Lynton Crosby is one of Australia's leading political campaign and communications advisers and strategist, with political and private sector management, marketing and communications experience spanning more than two decades. He has worked on twelve Federal Elections and over a dozen State Elections. Lynton Crosby was named by The Bulletin magazine in June 2002 in an edition especially dedicated to Power as one of Australia's political movers and shakers. Credited with being one of John Howard's most trusted confidantes, Lynton Crosby was one of only a handful cited by the magazine. An active participant in the International Democrat Union and Asia Pacific Democrat Union he has also travelled abroad extensively briefing and consulting to political leaders and aspirants from all continents including in particular USA (Republican Party), UK (Conservative Party) and Taiwan (KMT). He has corporate experience in joint venture and resource project management, government and public relations and marketing for oil giant Santos and Australian corporate Elders Limited. Lynton holds a degree in Economics from The University of Adelaide.

Session 7: Questions/discussion

As a political practitioner and someone who has been involved in polling and campaign activities and helped political parties in communication, I necessarily bring that perspective to the issue today. And there may be some differences or similarities – probably more similarities – between what Bruce Hawker and I have to say.

What I want to do is to set the scene in terms of how, politically, we find people see the environment as a political issue. Firstly I would say that the environment has changing dimensions. There is not one universal community perspective on the environment. And the environment as an issue, in terms of relative importance, really has not changed over the last decade. In saying 'in terms of relative importance', I think the nature of the focus on the environment has changed but, ranked against the other issues that political parties focus on, the relative importance of the environment has not changed. It tends to be in the second tier of the top 10 top-of-mind issues – that is, the issues that people themselves proffer when you ask them what the government should be doing something about – and in the current context it tends to fall behind issues like health and education, the economy, defence, terrorism.

In our work, actually, it sits roughly with the issue of an ageing population, which is something that has increased in prominence in community understanding and concern over the last few years. There is a growing appreciation of the challenges of an ageing population.

The environment as a vote-influencing issue is affected by both coverage and symbolism. That is, as public debate intensifies on an environmental issue, if that issue is relevant to people and the way it is being discussed is specific and therefore symbolic – for example, something like the Franklin dam rather than something generic like global warming – then it can have greater potency in affecting a political outcome. In other words, what people can best attach their decision-making process to as voters is something that is specific and comprehensible, rather than something that is generic and less easy for them to visualise and associate with.

To affect a political outcome – that is, to influence a vote – issues generally have to fulfil (or offend) four important criteria. I want to touch on those four criteria shortly, but let me say one other thing about issues. I think there is a strong misconception in the media and the broader community about what motivates people to vote. People don't generally vote simply on the basis of issues. They vote as much on the values and motivation of political parties in taking a particular position on an issue. So it is not just the issue itself but the motivation and values that you are communicating when you take a stand on an issue. For example, a motivation might be taking a long-term view, being prepared to take a tough decision now to avoid a greater problem later on. But it is more than just doing something about an issue. It is the values you communicate, and the motivation you have, that influences the way people vote.

Let me return, though, to the four important criteria that people, when they make a voting decision, evaluate issues against, because I think for those who see an important role in advancing the environment debate, for example, it is an understanding of these that will better enable them to communicate and engage community opinion. If the environment, or any other issue for that matter, meets these criteria, then it may affect the vote and therefore attract political attention.

The first of the four criteria, then, that we have found issues generally have to meet in order to affect outcomes is general salience. That is, the issue must have previously been part of the local, state, national, personal, future, social or consumer choice agenda, or be leveraged in a way that makes it part of such an agenda. Sometimes issues can quickly come onto the political scene and be very salient but then almost disappear. In 1995, for example, French nuclear testing at Mururoa Atoll temporarily returned the environment to the top tier of national concerns. It went up – and it went down. But it was relevant for a period, and for a period it held a prominent position in the national political agenda.

In addition to general salience there needs to be personal relevance for voters. That is, the issue must have some real or immediately perceived positive or negative consequence for individuals.

Thirdly, the issue must have positionability or a point of differentiation. The issue, in other words, must leverage its pre-existing positive or negative prejudices about the protagonists in a way which is advantageous to the position of one of the protagonists. Green power, for example, can be important to consumers; some organisations position themselves as offering green power, others do not, but it is the point of differentiation that needs to be made.

Finally, an issue needs to have decision salience. That is, it has to be able to be linked to a particular action that a consumer or a voter is going to take. If you are trying to make the environment more of a political issue, then you have to somehow ensure that you relate what you are advocating to a vote for a candidate in a polling booth on election day, so by being decision relevant it is motivating to voters.

One of the other trends we have found emerging, though, which overlays the coverage of issues like the environment and most other issues, particularly in the media in terms of how the media handle issues, is that these days you are communicating in an environment where there is considerable scepticism and mistrust held by the public for the media, so-called community advocacy groups and corporations. Therefore, people look behind the motivation of those organisations when assessing the messages that they hear from them.

Where do Australians, therefore, sit in the environmental spectrum, if you can put it that way? Recently we undertook a survey to ascertain whether people saw themselves as more strongly pro-economic or more strongly pro-environment. We did that by asking them to rank, on a measure from 1 to 10 where 1 was strongly pro-environment and 10 was strongly pro-economic, where they considered they themselves sat. In other words, it was self-selecting.

We found that the mean score on this question was 5. Given that it is a scale from 1 to 10, not 0 to 10, then 5 or under 5 meant they were leaning more closely to the environment. This has remained unchanged for three to five years now. We find that New South Wales has the strongest pro-economy sentiment, while Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania have stronger pro-environment sentiment, and we find that men and Coalition supporters, particularly men over 50, are most pro-economic.

I talked before about the changing nature of the environment as an issue. When we ask about the environment as an issue, we should really ask which element of the spectrum the environment is on now. What I mean by that is that you have national issues, you have personal issues and you have local issues. We have found over recent times that, on the personal issue agenda, the environment does not generally rate. That is, in what is important to you and your family today, the environment is way down low. On the national issue agenda, as I said, it is in the bottom half of the top 10. But, interestingly, on the local issue agenda, often when you go to individual local electorates and talk to people about local issues of concern that they would like their member of parliament to do something about, you will find the environment in the top three.

What you are seeing is a shift from a national or global perspective towards the environment – it has changed in one small respect, which I will come to in a moment if I have time – so that broadly speaking there is a reduction in focus on environment as a national issue, and very limited focus on it as a personal-issue agenda item, but as a local issue it is very significant in its importance. And that relates to people's own experience. For the ordinary voter, the environment extends to graffiti on bus shelters or car bodies in creeks, and those sorts of things. At a local level, the environment is an important issue but it relates to practical, observable experiences that people have.

That means that, if you are seeking to communicate in relation to an important global issue, you have to be able to drive that down to a local level if you are to affect community understanding and support for the arguments you are seeking to advocate.