Friends, non-friends and enemies

At its core, winning a democratic election is pretty simple. It can be broken down into 2 basic concepts:

• You win by getting the votes of the majority
• Friends are more likely than enemies to vote for you

Next, after years of people-watching and political tomfoolery, I’ve decided that there are three basic relationships in politics:

• Friends
• Non-friends
• Enemies

Clearly that’s pretty simplistic but you get my point. There are people who will actively vote for you (friends), people who might vote for you and have no reason to not support you (non-friends) and those who you can count on to vote against you (enemies).

Putting all that together, political strategy for me has always been a derivative of the following:

1. Try to keep your existing friends
2. Try to move people from being non-friends to friends
3. Don’t waste time trying to please your enemies – and sometimes it pays to purposefully antagonise them so your team has a clearly identified opposition
4. If you really have to do something that will lose a friend, try not to push them into the 3rd category of becoming enemies

Fairly sound political theory 101, right?

Bewildering it is then, that this first term government that hangs on to power only through a tenuous partnership with the “independent” Nationals would do something as mindless as create new enemies from its group of friends.

There are many sad examples of the Barnett Government doing exactly that but today’s launch of the WA Independent Power Association (IPA) tops the cake. The IPA is a group of big companies (typically very strongly aligned with the conservative side of politics) that was formed to advocate for further competition in the power industry (typically something ONLY conservative governments support).

But why would they need to set up a lobby group against to lobby against the conservative government? The answer is as bizarre as it is disappointing.

Quite simply, Premier Barnett and Minister Collier have been shooting from the hip about re-merging two of the Government’s power utilities - Synergy and Verve and the uncertainty they have created by doing so has really annoyed some of their long-term friends. As I acknowledged above, sometimes in politics you just have to do something that will irritate the best of friends, but in this case the noise around a re-merger is nothing more than that – unnecessary noise.

Neither the Premier or Minister for Energy have done any formal analysis of this plan - it’s just something they think might be good to do. They haven’t confirmed that it’s actually going to happen. Indeed the only thing they have confirmed is that while it is definitely being considered, it’s not currently on the government’s agenda.

It’s kind of like if you were planning to invest in some property and the current owner told you that it was for sale but he might not want to sell it… what the hell are you supposed to do with your money? I suggest it wouldn’t be long before you would take your money elsewhere.

And that is exactly what is at risk here.

I know for a fact that some members of the IPA are actively considering whether or not to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in Western Australia’s energy sector.  Their decision to create a new “enemy” lobby group and risk their relationship with the government points to a very real lack of confidence in the way our state’s energy sector is being managed.

Those pesky Sherpa’s!

I distinctly recall it. It was early in 2010 - back in the days when the weekly Chief’s of Staff meetings were content rich and consequently, well attended. In fact back in those days, there weren’t enough comfy leather chairs for everyone who attended. Latecomers had to scavenge the nearby office and sit behind me and the other pinstriped ambitious men (and a couple of bright ladies) who were always early enough to secure a front-row seat at the big oval slab of old-growth forest.

Those days are long gone and so it seems, is the commitment to the Premier’s personal commandment on that day that he would no longer tolerate the State’s Public Sherpa’s, oops, Servants (see Sherpa's Revolt for the background of that) speaking publicly about Government policy. That decree had been provoked by a number of government agency bosses who had recently made public statements regarding the direction government should be taking in the future.

As a fairly new recruit to the big table, I remember being both impressed and fully supportive of the directive. To me, the Premier had it right – the Sherpa shouldn’t lead the expedition… our elected representatives should set the policy agenda and the public service should provide the administrative support required to enact the agenda of the government of the day.

Back then, us Chiefs of Staff were told in no uncertain terms to ensure the heads of our respective agencies understood that the media was not the appropriate forum in which to float policy ideas. That seemed to work, for a while at least.

But check out today’s media:

• Police Commissioner Karl O’Callaghan has written an opinion piece for the West Australian Newspaper and appeared live on ABC talkback declaring that juvenile offending is “rapidly spiralling out of control” calling for a higher rate of juvenile detention (and effectively shifting blame to the Courts and Corrective Services for the current juvenile crime rate).

• And Road Safety Council Chairman D’Arcy Holman is again on the front foot by appearing live on radio 6PR proposing all manner of government policy in the area of road safety.

This comes after a couple of weeks during which a Departmental THIN report ruled out keeping our MP’s in touch with current IT trends (Col Pot: No iPad for you!), the Public Sector Commissioner said the Premier’s dismissal of a senior media adviser was not justified and the Economic Regulation Authority contradicted the Premier and Energy Minister’s declaration that a re-merged Synergy and Verve would reduce upward pressure on electricity tariffs.

I really don’t know what happened to the Premier’s dislike of public sector employees publicly leading the state’s policy agenda but with less than a year before the next election, it will be important for him to clarify with the public whether the dog is indeed in control of its tail.

Power shake-up imminent… I think… well, probably

The article on the front page of today’s West Australian newspaper is hilarious. Not for its journalistic qualities mind you, it’s the message that’s funny.

The headline is “Energy shake-up imminent: Collier”. However, to paraphrase what the courageous Minister for Energy says in the body of the story – “I am strong and in control. Now that the Premier has talked incessantly about how he wants the disaggregation of the State’s energy utilities re-aggregated, I agree… I think. No plans yet, but I’m sure it will happen.”

Is this a commitment? Has Treasurer Christian Porter agreed? If so, what did he agree to? When? How? Is this is anything more than a kneejerk reaction to the Premier’s moaning? If this was in any way planned, why did the Government allow both Verve and Synergy to sign off on separate multi-million dollar gas contracts just a few months ago?

The truth is WA’s government energy sector IS under pressure, but it probably has more to do with the way it is being managed than issues of disaggregation.

Let me explain.

To be fair, there are genuinely some costs and processes that do increase as a result of the former Government’s decision to split Western Power into four separate utilities. Obviously, there are three more Boards of management and three more groups of reasonably paid executives. There are also the issues all corporations with a single shareholder face such as reduced buying power because under competition policy, they all have to negotiate fuel and service contracts independently – without colluding on prices.

However, that is probably where the real issues of disaggregation end.

Beyond that, the big problems are well and truly within Premier Barnett’s remit. As I wrote in this article last week, it is bewildering to most taxpayers that the Premier has consistently claimed it would be better for the public to re-merge some of the Government’s energy corporations but have no plans to do it.

But the revelation by the Sunday Times yesterday that the last of the State’s energy executives has decided to quit offers an insight to another problem damaging our energy market - and it’s a problem that Mr Barnett knows was not caused by anything other than his own hand.

The problem is of course, Peter Collier - not his staff, not his policies… him, plain and simple.

1. Verve
2. Western Power
3. Synergy
4. Horizon
5. Office of Energy
6. Department of Indigenous Affairs…

Actually it’s far quicker to just name agencies under the control of Minster Collier that haven’t had at least one change of its chief executive during his short reign so far:

1. Department of Training and Workforce Development

“So what?” Western suburbs folks might say. “It’s good to see a politician rolling up his sleaves and cleaning out the dead wood,” they might naively add.

As a conservative voter growing more and more desperate for some truly conservative leadership, I would wholeheartedly support such a move… if only it was a calculated one.

But the truth is these losses are not the result of some Machiavellian master plan by a fearless powerbroker ridding the bureaucracy of under-performers. On the contrary, the fact is that most of these people have voluntarily walked away from their prestigious and lucrative roles as highly respected long-term members of the public service. The problem for all of us is that when they walked, they took with them many years of valuable experience and a great deal of corporate knowledge the State needs now more than ever.

But they, as well as a number of highly experienced Board Members, are gone – bridges burnt. And when I say bridges burnt, I mean to the ground. Indeed, one of Minister Collier’s own favourite (yet culturally insensitive) clichés when talking about relationships he has destroyed is that he "napalmed” it.

Oh the irony.

Now for the record, it’s important for me to acknowledge that being any Minister in the current WA State Government isn’t easy. The Premier is a lone wolf and often informs his Cabinet and Party Room colleagues of his thinking via talkback radio. No one, other than the jelly-backs and sycophantic kiss-ups, would argue this point. The Premier himself publicly acknowledged his tendency to shoot from the hip during an exclusive one-on-one puff piece recently aired on Channel 9. However, Cantankerous Col Pot and his nervous nannies proves that I don't think this is the worst quality you could have in a leader - at least he does have his own ideas.

It’s the impact of his leadership style on the rest of his team that causes the biggest problems for the state. At the end of the day, Ministers are just people and like all of us, they want to feel respected and valued. Some of them are very self-confident, intelligent individuals who are able to just put the frustrations aside and get on with doing the best they can with what they have. Ministers Waldron, Redman, Porter and Buswell are a few who seem to have that magic ability.

However others, like Peter Collier, don’t. But please, I really don't envy Mr Collier. In fact my feelings toward him are currently much closer to pity.

Imagine being a devotee of a political party for 35 years, since you were 16 years old. You do your best to repress all your other urges and pursue a 20 year teaching career. During that time you manoeuvre yourself into a position of being admired as somewhat of an expert in politics and eventually get the ego-stroking title of ‘powerbroker’ within the party. After doing what you have to do for almost four decades, imagine then being slapped in the face by the bloke you helped to become Premier.

It’s no secret that as a former teacher, Peter Collier was desperate to take on the Education Ministry when the Liberal-National government was formed in late 2008. And I'm sure that I am one of many who would say that he was a highly effective Shadow Education Minister and therefore probably deserved to get the nod from the Premier.

But the fact is; he didn’t.

At the very first public test of their relationship, the Premier chose to tell the world that he simply didn’t trust Peter Collier enough to get the Ministry of his choice. Instead, Colin Barnett set about persuading someone else to take on the role – even though that person didn’t ask for it.

Having received that very public slap from a guy you thought was a friend, imagine how it would feel to then come to the personal realisation that you are 100% incapable of using the power people think you have to influence that or any decision of the Premier since.

At a human level, realising you’re impotent before you have a chance to conceive is nothing short of heartbreaking. I really do feel for him, but the biggest issue here isn’t personal – it’s the impact this has on the effectiveness of our State Government.

Situations like this cause problems for all of us because Ministers are just people - and when people get resentful, it sometimes manifests in anger and bitterness. We all know people who in spite of tragic misfortune, can manage these feelings and turn the energy into positive outcomes. But there are also those who try to repress every uncomfortable feeling they come across until they eventually explode and spray everyone around them with their offensive bile. People in this situation - those living a lie - are often highly anxious control freaks prone to angry, irrational outbursts when things don’t go precisely to plan.

Clearly, this would dent anyone’s ability to maintain mutually respectful, productive relationships on any level. And it has. The very real public interest in this is that during his three short years as Minister so far, Peter Collier has ‘napalmed’ many relationships important to the efficient operation and future of the government. Under his watch, a number of powerful former friends have unnecessarily become powerful threats – the head of almost every agency reporting to him has taken his or her knowledge and expertise to the private sector, numerous high profile Board members of government trading enterprises are now gone and he has had more than 35 staff in his Ministerial office of just 12.

As well as the public sector’s loss of expertise and wisdom, turnover of senior officers costs the taxpayer dearly. There are real dollars required to recruit and train replacements and the confidence and efficiency of all the other people working in the agencies plummets every time there is an extraordinary change of leadership.

Regardless of what lies at the core of Minister Collier’s tendency to destroy relationships, he needs urgent coaching to help him stop burning the government’s valuable bridges. Interestingly, the latest in the long line of executives to vote with their feet and walk away from Minister Collier, Verve CEO Shirley In't Veld, is held in quite high regard by the Premier. Hopefully with her new-found independence, she will soon be in a position to personally encourage Colin Barnett to help his Minister value his human resources a little more.

Unfortunately, I think Ms In't Veld might find Minister Collier’s direct line manager is simply too busy spreading his own accelerant on other bridges.