 megawatts of highly polluting generation capacity by 2020. Closing down some of our high pollution coal-fired capacity makes room for investment in low pollution plant and starts the transformation of our energy sector in a responsible way. The carbon pricing arrangements will be supported by robust and independent governance arrangements. The Clean Energy Regulator will work with liable entities to ensure compliance with the mechanism and is specifically charged with educating and advising them about it and how they may comply. The Regulator will have appropriate and proportionate powers to monitor compliance, and where problems emerge, to take action to address them. Enforcement and penalties are focused on those who have obligations under the mechanism – not on the general public. The Regulator is a public body, bound to act in the public interest and in accordance with the constraints imposed by the Bill and by other Commonwealth laws. In addition to the specific advice to be provided to the Government on issues like pollution caps, the Bill provides that the mechanism will be reviewed over time by the independent, expert Climate Change Authority. This scrutiny will ensure its ongoing relevance, robustness and integrity. This Bill is part of the Government’s total package of clean energy legislation implementing the carbon pricing mechanism and related reforms. The Clean Energy Bill 2011 sets out the core provisions of the carbon pricing mechanism – its architecture and its review arrangements.

Consequential amendments are made to other Commonwealth laws to integrate the carbon pricing mechanism with existing laws on climate change, economic regulation and taxation. These changes are set out in the Clean Energy (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2011. The implementation of an effective carbon price on transport through the fuel taxation, customs and excise system is achieved through the Clean Energy (Fuel Tax Legislation Amendment) Bill 2011, the Clean Energy (Excise Tariff Legislation Amendment) Bill 2011 and the Clean Energy (Customs Tariff Amendment) Bill 2011. Charges under the carbon price mechanism are dealt with in the Clean Energy (Unit Shortfall Charge—General) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Unit Issue Charge—Fixed Charge) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Unit Issue Charge—Auctions) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Charges—Excise) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Charges—Customs) Bill 2011,and the Clean Energy (International Unit Surrender Charge) Bill 2011. The price impact of the Government’s plan will be modest – but I know family budgets are always tight. So most of the money raised from the carbon price will be used to fund tax cuts, pension increases and higher family payments. The Government has taken the opportunity to give pensioners extra help. Every older Australian who relies solely on the pension will be among the four million Australian households who get a “buffer” for the budget, with the extra payments being 20 per cent higher than their average extra costs. And the Government has taken the opportunity for tax reform as well. We’ve more than tripled the tax free threshold. Combined with other changes, this means that 450 000 people – who earn between $16 000 and $20 500 – will have all their tax cut. They will now pay no tax. A tax reform which rewards work – which builds on our Budget changes to lift workforce participation and spread the benefits and dignity of work to every Australian. The assistance to households provided through the tax and transfer system is delivered through the Clean Energy (Household Assistance Amendments) Bill 2011, theClean Energy (Tax Laws Amendments) Bill 2011 and the Clean Energy (Income Tax Rates Amendments) Bill 2011. The Climate Change Authority is set up by the Climate Change Authority Bill 2011, which also sets out its functions. Similarly, the Clean Energy Regulator is established by the Clean Energy Regulator Bill 2011. Mr Speaker, we govern in a world of change, a world that is transforming. My task as Prime Minister, my Party’s task in Government, this Parliament’s task as it meets today, is to lead our country through this transformation. Not to hide from change, to make change work for us. To use our strength today to build strength for the future. The jobs of the future are clean energy jobs. Employment is projected to grow strongly with a carbon price. Around 1.6 million jobs to be created to 2020 ... a further 4.4 million to 2050. The investment of the future is clean energy investment. All up, the carbon price will support $100 billion worth of investment in renewables in the next forty years.

The Australian economy will continue to prosper while cutting carbon pollution. Real gross national income per person is expected to increase from today’s levels by around $9,000 per person to 2020 and more than $30,000 per person by 2050. If we can do all this: Cut carbon pollution. Keep growing our economy. Keep growing jobs. Why wouldn’t we act? So the Government will act. And the Parliament should support us. Mr Speaker, there is a reason votes on legislation in this House are recorded. There is a reason these matters are decided in an open vote. It is so every member in this place can be judged. Judged on the decisions they make here, judged on where they stand on the great issues of our national debate. Judged by every Australian. Judged now, judged in the future. Because the final test is not: are you on the right side of the politics of the week or the polls of the year. The final test is this: are you on the right side of history. And in my experience, the judgement of history has a way of speaking sooner than we expect. To newer members of this place, I say, just ask those more senior members who sit opposite. Ask those who voted in this house against Medicare in 1983. How smart did that look in 1984? Ask those who voted in this house against universal superannuation in 1992. How smart did that look in 1993? Ask those who voted for Work Choices in 2005. How smart did that look in 2007? Yes, the judgement of history comes sooner than we expect. And the demand for policy leadership comes hard on its heels. Mr Speaker, nothing hard ever gets easier by putting it off. And if you don’t do what is right for the nation, then you shouldn’t be in Parliament. It’s time to deliver the action on climate change we need. To do what is best for Australian families, what is best for future generations, what is best for this country. To act on climate change. To cut carbon pollution. To build a clean energy future. To create clean energy jobs. I see a great clean energy future for our great country. I know we can get there. I commend the Bill to the House.

Appendix J: Address to the Nation (Abbott, 10 July 2011)

Since the carbon tax was first announced, I’ve been to dozens of shopping centres, factories and mines talking about our country and its future. People think our country is drifting and it’s hard to know whether the Labor Party or the Greens are really in charge. Australians are worried about jobs and about the cost of living that just goes up and up and now there’s the carbon tax that’s just going to make a difficult situation worse. Like you, Margie and I want a better future for our children. We only have one planet and I want to preserve it. But you don’t protect the environment by making everyday life more expensive and by exporting Australian jobs. This carbon tax is a bad idea because everything will cost more: at $23 a tonne, power prices will immediately rise by 10 per cent and the cost of living of average households will rise by $515 a year that you can’t afford. The Prime Minister says that most families will be compensated but you can’t compensate people who lose their jobs and the compensation won’t keep pace as the tax goes up and up and up. Even on the government’s own modelling, millions of Australians will be worse off – including a single income family with one child on just average weekly earnings. The Prime Minister says that the tax won’t hurt you but why should we trust her now when we couldn’t before the election? Why should we trust the Prime Minister to stand up to the Greens in the future when she can’t stand up to them now? Why should we trust this government with a new tax when we know where it will all end: with more spending, more waste and more spin. So I say “no” to a carbon tax because I say “yes” to manufacturing in Australia and “yes” to affordable electricity and transport. The whole point of this carbon tax is to make coal, gas and oil more expensive. The price signal won’t work if the price isn’t high. The tax doesn’t work if it doesn’t hurt. It has to make turning on your heater more expensive and make using transport more expensive to work. Under a carbon tax, Australians won’t use less steel, aluminium, and cement – we will just import them from countries without a carbon tax and without any plan to reduce their own emissions. The world’s emissions won’t change at all but Australia will have fewer jobs because there is no such thing as a solar-powered steel mill, a wind-driven motor manufacturing plant, an electric passenger plane or cheap base load power other than from coal or gas. I think Australia needs a new plan, not a new tax. The Coalition’s plan to cut emissions means more trees, better soil and smarter technology. Over the past 15 years, Australians have reduced their emissions intensity by nearly 50 per cent by using energy more efficiently. I’ve seen farms that have captured thousands and thousands of tonnes of carbon by moving from chemical to organic fertiliser. I’ve seen power generation that actually reduces emissions because it burns what would otherwise rot in landfills. None of this needed a carbon tax. In fact, a carbon tax would make this kind of innovation harder. This is the kind of innovation and ingenuity that our plan would fund. Our plan is costed, capped, and fully funded from savings in the budget. It means no extra

burden on taxpayers and no extra costs to consumers. It’s not a tax policy pretending to be an environment policy. The Coalition’s plan means a fair go for pensioners – without a carbon tax. And tax cuts funded from savings – not from a carbon tax. Australians want less tax not more, and they want incentives not penalties from their government. They want a government which delivers after an election what it promised beforehand. We will deliver the hope, reward and opportunity that good government fosters. That’s why there should be no carbon tax, why the Australian people are entitled to a vote, and why the next election will be a referendum on this bad tax based on a lie. Together, we can fight this tax before it becomes law.

Appendix K: Remarks at the Melbourne Wholesale Fish Markets, West Melbourne (Abbott, 13 July 2011) It’s great to be down here at the Melbourne Fish markets. The fish markets are obviously one of the many sectors of our economy which will be significantly impacted by the carbon tax. Refrigeration, ice and transport are central to the operation of the fish markets and all of these are going to be more expensive under the carbon tax. I think it’s very important that political leaders come and try to understand these problems. One of the real problems with this carbon tax is that there’s supposed to be compensation for households, there’s supposed to be compensation for some trade-exposed businesses but there is no compensation whatsoever for small business and all of these small businesses here will see their costs go up and they’re going to be squeezed by rising costs and by the fact that their customers don’t want to pay higher prices. The Prime Minister keeps telling us that this tax won’t hurt us but the more we learn about it the less confident we can be that the Government knows what it is doing. The Treasurer the other day couldn’t explain the impact of his tax, the Finance Minister couldn’t explain the cost of the tax and we now know that the Prime Minister couldn’t explain where the money was coming from just talking about how the funds to buy out Hazelwood would come out of the contingency reserve. Well, it’s just not good enough. This is a government which is plainly making it up on the run. The Australian people can have no confidence in a government that doesn’t understand its own package.

Appendix L: Address to LNP State Council, Brisbane (Abbott, 16 July 2011) Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for that marvellous Queensland welcome. It’s so good to be here in Queensland, in the great state of Queensland and the great city of Brisbane. I thank and acknowledge Bruce McIver and Campbell Newman for the work they have done in transforming conservative politics in this state. I thank and acknowledge my federal office bearers: Alan Stockdale, our president, Santo Santoro, our vice president, Brian Loughnane, our federal director, for the work they

have done and will do to bring about a change of government in Canberra. I particularly thank and acknowledge my federal parliamentary colleagues led by Warren Truss, also here today Barnaby Joyce, George Brandis, Peter Dutton, Ian Macfarlane from the Shadow Cabinet. These are leading the fight against this bad and unnecessary tax and you know, the Prime Minister said that she was going to wear out the shoe leather getting around the country this week. One place she didn’t go was to Lilley, because on Monday morning in Lilley there was a public forum, it was well attended, it wasn’t led by Wayne Swan, it was led by George Brandis and Joe Hockey and it resoundingly rejected the Prime Minister’s carbon tax. Now ladies and gentlemen, exactly one year ago in this very room we in the Liberal National Party, we in the Coalition around Australia began our campaign against the Gillard Government. It was exactly one year ago in this room that we discovered an election had been called and I said to you one year ago if Kevin Rudd could not trust Julia Gillard, why should the Australian people trust Julia Gillard? I said it as a rhetorical question but we know the answer. You cannot trust Julia Gillard. You cannot trust the Prime Minister of this country and ever since that day in this room she has given us more and more evidence on which to base that judgment. During the election campaign she gave us the East Timor solution to the problem of border protection, a solution which since then has sunk somewhere in the Timor Sea. In that election campaign she gave us cash-for-clunkers that were going to take all those old wrecks off the road. Instead, the policy was taken off the road shortly after the election. We had the ‘real’ Julia who occasionally makes an appearance such as at the National Press Club just the other day and of course the centrepiece of her election campaign was the citizens’ assembly that was going to deal with climate change and nothing was going to happen on climate change, the Prime Minister reassured us, there would be no major policy announcements on climate change, the Prime Minister reassured us, until there was a deep and lasting consensus of the Australian people. Well ladies and gentlemen, we all know what happened to the citizens’ assembly. The 150 that were supposed to gather and deliberate turned into just six: the Prime Minister, Greg Combet, Bob Brown, Christine Milne and two independents whose names I can’t currently remember. This tax is the Greens’ tax. Let’s be honest about it. When the Prime Minister said “there will be no carbon tax under the government I lead” and then gave us a tax she was confessing that fundamentally she is not in charge of this Government. Julia Gillard might be in office but Bob Brown is in power and one of the reasons why the Labor Party itself is so divided, so unhappy and so mutinous about this carbon tax – they know it is not theirs. They know it has been foisted on them by the Greens. Ladies and gentlemen, this is bad policy. It’s bad policy but it is in breach of the trust that the Australian people are entitled to have in their government. It’s unfair and it won’t work. Never forget two fundamental facts about this carbon tax. First of all, it is trying to do something which the rest of the world is not doing. At the same time as we are planning to reduce our emissions by five per cent, the Chinese are intending to increase theirs by 500 per cent. By a factor of 100, they will eliminate any reduction that we might achieve in our emissions in this country and don’t let anyone tell you that we have to put this carbon tax in place in order to catch up with the rest of the world because no less an authority than the Productivity Commission itself has said that no other country on earth, none, has in place an economy-wide carbon tax

or emissions trading scheme. Ladies and gentlemen, whenever you hear a government talking about compensation what is it that goes through your mind? Is it gratitude for the generosity of the government? Is it a sense of the benevolence of leadership? When governments start talking compensation, the people start thinking rip-off. That’s what happens, and even on the Government’s own figures three million Australian households will be worse off under this carbon tax. A single income family with a child starts to be worse off at below average weekly earnings and that’s under the Government’s own figures. A policeman married to a part-time nurse is worse off under the Government’s own figures. A school teacher married to a shop assistant is worse off under the Government’s own figures. These are the people who Julia Gillard obviously thinks are rich but we know they are not rich, we know they are ordinary, decent Australians trying to do the right thing by their families and they don’t deserve to be ripped off by this Government and its bad tax. You’ve always got to be suspicious about a Government which on its own figures says that families will be $9.90 a week worse off and then says ‘but we are going to give you $10.10 back’. I mean, 20 cents a week, and this from a Government which has proven so good with figures. This from a Government which mislays $1.5 billion in the pink batts programme; $1 billion plus in the computers in schools programme; perhaps seven or $8 billion in the school hall programme. Now they expect us to believe on the basis of modelling that we should be grateful for this tax because on their own figures we’re 20 cents a week better off. Well please, don’t take us for mugs, don’t take us for mugs. The Australian people are not stupid and they know a bad deal when they see it. But on the subject of the modelling, on the Government’s own admission, some of this package was modelled at $20 a tonne, some of this package was modelled at $23 a tonne, much of this package wasn’t modelled at all, such as the $15.5 billion set aside for Bob Brown’s green bank and to take so-called dirty power stations out of production. The modelling assumes that the rest of the world will have a carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme in place by the middle of the decade. All of these assumptions look wrong and we have the New South Wales Treasury, no less a modeller than the federal Treasury, which says that the immediate impact of power prices will not be 10 per cent but 20 per cent. We have the Master Builders Association which says that the impact of the carbon tax on the cost of a modest home will be such that mortgage repayments for home-buyers will go up by $480 a year. Mortgage repayments alone go up by $480 a year and yet the Government expects us to believe that the total cost to households is just $515 a year. Well it just doesn’t sound right, the Australian people will never vote for it. Ladies and gentlemen, the Government is asking us to transform the way we live, to transform the way we work, to undertake the biggest long-term structural change to the Australian economy and society ever undertaken. They are asking us to do all this in a campaign to save the planet and when you actually look at the Government’s own figures our emissions increase. Our emissions increase. Please, I say to all of you: don’t believe me, go and look at the Government’s own documents and you will see in black and white, in the Government’s own documents our emissions today are 578 million tonnes, our emissions in 2020, after all this upheaval, after all this change, after all of the trouble and time: 621 million tonnes. So

we can do all this and we still aren’t going to reduce our own emissions. The only way this Government can reduce our emissions under this massive tax plan is to buy carbon credits abroad. Now, I am all in favour of doing the right thing by the carbon traders of Equatorial Guinea and Kazakhstan and all the other places that Kevin Rudd likes to visit. I am sure they are very decent, honest people. I am sure the last thing they would want to do is rip off Australian business but I’ve got to say there is something far from sensible about sending $3.5 billion a year to these people by 2020 and sending $57 billion a year overseas by 2050. Again, don’t believe my figures, look at them in the Government’s own documents. Explicit in the Government’s reasoning we will be sending $57 billion abroad. Whatever else this thing is, it is this for sure: a get-rich-quick scheme for foreign carbon traders and ladies and gentlemen, that’s one thing that we don’t need to run in this country, a get- rich-quick scheme for foreign carbon traders. As some of you know, my first political mentor was the late, great B.A Santamaria and Bob Santamaria had an expression that he liked to use: a moon beam from the larger lunacy. Well never, ladies and gentlemen, have I seen something that is better described by that phrase than this carbon tax; a moon beam from the larger lunacy. But if there’s one state ladies and gentlemen which is going to be impacted more than any other by this carbon tax, it’s Queensland. All of you remember the disastrous floods from January exacerbated by the cyclone. All of us in Australia remember that, not just because of the human heartache and the terrible human toll that those floods and that cyclone exacted but because of the economic toll that was exacted. The Queensland economy went backwards. The national economy stood still and the reason for that was because those floods stopped the Queensland coal industry. Just imagine a permanent depression in the Queensland coal industry because that is what the carbon tax is going to do to the Australian and the local economy. Ladies and gentlemen, Queensland is the world’s largest seaborne coal exporter. Mining, mainly coal, is 10 per cent of Queensland’s gross state product. Mining royalties, coal royalties alone are $3.1 billion in the state’s budget. Twenty thousand Queenslanders are employed directly in coal and fifty thousand Queenslanders are employed indirectly in coal. They are extremely well employed. The average wage in the coal industry is $122,000 a year. This is why so many parts of regional Queensland are so prosperous, because the coal industry is prosperous, because coal miners are prosperous and all of this is at risk under a carbon tax. The coal industry estimates that it will pay $17 billion in the first decade of a carbon tax. The coal industry has estimated that the carbon tax will cost 10, 000 jobs and close down 16 major mines. On the Government’s own modelling for the carbon pollution reduction scheme there was going to be a 35 per cent cut in coal production and a 13 per cent reduction in coal investment. Again ladies and gentlemen, look at the figures in the Government’s own documents. Coal-generated electricity goes from 80 per cent of Australia’s total to ten per cent of Australia’s total by 2050. This has to have a dramatic impact on the coal industry. But it’s not just the coal industry that is going to be dramatically impacted by the carbon tax. That other great iconic Queensland industry, the tourism industry will also be dramatically impacted. Tourism is worth $9 billion a year to Queensland and yet under the carbon tax the tourism industry estimates it will lose 6,000 jobs, it will lose

139,000 foreign visitors a year and it will take an $865 million cut because of the costs of a carbon tax. Another industry vital to the future of Queensland badly and unnecessarily damaged by this toxic tax. So I say to you, my fellow members of the Liberal National Party, I say to you, my fellow supporters of the Coalition, the most positive thing that we can do for our country right now is to stop this toxic tax. And I remind you that a Government that was incapable of putting pink batts into people’s roofs for free without starting hundreds of fires, a Government that was incapable of building school halls without rip-off after rip-off, a Government that was incapable of allowing the live cattle trade to keep going about its business – this Government is utterly incapable of managing the most complex change in Australia’s history. This is the most incompetent government in our history. Now they expect us to trust them with the most complex change in our history. Well, we won’t do it. Ladies and gentlemen there is a better way. There is a better way on the environment. We can cut our emissions by five per cent by 2020 and we can do it in ways which make sense. We can plant more trees and soak up emissions that way. I know because I’ve seen it being done. We can get more carbon into soils and soak up emissions that way. I know because I’ve seen it happening and I know that the farmers of this country want the best possible productivity from their land and that’s why so many of them are now starting to change from chemical to organic fertilisers. I have seen it, they are doing it; we will encourage them to do more of it. I know that intelligent Australian businesses are using smart technology to soak up these emissions, including here in Queensland. The intelligence, the know-how, the creativity of researchers in Queensland right now is taking carbon dioxide from power station smoke stacks, it’s growing massive quantities of algae. Carbon dioxide, water and sunlight are the inputs, they can grow massive quantities of algae extremely quickly, soak up carbon dioxide and produce stockfeed and biodiesel which is very, very valuable. What we want to do is work with the good people of our country, the creative people of our country, get them doing more and doing better what they want to do. That is the smart way to reduce emissions. So there is a better way on the environment. There is a better way on the economy. We don’t have to waste the billions that this Government is wasting and if we don’t waste the billions, we don’t have our hand constantly in the people’s pocket. If we don’t waste the billions we aren’t constantly going to the markets to borrow, putting upward pressure on home owners’ interest rates. There is a better way on social policy. We want to get young people back into work by giving them encouragement to move to where the work is. We want to get older people back into work by giving employers incentives to end the cult of youth in employment. We want to see mothers suitably encouraged to stay in the workforce, if that’s their choice, so that they can be economic as well as social contributors. There is a better way, ladies and gentlemen, and it’s a better way that we have set out for the Australian people, a better way that we will continue to set out for the Australian people because we are a great country. We are a great country and a great people who right now are being badly let down by a lousy Government. Ladies and gentlemen, let us never forget the important values on which all our policies are based. Never let us forget the great values of our political movement, which have stood this country in such good stead for so many years. As Liberals, we

want lower taxes, greater freedom and smaller government. As conservatives, we support the family and values which have stood the test of time, but as Australian patriots we want policies that work and which will build on the strengths of a great country. Ladies and gentlemen, our task as members of the Liberal and National parties is to give Australia the better government that a great people deserve and I want to end on this note. Just as another great nation was built on the ringing phrase “no taxation without representation”, I say to the Prime Minister, I say to the Australian people, we should have no tax collection without an election. That’s what we want. Thank you.

Appendix M: Address to Consilium 2011, Queensland (Abbott, 29 July 2011) The genius of Western civilisation is its constant self-questioning. It doesn’t matter what has been achieved, or what we think we know, the Western mind yearns to discover more and the Western will strives to do better. The spirit of reform is at the heart of our culture. In my judgment, it’s the principal explanation for our comparative success. Self-questioning, though, is not the same as self-doubt. It’s a determination to build further on acknowledged strengths. This enthusiasm to improve on success is an aspect of our culture’s capacity to be liberal and conservative at the same time. The difference between one side of our politics and the other is not that one supports change and the other does not but the different sorts of changes that each side proposes and the range of values that each side most strongly promotes. Politicians and political parties differ in the extent to which they prefer opportunity over equality, diversity over unity, or innovation over conservation. They argue about the extent to which freedom is necessary for fairness to be achieved, and vice versa, but there’s considerable common ground and near-universal acceptance of the golden rule that “you should treat others as you would have them treat you”.

The shift from feudalism to capitalism, from autocracy to democracy, and from dogmatism to pluralism hasn’t been smooth, even in the English-speaking countries but an engrained tradition of give and take and a preference for practical solutions over abstract ideals has minimised upheaval. Change seems to have been less traumatic where government has been by consent and leaders have been constrained by law. The normal requirement of our culture to negotiate change seems to have made it more sustainable.

Thirty years ago, Australians had a strong sense that too much economic conformism was stifling initiative and sapping prosperity. We worried about becoming the “poor white trash of Asia” and fretted that we might be the first generation to give our children lower prospects of success than those we’d inherited. The Centre for Independent Studies helped to create the intellectual climate that made the previously politically impossible achievable. This Centre helped to foster the reforms that made ours, for a time, the world’s miracle economy.

First under the Hawke/Keating government and then under the Howard/Costello

government, we deregulated financial markets, floated the dollar, drastically reduced tariffs, privatised government assets, gave workers more freedom of contract, established reserve bank independence, and began the task of reforming the welfare system with programmes such as work for the dole. During the term of the Howard government, real wages rose by more than 20 per cent, there were more than two million new jobs, and real net wealth per person more than doubled. Even so, many of these reforms were endured rather than embraced. Although privatisation and close-to-zero tariffs have been politically uncontentious for almost a generation, the airwaves are still filled with angst against foreign products and greedy business people. The lesson, even from successful reforms, is that very few philosophical arguments are ever finally won. Paul Keating once said that good policy is good politics but leaders that can’t make a public case for their reforms don’t win elections. Voters can be brought to accept very difficult change if a strong case is convincingly argued but won’t endure any insinuation that government knows best.

The GST turned out to be a sustainable reform because the public eventually came to understand through dint of the struggles over Keating’s Option C and John Hewson’s Fightback! that the old indirect tax system was complex, inefficient and out-of-step with good international practice. The GST was never popular, and is still deeply resented by the small business people who have to administer it, but was at least a replacement tax and was accompanied by overall tax cuts funded through more efficient government.

John Howard promised that there would “never, ever” be a GST before the 1996 election but changed his mind during the next term of parliament. As a consequence, he sought a new mandate at the 1998 election which amounted to a referendum on whether or not a GST should be introduced. He didn’t say one thing before an election and do the opposite afterwards. He devised a new policy that he thought made sense and then gave the people the chance to say “yes” or “no” at an election. Howard’s subsequent election win confirmed the public’s readiness to accept tough but necessary reforms provided they hadn’t been treated like mugs in the process.

By contrast, WorkChoices turned out to be unsustainable because it passed through a parliament that had no mandate for it. Election after election, Howard had argued for removing the unfair dismissal burden from very small business and for trusting workers and managers with more responsibility for determining how their workplace operated. He had never argued, ever, that an enterprise with 100 full-time staff was a small business or that the “no disadvantage” test no longer needed to be applied to workplace contracts. WorkChoices went much further than the legislation that hostile senates had previously rejected.

WorkChoices didn’t fail because it was bad policy. It failed because it had never been put properly to the people so that it could form part of an election mandate. In our eagerness not to waste the opportunity provided by control of the senate, the former government forgot that the consent of the people matters as much as the support of the parliament. The judgment of the people doesn’t determine what’s a scientific fact or what’s a philosophical truth but it does determine the policy that a democratic

government can legitimately pursue.

The Prime Minister is likening her carbon tax to the reforms of the Hawke/Keating government but, in economic terms, it’s not a reform at all. To count as economic reform, change should increase freedom and reduce costs, not the other way round. The Prime Minister portrays her carbon tax cum emissions trading scheme as a “market mechanism” even though it is a money tree for government and instantly creates a half-a-per-cent-of-GDP-and-growing increase in the size of the state. It is, after all, an odd kind of market that depends on the non-delivery of an invisible product to no one. As the much scammed European ETS suggests, it’s the type of “market” that gives genuine markets a bad name.

Over the past 15 years, without a carbon tax, Australia has reduced its emissions intensity by nearly 50 per cent as enterprises take common sense steps to reduce their power and fuel bills. The trucking company, Linfox, for instance, has reduced its emissions by 35 per cent since 2007 mostly through educating its drivers to go easy on the accelerator and designing more sky lights into its depots. The waste business, Visy, has developed negative emissions power generation by burning non-recyclable waste that would otherwise give off far greater emissions in landfills. Many farmers are storing more carbon in soils and making their farms more productive by shifting from chemical to organic fertilisers.

None of this required an additional price signal. In fact, imposing pseudo- environmental costs on business might make genuine environmental improvements harder as businesses’ margins shrink and environmental protection becomes the business of government rather than of citizens. Relatively modest encouragement from the Coalition’s direct action plan should further boost the conservation and innovation that’s already taking place.

When change is needed, it’s a good principle to change only as much as is strictly necessary to bring about the required improvement. Change for change’s sake is not reform. Wherever possible, genuine reformers build on society’s existing strengths. The fact that a decision is unpopular doesn’t make it brave; it might just mean that it’s stupid – especially as democracy rests on the principle that most of the people are right most of the time.

Governments don’t need to take every significant change to the people at an election, still less run the country by focus group. Even so, if the case can’t be made, the change can’t be justified. Governments shouldn’t dissemble before an election on the grounds that the people can’t be trusted with the difficult truth. Even when both sides of politics agree that particular changes are needed, leaders have a responsibility to take the public with them lest the conclusion be drawn that the system involves a conspiracy of the elites against the masses.

If the Prime Minister really thinks that the carbon tax is good for Australia, she should have taken it to the people at the last election. If she’s only come to that conclusion after listening to the Greens as part of the negotiations to form a government, she

should seek a mandate for her new position at the next election. Governments and prime ministers are entitled to change their mind but on something as important as a tax designed to transform the way everyone lives and works, they can’t reverse their position without seeking a new mandate – as John Howard did when he changed his position on the GST. That’s why there should be no new tax collection without an election.

Australians haven’t necessarily lost the appetite for reform. We just lack a government with the judgment to pick the right reforms, with the competence to see them through and with the courage to trust the people.

The reforms of the previous two governments addressed what were perceived to be the problems of those times. Today’s reforms need to address the problems of these times. Then, we needed a stronger economy. Now, we still need a stronger economy but we need a stronger society too. Bodies such as the Centre for Independent Studies and the Institute of Public Affairs have implicitly acknowledged this through the priority that they now give to social and cultural issues, as much as economic ones. It would be a big mistake, though, for people committed to further economic reform to assume that the argument is self evident or that asserting the need for reform can substitute for making the case for it.

A cohesive society needs a strong economy to sustain it. A community without an economy that can occupy people quickly becomes dysfunctional. Even in modern Australia, life in the suburbs and settlements that have become welfare villages can be nasty, brutish and short. More than ever, though, would-be reformers have to demonstrate how proposed changes will strengthen the social fabric rather than simply conform to economic theory.

The Coalition will go to the next election as the party of reform – the reform that can appeal to voters as well as to public policy experts. It has to tap into people’s understanding that employment makes more sense than unemployment, that working families are happier when they are under less financial pressure, and that problems are best fixed when the people who are experiencing them have the capacity to deal with them. Addressing these issues will improve people’s quality of life as well as strengthen the economy.

Even so, making work for the dole mandatory for younger long-term unemployed people, extending welfare quarantining to all the long-term unemployed, suspending dole payments for fit young people in towns where unskilled work is readily available and creating a new benefit for people whose disabilities are less serious and less long lasting, for instance, will be a massive administrative and political challenge. So will devolving public hospital and public school decision making to local boards and school councils and introducing a fair-dinkum paid parental leave scheme. Retaining substantial personal tax cuts without a carbon tax or a mining tax to fund them will be a big test. So will boosting labour productivity in ways that the public can understand.

The scale and the consequence of such reforms shouldn’t be under-estimated. They

are reforms to empower people and to strengthen communities for which a case for change can clearly be made now. This is a new agenda for the Coalition. It’s not the unfinished business of the former government.

Intelligent reformers take what they can get now and leave for the future what would currently be more trouble than it’s worth. This “conservative incrementalism” was one of the reasons why the Howard government succeeded. By contrast, the Rudd government failed, in part, because it tried to do everything immediately.

Many businesses have gone broke making products for which there was no market. Similarly, political parties shouldn’t be expected to pursue policies that key supporters think ought to be marketable but which aren’t. Demanding the impossible is the mark of the zealot, not the reformer. A conservative political movement should be ready to promote substantial change provided it accords with the lasting instincts and values of the Australian people.

Appendix N: Address to the WA Liberal Party State Conference, Perth (Abbott, 13 August 2011)

Well, what an extraordinarily enthusiastic welcome and I’ve got to say it is always good to be here in Perth, it is always good to be here in Western Australia, it is always good to be amongst West Australian Liberals and I want to say to each and every one of you, thank you and congratulations, because the Western Australian Liberal Party is the strongest division of our party anywhere in the country.

I obviously acknowledge and thank my Deputy Julie Bishop for her tremendous work, I acknowledge and thank Premier Colin Barnett for his great leadership of this state, I acknowledge and thank and congratulate your President Barry Court for four fabulous years at the top of this party here in the west and I also should acknowledge and thank my Federal President Alan Stockdale – Alan has come here to learn from the success of the Western Australian Liberal Party.

But as I said ladies and gentlemen, the West Australian Division is our strongest division. In federal parliamentary terms you are our most successful division. Queensland is doing extremely well, but they still have to do a little better to do as well as the west. You are our strongest federal parliamentary division and you are the state which first demonstrated to a demoralised Liberal Party early in 2008 that we should never give up hope. When the Liberal Party was in the darkest days of its modern era, when we were on the verge of despair, you demonstrated, through Colin Barnett and your great state victory, that while the Australian people might have rejected the former federal Liberal government, they had not rejected the Liberal Party itself, they had not rejected our values, in fact where our values and our policies and our aspirations were attractively presented, they wanted to embrace them.

So ladies and gentlemen, you have done an extraordinary job for your state, for your party and for our country. I congratulate the Liberal Party of Western Australia, but I also want to congratulate, through you Western Australia and its people, for everything they are doing for our country Australia at this time. And I have a specific message for the people of Western Australia at this time; just as the world’s centre of economic gravity is moving from the Atlantic to the Pacific, Australia’s centre of economic gravity is moving to the west. All the time Western Australia is becoming relatively larger and relatively more prosperous compared to the rest of our country. But this is good for all Australians because we all benefit from the prosperity that the west’s iron ore and gas exports bring, we all benefit from the west’s sophisticated manufacturing and financial capacities, built on the back of the resources sector. And just as Australians need to be alive to the changes taking place in the wider world, we need to be alive to the changes taking place in our own country. The west is not just a big mine, but the principle foundation of our economic strength.

National governments have to take Western Australia seriously, as seriously as they have always taken New South Wales and Victoria and national governments can never adopt policies which damage Western Australia without killing the goose that’s laid the golden egg for every single Australian, wherever we might be. And the problem, ladies and gentlemen, with the current federal Government is that its new taxes are specifically targeted at Western Australia – the mining tax targets the west’s iron ore industry, as well as Queensland and New South Wales coal – but given the importance of iron ore to the west, the mining tax is an anti-West Australian tax. The carbon tax targets the burning of fossil fuels and given the importance of gas to the west’s future, this is another anti-Western Australian tax. Now ladies and gentlemen, bad taxes are bad for everyone but these bad taxes fall harder on the west than anywhere else and they show how totally out of touch the Labor Party is with the real interests of our country’s most dynamic state.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am so pleased to be here with you today. I am so pleased to give you a strong message. That the federal Coalition is against these bad taxes, these bad taxes that are targeted specifically at Western Australia. When it comes to the mining tax, when it comes to the carbon tax, we will oppose them in Opposition and we will rescind them in government.

There are the pink batts which caught fire in peoples roofs. There are the school halls, so many of which, not in this state I’m pleased to say, but the school halls so many of which were built at twice the fair market price. There is the National

Broadband Network which is connecting fibre to every home, whether that home wants it, needs it or can afford it, which is spending some $50 billion of money which the Federal Government no longer has, to do something which we don’t need, while our roads are clogged, in many respects our railway systems are unexpanded over a century and our ports cannot simply cope with the load upon them. There’s the live cattle trade with Indonesia, an industry vital for our farmers, vital for northern Australia, which has been killed by a Government which panicked in the face of a TV programme – and I want to congratulate Senator Chris Back for the good work he’s done to protect that industry and expose the flawed reasoning behind the Government’s decision making. And then of course there’s the border protection disaster which just gets worse and worse with every passing week.

Now ladies and gentlemen, you know that a Labor Government is in diabolical trouble when my Jesuit friend, Father Frank Brennan says that the Coalition’s border protection policy is more moral than that of the Australian Labor Party. And then of course, ladies and gentlemen, amidst this catalogue of ineptitude and incompetence, there’s the mining tax, which penalises our most successful industry and above all else, there’s the carbon tax – is it any wonder that the Australian people are starting to doubt themselves, is there any wonder that our national confidence is at a low ebb, is it any wonder that consumers are on strike when you have a Government which so manifestly and monumentally does not know what it is doing as this one.

But ladies and gentlemen, it’s a bad tax based on a lie. It’s a very unfair tax and it’s a very unfair tax based on the Government’s own figures. Even the Government’s own modelling shows that more than three million Australian families will be worse off under this tax – and these aren’t just rich people, ladies and gentlemen. Don’t think that the only people who’ve been forgotten about are the billionaires and the people who have 50 foot yachts in the marinas of our coastal cities and towns. No, ordinary Australian households, even on the Government’s own figures are going to be worse off under this tax.

A single income family with a child starts to be worse off at below average weekly earnings. These are decent Aussie battlers who will be worse off under this tax, even on the Government’s own figures, even on the Government’s own figures a school teacher married to a shop assistant will be worse off, a policeman married to a part- time nurse will be worse off, decent, struggling, aspirational Australian families will be worse off under this tax, even on the Government’s own figures.

But not only is it a bad tax based on a lie, not only is it an unfair bad tax based on a lie, but ladies and gentlemen the craziest thing about this tax is that it is not going to work. The whole point of this carbon tax is to reduce our emissions of carbon dioxide, that’s the whole point isn’t it? And yet if you look at the Government’s own documents, if you look at the back page of the Government’s modelling document, there in black and white, in simple figures that even this Prime Minister and this Treasurer should be able to understand, our current carbon dioxide emissions, 578 million tonnes a year, look down the page for the impact of the carbon tax and the dramatic reductions in emissions that the carbon tax is supposed to bring about, and you see in 2020, notwithstanding a carbon tax of $29 a tonne, our emissions have gone from 578 million tonnes a year, to wait for it, 621 million tonnes a year.

But, you know, it just gets worse. We are supposed to reduce our emissions by 80 per cent by 2050 – very impressive figure, what incredible environmental advances to reduce your emissions by 80 per cent – so you look down the page, and it’s 578 million tonnes now, it’s 621 million tonnes in 2020, with a $29 a tonne carbon tax, you go to 2050, what is it? It’s 545 million tonnes, with a $131 a tonne carbon tax and the only way we achieve our 80 per cent reduction in emissions – I am not making this up ladies and gentlemen, it’s all there in black and white – the only way we achieve it is by buying for than 400 million tonnes of carbon credits from the foreign carbon traders and we do that – and I have to say these are my calculations, not the Government’s – but we do that at the price of $57 billion, that’s $57 billion in today’s dollars we are shovelling overseas to carbon traders – and we all know they’re as honest as the day is long don’t we? The carbon traders of Kazakhstan and [inaudible] and all the other places Kevin Rudd visits, they’re as honest as the day is long, no false plantations there – that’s how we are going to achieve our reduction.

Look, I’ve seen some bad government policy in my time but this honestly takes the cake. In the words of my great and original political mentor, B. A. Santamaria, ‘it is a moon beam from a larger lunacy,’ ladies and gentlemen, that’s what it is. And that’s why, that’s why Julie Bishop and I, George Brandis and Mathias Cormann and Luke Simpkins and Michaelia Cash and Judith Adams and Dennis Jensen and Nola Marino and all the other distinguished federal parliamentary colleagues of yours that we have in this room will fight this tax every day. While there is breath in our political bodies, we will fight this bad tax, it is a bad tax, you can’t fix it, you’ve just got to fight it and that’s what we will be doing.

Now ladies and gentlemen, this carbon tax, this approach to the question of the environment well illustrates the fundamental difference between the Liberal and National Parties and the Labor Party. Now, I don’t for a second deny that there are good and decent people inside our opposing political party. There are lots of decent Australian patriots inside the Labor Party – I just think that they are sincerely misguided. But even now some of the decent political people, some of the decent patriots inside the Labor Party know in their hearts that this is a bad tax. Don’t think for a second that the carbon tax can’t do to this Prime Minister what the mining tax, in its original version, did to the last Prime Minister. But ladies and gentlemen, it does illustrate the fundamental difference of approach between the Liberal Party and the

Labor Party. They believe in high taxes, we want lower taxes. They believe in more regulation, we believe in less regulation. They believe in bigger government, we want smaller government. They believe in penalising people when you’ve got a problem, we want to give people incentives to do the right thing when we see there’s a problem.

There is a better way. On the economy there’s a better way. On our great social institutions there’s a better way and on the environment there’s a better way and that’s why we propose direct action to support what good sensible Australian businesses are already doing to improve the environment and to reduce their emissions. And I just want to give you a few examples of what is already happening out there in our country, so that when people say yes, but what is the Coalition doing? You can provide some answers. And don’t think that Australia is some kind of international environmental villain, the Government often stands up and says, well, China might be increasing its emissions by 500 per cent, but by gee their emissions intensity is reducing. Well, that’s exactly what we have done in this country without a carbon tax. Over the last 15 years, without a carbon tax, without an emissions trading scheme, our emissions intensity has reduced by almost 50 per cent – and that’s happened because sensible Australian businesses have tried to cut their costs, they’ve tried to reduce their fuel bill, they’ve tried to reduce their power bills.

For instance Linfox, the big trucking company has reduced its emissions by 35 per cent since 2007 by the very simple and practical method of getting its drivers to take the foot off the accelerator a bit, better fuel consumption and sensible measures like more skylights in warehouses has reduced Linfox’s emissions by 35 per cent over the last five years. Visy, the big recycling and packaging company, has developed forms of power generation, which aren’t just zero emissions but they’re negative emissions. Instead of using power produced by the brown coal fired power stations of Victoria, Visy is now using power produced by burning garbage that can’t be recycled and if that garbage wasn’t burned, it would be in landfills emitting methane, one of the worst greenhouse gases. So, by burning this they are reducing, not just eliminating, they are actually reducing our emissions.

Many of our farmers are moving from chemical or organic fertilisers – and this has marvellous potential, which even Professor Garnaut recognised to reduce our emissions. We can reduce our emissions potentially by billions, not millions, by billions of tonnes by putting more carbon into our soils. And then there’s intelligent use of technology, which has enormous capacity to reduce the emissions of places like power stations and to give you just one highly prospective example, even now at some power stations in this country, carbon dioxide from their smoke stacks is being used to grow massive quantities of algae, very, very quickly indeed, carbon dioxide, sunlight and water, which we have an abundance, can grow algae extremely quickly which is then used for stockfeed and biodiesel. So, there are any number of intelligent ways to reduce our emissions which don’t involve a great big new tax on everything and don’t involve a big hit on Australian jobs and don’t involve a big hit on Australians cost of living – and that is the sort of policy that we want to see flourish in this country.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Coalition believes in lower taxes, fairer welfare, better services and stronger borders. We want to see more responsible government, more responsive institutions and more productive people and we have the policies in place to bring this about. Please don’t anyone think that this is just a negative Opposition. We are not just a negative Opposition, it’s just that the Government gives us a lot to criticise. But ladies and gentlemen, go back to the policies that we took to the election. Look at what my senior colleagues and I have been saying since. We will have lower taxes without a carbon tax, we will have a tax cut without a carbon tax. We are looking for savings, and that’s not something that we’re embarrassed about, that’s something that we’re proud of because the tax payers of this country expect governments to get value for their money, and they expect government not to call on them anymore than is absolutely necessary. For lessons of the wider world right now are surely crystal clear, governments cannot live beyond their means, governments cannot go on taxing too much, spending too much and borrowing too much without a day of reckoning – and that is what sadly, so many countries of the world have now come to and it is our job to ensure that that day of reckoning never comes to us.

And let me assure you ladies and gentlemen, not only is this something that we want to do, this is something that we will do and you know that we will do it in the future because we have done it in the past. Sixteen members of my Shadow Cabinet were Ministers in a government that turned a $10 billion budget black hole in 1996, into a $20 billion surplus by 2007, which consistently delivered surplus after multi-billion dollar surplus, the most consistently fiscally successful government in Australian history. We were members of a government which turned $96 billion worth of government debt into a net $60 billion government asset position by 2007. And yes, that was John Howard’s surplus and John Howard’s asset base, and it was Peter Costello’s surplus and Peter Costello’s asset base, but it was also Julie Bishop’s surplus because she was part of that government, it was George Brandis’s surplus because he was part of that government and yes it was Tony Abbott’s surplus because I was part of that government – even though Peter Costello occasionally accused me of channelling B.A. Santamaria.

But ladies and gentlemen, not only did we deliver fiscal responsibility in government but we have been promoting fiscal responsibility in Opposition. We identified $50 billion worth of savings across the forward estimates period prior to the last election, and yes, we also identified $40 billion of alternative and better spending, but that still left a net $10 billion improvement in the Commonwealth’s fiscal position across the forward estimates, a net $30 billion improvement in the Commonwealth’s debt position across the forward estimates because we weren’t going ahead with monumental white elephants, such as the National Broadband Network. That’s the way we are. That’s the way we’ll stay. Lower taxes, more frugal government aren’t just our policies, they are our faith. That is not just something that we talk about, that is something that we feel in the marrow of our bones – lower taxes, lower spending, lower interest rates are in our political DNA and that is why this country can trust its political future to the Coalition.

But ladies and gentlemen, the object of more responsible fiscal policy is a better and a stronger society. So, the next Coalition federal government will support the great work of the Barnett West Australian Government in developing independent public schools and we want to see that policy extended nation wide. We will support the fine work of the former Kennett Liberal government in Victoria in having more community controlled public hospitals. We will provide incentives to ensure that our young people and our older people have more chance to work, because that is what they should be doing – they should be, in Menzies immortal words ‘lifters not leaners.’ We will have ladies and gentlemen a fair dinkum paid parental leave scheme so that the mothers of this country, if they wish, can be economic as well as social and cultural contributors.

We want, ladies and gentlemen, the people of this great country to be their best selves and if there is, as all of us sense this despondency about our country right now, this disappointment about our country right now, it’s because we know that we are better than this, it’s because we know that we can do better than this. Right now there is a sense right around Australia that we are a great country with a lousy Government. Well, it’s our job to change that and the best way to change that is to give this country a new government. The best way to change that is to give a great country the better government that it deserves. That’s the task to which I dedicated myself. That’s the task to which all of my federal parliamentary colleagues have dedicated ourselves and I know ladies and gentlemen that everyone in this room is going to leave this place determined to bring about a change of government as soon as we humanly can.

Thank you so much.

Appendix O: Address to the No Carbon Tax Rally, Canberra (Abbott, 16 August 2011) Ladies and gentlemen, I can see a lot of people, a lot of very enthusiastic people. I can see a lot of people that I agree a very great deal with. I can see some people who I probably don’t agree with on everything. I can see a lot of signs. Some signs I agree with. Some signs I don’t necessarily agree with but I’ve got to say this, I’ve got to say this: there are two things we all want to say today. We want to say, first, we don’t want a carbon tax and, second, we do want an election. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the first anniversary, the first birthday of a very significant statement. This is the statement which has reverberated around this country and will continue to reverberate around this country – “there will be no carbon tax under the government I lead”.

This is the first anniversary of the big lie and it’s our job as Australians to make the point that lies don’t pay, to assert the importance of truth in government, because ladies and gentlemen it just isn’t right that people should say one thing before an election to win votes and do the opposite after an election to hold onto the keys of the Lodge. There is one fundamental message that we want to go out from this place to

every nook and cranny of our country: there should be no new tax collection without an election.

I just want to make three brief points about the carbon tax. First of all, it’s not fair. The Australian people are already suffering from rising prices. Our electricity prices have already gone up by more than 51 per cent since the end of 2007. We don’t want them going up and up and up. We can’t afford them to go up and up and up and we don’t need them to go up and up and up to protect the environment. It’s not a fair tax.

The other point I want to make is that it won’t actually work. It won’t actually work. We can put all the taxes we like on coal and on gas and on petrol and on diesel in this country but it is not actually going to do anything to save the environment, nothing whatsoever, and if you look at the Government’s own documents, the Government’s own documents give away the truth that even if we go through all the trouble and the churn and the effort, even if we put all those jobs at risk, if we do all of that, even on the Government’s own figures our carbon dioxide emissions go up from 578 million tonnes this year to 621 million tonnes in 2020. What kind of craziness is this, ladies and gentlemen, to tax every single Australia and still see emissions going up and up and up!

The final point I want to make before welcoming Grover – and give him a big round of applause – the final point I want to make before welcoming Grover is this: would you trust this Government with a new tax?

This is the Government that couldn’t put pink batts into your roof without setting your houses on fire; they couldn’t build school halls without rip-off after rip-off; they can’t keep the live cattle trade going because they panic in the face of a television programme. Now they want to be trusted with a big new tax. The most incompetent Government in living memory wants you to trust it with the most complex tax change in our history. Well we shouldn’t let them do it.

Now the final point I want to make is just to welcome Grover. He’s obviously had a long and gruelling trip and you know I want to say judge people by the effort they’ve put in. I walked down here from my office in Parliament House 500 metres away. This man has walked all the way from Albury, which I reckon would be at least 300 kilometres. So this man is doing the hard yards for our democracy. Thank you for giving him such a warm welcome.

Appendix P: Address to Workers at Seeley International, Adelaide (Abbott, 19 August 2011) It’s great to be with you all today and I just want to say what an honour it is to be with Frank and Kathy and with Dean and Paul and everyone associated with the Seeley International team because, as Frank said, we really want Australian manufacturing to have a big future.

This business is proof that Australia can compete with other countries in a manufacturing process and come up with a world class product at a competitive price. In fact, what you’ve demonstrated here is that you can come up with a world leading product at a very competitive price. Not only that, it’s a world leading competitive product which is going to dramatically reduce emissions if it is deployed effectively.

So, this has got everything going for it and I guess my particular message today is that it’s all going to be so much harder under the carbon tax because this carbon tax is all bad news for Australian manufacturing. Frank was telling me that the power bill here is about $700,000 a year so that’s about $70,000 just in one fell swoop up thanks to the carbon tax. Then there’s your steel that costs more, your plastic costs more, your paper costs more, the transport costs more under the carbon tax and these are costs that you face which your competitors don’t face.

So, this is the problem with the carbon tax. Whatever you think about its merits as an environmental measure the fact is it is enormous economic pain, I think, for very limited environmental gain and as far as I’m concerned my shoe leather is still being worn out to alert the Australian public to the dangers of this unnecessary new tax.

It’s great to have David Fawcett with me. David is our new senator from South Australia. He’s new to the Senate but he’s not new to parliament because he was the Member for Wakefield. He was an excellent Member for Wakefield when I was the Health Minister and it’s great to be working with him now in a different capacity.

I just think that it would be a tragedy for our country if we didn’t manufacture things here; if we were just a big mine, a big hotel and a big tertiary institution, that would be a disaster for our country. I’m all in favour of the mining industry, I’m all in favour of tourism, I’ll all in favour of financial services and I’m all in favour of education. These are all great Australian sectors full of great Australian businesses. But, in the end, if you’re going to be a first world economy you’ve got to make things. To think that something like 40 per cent of the air-conditioning market in this country is provided by you guys, to think that some 20 per cent of your product is exported to 100-odd countries around the world, what a tremendous tribute it is for all of you blokes and girls. It is a tremendous tribute to you.

I just want to say congratulations, thank you, keep up the good work and the best thing that David and I can do is to make sure that government does not gratuitously make your life more difficult with unnecessary new taxes and charges.

So, that’s my mission in Canberra: to stop these unnecessary new taxes and charges and I will do everything I humanly can to save you from this and that, I hope, will enable you to keep doing very well the job that you do so well now.

Thank you.

Appendix Q: Address to the South Australian Liberal Party State Council, Adelaide (Abbott, 20 August 2011) Grant, thank you so much and ladies and gentlemen thank you so much for your warm welcome. I want to say, Grant, that it is typical of you and it is typical of the modern Liberal Party that after serving our country, your state, in the parliament for thirty years, you should saddle up again to be the President of the South Australian Division. It is typical of the real spirit of public service, the real spirit of patriotism, that so many of our former members of parliament are still serving our party in very important capacities and I particularly acknowledge and honour Alan Stockdale, the federal President, who was the best Treasurer that the state of Victoria has ever had, who has now saddled up as the federal President. And I note that Nick Minchin, a former leader of our Party in the Senate is currently without a job. So, Nick, you know what your duty is. And it’s great to have here Alexander Downer and Santo Santoro, former very distinguished members of the federal parliament, who, likewise, are continuing to serve our country and our party in these distinguished capacities. Ladies and gentlemen, we do have a galaxy of political talent in the room. I feel very humble speaking before so many of my distinguished parliamentary peers and, in the case of Nick and Alexander, I often fear my parliamentary betters, but ladies and gentlemen, please, I want you to give all of these an enormous round of applause after I finish reading their names. Please welcome and acknowledge Cory Bernardi, Simon Birmingham, David Fawcett, Sean Edwards, Christopher Pyne – and I’m reading this list, I hasten to add, in no particular order – Jamie Briggs, Rowan Ramsey, Patrick Secker and Dr Andrew Southcott. Please give them a big round of applause. They are your incredibly hard-working South Australian federal Liberal parliamentary team and it’s great to be with them here in the beautiful city of Adelaide in the great state of South Australia. I just want to say to all of you here in Adelaide that we do appreciate the contribution that South Australian members of the federal parliament make. In fact, not a single meeting of the federal shadow ministry or the federal parliamentary leadership group goes by without us passing a special motion of appreciation to Christopher Pyne because he is that kind of a bloke; he is that kind of a hard worker, and it’s very important that we particularly appreciate and acknowledge our South Australian members and contributors. Ladies and gentlemen, as Grant has said, just a little under two years ago we were not in great shape. Cast your minds back to November of 2009. Our federal parliamentary party was tearing itself to pieces. The Coalition was on the verge of a split. But we steadied the ship and we went forward and, as we regrouped and re- gathered and rebuilt our confidence in those first few months of 2010, I was particularly buoyed by one event – and that was the South Australian election result, because the South Australian party has had its ups and downs over the years. The South Australian party has had its arguments over policy and direction and personalities and yet the South Australian Party pulled itself together, rallied behind a leader and secured 52 per cent of the two party preferred vote, and the fact that the South Australian party could do that under Isobel Redmond’s steady, decent and authentic leadership gave all of us in Canberra heart that we too could do that. Isobel, I have been tremendously impressed by your leadership. I have been buoyed by your encouragement and friendship and I have been impressed and amazed at

the personal commitment and courage that you’ve taken to the job. I wouldn’t have submitted myself to a police tasering to prove a point. You did! I have thought of myself as a pretty tough guy, but I tell you what, Isobel, I am not tough enough to submit myself to that. So, thank you for the inspiration and the leadership you have shown. Now ladies and gentlemen, I hope you all appreciate just how important you are. I hope you all appreciate that you are the spearhead, you are the bearers of the hopes of the Australian people. Because it is on your shoulders, our shoulders, that the hopes of everyone depend who want to see better governments, new governments, here in Adelaide and over there in Canberra. We are those who the country is relying on and believe me, it is more important than ever that we get new governments in Adelaide and in Canberra. I will let Isobel speak about the awfulness of the Government here in Adelaide. I will let Isobel speak of the absurdity of allowing a lame duck to do a lap of honour in Canberra and not even stand up for this great state’s workers against the federal Government’s carbon tax. I will let Isobel talk about how Mike Rann is letting down the great state of South Australia. But I want to tell you that when it comes to Canberra, this Government, the Gillard Government, is the worst government Australia has ever had. Some people say that it is the worst since Whitlam. But I want to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that is very unfair to Gough Whitlam who did not lack ideals and who never sold out the Labor Party’s soul to Senator Bob Brown and the Greens. But everywhere you look there is another disaster caused by the Gillard Government. They cannot protect our borders and now, in desperation, they are finally turning to the Howard Government’s solution that they reviled for so long. Never forget that it was Julia Gillard who said of the Howard Government’s Pacific Solution that it was ‘costly, unsustainable and wrong in principle’ and what’s she done now – gone off to PNG to sign an agreement to reopen the Howard Government’s Manus Island detention centre. And yet, even when she is trying to do what the Howard Government did, she can’t get it right, because on this latest deal there are no dates, no details and no dollars. It just won’t work – like all the other deals just didn’t work. But ladies and gentlemen, there are the boats that she can’t stop. There’s the telecommunications infrastructure that she wants to roll out and in the process will spend $50 billion-plus of money that the federal Government no longer has. There are the pink batts that caught fire in people’s roofs. There are the school halls that couldn’t be built without rip-off after rip-off and there’s the live cattle trade now essentially ended because this Government panicked in the face of a television programme and finally, ladies and gentlemen, there’s the carbon tax. Let there be no doubt about the carbon tax. This is a bad tax based on a lie. Never, never forget that statement that Julia Gillard made six days before the last election “there will be no carbon tax under the government I lead”. That statement should haunt her and will haunt her and this Government to its political grave. But that wasn’t the only statement. This is the anniversary of the statement that people woke up to the day before the election when they opened up their newspaper “I rule out a carbon tax.” And she didn’t just rule out a carbon tax. What she ruled in, remember, was a climate change citizens’ assembly and this citizens’ assembly was going to meet and meet and meet and meet and meet and debate and deliberate and debate and deliberate and nothing was going to happen, not a single thing was going to

happen – there would be no carbon tax, there would be no emissions trading scheme, there would be no change she assured us then – until, remember it, a ‘deep and lasting consensus’ was achieved. That was what was going to happen before the election. What happened after the election was, of course, Bob Brown came along, didn’t’ he? Bob Brown came along and first of all there was the secret deal to stay in The Lodge to impose a carbon tax and then there was the public announcement and now, of course, we’re finally getting the details dribble out. Well, ladies and gentlemen, you know, I know, the Australian public knows that it is a fundamental travesty of democracy to say one thing before an election and to do the opposite afterwards. It is a fundamental travesty of democracy and what I say, what the Australian people increasingly are saying to this Prime Minister is that there should be no new tax collection without an election. That’s what we’re saying. Not only is this a bad tax based on a lie, it is unfair and it won’t work. It’s unfair because it will take money out of the pockets of the forgotten families of Australia who are already struggling with increase after increase in their cost of living – particularly increase after increase in their power bills. I notice today, on the front page of The Advertiser, more concern about the price of power. Bad, though, power prices are now; up and up, though, power prices are going now; it will get immeasurably worse under the Government’s carbon tax because the whole point of a carbon tax is to make the coal and the gas which generates our power more expensive so we will use less of it. Ladies and gentlemen, even on the Government’s own figures, more than three million Australian households are going to be worse off under the carbon tax and don’t for a second think that this is a Robin Hood government that is taking from the rich to give to the poor. The so-called rich people that this Government is taking from are some of the battlers, some of the decent Australian families trying to get ahead. A single income family with a child starts to be worse off – under the carbon tax on the Government’s own figures – once it reaches average weekly earnings. A school teacher married to a shop assistant – worse off under the Government’s carbon tax, even on the Government’s own figures. A policeman married to a part-time nurse – worse off under the Government carbon tax, even on the Government’s own figures. So, this is an unfair tax. It is going to hit Australian families where it hurts, when they are at their most vulnerable and you know the crazy thing? It just isn’t going to work. The whole point of this upheaval is to reduce our emissions. That’s the point, isn’t it? That’s why we’re doing this. Because carbon dioxide threatens the environment of the planet – that’s what the Government tells us – and we’ve got to get our emissions down. Well, I invite every Australian who wants to know what this Government is like, to pick up the Government’s modelling document, go to the back page and there in black and white it says that our emissions actually go up. They actually go up under a carbon tax, from 578 million tonnes now to 621 million tonnes in 2020. So, ladies and gentlemen, what is the point? What is the point of this bad tax based on a lie – this tax which is so unfair to so many people – if it’s not actually going to do what it is supposed to do? But it just gets worse. Notwithstanding the fact that our emissions go up with a $29 a tonne carbon tax, if you keep reading down the page you see that by 2050, the carbon tax won’t be $29 a tonne, it’ll be – wait for it – $131 a tonne. Just think what

that will do to your power bills, to your fuel bills, to the cost of running your business. And thanks to this $131 a tonne carbon tax our emissions don’t go down 80 per cent as the Government is telling us they will. Look at the Government’s own figures there in black and white – our emissions in 2050, 545 million tonnes. Not an 80 per cent reduction, a six per cent reduction and the only way they achieve what they say they are going to achieve is by buying more than 400 million tonnes of emissions from the overseas carbon traders. Now, I have a lot of faith in the business people of Kazakhstan and Equatorial Guinea and Upper Volta. I have a lot of faith in them. But I’m a trusting kind of a guy. I’m like Kevin Rudd. I go to these places, I listen to them and I believe them. I don’t think the Australian public are going to be very happy about the idea of shovelling $57 billion a year overseas to these foreign carbon traders, a transfer of funds equivalent to 1.5 per cent of our gross domestic product in order to achieve an emissions abatement target. So, we put in this massive tax, we transform the way we live and work, for what: to reduce our domestic emissions by six per cent on today’s figure and to give $57 billion to foreign carbon traders. Oh, what a great deal, what a great deal. Ladies and gentlemen, there is a phrase for this. There is an expression to describe it: it is a moonbeam from the larger lunacy. That is what this policy is, and this is why the Government is so terrified of taking this to the people. This is why they are trying to sneak it through, because they know that the public aren’t mugs. They know that the public want to do the right thing by the environment, we all want to do the right thing by the environment, but they know that the Australian public are too smart to fall for this con. They know in their hearts that the Australian people understand that the way to help the environment is to actually go out and fix problems, not to make the cost of everything more and more and more expensive. But ladies and gentlemen, this is the worst possible time to be doing what this Government proposes to do to our economy and to our society. If there is any lesson from the current overseas financial difficulty it is this: that governments cannot go on taxing too much, borrowing too much and spending too much. The lesson of what is happening overseas, the lesson of the stock market turmoil, the lesson of the sovereign debt crisis now bedeviling some of the important countries of Europe, the lesson is that we cannot go on living beyond our means. Governments cannot spend like there is no tomorrow. There is a terrible judgment pronounced against the countries that think that they can live forever on borrowed money and our task as Liberals is to ensure that that judgment is never pronounced against us. Our certainty as Australians is that the Labor Party is chronic and congenitally incapable of delivering on the task of fiscal restraint. Ladies and gentlemen, you probably won’t remember but in the business of politics we have to remember. The first Wayne Swan budget back in those sunny, happy, far-off, fondly-remembered days – by him at least – of May 2008, he came into the parliament and he told us ‘yeah, Howard and Costello were ok, they delivered a $21 billion surplus, but I’m better, I’m going to deliver a $22 billion surplus.’ That’s what he told us back then in May 2008. Well, let’s look at the record of this Government and this Treasurer since then. In fact, in fiscal 08/09, not a $22 billion surplus, it turned out to be a $27 billion deficit. What’s $50 billion between friends? And just to demonstrate that he was falling into a Labor line and length, the following year 09/10, the deficit hit $55 billion an all-time absolute Australian record. And to demonstrate

that this wasn’t a fluke, you know, that this wasn’t just some kind of an aberration, the following year, 10/11, he’s got a $49 billion deficit. This year, just by way of encore, it’ll be a $23 billion deficit. Oh, but wait for it, wait for it, there is going to be a surplus he says in 2012/13. This is the Treasurer who has delivered us $150 billion of accumulated deficit, who expects us to applaud him because he says he is going to deliver a surplus of maybe $3 billion in 2012/13. Ladies and gentlemen, at Wayne Swan’s rate we would only have to endure another fifty years of his excellent economic management to make up for the first four years of deficit and debt that he has given us. You know, it’s interesting, many people don’t think much of the leadership of the Labor Party in Canberra at the moment and whenever there’s a problem with the leadership of a political party, pollsters go around and they say ‘well, who would you like to be the leader of the Labor Party?’ They say that to the general public and they pick all the people who they think are potential leaders of the Labor Party in this case. There were ten people they asked the public about. Ten people who were potential leaders of the Labor Party. One of them was the leader of the Greens. One of them was actually a member of the Liberal Party. Wayne Swan wasn’t even considered as a potential leader of the Labor Party and this is the guy in charge of our country’s finances at an absolutely perilous time in the world’s economic history. Ladies and gentlemen, it is so important that this country gets better government and gets better government soon because there is a better way. There is a better way and that’s what we in the Coalition intend to deliver. We can have a better environment and we will get a better environment by working with sensible Australian businesses to encourage them to keep doing the intelligent things they are already doing. You won’t hear Julia Gillard or Wayne Swan or Greg Combet mention this but, in fact, we have actually reduced our emissions intensity in this country by almost fifty per cent over the last decade and a half, and we’ve done that because smart Australian businesses have been doing what they always do – trying to cut their costs, trying to reduce their bills, trying to economise on power and fuel. That’s what they’ve been doing and they’ve been doing all of that without a carbon tax. Linfox has reduced its emissions by 35 per cent since 2007, essentially by training its drivers to take their foot of the accelerator. Visy is reducing its emissions by turning off its brown coal generated power from the mains and reducing power by burning the garbage that can’t be recycled and if this garbage had gone into landfills, it would have been a real emissions problem. It wouldn’t just have been carbon dioxide, it would have been methane and other gases which are much worse we are told when it comes to the greenhouse effect. So, Visy aren’t just giving us zero emissions power generation, they’re giving us negative emissions power generation because they’re being intelligent and smart. And if you whack a carbon tax on them, you just make it harder for them to continue to be intelligent and smart. So, ladies and gentlemen, we will reduce emissions and we won’t send any money offshore. We will spend about a billion dollars from savings in the Budget to encourage Australian businesses and farms and enterprises to plant more trees on suitable land, to continue the move from chemical to organic fertiliser and to keep using the kind of smart technology that companies like Visy are increasingly introducing. But generally, ladies and gentlemen, we want a government that’s about lower taxes,

fairer welfare, better services and stronger borders. We will deliver more responsible government, more responsive institutions and more productive people. They say we’re negative. Well, I’ve got to say the most positive thing that I can do right now is to stop this carbon tax. I say no to this carbon tax because I say yes to a future for manufacturing industry in this country. I say yes to affordable power in this country. That, I think, is the best thing I can do for Australia right now. But we will deliver a more responsible government. We will deliver it in the future because we’ve done it in the past. You don’t just have to listen to what I say, you can look at what me and my team did when we were in government before, and I know we haven’t got Alexander Downer with us any more and I know we haven’t got Nick Minchin with us any more, but I’ve got to say we have been good pupils and we have learnt from our experience in government and that experience was about taking $96 billion worth of Labor debt and turning it, after eleven years, into $60 billion-plus of net Commonwealth assets. That experience was taking Kim Beazley’s black hole of $10 billion – I tell you, if only Labor could achieve even that disaster now; that disaster would be a big improvement – but we took the $10 billion black hole that Kim Beazley left us and we turned it into a $20 billion surplus and, sure, that was John Howard’s surplus and Peter Costello’s surplus but it was also Tony Abbott’s surplus and it was Joe Hockey’s surplus and it was Julie Bishop’s surplus because we were just as much a part of that government. We all took responsibility for the tough and the difficult decisions that that government took to put our country back on its fiscal feet. But it’s not just about good government, it’s not just about sensible house-keeping. It’s also about society. It’s about the community. It’s about ensuring that our great public and social institutions work better. You all know that our schools and hospitals are riddled with bureaucracy. Well, we want to see those great institutions more responsive to the people who work in them, to the people who are served by them. That’s why we will have community controlled public hospitals, where community boards can actually make the decisions about who runs the hospital, actually have responsibility for spending decisions in the hospital. We’ll have independent public schools on the West Australian model – one of the things that Christopher Pyne has been promoting tireless right around our country. We want to have more productive people. We all know that there tens if not hundreds of thousands of young people who can do a job if only they’re given the right encouragement. So, there will be relocation allowances for people to move from welfare in the cities to where the jobs are, in some cases, in our remote and regional areas. There will be incentives to employers who at the moment are often frightened to take on older workers because we want Australians to be their best selves. You know that there is a despondency in our country right now. You know that people have this nagging frustrating sense that we can be better and the main reason for this is that we are a great country with a lousy government. We are a country which is being held back by a bad government. So, our responsibility as Liberals is to steel ourselves every day, to resolve ourselves every day to give this country the better government it deserves. Thank you.

Appendix R: Address to the Convoy of No Confidence Rally,

Canberra (Abbott, 22 August 2011)

Ladies and gentlemen, I want to say how pleased I am to see that the people of Australia want to make this the peoples’ house, not just the politicians’ house. I also want to inform you that as I speak here now the Prime Minister is about to do a press conference in the prime minister’s courtyard. She’s talking to the political insiders and she should be here with you talking to you because the first responsibility of prime ministers, the first responsibility of politicians is to stay in touch with the people they represent. That is my problem, my problem is that this Prime Minister is fundamentally out of touch with the Australian people. Now, I want to say thank you to all of you for coming from all around this country to this meeting today. I particularly want to thank the people who’ve come very long distances, the people who’ve come from Perth, the people who’ve come from Darwin, the people who’ve come from Cairns, and I particularly want to thank the people who’ve come from Port Hedland, that is a big trip. The fact that so many of you have come so far shows that you care a very great deal about the future of our country. Our democracy will be in safe hands as long as the people of this country continue to care about it and you care about it.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, there are hundreds of you here, there are thousands of you who would like to be here and there are millions of you who are sick of being ripped off by a bad government. Now I’ve got to say that there are some pretty hard- bitten characters here because I met a few of you last night and not all of you always agree with me and I don’t always agree with everything that people put to me either, but all of us here today agree that we don’t need a carbon tax and we do need an election.

Ladies and gentlemen, we say no to a carbon tax because we say yes to manufacturing industry, we say yes to affordable transportation, we say yes to affordable energy and affordable power in this country and what we don’t need is for the truckies of Australia to have to pay another half a billion dollars a year out of pockets that are emptier and emptier because of the charges and charges which are heaped upon them. You do not deserve a half a billion dollar a year slug on your bottom line because of this carbon tax.

So I want to give you this absolutely categorical assurance on behalf of the Coalition I lead: we will oppose the carbon tax in opposition and we will rescind it in government. But the more of you who come out, the more of you who make your views known to your Labor or independent member of parliament, the more likely we are to stop this bad tax stone dead. The terrible thing at the moment is we have this tax, the most complex tax change in Australia’s history, a tax that will just go up and up and up if it gets in and if it stays in. It’s the most complex change in our history and it’s being managed by the most incompetent government in our history.

If you can’t trust the government to put pink batts in people’s roofs without them catching fire, if you can’t trust the government to build school halls without rip off after rip off, if you can’t trust the government to keep the live cattle trade going in the face of a TV programme, you can never trust the government with a tax like this. You just

can’t trust them.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, should there be a change of government – yes, there should, yes, there should – and if and when there is a change of government, I cannot promise you that all of your problems will be solved but I can promise, I can promise that I will respect the Australian people, I will listen to the Australian people and I will be straight with the Australian people. That’s what we need. We need governments that listen, governments with respect and governments that are straight and the problem at the moment is that this country of ours, is a great country, it’s a great country with a lousy government and our task is to give a great country and a great people the better government that they deserve.

Thank you so very much.

Appendix S: Second Reading Speech, Carbon Tax Plebiscite Bill, Parliament House (Abbott, 22 August 2011) Mr Deputy Speaker, this is important legislation because it will if passed, restore integrity to our democracy because it will if passed, ensure that this fundamental principle is recognised and acted upon: that governments should have a mandate, they should have a mandate for the big changes that they seek to make. The problem, Mr Deputy Speaker, which this bill seeks to address, is the fact that this Government – the Gillard Government – has no mandate whatsoever for the biggest legislative change that it now seeks to make namely the introduction of a carbon tax. Not only does it not have a mandate for the carbon tax but it has a mandate specifically not to introduce a carbon tax.

Now, Mr Deputy Speaker, this bill which I now speak to in the House is designed to give the Government a chance to get back the political integrity that it forfeited by promising before the election not to introduce a carbon tax but doing precisely the opposite afterwards. Now, Mr Speaker, much time of this parliament has been taken up this year with discussion of the carbon tax. The carbon tax has dominated public debate this year. The carbon tax is by far the biggest single issue in our public life right now and yet the carbon tax does not have the kind of democratic mandate which any government seeking to make such a change should have for a change of this magnitude.

Never let us forget, Mr Deputy Speaker, that six days before the last election the Prime Minister said ‘there will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.’ Now this is not a statement which just slipped out. It wasn’t just something that she blurted out unthinkingly in response to a question that she hadn’t anticipated. This statement of the Prime Minister was a deeply calculated response to the statements that I had been making consistently throughout the campaign that as sure as night follows day if this Government is re-elected there will be a carbon tax. To the best of my knowledge, checking the transcripts, I made that observation on at least 15 separate occasions, and I wasn’t the only one who was saying that if the Government was re- elected there would be a carbon tax. Many of my frontbench colleagues were making

exactly the same point.

So in order to defuse this issue the Prime Minister deliberately, with foreknowledge, with absolute cold-blooded purpose went out and said six days before the election ‘there will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.’ She didn’t just say that, she said just before the election – it was on the front page of The Australian the day before the election – ‘I rule out a carbon tax.’ It wasn’t just the Prime Minister deliberately saying that she ruled out a carbon tax and that there ‘would not be a carbon tax under the government I lead,’ the Treasurer also on at least two occasion said that claims that there would be a carbon tax if the Government was re-elected were ‘hysterical exaggerations.’

But it’s not just the specific statements of the Prime Minister, it’s not just the specific statements of the Treasurer and Deputy Prime Minister, it’s everything else that the Prime Minister said about a carbon tax and an emissions trading scheme in the lead up to the last election, because this was a problem for the Government, Mr Deputy Speaker. Let’s not forget this was a serious problem for the Government. In the wake of the collapse of the Copenhagen conference the Government’s previous policy to have an emissions trading scheme, the policy championed by the previous prime minister to address what he said repeatedly wasn’t just a big issue but was nothing less than the ‘greatest moral challenge of our time,’ that policy had become increasingly untenable, increasingly untenable, increasingly implausible. What happened was that the former prime minister was advised by the current Prime Minister and the current Deputy Prime Minister to drop it, to drop it. So back in April last year the Government dropped their commitment to an emissions trading scheme and said that there would be no emissions trading scheme until the rest of the world had put something similar in place. So that was the position in April.

During the election campaign to get this matter right off the agenda, completely off the agenda, at the end of the first week of the campaign the Prime Minister made a major speech where she said that the whole question of climate change would be given over not to the parliament but to a citizens’ assembly and that no change, no change whatsoever, would be pursued by the Government until in the words of the Prime Minister ‘a deep and lasting consensus’ had been achieved. So, Mr Speaker, not only did she deny that there would be a carbon tax, not only did the Treasurer deny that there’d be a carbon tax, but everything the Prime Minister said during the election campaign was designed to say that nothing at all would happen, nothing at all would happen until a ‘deep and lasting consensus’ had been achieved, a consensus that she said would be impossible if the Coalition stayed with the position that the Coalition had at the election campaign and I hasten to add has today.

Now, Mr Deputy Speaker, it is an absolute principle of democracy, it is an absolute principle of democracy that governments should not and must not say one thing before an election and do the opposite afterwards. Nothing could be more calculated to bring our democracy into disrepute, nothing could be more calculated to alienate the citizenry of Australia from their government if governments were to establish by precedent that they could say one thing before an election and do the opposite

afterwards.

Now, Mr Speaker, the Prime Minister has sometimes alluded to the example of her distinguished predecessor the former prime minister John Howard in the course of this carbon tax debate. She said John Howard supported a GST and then he said prior to the 1996 election that there wouldn’t be a GST and then in the course of the subsequent term of parliament he changed his mind and he said there would be a GST. But the fundamental difference between the current Prime Minister and the former prime minister is that the former prime minister did not run away from the Australian people. He took his change of heart to the Australian people. He changed his mind in the ’96-’98 term of parliament and he took his changed position to the public in the 1998 election and that, I hasten to add, is the course of conduct that the current Prime Minister should take. If she really believes that the carbon tax is as necessary as she claims, if she really believes that the arguments in favour of a carbon tax are as compelling as she says, she should not run away from the Australian people. She should revel in the opportunity to take this matter to the Australian people.

In fact, Mr Speaker, the prime minister who the current Prime Minister most resembles in all of this is not former prime minister John Howard but former prime minister Paul Keating. Paul Keating who, you remember, before the 1993 election said that tax cuts were ‘L-A-W law’ and the ‘L-A-W law’ turned out to be a ‘L-I-E lie.’ That’s what it turned out to be, an ‘L-I-E lie’ and we all know the political fate of former prime minister Keating, a political fate sealed by that deceptive conduct at the 1993 election. So, Mr Deputy Speaker, you might even say that by putting forward this private members bill for a plebiscite on the carbon tax I am giving the Prime Minister an opportunity to redeem herself. I am giving the Prime Minister an opportunity to make an honest politician of herself. I am giving the Prime Minister an opportunity to overcome, overcome the democratic deficit, overcome the honesty deficit which she currently displays.

What I am proposing, Mr Deputy Speaker, in this bill is that we can have a vote on the carbon tax without an election, we can have a vote on the carbon tax without necessarily a change of government. I’m making it easier with this bill to actually have this matter put to the people because by proposing a plebiscite I am allowing this matter to go to the public for a vote as it should without the prospect, indeed under current circumstances the probability, of an election producing a change of government. I am giving the Government and other members of this parliament an opportunity to restore faith with fewer consequences for themselves, with fewer adverse consequences for themselves than would otherwise be the case.

I want to make it absolutely crystal clear, Mr Deputy Speaker, that should this bill pass the parliament and should there be a plebiscite on this issue before the end of November I will of course accept the result, I will of course accept the result as I hope the Prime Minister would accept the result should this bill pass. Because whatever else we might be in this chamber, whatever differences of opinion we might have in this chamber, in the end this is a democratic parliament. This is a democratic country

and every single member of this parliament has to accept the processes of our democracy. The result of a plebiscite may not change the argument one way or another about the merits or otherwise of a carbon tax but I tell you this, Mr Deputy Speaker, it would certainly settle the politics. It would settle the politics of this issue once and for all and that, Mr Speaker, is what we need in the face of a divisive and damaging debate, divisive and damaging debate which is entirely the Government’s fault. It’s entirely the Government’s fault because if they hadn’t made a commitment one way before the election while doing the opposite after the election they would not be in this predicament.

Mr Deputy Speaker, let me just draw your attention to a couple of features of the bill. The bill says and I quote “the question to be submitted to electors in accordance with section five is: ‘do you support the Government’s plan to introduce a carbon price on carbon to deal with climate change.’ It’s about as neutral a question as I could possibly come up with and I want to say that the actual formulation of that question was arrived at after consultation with independent members of this parliament because I want to give independent members of this house and of the other chamber every opportunity to say yes to this bill. I don’t want anyone to think that this plebiscite is some kind of a stitch-up and I think with a question couched in those terms no one, no fair minded observer could say that it was anything other than a fair question. The other point I should make from the legislation, Mr Deputy Speaker, is that the plebiscite will in all other respects be conducted in the same way as a referendum would be conducted with the usual provisions for compulsory voting.

So Mr Deputy Speaker it’s a fair question to let the people determine an essential point. This argument should we or shouldn’t we have a carbon tax is so important that the public must have their say and it’s important that the public should have their say before the Government proceeds with legislation not afterwards and that’s what this bill is designed to achieved. I say to decent, honest members of the Government – and there’s at least one of them sitting opposite now on the backbenches – I say to decent, honest members of the Government there must be times, there must be times when you are troubled in your souls, there must be times when you are troubled in your souls on this whole question. How can decent, honest members of a Government not feel embarrassed and ashamed of the fact that their Prime Minister said one thing before the election and is doing the complete opposite afterwards?

She spoke for all of them, she wasn’t just expressing a private view you know, I mean she was the leader of the Labor Party and the Prime Minister at the time, so she spoke for the Member for Hunter, she spoke for the Member for Werriwa, she spoke for the Member for Brand, she spoke for them when she said… the Member for Fowler, it’s hard to keep up with the changes on the other side of the chamber, Mr Deputy Speaker. But the Prime Minister spoke for all of these members when she said ‘there would be no carbon tax under the government I lead.’ They are all complicit in this deception and this bill gives them a chance to come clean, to make a break with this deception, to redeem themselves with the electorate. So I urge them, as I urge the independent members of this parliament, to consider this legislation.

Now, I know the independent members of this parliament don’t want an election. They want to preserve their position in this parliament. My bill offers them a chance to keep faith with the electorate without prejudicing their position as balance of power independents and I urge them, I urge them if they do not want to change the Government please at the very least let the people have a say on this bill, on this matter by supporting my bill.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Deputy Speaker, this is a fraught time in our nation’s history. We know because Paul Howes has told us that there is a crisis in manufacturing. We have heard of the job losses from Qantas and from OneSteel. We learn today that BlueScope, our biggest steel maker, is ceasing exporting steel because of the difficulties that manufacturing industry now faces. This country will not be an exporter of steel because of the difficulties that manufacturing industry faces. Now I know the carbon tax is not the only difficulty that manufacturing industry faces. I know that the carbon tax has not been an instrumental factor in the decision of BlueScope announced today, but let us not forget how the carbon tax is hovering over all the decisions that manufacturers are making right now. Let us not forget that companies like BlueScope have to make decisions now for the next forty years and the assistance package announced as part of the carbon tax lasts for but four years. Let us not forget the statement that the chairman of BlueScope made when the carbon tax was first announced back in February that compensation for the steel industry would be like putting a band aid on a bullet wound. Let us not forget these statements. Let us not forget the tremor of fear and anxiety and uncertainty now running through manufacturing industry generally and manufacturing workers right around our country and let us make a bad situation better by not proceeding with this carbon tax. This is the worst possible time to proceed with what is a bad tax based on a lie and this bill of mine is a way of ensuring that the public have their chance to have their say.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I have often said, and members of this house will no doubt hear me say it again, that there should be no new tax collection without an election. But this bill is an opportunity for members opposite to meet me halfway. It’s an opportunity for members opposite and members on the crossbench to meet the Australian public halfway, to put this to a vote without necessarily changing the government, to put this to a vote without all of the trauma of an election. I think this is a good faith attempt by a democratic opposition to allow the Government to do the right thing by the Australian people, that’s why I commend this bill to the House and I table the explanatory memorandum.

Appendix T: Address to the Tasmanian Liberal Party State Council, Hobart (Abbott, 27 August 2011) I want to say that Andrew Nikolic well deserved the standing ovation you’ve just given him. I also want to say that I feel a little bit unworthy being introduced by a man of Brigadier Andrew Nikolic’s distinction, a little unworthy to be introduced by a man who has put his life on the line for our country repeatedly in the Queen’s uniform. But while I feel a little unworthy to be introduced by such a man I feel totally exhilarated

that a man of this calibre believes that he can best serve our country in our party and in our parliament. Thank you very much Andrew for continuing to serve our country in this way and I look forward very much to having you not just as a friend but as a colleague in Canberra.

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s great to be here in the great state of Tasmania. It’s good to be with my federal parliamentary colleagues David Bushby, Richard Colbeck, Stephen Parry, and of course the splendid Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Senator Eric Abetz. It’s great to be in the presence of my distinguished federal president, Alan Stockdale, the greatest treasurer that Victoria ever had. It’s good to be with Richard Chugg and it’s also good to be with Sam McQuestin your new state director. You know, people say that everyone in Tasmania is related to everyone else, but Sam goes beyond that, he’s related to most people in Australia; certainly he’s the brother-in-law of my conference president and I think that makes me an honorary Tasmanian. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s also great to be with Will Hodgman. They say that opposition is character forming. I think that makes Will the strongest character in Australian politics because I think he is now the longest serving opposition leader in Australian politics. He and Ted Baillieu vied for that title for quite a long time, but just as Ted has now become a head of government I am absolutely confident that Will Hodgman is the next premier of Tasmania.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, Will Hodgman and I have very heavy responsibilities because Will Hodgman and I, both in our own way – he in Hobart, me in Canberra – have to get rid of bad Labor-Green governments. We have to get rid of bad Labor- Green governments and what we are now seeing in Canberra is an action replay if you like of what we have seen for some years now in Tasmania. Tasmania in fact has been a social laboratory for what happens when we have Labor-Green governments in charge. It’s no accident that the gross state product of Tasmania is some 20 per cent lower than the gross state products on the mainland because what we get with Labor-Green governments is governments which don’t know how to say yes to people’s enterprise. They would always rather find a reason to say ‘no’ when it comes to starting a business, opening an industry and creating a job. This is why it is so important that we have a change of government in Hobart and a change of government in Canberra because it’s about time that our country was open for business. It’s about time that we had in power people who understand in the marrow of their bones that you cannot have a community without an economy to sustain it. You cannot have a cohesive society if there isn’t the work that makes it all possible and this is why it’s so important that we have a change of government in Canberra.

You know, it’s often been said that the Gillard Government is the worst since Gough Whitlam. Well, I think that’s very unfair to Gough Whitlam who didn’t lack idealism and who never sold the soul of the Labor Party to Senator Bob Brown and the Greens. And you know, there’s something else to be said for Gough Whitlam in the context of the present Labor leader, Gough Whitlam would never have run away from parliamentary scrutiny the way this Prime Minister has over the last fortnight. Gough Whitlam would never have trashed the institution of the parliament the way the Prime Minister has over the last fortnight, refusing to answer reasonable questions which

even Kathy Jackson, a decent and courageous woman speaking up on behalf of the 70,000 members of the Health Services Union, says must be answered.

This is someone who has stood up for what’s right and for her trouble she is now the subject of the most vicious form of payback inside the Labor Party. We had a filthy shovel left on her front door yesterday, a sign of just what she can expect from her union and Labor Party colleagues and we didn’t see a shred of sympathy, not a shred of solidarity between the Prime Minister and Kathy Jackson of the Health Services Union this week. What we saw was a Prime Minister in denial, a Prime Minister who is refusing to answer the reasonable questions that the Australian public have for her.

That’s the problem with this Government, no one is really in charge. When it comes to environment policy Bob Brown is in charge, when it comes to economic policy the unions are in charge, and when it comes to parliamentary ethics policy Craig Thomson is in charge. Well, ladies and gentlemen, it’s just not good enough and that is why we need a change of government as soon as we can humanly bring it about.

Ladies and gentlemen, if we look, if we look at Tasmania we see a pulp mill that the Government is always finding a new reason to stop, we see a chip mill which seems is inevitably now going to be closed down, and we see a forestry industry which is constantly having further restrictions placed upon it. They don’t understand, these Labor-Green governments, that you’ve got to have production; that it’s all very well being able to look at things but you’ve got to be able to make use of them as well if we are going to have a society which is fit for people to live in. I love the idea of a clean green Tasmania. I love the idea of Tasmania as the place that every other Australian wants to come to as a tourist destination. But there is no future for this great island in tourism alone. Tasmania can’t just be a tourism economy; it’s got to be a manufacturing economy, a mining economy, an agricultural economy, a seafood economy. It’s got to be all these things and that means that it needs to have once more the Liberal Party in charge of the state’s destiny.

But, as I said, the Labor-Green disease has gone from Hobart to Canberra and we now see the same negativity towards economic growth. We now see the same reluctance to embrace new employment opportunities in Canberra that we have seen for far too long in Tasmania. Julia Gillard is in partnership with Lara Giddings to pay people to get out of productive employment. Julia Gillard and Lara Giddings are in partnership to take borrowed money that our country can’t afford, not to build up employment but to take away employment. The timber workers of Tasmania they don’t want welfare, they want work. The timber contractors of Tasmania they don’t want to be phased out of their industry, they want to continue in their industry and that’s what a decent government would enable them to do.

Ladies and gentlemen, but it doesn’t stop there. Thanks to the timidity of the Gillard Government we are on the verge of losing the live cattle export trade, an industry no less vital to northern Australia than forestry is to Tasmania and it has come to a virtual halt because the Gillard-Brown, the Labor-Green Government panicked in the

face of a television programme. The same attitude to live cattle and to forestry. But it doesn’t stop there. The National Broadband Network – something that Labor likes to make great play of here in Tasmania, but as part of the National Broadband Network $11 billion of borrowed money, $11 billion that the taxpayers of Australia can’t afford, is being spent to buy Telstra’s copper lines and close them down. I mean, this is the worst investment in Australia’s history, to buy an $11 billion functioning asset and to close it down. But that’s the sort of thing that we can expect from a Gillard-Brown Labor-Green Government.

Then of course, ladies and gentlemen, there’s a carbon tax. Now the whole point of the carbon tax is to make doing things in this country more expensive, whether it’s driving your car or turning on your heater or running your business the whole point of a carbon tax is to make that more expensive. The whole point of a carbon tax is to make it more expensive to burn coal and to burn oil and, as we know, burning oil and coal and gas is how we produce our power and our transport and power and transport are at the heart of modern life. So this is a tax on our way of life, it’s a tax on the way we work, and if there is one victim of this tax it’s the manufacturing industries of this country. You cannot run a steel mill on solar power. You cannot run a car plant on wind. All of this which is vital to our place as a first world economy will be under even more competitive pressure under this carbon tax.

You’d think if there’s one thing that a decent Labor leader would want to do it is to protect and preserve the jobs of the manufacturing workers of this country, but no, no. So eager was Julia Gillard to preserve her own job, so eager was she to protect her position in The Lodge that she did a secret deal with Bob Brown to preserve her job at the heart of which was a carbon tax to cruel the jobs of the manufacturing workers of Australia. Well, Julia Gillard it was a bad trade and you should never have done it. You should never have sacrificed their jobs or put their jobs at risk to secure your own job.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is a bad tax based on a lie. Never forget what the Prime Minister said six days before the last election: “there will be no carbon tax under the government I lead”. This is the phrase that should echo around every political gathering. This is the phrase that should reverberate through every political interview from now until the next election: “there will be no carbon tax under the government I lead”, because this is the lie at the heart of this Government’s existence. This Government fundamentally lacks legitimacy, not simply because it lacks a majority but because it lacks integrity and there is no greater example of a total failure of political integrity than to go to the election saying one thing and to do the exact opposite afterwards. It makes an absolute mockery of our democratic accountability. It makes an absolute mockery of everything that we value in a democracy such as this. Ladies and gentlemen, I say to you, I say to the Australian people and I would like you to say with all the power at your command to the Australian people: there should be no new tax collection without an election.

This is a message that is particularly acute here in Tasmania because it’s not just Andrew Wilkie and Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor who hold the balance of power

in the hung parliament. Every single member of parliament is a balance of power member in a hung parliament like this. And yes it would be great if the good people of Tasmania could persuade Andrew Wilkie that this is not in the interests of Tasmania. But don’t stop there. Dick Adams, Sid Sidebottom, the other Labor members from this state, they too are balance of power members of parliament and if they decide that it is not in the interests of their constituents, to stop this carbon tax, there will be no carbon tax. So ladies and gentlemen please appeal to them as Tasmanians, stop making excuses for a bad Government in Canberra and start standing up for the interests of the people of Tasmania.

Not only is this a bad tax based on a lie but it’s not fair and it won’t work. The Prime Minister talks about compensation. It’s interesting that she talks about compensation because compensation is what you get when someone has done you harm. That’s when you get compensation, when someone has done you harm. Even on the Government’s own figures more than three million Australian households are going to be worse off under the carbon tax. These aren’t rich people. A single income family with a child starts to be worse off under the Government’s own figures at average weekly earnings. A school teacher married to a shop assistant is worse off on the Government’s own figures. A policeman married to a part-time nurse is worse off under the Government’s own figures.

So it’s not fair but it doesn’t work either because when you actually look at the Government’s own figures it doesn’t do what it is supposed to do. If you look at the Government’s own modelling document, page 18, this tax which is supposed to save the environment by reducing carbon dioxide, this tax that will be $29 a tonne in 2020, takes our carbon dioxide emissions from 578 million tonnes now – wait for it – to 621 million tonnes in 2020, an increase not a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions! The only way, in fact, that we get our five per cent reduction by 2020 is by spending some $3.5 billion on foreign carbon traders. Now, I have a lot of respect for the foreign carbon traders of the sorts of countries that Kevin Rudd likes to visit. I suspect that when he is no longer in parliament Craig Thomson might like a career as a carbon trader. It’s a very worthy profession. But I don’t think the Australian people are going to be very impressed with an environmental policy that depends upon spending $3.5 billion with foreign carbon traders in 2020 and, would you believe it, $57 billion in today’s money with foreign carbon traders by 2050.

Ladies and gentlemen, I really do urge all of you, I really do urge all of you to pick up the Government’s own documents and turn to page 18, the back page of the Government’s own modelling document, because it’s there in black and white the figures that give the lie to the whole rationale for the carbon tax. In 2050, when we are supposed to have reduced our emissions by 80 per cent, in fact our emissions will be 545 million tonnes, not an 80 per cent reduction but a six per cent reduction. We only achieve the 80 per cent reduction by buying 400 million tonnes of abatement from the foreign carbon traders. It is an absolutely crazy policy. It is an absolutely crazy policy and only a government which has sold its soul to the Greens could possibly embrace it.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, I want to assure you that there is a better way. There is a better way to protect the environment and there is a better way to reduce emissions and we will protect our environment and we will reduce our emissions by providing sensible encouragement to business to do the sorts of things that it is already doing. Sensible farmers are planting more trees on the right parts of their properties. Sensible businesses are saving power and saving fuel. To give you just one example Linfox, the trucking company, has reduced its emissions by some 35 per cent since 2007 simply by getting its drivers to take their foot off the accelerator. To give you another example, Visy, the recycling business, it is actually moving to negative emissions power generation by taking garbage that would otherwise give off methane and other harmful greenhouse gases in landfill, taking non-recyclable garbage and burning it to produce power. So this isn’t zero emissions power generation it is negative emissions power generation. It’s happening right now. It’s happening without a carbon tax and it will be much harder to do sensible things like this to reduce our emissions under a carbon tax. So what we’re going to do is take money from savings in the budget and encourage, encourage Australian businesses to do more of what they are already doing. It’s a system of incentives not a system of penalties. It’s a system which will create jobs not destroy them and it’s a system which is not going to add to the cost of living pressures that are already so crushing for so many of the forgotten families of Australia.

Ladies and gentlemen, the next Coalition government will practice more responsible government, it will produce more responsive institutions and it will foster more productive people. We’ve seen what the current Government has done. They took the $20 billion surplus that they inherited and they have turned it into the worst fiscal deterioration in Australian history. Only once has Wayne Swan, the Treasurer, been able to announce a surplus and that was way back in May of 2008 when in his first budget he said ‘well, Peter Costello gave you a $20 billion surplus, I’m going to do better than that, I’m going to give you a $22 billion surplus’ and we all know what happened, don’t we ladies and gentlemen. We all know what happened. He promised us a $22 billion surplus; he ultimately delivered a $27 billion deficit. And just to prove that that was no fluke next year he gave us a $55 billion deficit. Once he was in the groove, last year, he gave us a $49 billion deficit. This year, as a sort of an encore, it will be a $23 billion deficit. But – wait for it ladies and gentlemen – finally, finally Labor is going to deliver a surplus, so he says, $3.5 billion in 2012-13.

Well, look, you look like sensible people. You don’t look like a particularly gullible crowd and I don’t think you believe him and I don’t think the Australian people believe him because, ladies and gentlemen, when a pollster last went to the Australian people – and pollsters do this when governments aren’t going very well – and polled ten alternative leaders of the Labor Party, it was an interesting collection of people that they put up as potential leaders of the Labor Party. Senator Brown was there I guess because he’s already the real leader of the Labor Party, there was actually a member of the Liberal Party on the list. But the one person who wasn’t there was the Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer and if there is one thing which so dramatically illustrates the complete political let alone economic failure of this Government it’s the fact that Wayne Swan didn’t even rate in this way.

But, ladies and gentlemen, we as Liberals believe in the Australian people. We know that if you give the Australian people their chance they will build better communities, stronger families and a better society. That’s why we want to work with the state governments to see genuinely community controlled public hospitals. That’s why we want to work with the state governments to see independent public schools of the sort that are now beginning the flourish in Western Australia under Colin Barnett’s Government. We know that if you trust the people more and the bureaucracy less you will get better services for the people who need them most. We want to see the Australian people given more opportunity to show what they can do not what they can’t do and that’s why there will be serious welfare reform under the next Coalition government. There will be incentives to get young people from unemployment to the places where there is work. There will be incentives for employers who take young people off welfare and give them work and keep them there. There will be incentives for employers who take older people, our seniors, off welfare and into work because people should be economic as well as simply social and cultural contributors to our country.

We want the Australian people to be their best selves and I sense as I go around this country now such disappointment, such disappointment because we know that as a nation we can be better than this. We can be better than this. There is this pervasive sense in our country right now that we are a great country with a lousy government and so that gives all of us in this room an important mission. I have to say as I stand before you I am very conscious of the fact that my colleagues and I are the standard bearers for the hopes and the dreams of ten million or more Australians. We are determined to restore good government to our country. We are determined to restore good values to our country. We are determined to restore political integrity to our country. We want to give this great country the better government that a great people deserve.

Thanks very much indeed.

Appendix U: Address to the Committee for Economic Development of Australia, Melbourne (Abbott, 29 August 2011) Ladies and gentlemen, it’s good to be here. We are dealing with an economy in transition. There’s a sense in which all economies are always in transition because economies ought to be inherently dynamic. But the forces of transition, acting on the Australian economy right now, are vast and my task today is to reassert the Coalition’s commitment to freer markets and an open economy, but also to remember that it’s important for democratic politicians to take the public with us as we move towards more efficient and more effective economic policies.

Over the past four years, Australia’s economic success has been more apparent than real. The economy’s expansion at about two per cent a year is tepid by historical standards and poor against the recent growth of many of our Asian neighbours,

notwithstanding the impact of the Global Financial Crisis. Even at this relatively anemic level, growth has depended more on rapid population increase than on greater production per person. In per capita terms, real output is up a paltry quarter per cent a year since the change of government compared with an average of two and a quarter per cent a year under the Howard government. This explains why people haven’t felt more prosperous despite some good headline economic statistics.

With unemployment at five per cent and the terms-of-trade at record highs, the Commonwealth budget deficit should not have been close to $50 billion last year, or over 3 per cent of GDP. By comparison, in 2004-5, when the unemployment rate was also at 5 per cent, the Commonwealth ran a surplus of $13.5 billion, or one and a half per cent of GDP, despite terms of trade around 40 per cent lower than now. After nearly a term and a half of Labor government, Australia’s economy and public finances are now highly exposed to external economic shocks. A ten per cent fall in the terms of trade, for instance, would produce about a two and a half per cent fall in nominal GDP and a $7 billion deterioration in the budget bottom line in the current financial year becoming larger subsequently. By spending money when it didn’t strictly need to, the government has lost the same capacity to mount another stimulus package, even in circumstances where it might make sense.

In an unstable and uncertain world, it’s more important than ever that Australian governments get their policy settings right. So far, the basic economic task of government, to live within its means and to foster higher productivity, has proven beyond this one. With the prospect of slower growth or even a double dip recession in Europe and North America, sovereign debt issues for the weaker economies of the Eurozone, and persistent inflation in China, Australians can’t assume that our economy is bullet-proof. Since the GFC, Australians have been saving at rates not seen in more than two decades. Very low retail spending and big job losses at household names like Bluescope, Westpac and Qantas seem to vindicate this consumer pessimism. Much of the public’s anxiety seems to stem from a pervasive sense that the current government just doesn’t know what it’s doing.

Sensible governments “hope for the best but prepare for the worst”. Ministers may have convinced themselves that it was the spending spree of the current government rather than the reforms of its predecessors that largely saved Australia from the first Global Financial Crisis but the public understand that governments can no more persistently spend their way out of a crisis than households can. As Adam Smith once remarked, there’s a lot of ruin in a nation, but Australians no longer seem convinced that our economic strength is beyond being damaged by an incompetent government.

After all, there’s been waste on an epic scale: the roof batts disaster; the school halls programme that even the Prime Minister’s hand-picked investigator found wanting; and the NBN, Australia’s largest ever infrastructure project, conceived on the back of an envelope in the VIP jet, pursued without a cost-benefit analysis and including $11 billion to purchase the existing copper and HFC networks just so they can be shut down. There’s the productive industries all-but-closed: major power stations in

Victoria to be shut down because they use brown coal; the home insulation business at first arbitrarily expanded and then all-but-terminated literally overnight; the live cattle trade stopped on the basis of a TV programme; and the Tasmanian forestry industry being paid to shed jobs rather than to grow them thanks to Labor’s obligations to the Greens. There’s the mining industry subjected first to an investment destroying, sovereign risk-raising new tax determined in secret and then to a new version negotiated solely with the three big multi-nationals. There’s the steel industry, now haemorrhaging jobs, despite a hurriedly flung-together rescue package, while the Steel Industry Advocate position was unfilled for nine months and the Steel Industry Innovation Council didn’t even meet for six months.

China’s phenomenal economic growth is undoubtedly good for resource exporters like Australia but even for us there are few unmixed blessings. Not since the first gold rush has Australia seen times to equal what’s happening to our iron ore and coal exports. The good news is BHP reporting a profit equivalent to more than one a half per cent of GDP, much of it to be returned to Australians through higher dividends and higher superannuation returns. The bad news is that it’s hard to fill $15 an hour jobs in tourism, or to keep tradesmen on award wages in manufacturing when they can earn $150,000 a year driving a mining truck. Mining now accounts for 60 per cent of new investment but it’s only 10 per cent of total GDP and just 2 per cent of total employment. Its impact is felt almost everywhere, in wages pressure and skill shortages and a much stronger dollar largely driven by foreign investment and foreign borrowings.

It’s right that resources move into the most productive parts of the economy. It’s right that workers move to the industries where they can earn the most. These are the sorts of adjustments that happen in a market economy and make freer markets by far the best mechanism for creating wealth. Freer markets are the main explanation for Australia’s comparative economic success over the past quarter century. The job of policy-makers is not to buck the market but to try to ensure that individuals, communities and industries can cope with change. Particularly by defeating union militancy, previous governments made it possible for Australia to make the most of the opportunities provided by the China boom. With Lindsay Tanner and more recently with Craig Emerson, the current government has one or two ministers who talk a good game on economic reform. Unlike the Hawke/Keating government, though, the current government’s actual record has been new taxes, higher spending, expanded bureaucracies, greater regulation and more union power.

As experience with the mining tax suggests, it’s much easier for governments to damage investment and jobs generally than it is to speed up the slow lane by slowing down the fast lane. The best response to the mining sector’s good fortune is not to take it away through punitive new Commonwealth taxes but to make it easier for other parts of the economy to take advantage of it. After all, the success of one sector of our economy should be an opportunity for other sectors, not a threat to them.

It’s never been easy to manufacture in Australia. Our domestic market is small, the

distances to overseas markets vast, our wages high and competition usually fierce. Still, Australia has had a steel industry since 1915 and a serious motor industry since 1948. Cheap power from abundant coal and gas has been Australia’s only comparative advantage in manufacturing – which is why the carbon tax is such a monumental economic own goal.

Paul Howes, one of the union leaders who helped to install the current Prime Minister, is now talking about a crisis in Australian manufacturing. What he can’t bring himself to admit is the role of poor policy in precipitating it and the prospect of a go-it-alone carbon tax making a bad situation much worse. Carbon tax adjustment packages to help people out of productive jobs in what could otherwise be profitable industries can easily become a form of corporate welfare that’s deeply counterproductive for business, workers and taxpayers. As the Bluescope chairman rightly said when it was first flagged, compensation for a carbon tax is like “putting a bandaid on a bullet wound”.

Instead of telling business what’s good for it and abusing people who dare to disagree with her government, the Prime Minister should be talking to everyone involved in manufacturing, not just union officials. She should be prepared at least to listen to business concerns about the timing and the quantum of the carbon tax and to their recommendations for changes to the Fair Work Act. There are perplexing reports that Australian steel fabricators and heavy engineering businesses have routinely missed out on major participation in resource developments. The government should be investigating what can be done to ensure a genuinely level playing field with a fair go for Australian companies. These are the sorts of steps that the Prime Minister should consider if she is to take charge of events rather than to drift with them. Any meeting to address the problems in manufacturing industry that doesn’t address the carbon tax is nothing more than a desperate PR stunt.

All other things being equal, restraining public spending would reduce overall demand, help to take the pressure off interest rates and keep the exchange rate lower than otherwise. Lowering interest rates and the exchange rate is the most important relief that can be given to the struggling sections of the economy. A prudent, frugal government that avoids unnecessary taxes, secures value for the taxpayers’ dollar and doesn’t lightly interfere in people’s lives is always the surest way to a strong economy. There should always be a presumption against sectoral policy which should be directed towards restoring the economic fundamentals rather than to picking winners.

The Coalition is strongly opposed to industry policy that props up over-manning and feather-bedding or that does not count the cost of intervening and honestly face up to it. On the other hand, if there’s a respectable case that can be made for maintaining a heavy manufacturing base on the grounds of national security, the inherent value of a diversified economy or the transitional costs of shutting down capital intensive industries only to start them up again when market conditions change, there needs to be a forum where it can be addressed.

The Coalition’s instinct is always to defend and extend the role of markets. Protectionist sentiment can’t be shouted down or asserted way; it has to be argued against patiently, rationally and with a clear appreciation of what’s best for people in the longer term. At times of rapid change, Australians are entitled to the reassurance that their leaders have a plan for their economic security. Voters are likely to be less hostile to foreign investment if they think that the government is preserving a well- balanced economy. They are more likely to support the expansion of the coal seam gas industry if they think that landholders’ rights are being respected. The strength to take unpopular decisions and to stick with them is a mark of effective leaders. Effective leadership also means respecting the electorate especially people’s sense that there are few good things that can’t be taken too far.

For these reasons, I’ve asked the Shadow Minister for Industry, Sophie Mirabella, and the Shadow Minister for Resources, Ian Macfarlane, to co-chair an “industries for Australia’s future” policy review process on the best way forward. It will canvass views from the sectors expanding and contracting under the influence of the mining boom and report back by Christmas. The objective won’t be to protect parts of the economy from legitimate competition but to try to ensure that Australian manufacturers face a genuinely level playing field when they compete for orders. It will help to put the Coalition’s rejection of a carbon tax and a mining tax into the context of our wider economic principles.

The Coalition says “no” to a carbon tax because we say “yes” to manufacturing industry and “yes” to affordable power and transport. Opposing and if necessary repealing the carbon tax and the mining tax is not a negative policy. It reflects the Coalition’s fundamental positive commitment to lower taxes, greater freedom and smaller government. It reflects our commitment to more responsible government, more responsive institutions and more productive people.

The last Coalition government inherited a $10 billion budget deficit and eventually turned that into a $20 billion surplus. There was a consistent surplus of about one per cent of GDP from 2002 on. The last Coalition government inherited $96 billion in government debt and turned that into $70 billion of net assets. It was primarily John Howard and Peter Costello’s surplus but it also belongs to all the other 16 former Howard government ministers on the Coalition front bench. It was our surplus too. People can trust the Coalition to restore the Commonwealth’s fiscal position as quickly as possible because they’ve seen us do it before.

Since the depths of the Global Financial Crisis, many banks have begun to clean up their balance sheets but few governments have. The lesson of the current international economic instability is that governments which spend too much, borrow too much and tax too much ultimately inflict massive pain on their people. A primary duty of government is to live within its means and the first task of the next Coalition government will be to get the budget back to surplus at least as quickly as the current government proposes only to do so without a carbon tax and a mining tax.

The government’s claim of a surplus by 2012-13 is looking increasingly implausible

because it’s based on growth assumptions that are increasingly unlikely to be achieved. The last time the government forecast a surplus, of $22 billion back in 2008, it delivered an actual deficit of $27 billion. Subsequent deficits of $55 billion, $49 billion and a projected $23 billion – that’s more than $150 billion in accumulated deficits over just four years – will dwarf any surplus that might be achieved in the next financial year. Even at the originally forecast rate, it would take 50 years of Wayne Swan surpluses to pay off four years of Wayne Swan deficits. About the only hard savings that this government has been prepared to make have involved, bizarrely, not proceeding with spending that has passed a rigorous cost-effectiveness test, such as the listing of new drugs on the PBS. As well, some government programmes, such as computers in schools and school halls, have blown out by billions of dollars. The inability of this government to get its figures right, even with all the Treasury’s resources at its disposal, should be remembered whenever it questions the Coalition’s costings.

Obviously, under the Coalition, spending specifically associated with the carbon tax and the mining tax won’t go ahead other than that to which the government has been contractually bound. The tax and benefit changes associated with the carbon tax, after all, are putting back into one pocket only about half of the money that will be taken out of the other. A tax cut funded by a tax increase is a mirage. The only tax cuts that leave people better off are those that are funded by sustainable reductions in government spending or by productivity increases. As BHP boss Marius Kloppers pointed out last week, a carbon tax is just a deadweight cost. As the government’s own carbon tax modelling makes clear, growth will be lower, employment will be weaker and Australians’ Gross National Income per person will be nearly $5000 less in 2050 with a carbon tax than without one. On the other hand, the absence of a carbon tax and a mining tax means that the economy will grow faster than otherwise with more government revenue and less need for savings.

It won’t be easy to find the savings needed to accommodate tax cuts and a fair go for pensioners without new taxes but the Coalition won’t shirk the task of slimming the bureaucracy, terminating unnecessary spending programmes and finding more efficient ways to deliver services. The savings task will be well under the $70 billion nominated by Labor. Even that figure, fanciful though it is, would be just 4 per cent of the $1.5 trillion that the Commonwealth is normally budgeted to spend over four years. Before the last election, the Coalition identified some $50 billion in savings to fund $40 billion of new spending and to produce a $10 billion improvement to the budget bottom line. The fiscal task is now greater because some of the savings that the Coalition relied on have subsequently been adopted by the government. Again, we’re going through the budget line-by-line and will detail savings in good time before the next election.

The Coalition remains committed to its productivity boosting election initiatives. Rigorously administered relocation allowances for young people who move off welfare into work and who can’t return to welfare for a considerable period should ultimately save taxpayers’ money. Targeted incentives, paid in arrears, for employers who take young people or seniors off welfare and into the workforce should also save

taxpayers’ money. By paying nearly all mothers their full wage for six months, the Coalition’s fair dinkum paid parental leave scheme should encourage more working women to become mothers, if that’s their wish. By acknowledging that having children and having a career need not be an “either-or” choice for women, it should encourage more mothers to stay in the workforce. Although greater workforce participation can actually reduce measured productivity, it undoubtedly makes the country more productive and richer and is a key way to strengthen government revenue without a heavier tax burden.

When the Labor Party talks productivity, it invariably means more spending on government-ordained, public sector-provided training programmes or think-big government-controlled infrastructure projects like the NBN. To be productivity enhancing, infrastructure spending has to pass the cost-benefit analyses that Labor has consistently refused to undertake or to publish. The next Coalition government won’t fund big infrastructure projects without a published cost-benefit analysis. This should mean faster economic growth and, over time, less pressure on the revenue.

To the Coalition, productivity enhancement mostly comes from liberating individuals and institutions from the stifling grip of unnecessary rules or second-guessing bureaucracies. Working with the states to establish community-controlled public hospitals and independent public schools should enhance productivity because more autonomous management should be able to get more value from each taxpayer dollar. Our commitment to reduce the compliance cost of government red tape will boost productivity because enterprises will spend more time doing their job and less time form-filling.

Strengthening the economy by reducing regulation, rather than by spending money, should be the Coalition’s policy speciality. Despite promising a “one in, one out” approach to new government regulations, between 2008 and 2010 Labor passed 12,835 regulations while repealing a mere 58. In practice, “one in, one out” has amounted to “220 in, one out”. Modelled on a scheme that’s worked in Victoria, the Coalition will reduce the cost of red tape by at least $1 billion every year. Departments will be required to calculate how many hours business spends filling in portfolio paperwork and how much that costs and to publish the red tape reductions that have been put in place. This will be verified by the Productivity Commission, included in departmental annual reports and be a key performance indicator for the Australian Public Service.

I invite everyone concerned about the future of our country to judge the Coalition on its record. The Howard government wasn’t perfect and it can’t take credit for all the benefits that occurred on its watch but the longer the current government lasts, the better its predecessor looks and the more the Howard government seems to have presided over a lost golden age. As employment minister in that government, I massively expanded work-for-the-dole and fully established the Job Network as a more efficient, better performing, non-government replacement for the old Commonwealth Employment Service bureaucracy. As workplace relations minister, I called the royal commission which led to the establishment of the Australian Building

and Construction Commission which boosted industry productivity to the tune of over $5 billion a year. As health minister, I strengthened the cost-effectiveness tests that helped to drive increased life expectancy of more than two years over the course of the government’s term.

The next Coalition government will be a reforming government that builds on the strengths of Australian society and aims to reflect the best values of the Australian people. We will welcome foreign investment that passes a strict national interest test. We will expand the role of the market where it’s clear that people will be better off. We will limit the reach of government because the state exists for citizens, not the other way round. We are determined to make a difference but the changes we will make have to be sustainable which is why they have to come from the national conversation rather than be imposed from on high. http://www.tonyabbott.com.au/LatestNews/Speeches/tabid/88/articleType/ArticleView /articleId/8278/Address-to-the-Committee-for-Economic-Development-of-Australia- Melbourne.aspx

Appendix V: Address to the Australian Steel Convention 2011, Canberra (Abbott, 12 September 2011) Thanks very much ladies and gentlemen, it’s great to be here. It’s good to be talking about people who are concerned with the future of the steel industry. I guess the first point I should make is that modern life is utterly inconceivable without the steel industry. Whether it be this lectern that I’m standing behind, whether it be the tables or chairs that you are sitting on, whether it be the building that we are in at the moment, whether it be the transportation which got us here from the homes that we live in and the offices that we normally work in, steel is essential. You cannot have a modern economy without steel. You cannot have a modern way of life without steel and I think it’s very important that we never forget just how crucial to everything we do steel is.

The steel industry is very important to Australia’s economy. From smelting to fabricating, steel employs about 90,000 people – critical to so many other sectors of our economy as well. Australia only produces about seven million tonnes of steel. We are dwarfed by China’s 600 million tonnes-plus, even by America’s 80 million tonnes, but nevertheless for our size we are quite a significant producer of steel and if we ever didn’t produce steel we would be the only member of the G20 to be in that position. So, steel is critical to our way of life, steel is important in our economy and I’ve been making the point up hill and down dale since the carbon tax was first announced back in February that it’s hard to imagine a first world economy without a domestic steel industry.

Though the Australian steel industry has always laboured against a small domestic market, even though the Australian steel industry has recently laboured against an historically high Australian dollar, steel making in Australia does have certain significant advantages. We have high quality deposits of iron ore here in Australia,

we have very high quality deposits of coking coal here in Australia and we have an abundance of affordable energy. So, three of the critical ingredients in steelmaking exist in an economically advantageous way here in Australia. Steelmaking is actually one of those industrial processes in which Australia has significant comparative economic advantages. So, it would be not just a problem for our status as a first world economy, it would be to deny us some of the things that should come naturally to us were the steel industry no longer to operate in this country.

This brings me, of course, to the carbon tax. Now, ladies and gentlemen, I think that the carbon tax is a dagger aimed at the heart of manufacturing in this country generally but I think it is particularly a dagger aimed at the heart of the steel industry in this country. Now, I know that you are in business and I know that as people in business who critically depend upon a good relationship with the government there is a certain diplomacy which must attend what you can and can’t say when it comes to elements of government policy. I know that belatedly the Government has put in place some compensation measures for steel as part of its carbon tax package.

But I do want to remind everyone here today of what the leaders of the steel industry said when the carbon tax package was first announced and I’m going to quote the chairman of BlueScope Steel and a member of the Reserve Bank board Graham Kraehe who spoke in March of this year to the National Press Club in these terms. “The carbon tax will give importers an unfair advantage over Australian manufacturers. To compound the problem, Australian manufactured exports would be taxed while those of our competitors would not. Some say a form of ‘relief’ or assistance for emissions-intensive trade-exposed companies will be the cure. It won’t be,” said Graham Kraehe. He went on to say, “It’s simply a band aid on a bullet wound.” Then there was Paul O’Malley, the CEO of BlueScope, who said on Radio National on the 3rd of March, “We have consistently said that for manufacturing businesses that compete globally, where the prices are set internationally, if you tax Australian industry before our competitors are taxed globally, you’re not actually going to reduce CO2 emissions. All you’re doing is making it harder for manufacturing businesses in Australia to survive.”

Now, as I said I fully appreciate that subsequent to the carbon tax announcement, subsequent to the compensation package, it’s important for people in the business of making steel to rebuild a dialogue with government. But I think it’s also important to remember what they said when the survival of their industry was at stake. You see, there is no way to make steel that doesn’t involve an enormous expenditure of energy. There is no way to make steel that doesn’t involve massive emissions of carbon dioxide. There is no way to work with steel that doesn’t involve an enormous use of energy and this is why prior to the July carbon tax announcement BlueScope estimated that a $25 a tonne carbon tax would cost it in the order of $400 million a year and why OneSteel estimated that a $25 a tonne carbon tax would cost it in the order of $115 million a year – obviously expenses which would completely destroy, under current circumstances, the profitability of those businesses.

There is no way on God’s earth that you can have a solar powered steel mill, just as

there is no way on this earth you can have a wind powered manufacturing plant and anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional. This is the simple truth about steel, this is the simple truth about manufacturing and this is the simple truth which advocates of a carbon tax are at pains to play down, particularly advocates of a one-sided carbon tax. Everyone who thinks about the steel industry understands this, including the unions. It was, in fact, no less a person than Paul Howes who said that the carbon tax could not be supported if it was going to cost a single job: that was before he was reminded that one job that opposition to the carbon tax might cost was his future job as a Labor member of parliament. It was Wayne Hanson, the state secretary of the South Australian Australian Workers’ Union, who said that the introduction of a carbon tax would lay waste to Whyalla and Port Pirie, turn them into economic ghost towns. So, sensible union officials understand the damage that the carbon tax will do to their industries, understand the damage that the carbon tax will do to their members’ jobs and I just wish more union officials were prepared to stand up for their industries, stand up for their jobs, rather than continue to make excuses for a bad government in Canberra and its toxic tax.

So, ladies and gentlemen, what is the Coalition going to do for the steel industry? Well, first of all there won’t be a carbon tax. Read my lips, there will be no carbon tax. There just won’t be a carbon tax because there are much better ways to reduce our emissions and improve our environment than making manufacturing in this country almost unviable. The next thing we will do for the steel industry is to get the economic fundamentals right because if you get the economic fundamentals right you take some of the pressure off your industry. If we can get government spending down we can get the pressure off interest rates and if we can take the pressure off interest rates we can take some of the pressure off the exchange rate which is making it so hard for our steel industry to compete. But most importantly, we will talk to you before we make critical decisions about what we as a government can do to maximise your competitive position by minimising your avoidable costs. That’s what sensible governments do: they talk to people who are going to be impacted by government decisions before those decisions are set in concrete.

Now, I have to say to you that I am not a protectionist. Generally speaking, I think that tariffs should go down not up, subsidies should go down not up. There is no way that a Coalition government will build walls against the world because we are a trading nation and we want trading barriers to go down not to come up. But there are all sorts of other ways in which government can help an industry such as yours to be more competitive, to have a true level playing field. That’s what we want to do and that’s why I’ve established a policy review process jointly chaired by the industry shadow Sophie Mirabella and the resources shadow Ian Macfarlane. That will be taking submissions and I would certainly encourage people associated with the steel industry to make the submissions and to detail the changes that you think would help this industry not just to survive but to flourish in this great country of ours. In the end, it is about whether we have an adult government or not and governments which make decisions in secret, then announce them, then say ‘like it or lump it’ are not adult governments and I think that we’ve seen too much of that kind of decision making from government over the last four years.

So, ladies and gentlemen, I am very pleased to be here today. I do want to assure you that the Coalition is committed to Australia remaining a diverse and sophisticated economy with a diverse and sophisticated manufacturing sector and that means that we have to do everything that we reasonably can to ensure that the steel industry in this country has a bright future. We’ve got the ore, we’ve got the coal, we’ve got the power, we need the manufacturers to bring them together if we are going to be the kind of country in the future that we have so proudly been in the past.

So, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for having me here today. I know this is a difficult time for your industry. I know there are tremors of insecurity and anxiety that have run through the businesses where so many of you work. Please don’t lose hope. Please don’t despair. Please don’t give up. We can be better than we are right now and that’s what I want to try to facilitate should I have the honour of leading this great country.

Thank you.

Appendix W: Second Reading Speech: Clean Energy Bills 2011, House of Representatives (Abbott, 14 September 2011)

Mr Speaker, I thank you for the call and I welcome the opportunity to speak on this legislation. Mr Speaker, let’s be absolutely blunt about the bills now before the parliament: this is a bad tax based on a lie and it should be rejected by this parliament.

The Prime Minister said yesterday that the question for members of this parliament was are you or are you not on the right side of history? Well, let me say, Mr Speaker, this is arrogant presumption by a Prime Minister who is on the wrong side of truth. That’s the Prime Minister’s problem. She is on the wrong side of truth when it comes to this issue.

Let’s consider, Mr Speaker, the record of this Prime Minister on this subject. This is a Prime Minister – and we know this happened because her predecessor has described this in public – this is a Prime Minister who sabotaged her predecessor at least in part because of her predecessor’s desire to bring in an emissions trading scheme. She brought down her predecessor on this issue and I say to the Australian people if Kevin Rudd could not trust this Prime Minister why should the people of Australia trust this Prime Minister on the subject?

Mr Speaker, not only do we have a Prime Minister who brought down her predecessor, in part, on this subject, we also have a Prime Minister who revealed her true position on this subject in a memo – a secret memo – to the inner cabinet where she said that direct action would in fact work, it was capable of bringing our emissions down by five per cent and it was capable of doing that without a carbon price. That is the one spark of truth that we have seen from this Prime Minister on

this topic. But having sabotaged her predecessor over an emissions trading scheme, having told the inner cabinet that direct action would work, then she said to the Australian people at the election campaign that what we really needed was a ‘peoples’ assembly’ to deal with this whole question of climate change. This citizens’ assembly wasn’t going to meet, listen to a few experts and then quickly decide what the policy was. This citizens’ assembly was going to sit, it was going to deliberate, it was going to keep deliberating and it would not come to a conclusion that would be acted upon by government until there was, and I quote, “a deep and lasting consensus.”

So, so far, Mr Speaker, we’ve had three positions from the Prime Minister. First, sabotaging her predecessor over an emissions trading scheme; second, telling the inner cabinet that direct action would work; third, a citizens’ assembly that would not conclude until a “deep and lasting consensus” was achieved. I mean, talk about real Julia and false Julia. The fact is, when it comes to this subject there seems to be no real Julia at all, because having had all of those different positions we come finally to her statement, her pre-election statement – I would say her fatal pre-election statement – that “there will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.” Now, Mr Speaker, this is the statement that haunts this debate. This is the statement that haunts this Government. This is the statement that makes the whole debate that we are having fundamentally illegitimate because this is the very tax that this parliament should not be considering.

Let me say this, Mr Speaker. It is one thing to change your mind as circumstances change. It is an entirely different thing to pervert the democratic process of this country by saying one thing before an election to win votes and to do the exact opposite after the election to hold on to your job and that is precisely what this Prime Minister has done. What she hasn’t done is the decent, honest thing which would have been to take a change of position, had that genuinely taken place, to take a change of position to the people at an election.

This is a Prime Minister who has, from time to time, compared this carbon tax to the great reforms of previous governments. She’s even compared it to the great tax reform of the former government and the former Prime Minister, Mr Howard, but the fundamental difference between the Prime Minister sitting opposite today and the Prime Minister who took the tax reform package through this parliament is that he took it to an election first. He took it to an election first and if the arguments for the carbon tax are as strong as this Prime Minister says they are, why hide from the people? Why hide from the people? Why not expose these arguments to the people because I say to this Prime Minister if she really does want a deep and lasting consensus to be attained in this country there’s one way to do it and only one way to do it: take it to the people and win an election on it.

I say to this Prime Minister there should be no new tax collection without an election. That’s what this Prime Minister should do. If this Prime Minister trusts in the democratic process, if this Prime Minister trusts her own judgement, trusts her own argument, that is what she should be doing. She should be taking this to the people.

Mr Speaker, the whole point of this tax is to change the way every single Australian lives and works. That’s another reason why this should be taken to the people. This is not just a minor bit of financial engineering. This is not just – if you believe the Government – something to do with the revenue. This is a transformational change. This is something which is supposed to impact on our country, not just today, not just next year, not just next decade but forever. That’s how important this is, if the Government is to be believed, and this is why it should go to the people first.

This tax is all about making the essentials of modern life more expensive. Modern life, Mr Speaker, is utterly inconceivable without fuel and power, without fuel to move us around the country, without power to make our homes, our businesses and our factories work. So, if this tax comes in, as the Government wants it to come in, we won’t be able to turn on our air conditioner or our heater without being impacted by this tax. We won’t be able to get on a bus or a train, ultimately to drive our cars, without being impacted by this tax. That’s how important, that’s how significant this tax is. This explains the obvious impact that this tax will have on every single Australian’s cost of living. This explains the obvious impact that this tax will have on every single Australian’s job and this explains why it is so necessary for this tax to go to the people before the parliament tries to deal with it. Mr Speaker, if this parliament is to have any democratic credibility on an issue like this there must be an appeal to the people before a decision by the parliament.

Mr Speaker, the longer this debate lasts the clearer it is that this tax is all economic pain for no environmental gain. On the Government’s own figures, under this tax there will be an immediate 10 per cent increase in electricity prices, a nine per cent increase in gas bills and there will be a $4.3 billion hole in the Budget. Now, that nine per cent increase in gas prices and that 10 per cent increase in electricity prices is what we get – well, we aren’t quite sure whether it’s what we get with a $23 a tonne carbon price or a $20 a tonne carbon price because they still haven’t given us the modelling, Mr Speaker, on this – but once the price goes up to $29 a tonne, to $131 a tonne, as it’s forecast to do on the Government’s own figures, these prices for gas and electricity just go up and up and up and that’s the last thing, Mr Speaker, that the people of Australia need given that they have suffered from price rise after price rise in the three-and-a-half years since this government came to office.

Let’s look at what the Australian Bureau of Statistics tells us. Let’s look at the story of prices rises, Mr Speaker, under this Government. There’s been a 51 per cent average increase in power prices. There’s been a 30 per cent average increase in gas prices. There’s been a 46 per cent average increase in water prices. There’s been a 24 per cent average increase in education costs and there’s been a 20 per cent average increase in health costs. Mr Speaker, all of these prices are going to go up and up and up under a carbon tax.

Now, as members opposite are only too well aware, I’ve been spending quite a bit of my time since the carbon tax was first announced at the press conference in the Prime Ministerial courtyard hijacked by Senator Brown and since Carbon Sunday,

I’ve been spending quite a bit of my time going around to the workplaces of Australia talking to the workers of this country – the workers of this country who I regret to say have increasingly been abandoned by members opposite – and just to give you a snapshot, Mr Speaker, of some of the increases that will be faced by the employers of those workers that the Labor Party once represented: Austral Bricks – $2 million a year additional cost; the Victorian hospital system – $13.5 million a year additional cost; Nolan’s Transport in Gatton – an additional $300,000 a year additional cost and it just goes on and on and on.

Mr Speaker, this is at a time when Australian business – particularly Australian manufacturing business – is under great pressure. This is a time when the world financial situation is experiencing unprecedented fragility and what does this Government do? What does this Government do? It doesn’t think now is not the time to add to the burdens on business. Now is not the time to add to the burdens on families. Now is not the time to add to sovereign risk issues associated with Australia. They don’t think any of that, no. They think what we need now is just another big new tax. On top of the mining tax and all the other taxes that they want to put on us, they want a carbon tax as well.

We heard from the Prime Minister yesterday that the carbon tax is somehow going to create jobs. Well, Mr Speaker, this is a government which sometimes talks about economic credibility. Show me a credible economist, Prime Minister, who thinks that higher prices create more jobs. Show me a credible economist who thinks that higher taxes create jobs. Mr Speaker, this isn’t just nonsense, this is nonsense on stilts by a government which has no real understanding of the economy of the real world in which most of us live.

Mr Speaker, this Government constantly tells us that the modelling shows most people will be better off. Well, Mr Speaker, there’s modelling and there’s modelling. This is a Government which says that the modelling of the Commonwealth Treasury, and it’s still as I say, hasn’t given us the correct modelling but nevertheless it claims the Commonwealth modelling shows people would be better off. Well, that’s not the only modelling, Mr Speaker. It’s not the only modelling. The Victorian Government has commissioned Deloitte Access Economics. Their modelling showed that there would be 23,000 fewer jobs across Victoria by 2015 as the result of the carbon tax and members opposite should listen to this, with the Latrobe Valley, Geelong, Port Phillip, Monash, Boroondara and Whitehorse the worst hit areas. The Victorian Government’s modelling says that the Victorian economy will be $2.8 billion worse off in 2015 thanks to the Government’s carbon tax.

The New South Wales Treasury modelling – and this was modelling originally undertaken for the New South Wales Labor Government when Michael Costa was the Treasurer of New South Wales – this modelling predicts that 31,000 jobs will be lost in New South Wales by 2030 as a result of the carbon tax, with 18,500 in the Hunter Valley alone and I say to members opposite representing Hunter Valley electorates: stand up for jobs in your area, stand up for the jobs of your constituents. Stop making excuses for a floundering Prime Minister and stop putting the political

interests of this Prime Minister ahead of the economic interests of your constituents. The New South Wales Government predicts that state finances will be $1 billion worse off between now and 2014 and, listen to this, Mr Speaker, with a reduction in gross state product of close to one per cent a year by 2020 and electricity prices in New South Wales will rise by $498 next financial year as electricity generators pass on the cost of their carbon permits.

Mr Speaker, the Western Australian Treasury modelling predicts that Western Australian households within three years will be paying more than $2,120 a year for power compared with $1,515 a year now.

But Mr Speaker, members opposite will say they’re just the Coalition states. What can you expect from modelling commissioned by Coalition governments? Well, let’s go to the Queensland modelling. The Bligh Government commissioned a report from Deloitte Access Economics and that modelled Queensland’s gross state product would be 2.76 per cent lower by 2020 and 4.11 per cent lower in 2050 with the carbon tax than it would be without one. This is a five per cent reduction in Queensland’s gross state product under the carbon tax. Deloitte’s predicted a loss of 21,000 jobs in Queensland and then there’s the Queensland Treasury which anticipates a net loss in economic value of the state’s generation companies of $640 million, all of which will ultimately be passed on to consumers.

Mr Speaker, nearly all of the claims that this Prime Minister is making for her carbon tax are wrong. It’s a bad tax based on a lie and the argument that she is marshalling for this tax is one lie after another. She talks about “green jobs”. Well, Mr Speaker, a United Kingdom study released in March this year found that for every job created in the renewable energy sector, 3.7 existing jobs were lost. A 2009 Spanish study found that for every green job created by subsidises and price supports for renewable power, more than two jobs in other industries are lost. Her claims that no one need worry about this tax because everyone is going to be compensated are wrong, even based on her own figures. Her own figures in her own Carbon Sunday documents show that more than three million Australian households will be worse off and these aren’t just rich people. A teacher married to a shop assistant – worse off under the Government’s package, even by the Government’s own figures. A policeman married to a part-time nurse – worse off under the Government’s own figures, thanks to the carbon tax. A single income family with a child – on the Government’s own modelling starts to be worse off from below average weekly earnings.

This is what this Government is doing to the struggling families, the forgotten families, of Australia. The Prime Minister tells us that we have to introduce a carbon tax to keep up with policies in the rest of the world. Well, dead wrong. Since Copenhagen, Mr Speaker, if anything, the rest of the world has been moving against carbon taxes and emissions trading schemes and in the period in which Australia intends to reduce its emissions by five per cent, China is forecast to increase its emissions by 500 per cent and India by 350 per cent.

Mr Speaker, let me now come to the heart of my objections to this Government’s tax

proposal. Mr Speaker, it won’t even reduce emissions. It won’t even reduce emissions. Now, Mr Speaker, every member of this parliament should go to page 18 of the Government’s Carbon Sunday documents: Strong Growth, Low Pollution: Modelling a Carbon Price. I’m looking at the Government’s own document. Our current emissions are 578 million tonnes. What we are supposed to be doing, if we are to reduce our emissions by five per cent on 2000 figures by 2020 is getting it down to 530 million tonnes. That’s what we’re supposed to be doing. But the Government’s own figures don’t say that we are reducing our emissions by five per cent. The Government’s own figures say that we are in fact increasing our own domestic emissions from 578 million tonnes to 621 million tonnes. Now, what’s the point? What is the point of all the pain of this carbon tax if our emissions are actually going to increase?

But it just gets worse. At a $29 a tonne carbon tax our emissions go up from 578 now to 621 in 2020. It gets worse. At a $131 a tonne carbon tax in 2050 we don’t get an 80 per cent reduction in emissions, we actually get a six per cent reduction in emissions. Our emissions in 2050 on the Government’s own figures have gone from 578 million tonnes now to 545 million tonnes then.

So, all of those bold claims in the Prime Minister’s speech yesterday, all of that big chest-thumping talk of a massive reduction in emissions as a result of this tax, utterly wrong, utterly wrong and disproven on the basis of the Government’s own documents. We aren’t reducing our emissions, we are just engaging in a massive transfer of wealth from this country to carbon traders overseas. That’s what’s happening. That’s what’s happening under this tax. It will be $3.5 billion in 2020 to purchase almost 100 million tonnes of carbon credits from abroad, it will be $57 billion – one and a half per cent of gross domestic product – shovelled off abroad by 2050 to purchase some 400 million tonnes of carbon credits from abroad.

Mr Speaker, the Prime Minister claims that we’re all going to get richer and richer under this carbon tax. Well, again, I say to members opposite if you don’t believe me look at your own modelling document which says that Australia’s gross national income per person will be almost $5,000 less in 2050 with the carbon tax than would be the case without it. So, Mr Speaker, what is the point? What is the point of this carbon tax? Well, we know part of the point. Part of the point is to satisfy the Greens, without whom this Prime Minister would not be in The Lodge, without whom this Prime Minister would not have been able to cobble together a majority after the election. But that’s not the only point. Deep in the DNA of every Labor member opposite, I regret to say, is an instinct for higher taxes and greater regulation and isn’t that just what we are getting under this carbon tax proposal: more taxes, more bureaucrats, more regulation, more burdens on the life of the Australian people, more economic pain for no environmental gain whatsoever.

Well, Mr Speaker, as I’ve been saying right around the country ever since this was proposed there is a better way. There is a much better way to reduce emissions and the better way to reduce emissions is to work with the grain of the Australian people.

The better way to reduce emissions is to further encourage the intelligent, sensible things that Australians and Australian enterprises are doing now to reduce emissions. Australian farmers are planting more trees and they’re doing it now without a carbon tax because they know it’s good for our environment, it’s good for their agricultural productivity. Australian farmers right now are moving from chemical to organic fertilisers. They are reducing emissions and they’re doing it not because of a carbon tax, they’re doing it because it makes economic and environmental sense.

Australian businesses are taking sensible measures to reduce their fuel bills and reduce their power bills. Linfox has better trained its drivers and as a result of better driver training their total emissions have reduced by 35 per cent since 2007. Visy are moving from high emitting power from the Latrobe Valley to power that they are producing by burning the garbage that can’t be recycled. This isn’t just zero emissions energy, this is negative emissions energy because that garbage would otherwise be emitting not just carbon dioxide but methane in landfills. They’re doing all of this without a carbon tax. They’re doing all of this without a carbon tax and none of this would be easier, in fact, all of it would be harder with the carbon tax that this Government is proposing.

Mr Deputy Speaker, listening to the Prime Minister you’d think Australians have been complete environmental vandals until this Government came along with its carbon tax. Well, I can tell the Prime Minister that because of the environmental decency and because of the economic common sense of Australians and Australian businesses our emissions intensity is 50 per cent down; it’s 50 per cent down over the last decade-and-a-half and all of that happened without a carbon tax. All of that is going to be put at risk by the carbon tax which this Prime Minister now wants to put in place.

True environmental progress will be harder with a carbon tax. True environmental progress will be encouraged and facilitated by the direct action policies of the Coalition and let me say when it comes to our direct action policies: they are costed, they are capped and they are fully funded from savings in the budget.

So Mr Speaker, this carbon tax proposal from the Government would be disastrous for our democracy. How can Australians continue to trust our democracy when the biggest and most complex policy change in recent history is being rammed through this parliament by the most incompetent government in recent history? The biggest and the most complex change, sponsored by the least competent government in recent times, not only does it not have a mandate to do what it is proposing it has a mandate not to do what it is proposing. That’s why this package of bills is so disastrous for our democracy.

Mr Speaker, it’s disastrous for our democracy, it’s disastrous for the trust that should exist between members of parliament and their electorates.

Why are the Members for Throsby and Cunningham sponsoring such damage to BlueScope and to the coal miners of the Illawarra?

Why is the Member for Hunter and the other Hunter Valley members of the Government doing such damage to the heavy industries and to the coal mines of the Hunter?

How can the Climate Change Minister talk to his constituents with a straight face given what he is doing to them?

How can the Member for Capricornia want to close down so many mines in her electorate?

How can the Members for Corio and Corangamite be doing this to the cement industry and to the aluminium industry and to the motor industry of Geelong?

What we have from this Government is politically and economically and environmentally disastrous.

But it’s more than that.

It is going to turn out to be the longest political suicide note in Australian history.

Appendix X: Positioning a price on carbon: Applying a proposed hybrid method of positioning discourse analysis for public relations (Wise & James, 2013)

Appendix Y: Positioning PR: An Analysis of the Representation of Public Relations in Australian Political Speeches (Wise, 2015).

PRI2310.1177/2046147X13494966Public Relations InquiryWise and James 4949662013

Article

Public Relations Inquiry 2(3) 327 –353 Positioning a price on carbon: © The Author(s) 2013 Reprints and permissions: Applying a proposed hybrid sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/2046147X13494966 method of positioning pri.sagepub.com discourse analysis for public relations

Deborah Wise University of Newcastle, Australia

Melanie James University of Newcastle, Australia

Abstract The primary aim of this research was to explore whether the conceptual framework for intentional positioning in public relations proposed by James in 2010–11, which is underpinned by positioning theory, could be used to guide a discourse analysis of strategic positioning tactics. Positioning discourse analysis is designed to examine how discourse is being used to strategically position something in order to gain an advantage, or to achieve a goal in a public relations context. In this study, a sample of speeches by the two leading politicians in Australia on the topic of carbon pricing was analysed. Both politicians worked to position a carbon price/tax as good and bad for Australia respectively. Guided by James’s framework, the positioning goal, positioning type and positioning purpose were identified along with the discursive strategies used. However, one of the positions was not as strongly held in the public debate as the other. Applying positioning theory, it could be seen that although other factors in the strategy and tactics were basically sound, it could also be argued that the right to position in a certain way had not been sufficiently established in the opinion of Australian voters. Undertaking a positioning discourse analysis offers another way of examining practice and sheds more light on the role of discourse in strategic public relations. This was a small study with generally encouraging findings that indicate further testing of the method is warranted.

Corresponding author: Deborah Wise, School of Design Communication and IT, Faculty of Science and IT, University of Newcastle, University Drive, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia. Email: [email protected]

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Keywords Discourse analysis, political communication, positioning, public relations, strategy

Introduction Australia’s per capita carbon emissions are the highest in the OECD and amongst the highest in the world (Garnaut, 2008). As a result of this high rate, both the Australian governing political party, the Australian Labor Party (ALP), and the national Opposition, a coalition of the Liberal and National Parties (L/NP), have each committed themselves to reducing Australia’s carbon emissions by 2020 by at least 5 per cent (Garnaut, 2011). However, despite their apparent shared commitment, they have opposite views on how best to achieve this aim, with both parties having engaged in an extended debate over the ALP Government’s plan to introduce a price on carbon pollution from mid-2012. This research is set against the contextual backdrop of contemporary Australian politics. The project is exploratory in nature in that it reports on the initial testing of the Framework for Intentional Positioning in Public Relations (James, 2010, 2011a) as a way to approach discourse analysis in a public relations context. The study undertaken comprises an analysis of the speech transcripts of Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard (ALP), and Australian Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott (L/NP), on the topic of carbon pricing. The aim was to ascertain how the carbon price (or carbon tax as it was called by the Opposition) was positioned in a public relations context from the period of the government’s policy announcement on 9 July 2011 through to the introduction of legislation into the Australian parliament on 13 September 2011. It is argued the findings from the research will contribute to public relations theory and practice by adding to current knowledge about discursive strategic positioning strategies.

The political backdrop The positioning of a carbon price/tax has been substantially influenced by the way in which both Ms Gillard and Mr Abbott were elected within their respective parties. In December 2009 Mr Tony Abbott ousted the Opposition incumbent leader, Mr Malcolm Turnbull, by a single vote. This leadership tousle was brought on by Abbott’s opposition to Turnbull’s support of a carbon emissions trading scheme proposed by the government. This act could be seen as pivotal on the Australian political landscape, as it enacted a formal change in Opposition policy and position, and appeared to remove any hope of a bipartisan approach to carbon emissions handling. The following year, on 24 June 2010, the ALP Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, challenged then Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, for the leadership of the party and won unopposed. In so doing, Ms Gillard became Australia’s first female Prime Minister, and later that year led the ALP to narrowly win the 2010 Federal election. However the ALP’s win was only achieved after gaining the support of a Greens member of parliament and three Independent members of parliament, with the result that a minority government was formed. Crucially, throughout the lead-up to the 2010 election, Prime Minister Gillard made a commitment that she would not put a tax on carbon pollution. Nonetheless, in July 2011, Gillard announced in a speech to the New South Wales

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(NSW) State Branch of the ALP ‘for the first time in Australian history, we will put a price on carbon pollution’ (Gillard, 2011a). The NSW State Branch of the ALP was an interesting venue for this announcement in that it was addressing what would be considered a friendly audience but also would be of sufficient significance in the Australian political scene to guarantee that the media would be in attendance. This enactment of a new policy position for the ALP Government was repeated in Gillard’s ‘Address to the Nation’ (Gillard, 2011b), which was filmed by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), and televised nationally at 6.30 pm on Sunday 10 July on the ABC Seven, Nine and Ten free-to-air television channels, and on the Sky pay television channel. Abbott demanded that he be given equal television air-time to respond immediately following Gillard’s address and the ABC reportedly agreed to give Abbott a right of reply (Hurst, 2011). A transcript (Abbott, 2011a) of Abbott’s ‘Address to the Nation’ suggests that Abbott used this opportunity to enact the L/NP’s opposing position that a carbon tax was a ‘bad idea’. These and subsequent speeches of Gillard and Abbott about the government’s intention to place a monetary value on carbon emissions attracted much media and public attention, with audiences being told that on the one hand a carbon price was good, and on the other that a carbon tax was bad.

Aims and objectives The primary aim of this research was to explore whether the conceptual framework for intentional positioning in public relations (James, 2010, 2011a) could be used to guide a discourse analysis of strategic positioning tactics. We have used the term positioning discourse analysis to differentiate the approach from other discourse approaches. Positioning discourse analysis is designed to especially examine how discourse is being used to strategically position something in order to gain advantage and achieve a public relations goal. Moghaddam et al. (2008: 294) define strategic positioning as ‘attributions of rights and duties that are to the advantage of the person who performs the positioning acts’. One of the key aspects of positioning theory as it applies to public relations can be seen to be whether an organization has the right, or is constructing the right, to position in a particular way. This along with examining the motivation and goal directedness of positioning efforts, which is a key component of strategic public relations practice (James, 2011a), is at the forefront of the aims of positioning discourse analysis. Bearing in mind the dialectic around carbon pricing in Australia in 2011 (which continues as this article is being completed in 2013), the researchers determined that the speeches of Gillard and Abbott – with their clear evidence of attempts to position in particular ways – were an ideal sample for this exploratory study. Guided by the Framework the research strove to answer the following research questions:

RQ1: What carbon pricing positioning goals were evident in the speech transcripts? RQ2: For what purposes was carbon pricing positioning being undertaken? RQ3: What types of carbon pricing positioning were evident in the speech transcripts?

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RQ4: What actual positions on carbon pricing/taxation were evident in in the speech transcripts? RQ5: Were techniques of enacting carbon pricing positions evident in the speech transcripts? RQ6: What storylines were evident in the speech transcripts that demonstrated how the carbon pricing positions taken were being supported?

Methods and conceptual background Data selection The speech transcripts examined in this study were selected on the basis that as a primary form of public communication, widely used to communicate organizational policies and positions, a public relations specialist would, in all likelihood, have played a key role in their construction. Speeches are one of the most effective public relations tactics (Hudson, 2004) because they can be delivered through a variety of channels, and as such can potentially reach a large ‘mass’ audience (Heath, 2010). Speechwriting is therefore a specialized public relations task, but it is in the political sphere that speechwriting arguably reaches its zenith. Through the use of framing techniques that aim to get ‘an audience to automatically respond to a given issue in a certain way by creating a dominant framework of understanding’, and ‘dog whistling’, which is a term used for ‘the art of sending different and disguised framing messages out to each group of electors’ (Glover, 2007: 154–155), speechwriters use political rhetoric to persuade or influence the thoughts and/or actions of others (Ihlen, 2010). Pragmatically, this requires speechwriters to ‘establish key messages, attract the audience’s attention and then tell them what you are going to say – then tell them again’ (Hudson, 2004: 218). Only those speeches that were delivered between 9 July 2011 (when Gillard formally announced her government’s intention to put a price on carbon) and 13 September 2011 (when Gillard introduced the Clean Energy Bill 2011 to the Federal Parliament) were included in the study. This timeframe was deemed appropriate because it was during this time that both parties publicly established their respective positions regarding the introduction of a carbon price/tax. Speeches were selected if they met the criteria of having been published online on each politician’s website within the stated timeframe, and if the term ‘carbon’ was included in the speech. In total 14 speeches and/or speech transcripts were downloaded from Abbott’s website (www.tonyabbott.com.au), and nine were downloaded from Gillard’s website (www.pm.gov.au/).

Positioning theory and the Framework for Intentional Positioning in Public Relations Phillips and Hardy suggest researchers should ‘develop an approach that makes sense in light of their particular study, and establish a set of arguments to justify the particular approach they adopt’ (2002: 74). In recognizing that positioning occurs through discourse (Harré and van Langenhove, 1999), and that positioning has been identified as a key area of public relations practice (James, 2009), the approach that will be argued in

Downloaded from pri.sagepub.com at University of Newcastle on September 15, 2013 Wise and James 331 this study merges discourse analysis approaches with the intentional positioning framework proposed by James (2010, 2011a). This conceptual approach, tentatively termed positioning discourse analysis, was used to examine the speech transcripts with the aim of elucidating the positioning intentions and supporting discourses about the introduction of a carbon price/tax. The intentional positioning framework is both a ‘heuristic for analysis of public relations activities and … a practical framework for designing positioning strategies in public relations programs and campaigns’ (James, 2011a: 112). Consisting of four core domains, the first of these, when using the positioning framework as a heuristic, is the ‘goal domain’ – what goal the position taken was intended to achieve. The second core domain is the ‘purpose positioning domain’. According to James (2011a) this domain relates to Jones and Pittman’s (1982, cited in Harré and Van Langenhove, 1999: 25) description of the ways individuals could present themselves in a positioning context, i.e. ingratiation, intimidation, self-promotion, exemplification and supplication. This has been adapted to a public relations context as a way of examining the purposes for which an entity may wish to position itself or others. Work was adapted from Christopher et al.’s (2005, cited in James, 2011a) and Andreason (2003, cited in James, in press) to describe the six descriptions for the organizational context in guiding purpose classification:

• Ingratiation – entities want to be perceived as likeable and agreeable, and will do favors for, compliment, or flatter others. • Intimidation – entities want to be seen as strong, threatening or dangerous, and emphasize their ability to bring about negative consequences to others. • Self-promotion – entities that use self-promotion want to be seen as competent and emphasize abilities and accomplishments. • Exemplification – entities who use exemplification go above and beyond the normal call of duty to appear dedicated, upstanding and highly moral. • Facilitation – entities want to facilitate a social outcome/social marketing outcome. • Supplication – where entities work to demonstrate weakness and dependence as an indirect, strategic way to seek power and influence.

The third core domain is the ‘positioning type domain’. An entity can deliberately self- position; be forced into self-positioning; engage in deliberate positioning of others; or be forced into positioning others. According to James (in press), in situations of deliberate self-positioning, where an entity wishes to occupy a particular position for a specific reason, researchers looks for indications that an organization is setting its own agenda on its own position and is not being forced to do so. In situations of forced self-positioning, where forces outside an entity’s immediate control necessitate the entity repositioning itself, researchers looks for indications that an organization is setting its own agenda on its own position but that is it being forced to do so for some reason (usually external). In situations of deliberate positioning of others, where an entity deliberately positions other entities for a specific reason, researchers looks for indications that an organization is setting its own agenda on positioning something/someone other than itself, and that it is

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Figure 1. Positioning triangle. doing this deliberately. In situations of forced positioning of others, where forces outside an entity’s immediate control necessitate the entity positioning other entities, researchers look for indications that an organization is setting its own agenda on positioning something/someone other than itself, but that is it being forced to do so for some reason (usually external to the organization). The fourth and final domain is the positioning triangle domain (Figure 1). Within this triad, (a) the determined/desired position (the first pole), (b) the way it is enacted through speech acts/actions (the second pole), and (c) the means by which the positioning is supported through storylines (the third pole – most often key messages in a public relations sense), becomes evident. The determined/desired position for any programme or project is informed by the research on current attitudes of audiences, the goals of the organization, and the known or anticipated positions of stakeholders or critics (James, 2012). There are similarities here to the concept of the stance continuum within contingency theory, which ‘focuses on the stance of the organization in dealing with a given public’ (Cameron et al., 2007: 137). Once an organization has determined which position it will take, possibly using contingency theory to determine this, the position must be declared or asserted in some way so it becomes known. Generally this involves one or all of the following: telling people how things are (Assertives); getting people to do things (Directives); committing ourselves to doing things (Commissives); expressing feelings and attitudes (Expressives); and, making regulatory or legislative declarations (Declarations) (Searle, 1979: viii, cited in James, 2012: 558). Answering these questions can help shape a public relations strategy or, in analytical work, can assist in determining positioning intentions. James (2010, 2011a) has demonstrated that for positioning to be effective, all three poles of the triangle must maintain a ‘dynamic stability’ (James, 2011a: 103). This means the three poles must always align and if one pole changes, for example the determined position, the other two poles must also change to move into an aligned state if the organization is to hold the position. The framework for intentional positioning in public relations is adapted from Harré and van Langenhove’s (1999) work on positioning theory. It was only in 2010 that both

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Leitch and Motion (2010) and James (2010) published work that suggested that positioning theory should be more closely examined for its applicability to public relations. Specifically, Leitch and Motion argued that positioning theory was ‘central to advancing our understanding of the process whereby changes are effected in the relations within organizations, within organizations, between organizations and publics, and within publics’ (2010: 106). Positioning theory stresses how parties to positioning efforts have rights and duties that are jointly constituted through engaging in discursive practices (James, 2011a). Moghaddam and Harré (2010: 2) state that positioning theory is about ‘how people use words (and discourse of all types) to locate themselves and others’. From this perspective, a positioning act is ‘an act by which someone has been positioned by others or has positioned himself or herself’ (Moghaddam and Harré, 2010: 9). The theory was systematically developed in the 1990s and has had widespread application over the last decade or so (Moghaddam and Harré, 2010) including research in areas such as psychology (Harré, 2012), anthropology (Handelman, 2008), political identity studies (Slocum-Bradley, 2008), midwifery (Phillips and Hayes, 2008) and, recently, public relations (James, 2010, 2011a, 2012; Leitch and Motion, 2010; Wise and James, 2012). In positioning theory, the application of language and actions to influence how people construct meaning, a version of social reality, brings with it the need to consider ‘the local moral order, the local systems of rights, duties and obligations, within which both public and private intentional acts are done’ (Harré and van Langenhove, 1999: 1). Moghaddam and Harré state ‘it is with words that we ascribe rights and claim them for ourselves and place duties on others’ (2010: 3). Positioning has direct moral implications, such as some person or group being located as ‘trusted’ or ‘distrusted’, ‘with us’ or ‘against us’, ‘to be saved’ or ‘to be wiped out’ (Moghaddam and Harré, 2010: 2). This has been touched on in recent work on positioning in public relations (James, 2010, 2011a; Leitch and Motion, 2010) but this needs to be further examined in terms of what it means for the field and how it can be used (and potentially abused) in practice. In James’s framework, positioning theory is related to public relations positioning primarily in the processes by which (a) the desired positioning is determined by the organization undertaking the public relations programme and (b) the concept of a positioning triad/triangle. Positioning theory suggests that in a public relations sense, an entity must have the right, or construct the right, to take a particular position and that this right is determined by the ‘local moral order’ (Moghaddam and Harré, 2010: 10). The local moral order refers to an organization being ‘assigned or refused a cluster of rights and duties to perform certain kinds of acts’ (Moghaddam and Harré, 2010: 9) in particular situations. This order constrains what an organization that has been positioned, or wants to be positioned in a particular way, can do or say. If an organization, for example, determines that it wants to position itself as community-minded, the speech acts/actions that enact this positioning must align with those that the local context decrees is ‘moral’. That organization would only be able to ‘hold’ a position of being community-minded if its actions and storylines were aligned to this position. Any ‘proof’ that came to light of behaviour or texts that indicated the organization was not being considerate or support- ive of the community in which it operated could be used by others to reject the proposed

Downloaded from pri.sagepub.com at University of Newcastle on September 15, 2013 334 Public Relations Inquiry 2(3) position i.e. an organization that mistreats the local community does not have the right to position as community-minded. Applying positioning theory, an organization positioning itself as community-minded would have the duty of considering and supporting the community.

Public relations and discourse analysis As an academic discipline, public relations scholarship has borrowed from various disciplinary fields and schools of thought (Ihlen and Van Ruler, 2007; Kim and Ni, 2010). However, despite these influences, the overriding research paradigm has been the examination of public relations from a functionalist or instrumentalist managerial perspective (Ihlen and Van Ruler, 2007; Pieczka, 2011). These studies have chiefly explored the role of public relations in assisting an organization to achieve its goals. Discourse approaches are particularly relevant to researching public relations practices since, as Motion and Leitch insightfully argued, public relations practitioners are essentially ‘discourse technologists’ who play a central role in maintaining and transforming sociocultural practices through the strategic deployment of public relations texts (1996: 298). Applying a discourse framework to public relations texts allows scholars to problematize ‘the role of public relations practitioners as they attempt to establish particular truths and alter power/knowledge relations’ (Motion and Leitch, 2007: 266). This, in turn, allows an examination of how discursive strategies are used to ‘advance the hegemonic power of particular groups’ as they attempt to ‘gain public consent to pursue their organisational mission’ (Motion and Weaver, 2005: 50). Since discourses are in a continuous state of flux with ‘other discourses and other social practices’ (Mills, 2004: 19) much of the work of public relations consists of contesting, resisting or transforming these sociocultural discourses (Motion and Leitch, 2007). This is where positioning theory, the application of the positioning framework, and discourse analysis can be brought together to provide a method of analysis, positioning discourse analysis, that provides specific insights for public relations practice. It is through the strategic application of discourse that positioning in public relations is undertaken. According to James, positioning in public relations refers to ‘the strategic attempt to stake out and occupy a site of intentional representation in the contested space where meanings are constructed, contested, and reconstructed’ (2011a: 98). This article presents the results of initial testing of this new ‘hybrid’ method that provides a structure for a systematic approach to positioning discourse analysis. This is in not a deterministic approach in that the framework provides an analytical guide and does not limit the range of discourses that can be present in the analysis.

The positioning discourse analysis of carbon pricing RQ1: What carbon pricing positioning goals were evident in the speech transcripts? The speeches of Abbott (Opposition Leader) suggested a goal of intentionally positioning a carbon tax as being bad for Australia. This was variously expressed as,

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This carbon tax is a bad idea … Australia needs a new plan, not a new tax. Australians want less tax … there should be no carbon tax. (Abbott, 2011a) [A] bad tax based on a lie. (Abbott, 2011a; 2011h; 2011j; 2011k; 2011m)

The speeches of Gillard (Prime Minister) suggested an opposing goal of positioning a price on carbon as being good for Australia. This was variously expressed as:

We will put a price on carbon pollution … as we set Australia on the path to a clean energy future. (Gillard, 2011a) This decision, to put a price on carbon, is a major reform to build a clean energy future. (Gillard, 2011c)

The goals of the Opposition Leader, Abbott, could be seen to position the carbon tax in a negative light, to discredit the very idea of a price or tax on carbon and set the goal for Australia of having a new plan to address climate change issues. Abbott can be seen to be drawing on the discourse of people’s general aversion to additional taxes and the discourse of truth (in that dishonesty is bad) to convey the desired positioning. The goal of the Prime Minister, Gillard, could be seen to position the carbon price as something positive for Australia that would set the country on the course to address climate change issues. She is drawing on the discourses of leadership through providing vision for the country and also a clean energy discourse to convey her government’s desired future. These examples also demonstrate the discursive use of the term ‘tax’ in relation to placing a value on carbon by Abbott, and the contrasting discursive use of ‘price’ by Gillard. On the few occasions when Abbott did use price in relation to carbon he linked it to increases in electricity/power/gas/transport prices that he argued would result from a carbon tax. On one other occasion Abbott also used ‘price’ when he directly quoted the government (‘the Government’s plan to introduce a carbon price’ (Abbott, 2011j). Gillard also used the term tax in relation to carbon, however, this was mostly in relation to ‘tax cuts’, ‘tax free’, ‘tax reform’ and ‘less tax’. The exception to this was in her speech to the National Press Club (Gillard, 2011d) when she also did not shy away from directly using ‘carbon tax’, ‘the tax’, and ‘new tax’ in relation to placing a value on carbon. However, from this speech onwards, Labor’s plan to price carbon was never again referred to as a ‘tax’.

RQ2: For what purposes was carbon pricing positioning being undertaken? In each of the speeches given by Gillard during the research period there was an over- riding positioning purpose discourse of exemplification (n = 9) (e.g. see Table 1). For example, in her ‘Courage to be new’ (Gillard, 2011a) speech, Gillard stated, ‘Let us be the party of reform in all that we do. A party always determined to be its best self’. Similarly, in her speech to the Green Capital Business Breakfast (Gillard, 2011d), Gillard stated, ‘I want Australia to be a nation that finds itself standing on the right side of history’. This discursive positioning of ‘exemplification’ was also often accompanied by positioning for the purposes of self-promotion (n = 6). For example, in her address to the Tasmanian Branch of the ALP State Conference (Gillard, 2011f) Gillard claimed, ‘This

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Table 1. Purpose positioning domain.

Self-Promotion Exemplification Ingratiation Intimidation Supplication Facilitation Abbott 7 8 11 1 0 14 Gillard 5 9 5 0 0 0

Federal Parliament has done what the last could not: made the decision to put a price on carbon’. In so saying the Prime Minister was not only, through discourse, promoting the achievements of the Labor Party, but she was also suggesting that this was only achieved by her party’s exemplary efforts. There was also some evidence of positioning for the purposes of ingratiation (n = 6). For example, in the ‘Introduction of the Clean Energy Bill 2011’ Gillard stated, ‘the Government understands there is nothing more important to families than having a job’ (Gillard, 2011i). Abbott also used positioning for the purposes of ingratiation, and this was arguably the most dominant positioning purpose evident (n = 11) (e.g. see Table 1). Nowhere was this more so than in his speeches to the general public (n = 5) where positioning for the purposes of ingratiation was often the only positioning discourse evident. For example, in his address to the ‘Convoy of No Confidence Rally’ (Abbott, 2011i) Abbott told people, ‘Our democracy will be in safe hands as long as the people of this country continue to care about it and you care about it’. Somewhat similarly, in his address to the Australian Steel Convention (Abbott, 2011m) Abbott told delegates, ‘I know this is a desperate time for your industry … please don’t lose hope. Please don’t despair. Please don’t give in.’ In fact there were only two occasions – an address to Consilium 2011 (Abbott, 2011d) and an address to the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (Abbott, 2011l) in which ingratiation positioning was not evident. One conceivable reason for this strategic choice is that these speeches were delivered to more specialist business audiences that may not have been readily persuaded through discourses of flattery or personal likeability. In these speeches, as with others targeted towards a more specialist audience, Abbott instead primarily relied upon positioning for the purposes of self-promotion and/or exemplification (n = 7 and n = 8 respectively). For example, one consistent self- promotion/exemplification theme was that of having ‘a better way’ in terms of dealing with carbon pollution (Abbott, 2011c; 2011k; 2011j; 2011n). Likewise Abbott’s claim that the Coalition ‘took the $10 billion black hole … and turned it into a $20 billion surplus’ (Abbott, 2011h) succeeds in promoting the economic acumen of the Coalition while simultaneously suggesting that the Coalition is exemplary by turning $10 billion into $20 billion. There was also a separate occasion in which the sole self-positioning purpose being proposed was (arguably) that of intimidation. The following statement is offered as evidence of this claim:

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Table 2. Positioning type domain. Positioning type domain Gillard Abbott Situations of self-positioning 9 14 Situations of forced self-positioning 4 6 Situations of deliberate positioning of others 6 14 Situations of forced positioning of others 0 0

In an Australian context this statement can be interpreted as a threat to bring on an election that would have seemingly, at the time according to opinion polls, brought Abbott to power as Prime Minister. It could be interpreted also as exemplification as Abbott was arguing that he was prepared to put the idea of a carbon tax forward for the population to vote on, whereas Gillard, he argued, was not prepared to do so.

RQ3: What types of carbon pricing positioning were evident in the speech transcripts? In each of the speeches of both Gillard and Abbott there was no evidence of entities being forced into positioning others, however there was evidence of deliberate self-positioning (n = 23) (see Table 2) as demonstrated in the following statements:

We will put a price on carbon pollution. We will cut pollution, we will protect the household budget, and we will support jobs/ (Gillard, 2011a)

And:

Australia needs a new plan not a new tax … so I say ‘no’ to a carbon tax because I say yes to manufacturing in Australia and ‘yes’ to affordable electricity and transport. (Abbott, 2011a)

There was also evidence of forced self-positioning and of attempts by both to deliberately position one another. For example, in her speech to the NSW State Branch of the ALP State Conference, Gillard began by deliberately positioning Abbott as not caring about carbon pollution, saying:

And yet our opponents … call our carbon price a toxic tax. When the only thing that’s toxic is the carbon pollution warming our planet and threatening our children’s future. (Gillard, 2011a).

Consequently, in his next speech, Abbott was forced into self-positioning himself as caring about the future of children saying:

Like you, Margie and I want a better future for our children. We only have one planet and I want to preserve it. (Abbott, 2011a).

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Abbott also deliberately positioned Gillard as being untrustworthy because she had shifted from her original pre-election position of promising not to introduce a carbon tax. This was expressed as,

The Prime Minister says that the tax won’t hurt you but why should we trust her now when we couldn’t before the election? (Abbott, 2011a).

Gillard responded by self-positioning her change of mind as acting in the nation’s best interests (exemplification) saying:

Gillard also deliberately positioned the Coalition as similarly guilty of changing their minds over the need for a carbon-pricing scheme saying,

Abbott, rather than being forced into self-positioning (for example by providing a justification as to why he had changed his position as Gillard had done), instead deliberately positioned the Labor Government as incompetent, saying:

This Government is utterly incapable of managing the most complex change in Australia’s history. This is the most incompetent government in our history. (Abbott, 2011c)

Abbott also used this negative depiction as the basis for self-positioning the Liberal Party as the better government for Australia:

The most positive thing that we can do for our country right now is to stop this toxic tax … our task … is to give Australia the better government that a great people deserve. (Abbott, 2011c)

Similarly to Abbott, Gillard did not respond to Abbott’s positioning of her government as incompetent (for example by pointing out her government’s successes), and instead once again reiterated her self-positioning of acting in Australia’s best interests, and positioned the Coalition as having once, (under former Prime Minister, John Howard), been in favour of a carbon pricing scheme. This was expressed respectively as:

I won’t let this country surrender in the face of the challenge of climate change. Our nation will act to cut carbon pollution and seize a clean energy future. (Gillard, 2011d).

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And:

By 2007, even John Howard found it prudent to respond as the tide of evidence continued to grow. (Gillard, 2011d)

Abbott, like Gillard, did not respond but instead self-positioned the former Howard Coalition Government (of which he was a minister) as taking the higher moral ground:

Throughout this period Abbott continued to reiterate his party’s self-position of having a ‘better way’ in terms of a solution to carbon pollution, and even promised to rescind the carbon tax legislation once the Coalition were in government (Abbott, 2011j, 2011l). Finally, in what he claimed was ‘a good faith attempt by a democratic opposition to allow the Government to do the right thing by the Australian people’, Abbott proposed a bill so ‘that we can have a vote on the carbon tax without an election’ (Abbott, 2011j). Interestingly, and despite the previous two weeks of deliberate self-positioning by Abbott, Gillard neither defended herself and her party (i.e. she did not deliberately self- position in this period), nor did she deliberately position Abbott and the Coalition. It is unclear from the texts why this was the case.

RQ4: What actual positions on carbon pricing/taxation were evident in in the speech transcripts? This was relatively straightforward to analyse in that the position articulated by Gillard was that a carbon price was good for Australia, and this position was held throughout each of the speeches in the study. The discourses that were evident included leadership, vision for the future and clean energy. Abbott positioned a carbon tax as being bad for Australia, and maintained this throughout the speeches examined in the study. The discourses that were evident included taxation and truth (or lack thereof).

RQ5: Were techniques of enacting carbon pricing positions evident in the speech transcripts? Speech-acts/actions have the ‘power to shape certain aspects of the social world’ (Harré and Van Langenhove, 1999: 6) and are selected by public relations practitioners for their abilities to achieve a desired goal or positioning, i.e. speech-act/actions have an illocutionary force that is designed to cause a consequence (James, 2011a). In both politicians’ speeches there were attempts to enact certain constructions of reality pertaining to the positions of carbon pricing through drawing on various discourses to frame specific speech- acts. There was evidence of both Gillard and Abbott ‘telling people how things are (Assertives)’ (Searle, 1979: viii, cited in James, 2012: 558), for example:

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This Federal Parliament has done what the last could not: made the decisions to put a price on carbon. (Gillard, 2011f). This carbon tax is a bad idea because everything will cost more. (Abbott, 2011a)

There was evidence of trying to get people ‘to do things (Directives)’ (Searle, 1979: viii, cited in James, 2012: 558), for example:

Let us be makers of history too. A Party of reform. A Party of ideas. A Party of government. (Gillard, 2011a) Together, we can fight this tax before it becomes law. (Abbott, 2011a)

There was evidence of committing ‘ourselves to doing things (Commissives)’ (Searle, 1979: viii, cited in James, 2012: 558), for example:

I will be introducing historic legislation to put a price on carbon and accelerate our transition to a low carbon economy. (Gillard, 2011i) I want to give you this absolutely categorical assurance on behalf of the Coalition I lead: we will oppose the carbon tax in opposition and we will rescind it in government.(Abbott, 2011i)

There was evidence of expressing ‘feelings and attitudes (Expressives)’ (Searle, 1979: viii, cited in James, 2012: 558), on carbon pricing, for example:

Nothing hard ever gets easier by putting it off. And if you don’t do what is right for the nation, then you shouldn’t be Prime Minister. (Gillard, 2011c) Like you, Margie and I want a better future for our children. We only have one planet and I want to preserve it. (Abbott, 2011a)

There was evidence of bringing about ‘changes in the world through our utterances (Declarations)’ (Searle, 1979: viii, cited in James, 2012: 558), for example:

There will be a price on carbon from 1 July 2012. (Gillard, 2011i) Let’s be absolutely blunt about the bills now before the parliament: this is a bad tax based on a lie and it should be rejected by this parliament. (Abbott, 2011n)

RQ6: What storylines were evident in the speech transcripts that demonstrated how the carbon pricing positions taken were being supported? The speeches of Gillard and Abbott also serve to illustrate, through the use of the term ‘price’ by Gillard, and the contrasting use of the term ‘tax’ by Abbott, how both politicians discursively differentiate themselves and their political products through discourses. Drawing on Bourdieu (1991), Roper argues that the political sphere consists of ‘competing discourses which encompass a range of discursive positions’ that are deemed acceptable (or not) according to the social norms of the time (2005: 140). Crucial to constructing these competing discourses are public relations practitioners who draw on

Downloaded from pri.sagepub.com at University of Newcastle on September 15, 2013 Wise and James 341 social science research data ‘to strategically modify the discourse practices of targeted discourse consumers’ (Roper, 2005: 141). It is evident that the speeches provided a platform for each leader to construct a narrative line that took audiences on a journey of sorts so that they would be able to visual- ize what the world would be like should a price/tax on carbon proceed. In the case of Gillard, using the discourses of vision and leadership, economics and clean energy, the narrative supported her party’s position and painted a picture where renewable energy technologies flourished and climate change was abated. Throughout the period under analysis, there was a series of speeches that essentially reiterated the key messages of the government in relation to the economic benefits of a price on carbon with the goal of supporting the position taken.

I will be introducing historic legislation to put a price on carbon and accelerate our transition to a low carbon economy. (Gillard, 2011h)‘A plan for a clean energy future in which economic growth is decoupled from carbon growth, and Australians have clean energy jobs.(Gillard, 2011g).

Abbott’s narrative could also be seen as clearly supporting his party’s position in that the future was painted as one of businesses suffering under the impost of the carbon tax, i.e. unfair trade conditions where Australia’s trading partners were not similarly burdened. His narrative line was firmly embedded in the discourse of economics. Abbott’s storylines to support the Opposition’s positioning centred on delivering key messages about the economic disadvantages of a carbon tax to individual Australian families and businesses. Abbott used his speeches to reinforce the position to persuade the Australian public about the economic disadvantages of Labor’s carbon tax, and the economic advantages of the Coalition’s carbon plan. In comparison to formal speeches, Abbott also gave addresses in more informal surroundings, i.e. the Melbourne Wholesale Fish Markets (Abbott, 2011b); the ‘No Carbon Tax Rally’ in Canberra (Abbott, 2011f); an ‘Address to Workers at Seeley International, Adelaide’(Abbott, 2011g), and an ‘Address to the Convoy of No Confidence Rally, Canberra’ (Abbott, 2011i). These events generated widespread media coverage, and notably, Abbott chose these events to deliver only the key messages aimed at persuading the Australian public about the economic disadvantages of Labor’s carbon tax (and not of the economic advantages of the Coalition’s plan). However there was another important aspect to the narrative line taken by Abbott, and that was to construct a narrative that seriously questioned the honesty of Prime Minister Gillard. This narrative, although designed to position the Prime Minister as a ‘liar’ also served to make weaker and questionable the very foundation on which her party’s positioning of the carbon price was built. It served to question whether Gillard could be trusted and posed a query over whether anything her government suggested could be trusted. For example Abbott stated,

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Gillard, however, did not develop a strong narrative in her speeches to counteract the attempt by Abbott to forcibly position her through the use of overlapping discourses of mistrust and dishonesty. It could be argued from a positioning theoretical perspective that such a course was not open to Gillard without a significant shift in her overall positioning strategy.

Discussion In Australia, as in many westernized democracies, each of the political parties fully understands the importance of effective public relations strategies in gaining public acceptance of their policies, with public relations specialists playing a key role in managing and shaping political debates (Young, 2007). Taking the approach of using the positioning framework for discourse analysis indicates that both Gillard and Abbott held fast to their parties’ positions on carbon pricing throughout the lead-up period to the legislation’s introduction to Parliament. There was little evidence of straying from the basic premise that carbon pricing was good for the nation on one side, and that a carbon tax was bad for the nation on the other. Throughout the period wherein these speeches were delivered, it is evident that there was consistent effort by both Gillard and Abbott to establish and maintain a specific position on the pricing of carbon in Australia. What is notable is that once the determined position had been taken, both Gillard and Abbott can be seen as being locked into perceiving and interpreting carbon pricing from and through that strategic position. All concrete images, metaphors, narrative lines and concepts can be seen to be relevant to the particular discursive practice invoked, and to where they positioned carbon pricing. This is consistent with positioning theory in that one’s position determines what can be said and done within the local moral order, i.e. that with Gillard’s positioning goal of providing vision and leadership on carbon pricing and with the primary positioning purpose of exemplification, she did not have the right to produce a strong narrative line about her personal honestly. To have done so, according to positioning theory, would have destabilized her desired position. Gillard would have needed to reposition herself and the carbon price in some way to have had the right to construct the different narrative line. She may have needed to position herself and the carbon price through further ingratiating herself and her policy with the Australian voters. Although the speeches showed that she did use ingratiation, it was not the primary positioning purpose. It could be argued that by invoking discourses of exemplification, she took the moral high ground. One of Abbott’s key strategies was to position Gillard as having no right to do so, i.e. liars cannot exemplify. A Galaxy Poll1 taken in October 2011 in Australia and published in The Telegraph (Benson, 2011) proposed that throughout the period of this research project the Australian public were ‘against’ a price/tax on carbon. Indeed, if Abbott were to win the next election the polls also suggested he would have a mandate to repeal the carbon tax legislation. One possible reason for this was that Gillard’s primary position linking the carbon price to a ‘clean energy future’ may well have been too abstract when compared to Abbott’s discursively constructed position that a carbon tax would be a ‘great big new tax on everything’. Each side used discourse to enact and support these positions, but Gillard was cornered by her decision to position in a particular way into discursively

Downloaded from pri.sagepub.com at University of Newcastle on September 15, 2013 Wise and James 343 linking all messages to investment in new technologies, leading the way forward on clean energy and so forth. Abbott, on the other hand, had literally everything at his disposal – he could talk about everything costing more and how this would make imported goods cheaper for consumers, thus undermining Australian jobs. The evidence suggests that the Gillard government’s decision to position a price on carbon in the way they did may have been ill considered. This study suggests that the positioning framework could be useful when planning a positioning campaign, as once a position has been determined, the way it will be enacted and supported through the campaign period can be mapped. This augments a common approach to public relation campaign planning that focuses primarily on developing and disseminating so- called key messages (James, 2011b; Smudde and Courtright, 2012) To omit this dimension of positioning mapping may decontextualize situations, especially those involving possible conflict, and reduce them to mere expressions of their content (Tirado and Galvez, 2007). In this mapping process the likely arguments and attempts to destabilize the position could be anticipated and a decision made as to the likelihood of the positioning to hold against such efforts. The available discourses open to the Gillard government once it had taken its position were extremely limited and one could argue had government public relations practitioners undertaken such an exercise that this could have been anticipated. Had the government linked its plan to introduce a price on carbon to a different position that opened up the possibilities of different discourses, its efforts may have found more success in terms of public opinion. Abbott’s positioning was much more strategic in terms of opening up a myriad of discourses about increased costs and the impact of this on everything and everyone in Australia. Abbott’s team had the advantage of being able to position in relation to the stance taken by the government but it could be argued that the Gillard team should have been able to predict such a response.

Limitations of this research This is an initial application of a developing hybrid method of analysing positioning discourse in public relations. It is acknowledged that there are many factors at play in political situations such as the one that is examined in this article and it would be beyond the scope of any one article to address them all. This research is narrowly focused to expressly examine one factor – public relations positioning discourse. This is an under- researched area in public relations and until now there has been no specific approach suggested for undertaking such research. The method and study findings reported here are presented as a first step for consideration by the field. It is anticipated that any discussion and critique that results from the publication of this exploratory study will assist public relations researchers in further considering the methodological approach and the importance of discursive positioning in practice. The sample of speeches that was examined is acknowledged not to have encompassed the entire body of positioning texts from the period under examination. In a study that included texts produced on the same subject by other individuals and organizations; discourse genres other than speeches produced by Gillard and Abbott (and others) e.g. radio interview transcripts, social media snippets; expanding the time period; including a detailed analysis of the impacts of factors outside of those pertaining to carbon pricing (e.g. gender; leadership styles); and,

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Conclusion The framework approach demonstrated the dynamism of positioning efforts as each side of the debate sought to strengthen its own position and to destabilize the other’s position. From a public relationsstrategic communication theoretical perspective, the framework offers a new method of mapping the discourses used in public relations positioning and may have wider application to analysing discourses in public relations and other strategic communication situations. However, what is evident in this study, is that no matter how Prime Minister Gillard enacted her government’s position and no matter what storylines and key messages were promulgated to support this position, it can be argued that the position determined and taken by Gillard was in itself untenable. This seems to be related to the issue of not having earned or constructed the right, from a positioning theoretical perspective, to introduce and position a price on carbon pollution in Australia post-2010 election. Having stated prior to that election that there would be no price placed on carbon under her government, she subsequently stated in 2011 that a carbon price would be introduced. Her explanation as to her change of mind on this point was articulated to the Australian people as part of the supporting storyline for the position she took. However, the evidence indicates that although the position was discursively enacted through speeches held at appropriate conferences and venues, and that the positioning was supported through reasonably consistent storylines and messages, the actual position that was determined (the first pole of the positioning triangle) was unsound in the context of Australian politics at that particular time. This research has further demonstrated that positioning in a public relations sense is not simple – it is essentially ‘a discursive struggle’ where discourses are defined as ‘ideologically invested, shared ways of thinking, knowing and speaking about the world’ (Roper, 2012: 71). This discursive struggle can be conceptualized as ‘a kind of bargaining dialogue’ where ‘the various parties adapt their roles to meet (or pre-empt) the perceived positions of other parties involved’ (Murphy, 1991: 117). Such public relations practice is dynamic and when conceptualized as a process whereby discursive positions are actively negotiated and achieved rather than a prescriptive technique where a pre-existing location is merely occupied, the dynamic processes involved can be examined. Further research is needed to explore how tenable positions are constructed by entities seeking to progress a policy debate, a project or other programme or issue in a public relations sense. Such research should also address the ethical dimensions of such position construction and what processes should inform such an exercise. This research project has progressed the knowledge of strategic positioning in public relations but raises many questions about the positioning process, the ethics of positioning, and what rights and responsibilities are inherent in taking and promulgating particular positions. It is hoped that this new method of positioning discourse analysis raises possibilities for further exploration of public relations tactics and techniques and

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Acknowledgements The authors would like to express their appreciation to the anonymous reviewers who made detailed comments on the initial draft that helped very much in the shaping of the final article.

Funding This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes 1. Galaxy Research is an Australian market researching company that has expanded into providing opinion polling for State and Federal politics (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_Polling). 2. The Howard Government’s climate change policy and proposed ETS was apparently heavily influenced by lobbyists from the fossil fuel industries (the so-called ‘greenhouse mafia’) (Woodward, 2010). The influence of these lobbyists further meant that anything prepared for the Government was then ‘liable to bring that influence into the Rudd government’s proposals and so it proved’ (Woodward, 2010). 3. Australia was reportedly involved in a secret climate agreement – known as the ‘Danish text’

– that proposed that rich countries be permitted to emit almost twice as much CO2 as under the current proposals, and the Kyoto protocol would be abandoned for a new treaty that sidelined the United Nations in future climate talks. Funding for poor countries to assist them in reducing

their CO2 levels would also be dependent upon ‘them taking a range of actions’ (Vidal, 2009). 4. Disapproval over the ALP’s handling of Rudd’s dismissal played a significant role in Labor’s election result with leaders and leadership change, ‘the predominant influence on how voters cast their ballot’ (Barber, 2010p). Some voters also thought Labor had abandoned its principles by deferring the ETS – a poll indicating 32 per cent of Green voters would have voted Labor if the CPRS had not been delayed (Barber, 2010). 5. ‘The National Press Club is based in Canberra, Australia and its members include journalists, academics, business people and members of the public service. Speakers have included decision makers, political leaders, “Heads of State and leaders from all fields of society’ (www. abc.net.au/news/programs/national-press-club/). 6. Green Capital is the non-partisan and not-for-profit ‘business sustainability arm of the Total Environment Centre’ and claims to be ‘Australia’s original corporate sustainability program’ (www.greencapital.org.au/about-us/program-overview.html). 7. Consilium 2011 is an invitation only event organized by The Centre for Independent Studies (CIS). CIS (www.cis.org.au) claims to be a non-partisan public policy research institute; however, the website contains links (amongst others) to the Australian Libertarian Society, and the Heartland Institute – a US ‘think tank devoted to promoting skepticism about man-made climate change’ (heartland.org). 8. Per Capita is an ‘independent progressive think tank’ that considers debates about the science of climate change are false and rather the ‘real debate’ is how to act on global warming (www. percapita.org.au). 9. The anti-carbon tax rally was held in Canberra and drew a crowd of 1000 people (although organizers claimed 3000 people attended) and eventually led to the police being involved when protestors hung signs above the front doors of Parliament. The rally received widespread

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media coverage because of a placard stating ‘Ditch the Witch’ in reference to the Prime Minister Julia Gillard. 10. The anti-carbon tax convoy rally consisted of 300 people on the lawn outside Parliament and an estimated 200 vehicles that drove around Canberra blowing their horns. 11. CEDA is a non-profit ‘independent member-based organisation’ that provides ‘thought leadership and policy perspectives on the economic and social issues affecting Australia’ (www.ceda.com.au/about). Amongst the recommendations made in the CEDA- commissioned report on climate change (Climate Change – Getting it Right) were the use of ‘markets, carbon pricing, improvements in energy efficiency and investment in low emission technologies’ (www.ceda.com.au/research-and-policy/research/2009/11/ growth-report/growth59). 12. The Financial Services Council (FSC) ‘represents Australia’s retail and wholesale funds management businesses, superannuation funds, life insurers, financial advisory networks, trustee companies and public trustees’ (www.fsc.org.au/Default.aspx). As the ‘largest sector in the Australian economy’ the FSC is obligated ‘to speak out on macro-economic policy issues’ (www.fsc.org.au/about-us/about-the-financial-services-council.aspx). 13. The Australian Steel Convention is held annually in Canberra and is organized by the Australian Steel Institute (ASI) – the ‘voice’ of the steel industry in Australia (steel.org.au/about-us/).

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Author biographies Deborah Wise (B. Comm. Hons) is a PhD candidate in the School of Design, Communication and IT at the University of Newcastle (Australia). Deborah has worked in various public relations and marketing roles, and her research interests primarily adopt a critical approach to the study of public relations in contemporary society. Currently, Deborah is working on developing a hybrid discourse-positioning framework for the analysis of public relations texts, and is using this framework to analyse the positioning of a carbon price in Australia. Deborah has published in the area of discourse and health communication, and in the area of positioning theory. She has also presented her work on radio and at several conferences in Australasia including the 2010 3rd New Zealand Discourse Conference, and the 2012 Australia and New Zealand Communication Association (ANZCA) Conference. In 2013 Deborah will also present her research at the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) Conference, and at the BCN Meeting #3 International PR 2013 Conference.

Melanie James, PhD, joined the University of Newcastle (Australia) in November 2006 after working in senior management roles in strategic communication, government communication, public relations and marketing communication. She has won national and state awards for her communication campaigns. She has published in journals such as Public Relations Review, The Journal of PR Research, Asia Pacific Public Relations Journal, Public Communication Review and PRism and authored the chapter on strategy in public relations in Public Relations Theory and Practice (Chia & Synnott, 2009 and 2012). She is also the author of the books, Public Relations (2006) and Careers@Gov (2007). Her research interests include positioning theory and its relation to strategic public relations. She is a member of the Centre for Social Research in Energy and Resources within the Newcastle Institute for Energy and Resources and is an associate researcher with the Research Institute for Social Inclusion and Well Being. Melanie is a member of the Public Relations Institute of Australia and sits on the Editorial Board of journal, Public Communication Review.

Appendix 1: Australian political timeline 2006 • 13 November– Liberal National (LNP or Coalition) Prime Minister John Howard announces he will establish a task group on an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).2 The Coalition Leader of the House Tony Abbott publicly endorses an ETS.

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2007 • 3 June – Howard puts the ETS to the cabinet where it is agreed it will be part of the Coalition’s platform for the 2007 Federal Election. • 30 April – Opposition Labor (ALP) leader Kevin Rudd, together with State and Territory leaders, commissions Professor Ross Garnaut to conduct a study [The Garnaut Climate Change Review] into the impact of climate change in Australia. • 24 November – Rudd wins the Federal election and declares his government will introduce an ETS. Labor’s win means that for the first time a woman – Julia Gillard – holds the nation’s second-highest public office. Howard resigns. • 3 December – Rudd ratifies the Kyoto Protocol; however, he refuses to commit

Australia to a binding CO2 agreement, arguing that he is waiting for the Garnaut Review to be delivered (Woodward, 2010).

2008 • 16 July – The Government releases a green paper on its proposed ETS (also called a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme’ (CPRS)) (Woodward, 2010). • 30 September – The final report of the Garnaut Climate Change Review is delivered with the recommendation that an ETS ‘should be the centrepiece of Australia’s policies to implement emissions reductions targets’ (Garnaut, 2008).

2009 • 4 May – Rudd announces the ETS will begin in mid-2011, 12 months later than originally planned. • 13 August – The Senate votes down the ETS for the first time, forcing the Labor Government to negotiate with the Opposition. • 24 November – Coalition Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull and Rudd announce they have struck a deal on the ETS (Coalition MP’s reportedly voted 47–46 against such a deal). • 1 December – Liberal Party infighting over its ETS policy leads to a leadership ballot. New Opposition Leader Tony Abbott immediately declares a secret ballot with the motion that the ETS legislation be delayed for three months, and if this is not tenable that the legislation be defeated. The motion is carried 55–29. • 18 December – The Copenhagen climate summit fails to deliver an agreement on 3 targets or timetables to cut CO2 emissions. • 20 December –The failure of the Copenhagen talks results in the Government announcing that the ETS will be delayed until at least February 2010. Abbott claims the failure of the Copenhagen talks vindicates the Coalition’s anti-ETS position.

2010 • 18 April – A Nielsen poll shows Rudd as preferred Labor leader by 55 per cent compared to 38 per cent for Julia Gillard.

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• 27 April – Rudd announces the ETS will be postponed for at least three years after the Senate blocks the bill a second time (Rudd blames a lack of international action on global warming and the Senate for blocking the scheme). • 7 June – Labor’s decision to delay an ETS contributes to a dive in the polls for Labor and for Rudd personally – a Nielsen poll placing the Coalition ahead of Labor for the first time in more than four years by 53 to 47 per cent. Disillusionment with both the ALP and the Coalition also leads to more voters supporting the Australian Greens Party – the Greens recording a poll-record primary vote of 15 per cent in the same Nielsen poll (Coorey, 2010). • 24 June – Rudd becomes one of the few leaders to be removed by their own party during their first term as Prime Minister. New Prime Minister Julia Gillard says ‘she is in no hurry to start emissions trading’ despite pressure from the Greens to move quickly (Sydney Morning Herald, 2010). • July 17 – Gillard calls a Federal election for 21 August, seeking an electoral mandate for her Prime Ministership (Barber, 2010). • 23 July – Gillard launches Labor’s revamped climate change policy that includes plans for a citizen’s assembly on climate change, an expert climate change commission and an ETS. Gillard’s announcement ends speculation that the government is planning to introduce an interim carbon tax – a move mooted by Labor’s former climate advisor Ross Garnaut, and supported by the Greens. • 16 August – Five days before the Federal election Gillard states on National TV that: ‘There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead’ (Network Ten, 2010). • 21 August – The 2010 Federal election results in a hung Parliament. Gillard and Abbott start negotiations with the Greens and independent MP’s in a contest to form government (Barber, 2010).4 • 1 September – Gillard and Greens leader Bob Brown sign a parliamentary agreement that ensures Greens MP Adam Brandt will ‘support the formation of a minority Labor Government’ and that also secures numerous concessions sought by the Greens including the formation of a climate change committee (Rodgers, 2010), and acknowledgement that ‘reducing carbon pollution by 2020 will require a carbon price’. (The Australian Greens & The Australian Labor Party (‘The Parties’) – Agreement, n.d.). • 7 September – Gillard gains the support of three of the four independent MPs and (together with Greens MP Brandt) forms a minority government (Barber, 2010). • 27 September – Gillard establishes the Multi-Party Climate Change Committee (The Committee) with the aim of exploring ‘options for implementing a carbon price and building consensus on how Australia will tackle the challenge of climate change’ (www.climatechange.gov.au/government/initiatives/mpccc.aspx).

2011 • 24 February – The Multi-Party Climate Change Committee announces details of its Climate Change Framework. The framework is supported by the Greens Party and by two of the independent MPs who are also members of the Committee.

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• 10 July – Gillard outlines the government’s carbon pricing scheme in a nationally televised ‘Address to the Nation’. • 13 September – The Clean Energy Bill 2011 is introduced to the Federal Parliament • 12 October – Gillard and Rudd embrace on the floor of Parliament after the Lower House passes the carbon pricing bills. • 8 November – The Senate passes the carbon pricing bills.

2012 • 27 February – A Labor leadership fight between Rudd and Gillard results in Labor MPs voting 71–31 to retain Gillard as leader. • 1 July – The carbon price commences.

Appendix 2: Gillard and Abbott speech timeline • 9 July– Gillard addresses the New South Wales Branch of the ALP at the State Conference in Sydney, NSW Gillard (2011a). • 10 July– Gillard’s ‘Address to the Nation’ about the government’s carbon pricing scheme is televised nationally (Gillard, 2011b). • 10 July – Abbott argues he deserves equal air-time for his ‘Address to the Nation’ although there is no evidence Abbott succeeds in this regard (Abbott, 2011a). • 13 July – Abbott delivers his ‘Remarks at the Melbourne Wholesale Fish Markets’ in West Melbourne (Abbott, 2011b). • 14 July – Gillard addresses the National Press Club5 on the government’s carbon tax policy (Gillard, 2011c). • 16 July – Abbott gives an address to the LNP State Council in Brisbane (Abbott, 2011c). • 18 July – Gillard gives a speech to the Green Capital Business Breakfast in Sydney6(Gillard, 2011d). • 29 July – Abbott gives an address to Consilium 20117 in Queensland (Abbott, 2011d). • 4 August –Gillard gives an address to Per Capita8 in Melbourne (Gillard, 2011e). • 7 August – Gillard gives an address to the Tasmanian branch of the ALP State Conference in Hobart (Gillard, 2011f). • 13 August – Abbott gives an address to the Western Australia Liberal Party State Conference in Perth (Abbott, 2011e). • 16 August – Abbott gives an address to the No Carbon Tax Rally9 in Canberra (Abbott, 2011f). • 19 August – Abbott gives an address to workers at Seeley International (Australia’s largest air-conditioning manufacturer) in Adelaide (Abbott, 2011g). • 20 August – Abbott gives an address to the South Australian Liberal Party State Council in Adelaide (Abbott, 2011h). • 22 August– Abbott gives an address to the ‘Convoy of No Confidence Rally’10 in Canberra (Abbott, 2011i).

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• 22 August – Abbott delivers his ‘Second Reading Speech, Carbon Tax Plebiscite Bill’ at Parliament House, Canberra (Abbott, 2011j). • 27 August – Abbott gives an address to the Tasmanian Liberal Party State Council in Hobart (Abbott, 2011k). • 29 August – Abbott gives an address to the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA)11 in Melbourne (Abbott, 2011l). • 31 August – Gillard delivers a speech to the Financial Services Council12 Breakfast in Sydney (Gillard, 2011g). • 12 September– Abbott gives an address to the Australian Steel Convention 201113 in Canberra (Abbott, 2011m). • 13 September– Gillard also addresses the Australian Steel Convention 2011 in Canberra (Gillard, 2011h). • 13 September – Gillard introduces the Clean Energy Bill 2011 to the Federal • Parliament (Gillard, 2011i).

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Positioning PR: an Analysis of the Representation of Public Relations in Australian Political Speeches

Deborah Wise, University of Newcastle

Abstract

In Australia, as in many nations, each of the major political parties fully understands the importance of effective public relations strategies in gaining public acceptance of their policies. Indeed, public relations specialists playing a key role in managing and shaping political debates. Yet, in 2011, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) Government were repeatedly positioned by the Liberal National Party (LNP or Coalition) Opposition as using ‘spin’ and ‘PR stunts’ to promote its policies in relation to a proposed price on carbon pollution. In this study the speeches of then ALP Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, and then LNP Opposition leader, Tony Abbott, were examined over a three-month period using a new provisional conceptual intentional positioning framework for public relations. The study specifically tests the framework’s applicability as a method for conducting a positioning discourse analysis of public relations texts. Using the positioning framework to conduct a discourse analysis encouraged a systematic analysis of these texts, as well providing a firm theoretical basis from which to analyse the texts in terms of their discourses. Findings suggest that the positioning of public relations in this context was an intentional self-positioning strategy by the LNP, and that the goal was to position the LNP and Abbott as taking the moral higher ground (relative to Gillard and the ALP) by inferring that they (the LNP) were exemplary and ‘above’ using similar public relations strategies and tactics. This positioning strategy arguably feeds into popular (mis?) conceptions of public relations in Australia as lacking an ethical basis, and as being, at best, a semi-profession. It is anticipated that the results of the study will add to current knowledge about positioning strategies in political contexts, and will provide fresh insights into how public relations is represented in Australia.

Key Words: public relations, positioning theory; discourse analysis; political speeches

Vol. 16, No. 1 https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/apprj Positioning PR: an Analysis of the Representation of Public Relations in Australian Political Speeches

Introduction This paper reports on a surprising positioning strategy that emerged as part of a larger research project that analysed the positioning of controversial carbon pricing policies in Australia. Public relations itself was being positioned by a political leader. This strategy allowed the positioner (or illocutor) to self-position as more ethical, and thereby more legitimate, by implying that they (and their party) were not using public relations. This is despite ample evidence to suggest that each of the major Australian political parties relies on public relations for the day-to-day running of their respective organisations. It was also found that the use of this particular positioning strategy was intended to draw on broader societal discourses about the unethicalness of public relations as a professional field, discourses that were then tied into positioning the opposing party and leader as similarly unethical and therefore illegitimate in their role. Interestingly, the positioned entity did not respond to this deliberate positioning. This begs the question concerning why one political party/leader could apparently position in this way while the other could not. The success of this positioning strategy arguably lay in the fact that the party/political leader so positioned had not discursively constructed the right to reposition as trustworthy, thereby calling into question her/their legitimacy as Prime Minister and the Government of Australia. To examine this phenomenon the paper used a positioning discourse analysis (PDA) framework that potentially offers a more systematic examination of discursive constructions of positioning.

Background The role of public relations in Australian politics State and Federal politics in Australia is dominated by two major parties: the Australian Labor Party (ALP), and the Liberal Party of Australia. At the Federal level the Liberal Party has formed a coalition with the Australian National Party and is commonly referred to as The Coalition or the LNP. Australia is unusual in that voting is compulsory and this means that government communication is especially important in terms of providing information for voters to make informed political choices (Young, 2007). Various factors, including the need to continuously campaign and plan “for the next election campaign” (Young, 2007, p. xxvii) as well the need to stave off an often-critical mass media (Ward, 2007), have led to each of the major political parties investing heavily in media relations, public relations, and advertising (Ward, 2007). Consequently political public relations strategies and tactics are highly influential in managing and shaping political debates (Young, 2007), with each of the major political parties fully acknowledging the importance of effective public relations strategies in gaining public acceptance of their policies (Young, 2007). Indeed, such is the reliance on this “apparatus of spin doctors” that some claim that Australia has become a “PR State” (Ward. 2007. p. 3).

Suspicions about the role of public relations within the Australian political

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sphere are often reinforced by media reports that play into the conception that “the consumer of mass culture stereotype is more likely to think of PR ethics as an oxymoron” (Brown, 2003, p. 496, cited in Tilley, 2012). Glenny (2008) argues that in Australia “misdirected expenditure on government advertising, spin and obfuscation have resulted in perceptions of public relations as a tool for hiding the truth and misleading the public for the purpose of achieving a particular political agenda” (Glenny, 2008, p. 152). Public relations tactics are seen as a misuse of government resources, and this misuse is seen as being at their (taxpayers’) expense (Young, 2007, p. xxvii). Politicians are also tainted by their close association with public relations; the broad view being that politicians have become “more professional and calculating”, and possibly more unethical, because of this relationship (Savage and Tiffen, 2007, pp. 81-91).

This study takes a social constructionist view of public relations wherein public relations practitioners are viewed as “discourse technologists” who, through their deployment of public relations texts, “seek to achieve change by transforming discourses, which involves changing established ways of thinking about particular objects, concepts, subjects, and strategies" (Leitch & Motion, 2010, p. 103). In politics, these practices are assisted by the use of social science research that is used to “strategically modify the discourse practices of targeted discourse consumers” (Roper, 2005, p. 141). From a public relations perspective, the transformation of a discourse is successful when it succeeds in shifting or changing established ways of thinking, and whereby the discourse succeeds in assuming a taken for granted or ‘truth’ status (Leitch & Motion, 2010). However, struggles over discourse transformations are not always easily achieved. One “limit of spin” is the idealised notion that public relations transcends “all other political resources” and assumes that a politician/political party has perfect control over events (Savage & Tiffen, 2007, p. 91). A further limit is that all of the political parties use public relations, and consequently there is an ongoing conflict as each party engages in a “mutual puncturing” of one another’s efforts (Savage & Tiffen, 2007, p. 92). In this study a positioning discourse analysis is offered as a potential method for mapping the mutual positioning of opposing political sides in relation to the introduction of a controversial carbon price or tax in Australia in 2011.

The carbon price/tax debate in Australia The reasons for political debates over action on climate change in Australia are complex. Australia is the fifth largest producer of coal and Australians are the highest consumers of coal per capita globally (Next 10, 2015). As the Australian Climate Council (2015) notes, “the pollution from Australia’s coal resources alone could take us two-thirds of the way to a two-degree rise in global temperature”, meaning that Australia’s climate change policies are vital to world outcomes. Australia’s geography and climate also means it is likely to experience severe impacts from climate change “across a number of sectors, including water security, agriculture, coastal communities, and infrastructure” (Department of the

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Environment, n.d.). In 2013, numerous Australian temperature records were broken, with sophisticated climate models indicating that these temperatures could not have been reached in the absence of human emissions of greenhouse gases (Lewis & Karoly, 2014). Nevertheless, how to reduce Australia’s carbon emissions has been, and remains, politically contentious. The issues came to a head in 2007 when, in “the world’s first climate change election” (Burgmann & Baer, 2010, n.p.) the (then) Australian Labor Party (ALP) Opposition leader, Kevin Rudd, and the (then) Coalition Prime Minister, John Howard, both took an carbon emissions trading scheme (ETS) to the 2007 Australian Federal election. Although Rudd (arguably) copied Howard’s election policy pledge to act on climate change, he also declared climate change as “the greatest moral challenge of our time” (Taylor & Hoyle, 2014, n.p.). It was this, together with the positioning of the ALP as the party of reform “willing to take climate change seriously and to place global interests above short-term national ones” (Macintosh, Wilkinson & Dennis, 2010, n.p.) that ultimately led to a convincing win for Rudd and the ALP. In so doing Rudd not only ended eleven years of conservative government in Australia, he also had a clear mandate to act on climate change.

Then Prime Minister Rudd immediately declared his government would address climate change by introducing an ETS. Rudd also made Julia Gillard his deputy and, in so doing, ensured that for the first time in Australia’s history a woman held the nation’s second highest office. Within the Coalition there were also leadership changes, with Malcolm Turnbull elected as the new LNP leader upon Howard’s resignation post-election. Like his predecessor, Turnbull was in favour of action on climate change and, when Labor was forced to negotiate a deal with the Coalition to get the ETS passed through the Senate, Rudd and Turnbull struck a deal. However, not all Coalition Members of Parliament agreed (Coalition MP’s reportedly voted 47-46 against such a deal). In December 2009 political infighting over the ETS led to a leadership ballot that resulted in Turnbull being ousted by a single vote. The new Coalition leader Tony Abbott immediately declared a secret ballot with the motion that the ETS legislation be delayed for three months, and if this was not tenable that the legislation be defeated. The motion was carried by fifty-five to twenty-nine and, as a result, the ETS was defeated both in 2009 (when Rudd was forced into striking a deal with Turnbull) and also again in April 2010 when the Senate once more blocked the Bill. Rudd subsequently announced that the ETS would be delayed for at least three years - a move that resulted in Labor, and Rudd personally, taking a substantial dive in the polls, with a Nielsen poll placing the Coalition ahead of Labor for the first in more than four years by 53-47 per cent.

Disillusionment with both the ALP and the Coalition also led to more voters supporting the Australian Greens Party, with the Greens recording a poll-record primary vote of 15 per cent (Coorey, 2010). On 24 June 2010, Deputy Prime Minister Gillard challenged Rudd for the leadership of the party and won unopposed. In so doing Ms Gillard became Australia’s first female Prime Minister, and later that year narrowly led the ALP to win the 2010 Federal

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election. Labor’s narrow win was only achieved after Gillard gained the support of the Australian Greens Party and several Independent Members of Parliament. At the core of Gillard’s deal with the Greens was the securing of numerous concessions sought by the Greens that included the formation of a climate change committee (Rodgers, 2010) and acknowledgement that “reducing carbon pollution by 2020 will require a carbon price” (Agreement, n.d.). On 12 July 2011, Julia Gillard announced that, “for the first time in Australian history, we will put a price on carbon pollution” (Gillard, 2011a). The following day Tony Abbott stated the Coalition’s opposing position that a carbon tax was a ‘bad idea’. Over the following three months, and the timeframe in which this study is set, both leaders engaged in an extended debate over the merits or otherwise of such a scheme, with Abbott arguing that Gillard had lied to the Australian people because she had apparently broken her pre-election promise to not introduce a carbon price. Crucially, during the lead-up to the election, Gillard made a commitment that she would not price carbon pollution vowing that, “there will be no carbon tax under a government I lead” (Channel Ten, August 16, 2010).

On 14 September 2011 the “Clean Energy Bill 2011” was introduced to the Australian Federal Parliament. Abbott immediately vowed that should he be elected Prime Minister the first priority of his Government would be to repeal the Carbon Tax legislation. In October 2013 Abbott achieved the first part of this goal when the Coalition, with Abbott as leader, convincingly won the 2013 election. Almost immediately, in November 2013, the Government introduced legislation to repeal the carbon price/tax and, on 17 July 17 2014, after three attempts, they finally secured enough Senate support to fulfil Abbott’s election promise (Griffiths, 2014). Consequently, as it stands in 2015, Australia has become the first developed nation to repeal its carbon pricing legislation that prices carbon emissions, and Australia’s unconditional greenhouse emissions target of 26-28 % is well below the 40-60% target recommended by the Australian Climate Change Authority. Most recently, at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris, Australia was rated third last out of the 58 countries assessed in the latest Climate Change Performance Index (Australian Conservation Foundation, 2015). And while the majority of Australians now consider global warming to be a “serious and pressing problem”, 35% of Australians say that the Government “should not make significant commitments on emissions reductions ahead of other countries” (Oliver, 2015).

Research approach This paper seeks to contribute to the emerging literature on this phenomenon through the application of the intentional positioning framework for public relations proposed by James (2011, 2014), and tests its applicability as framework for conducting a positioning discourse analysis. This hybrid methodology was applied to the speeches of the former ALP Prime Minister Julia Gillard, and former Coalition Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, during a three- month period in 2011. Specifically the study sought to explore why the

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positioning strategies of one political party (the Opposition) seemingly gained much greater traction in the minds of the electorate than the positioning strategies of the Government. One of those strategies, the positioning of the Government by the Opposition as illegitimate, and the supporting position that the Government’s carbon pricing campaign was little more than spin and PR stunts, is the focus of this research paper.

Positioning has been historically associated with military campaigns (Baert, 2012) and is often referred to in marketing literature where it is used in connection with the four ‘P’s’ of price, product, placement and promotion (see for example McCarthy, 1960). Positioning theory differs by having a social constructionist ontology (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999; Slocum-Bradley, 2010, Wood & Kroger, 2000). Originating with Foucaldian influenced feminists who were concerned with “altering the positions of women in society” (Boxer, 2003), more recently the social psychological research of Harré and van Langenhove (1999), Harré (2009, 2012), Moghaddam, Harré and Lee (2008), Slocum- Bradley (2008, 2009, 2010), and James (2010, 2011, 2014) have been influential in furthering understanding of positioning in social interactions between individuals, groups, and even nations. At the core of positioning theory, and central to these authors’ understanding, is the concept of a dynamic positioning triangle as an analytical framework from which to map the transient nature of positioning in terms of the “actors positions, the social force of what they say and do, and the storylines that are instantiated in the sayings and doings of each episode” (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 10). James’ (2011, 2014) conceptual framework for intentional positioning in public relations similarly adopts a positioning triangle model, but the framework has been developed to take into account the strategic intent inherent in public relations campaigns.

James’ (2010, 2011, 2014) definition of positioning in public relations contexts, then, focuses on the strategic attempts by an entity to “stake out and occupy a site of intentional representation in the contested space where meanings are constructed, contested and reconstructed” (2010, p.7). In addition to the positioning framework, positioning theory also stresses how individuals or individual exemplars have rights and duties that are jointly constituted through discourse (James, 2011; Wise & James, 2013). Discourse in this sense is taken to mean “the use of language and other symbols and signs to generate meaning, such as through talk, gestures and images” (Slocum - Bradley, 2009, p. 80) and is related to public relations in that an entity undertaking a public relations program must have the right, or construct the right, to discursively take a particular position (Wise & James, 2013). From a public relations perspective this concept is critical as it suggests that an individual (or an individual speaking on behalf of an organisation) must first construct the right to position in a particular way if the positioning strategy is to succeed (James, 2011).

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Data sample The sampling procedure used in the larger study was purposive in that the samples were selected on the grounds they were illustrative of the phenomena the researcher was seeking to examine (Silverman, 2011; Daymon & Holloway, 2010). Specifically this was the public relations positioning of a carbon price/tax by the two main Australian political leaders at the time, Prime Minister Julia Gillard (ALP Government), and Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott (LNP Opposition). Using a new strategic positioning framework for public relations (James, 2011, 2014) and positioning discourse analysis (Wise & James, 2013), the study analysed a data set of speeches delivered by Prime Minister Gillard and Opposition Leader Abbott, in which they specifically discussed an Australian carbon price or tax. The speeches were selected on the grounds that, as a primary form of public communication widely used to communicate the policy positions of both Gillard and Abbott, it is likely a public relations specialist would have played a key role in their construction. The data sample consisted of nine speech transcripts (n=9) delivered by Gillard during a three-month period in 2011, and fourteen speech transcripts (n=14) delivered by Abbott during the same timeframe. The study was guided by the following over-arching research question:

How was the Australian carbon price/tax positioned, from a public relations strategic positioning perspective, in the speeches of former Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, and former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, during the three- month lead up to the introduction of the Clean Energy Bill 2011 to the Federal Parliament?

Positioning discourse analysis Positioning triangle domain The first core domain is the positioning triangle domain, consisting of the actual and the desired position(s) of an entity and its stakeholders; the speech act/action used to declare a desired outcome; and the narratives or storylines used to support and achieve the position declared in the speech acts/actions. The position pole is the expression of an entity’s, and it’s stakeholders, actual and potential positions. The speech acts/action pole draws on the work of Searle who proposed there are a limited number of basic things that individuals do with language: “we tell people how things are” (assertives); “we try to get them to do things” (directives), “we commit ourselves to doing things” (commissives); “we express our feelings and attitudes” (expressives) “and we bring about changes through our utterances” (declarations) (1979, p.29). Moreover, individuals “often, we do more than one of these at once in the same utterance” (Searle , 1979, p. 29). The third storyline pole refers to meanings constructed through storylines, “that the entity has chosen to promulgate through its public relations activities” (James, 2010, p. 133). When used by public relations practitioners, storylines are congruent with key messaging. If all three poles of the triangle fail to align (i.e.

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are inconsistent) the positioning will likely fail, resulting in a loss of believability of key messages (James, 2010).

Findings The findings suggested there were multiple positions and multiple, often overlapping, storylines at play in the multiple sites in which the speeches were enacted. For example, Gillard’s position that a carbon price was good for Australia was primarily enacted through economic discourses, and economic opportunity storylines, that discursively positioned her, and her Government, as economic visionaries. At the same time, the Opposition were discursively positioned as lacking vision. Abbott’s position, conversely, that a carbon tax was bad for Australia, similarly relied on economic discourses, but these were underpinned by risk storylines that positioned Gillard and the Government as economic risk-takers, and the Opposition as economically responsible in contrast.

These opposing storylines/discourses can be further conceptualised as ‘good versus bad’ storylines/discourses. Gillard’s enactment of ‘good’ storylines through assertive speech acts championed the ALP’s (good) history of ‘visionary’ policies and projects. For example in her “Address to the Nation” she asserted that,

“Having led the nation through the biggest global downturn since the Depression, Federal Labor now gets to govern in times of hope. To be the “navigators to the future” we have always wanted to be” (Gillard, 2011b).

In another speech, delivered to the Australian Steel Convention, Gillard asserted that:

“Australia will be able to seize a competitive advantage in developing and applying the cutting edge technologies of the clean energy future” (Gillard, 2011a).

Abbott’s storylines were primarily about ‘their bad things’ and, on several occasions, and somewhat surprisingly, this included the use of assertive speech acts that positioned the Government, but also public relations. For example Abbott asserted,

“Why should we trust this government with a new tax when we know where it will all end: with more spending, more waste and more spin” (Abbott, 2011b).

Of particular interest is the context in which these particular speech acts were enacted. Recent work on positioning theory by Slocum-Bradley (2009) incorporates the social force of speech acts or “the meanings of words, gestures, symbols, and other discursive tools” that are “the social tasks they accomplish in specific social contexts” (p. 82). In public political discourse, the social force of discursive acts includes meanings “conjured among third party

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publics, whom the contending parties wish to win over in a power game of discursive influence” (Montiel & Guzman, 2010, p. 96).

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is Australia’s national broadcaster and they filmed Gillard’s “Address to the Nation” (Gillard, 2011b) which was televised nationally at 6.30 pm Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST) on Sunday 10 July. In Australia this timeslot is prime time viewing and those channels that screened the broadcast included two free to air television channels (Seven and Nine), subscriber TV channel, ‘Sky’, and three federally funded public television channels. Abbott’s decision to also give an ‘Address to the Nation’ (Abbott, 2011b) resulted from Gillard’s decision to give a televised address, with Abbott demanding that he be given equal television airtime immediately following Gillard’s address (Hurst, 2011). It is difficult to retrospectively ascertain which channels aired Abbott’s address or if this Address received airtime equivalent to that given to Gillard (for example no information could be found about whether the subscriber TV channel Sky aired the Address). What is known however, is that the free-to-air Nine Network agreed to give Abbott a right of reply, and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (the ABC - Australia’s public broadcaster) screened an hour-long carbon tax special at 7.30 p.m. that included interviews with political leaders. Presumably this included Abbott’s Address. It is also known that the Seven Network– the other free-to-air channel that had earlier screened the Prime Minister’s Address - declined Abbott’s request and instead screened the final of it’s ratings hit “Dancing With The Stars” (Hurst, 2011).

The other two political addresses analysed as part of this paper took place during the Australian Steel Convention, and at The Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA). Both Gillard and Abbott gave addresses at the Australian Steel Convention, which was held for the first time in Canberra, Australia’s capital. The audience at this event included a “record number of members” including “over 70 small to medium enterprise (SME) company members from across Australia “concerned at their businesses’ future” (OneSteel, 2011). The Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) is a non-profit independent member-based organisation that holds forums and events and influences policy making on “economic and social issues affecting Australia” through an “evidence-based research agenda” (Committee for Economic Development of Australia [CEDA], 2015). CEDA’s membership is made up of 700 “unique, influential...leaders from business, government, academic and community organisations” who attend events “to be informed...and to discuss the economic development of Australia” (Committee for Economic Development of Australia [CEDA], 2015).

Gillard’s use of this (assertive) speech act (see above) delivered within the context of giving a nationally televised ‘Address to the Nation’ (Gillard, 2011b), has the social force of reassuring/assuring a national audience about the legitimacy of her/ her Government in terms of leading the country forward. In the second example (Gillard, 2011a) this speech act similarly has the social force of

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assuring/reassuring, but this time the target audience is the Australian Steel Industry. Abbott’s use of ‘spin’ and ‘PR stunts’ also has a social force. Maloney (2002) suggests that “spin” is one of the most recognised words of the century and has been popularised in high-rating television series such as ‘Spin City”, a comedy about the use of ‘spin’ in U.S. politics. The use of ‘spin’ by Abbott to a broad audience in his Address to the Nation, is not only a reference to popular culture using the same medium (television) to connote particular meanings, it has the social force of warning people about the ‘bad things’ of the government by linking their use of ‘spin’ to pre-existing and negative perceptions many people have about the influence of public relations in politics. In the second example (Abbott, 2011a), the intentional use of “PR” to this business audience is reflective, again, of the intention to construct particular meanings using a term that is commonplace in professional business contexts. The use of ‘stunts’ further implies actions that are underhanded and/or being undertaken to gain attention. The additional force, then, of this speech act is to warn audience about the (bad) ‘underhandedness’ of the Gillard Government and their (bad) carbon tax. It also has the social force of reinforcing the popular notion that PR is, likewise, bad.

Positioning purpose domain James (2010, 2011) proposes five positioning purpose classifications whereby positioning is variously undertaken for the purposes of ingratiation, intimidation, self-promotion, exemplification, facilitation or supplication. Exemplification refers to the desire by an entity to position as highly moral or of going above and beyond what would normally be expected in a particular context. The research indicated that while there were similarities inasmuch as both Gillard and Abbott positioned for the purposes of exemplification, this was discursively achieved through very different strategies. Whereas Gillard sought to self-position as exemplary through the enactment of ‘visionary’ discourses, Abbott sought to deliberately position Gillard and the Government as untrustworthy, and thereby self-positioned as exemplary in comparison.

However, there were also some problems encountered when applying this domain. As James (2010, 2011) argues, there may be slippage between classifications for example an entity may position themselves using self promotion discourses, but they may also support this with positioning for the purposes of exemplification. Arguably, each of the addresses delivered by both Abbott and Gillard could be further categorised as ‘self promotion’ in which the desire was to be perceived as competent, and undoubtedly they also wanted to be perceived as likeable and agreeable (i.e. an ingratiation positioning purpose). And, athough there was no evidence of overt intimidation (for example through the use of threats or coercion); both Gillard and Abbott emphasized their “abilities and accomplishments” and wanted to be perceived as strong (James, 2011, p. 104). For example, Abbott’s use of speech acts (as cited above) about the Government’s use of public relations ‘spin’ and ‘stunts” could be categorized as being ‘intimidation’. The slippage between these various categorisations

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suggests further work is required in terms of this positioning domain.

Positioning type domain Positioning always involves both an agent (or a narrator) doing the positioning, and a positioned party (Baert, 2012). The success of a particular positioning goal or strategy therefore often depends on effectively contrasting the position of another party relative to one’s own position (Baert, 2012). In this respect the positioning goals of an entity are closely aligned with the positioning type domain (James, 2011, 2014) whereby an entity may deliberately self-position, deliberately position others, be forced into adopting a particular self-position or, alternatively, be forced into positioning others. The analysis found that both Abbott and Gillard used their respective speeches to deliberately self position themselves, their respective parties, one another, and one another’s opposing political parties. For example, Abbott’s address to the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA), deliberately positions the government as untrustworthy in both examples, and pejoratively positions public relations as a profession at the same time. Although, as a further consequence of these positioning episodes, both Gillard and Abbott were variously forced into adopting different positions on different occasions, there was no evidence of Gillard responding to this deliberately positioning of her government as using PR stunts and spin. There was also no evidence of either Gillard or Abbot being forced into positioning others.

Positioning goal domain When applying the intentional positioning framework for public relations to conduct a positioning discourse analysis (PDA) the final consideration concerns the goal(s) of the entity commissioning the public relations activity. The findings suggest that Gillard’s overarching goal was to retain power, and Abbott’s overarching goal was to gain power.

Table 1: Positioning framework Gillard/ALP Government Abbott/Coalition Opposition

Positioning We are visionary (the The Government/Gillard Triangle Coalition lacks vision) can’t be trusted (You can Domain: trust us) Position

Positioning Action (a) Action (a) Triangle ‘Address to the Nation’ ‘Address to the Nation’ Domain: Speech/act Speech Act [Assertion]: Speech Act [Assertion] action “Friends, in a few hours time “Why should we trust this I will be introducing historic government with a new tax legislation to put a price on when we know where it will carbon and accelerate our all end: with more spending, transition to a low carbon more waste and more spin”

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economy (Gillard, (Abbott, July 10, 2011) September, 13, 2011). Social Force Social force Warning Reassurance/assurance Action (b) ‘Address to the ‘Committee for Economic Development of Australia’ (CEDA)’

Speech Act [Assertion] “Any meeting to address the problems in manufacturing industry that doesn’t address the carbon tax is nothing more than a desperate PR stunt” (Abbott, August 29, 2011).

Social Force Warning

Positioning (a) Neo-liberal economic (a) Neoliberal economic Triangle discourses (i.e. economic discourses (i.e. economic Domain: growth imperative); economic growth imperative); meta- opportunity storylines economic risk storylines discourses used to (b) Public relations as support the illegitimate discourses (i.e. position underhanded, misleading, taken obscure the truth etc.)

Positioning Exemplification Exemplification Purpose (primarily through self- (primarily through positioning Domain positioning) of the Other)

Positioning Evidence of self positioning, Evidence of self positioning, Type deliberate positioning of the deliberate positioning of the domain Other, and forced self Other, and forced self positioning positioning

Goal To retain power To gain power Domain

Discussion For both Gillard and Abbott, equally, the over-riding goal of their respective political campaigns was to retain power (Gillard) and gain power (Abbott). As eventuated, Abbott was successful in his positioning of Gillard and her Government and this was borne out by his winning of the 2013 Federal election, and his subsequent demolition of the Gillard Government’s carbon pricing scheme. Both politicians supported their positioning goals through the enactment of economic discourses, and storylines about ‘our good things’ (Gillard) and ‘their bad things’ (Abbott). Specifically, in terms the carbon price/tax, this was

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positioned as being good by Gillard, and as bad by Abbott. However, whereas Abbott’s economic discourses were enacted through speech acts that had the social force of warning targeted audiences about the economic risks of a carbon tax, Gillard’s economic discourses were enacted through speech acts that had the social force of assuring and/or reassuring Australians about the economic benefits of a carbon price.

Abbott’s positioning strategy also included storylines about the Government’s use of public relations spin and PR stunts. The social force of these (assertive) speech acts was likewise to warn targeted audiences about the government’s underhandedness in introducing a carbon tax, by linking this to public perceptions of public relations as unethical, untrustworthy etc. One possible reason for the success of this strategy, as Motion and Leitch (1996) argue, is that “in attempting to ensure that a particular image is held by an individual, public relations practitioners must articulate this image with a pre- existing attitude or experience which predisposes the individual to accept that image” (p. 300). The pre- existing attitudes or experiences that individuals have about public relations, and in particular the use of the terms ‘spin’ and “PR stunts’ in these contexts, calls upon wider and pre-existing socio-cultural discourses about the unethicalness of public relations as a professional field. The perceived lack of legitimacy of public relations as a profession arguably succeeded in positioning Gillard/the Government as also lacking in legitimacy, while contemporaneously positioning Abbott/the LNP as legitimate in contrast.

At the centre of most conflicts, then, “lies a discrepancy over which rights and duties should be accorded to which actors (Slocum Bradley, 2009, p. 101) and wherein a “change in the distribution of rights and duties will make different sets of discursive acts appropriate, or normatively accountable (Slocum Bradley, 2009, p. 100). While Gillard’s public relations advisors may have considered she had the right, and arguably even a duty in her role as Prime Minister to introduce a carbon price, the majority of Australians did not afford her these same rights and duties. Applying James (2010, 2011, 2014) intentional positioning framework for public relations it seems clear that Abbott’s positioning of Gillard/the Government as untrustworthy and as economic risk-takers, succeeded in undermining her ‘visionary’ and economic opportunity positioning strategy. The accordant shift of rights and duties that accompanied this deliberate positioning not only rendered Gillard’s introduction of a carbon price as ‘not right’ more broadly, on a personal level it also denied her the right to self-position as a ‘visionary’ as well. Ultimately Gillard/the Government were denied the legitimacy necessary to gain public acceptance of their policy, and this underscores the importance of an entity undertaking a public relations program either having the right, or constructing the right, to discursively take a particular position if the positioning is to succeed (Wise & James, 2013).

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Conclusion This paper is part of a larger study into public relations discursive positioning strategies in political contexts. Findings to date suggest that using the positioning framework for public relations to guide a positioning discourse analysis encourages a systematic analysis according to four core domains. Applying the intentional positioning framework for public relations (James, 2010, 2011, 2014) teased out how intentional meaning was constructed in different contexts, and underlines the importance of context to public relations positioning episodes. Adding the concept of social force proposed by Slocum-Bradley (2009) permitted a deeper analysis in terms of the discursive power of speech acts when used by political parties to legitimise their positions. However, further work is needed to determine if more categories should be added or if some domains should be further developed, particularly in terms of the positioning purpose domain. This study is also indicative of a snapshot in time in Australia only. Further work could examine how public relations is positioned in other nations, and could include examination of how pejorative views of public relations are discursively constructed in these, and other political contexts.

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