As the wheels on the Rudd train rattle and loosen and the destination once so bright now looks foggy and unknown, the pressure is not just on the train driver, but his top engineers and navigators, whose youth have many asking, do they know what they’re doing or are they just on for the ride?
Is someone’s age a genuine indication of their professional ability and skill or is it just an easy target? Take Adam Boland, Channel 7’s boy wonder who at just 24 began steering Sunrise to “national dominance 10 years ago”. Clearly his age wasn’t a hindrance.
On the other hand we have the Primer Minister’s top advisers Alister Jordan, Lachlan Harris (both 30) and Andrew Charlton (31) who featured in Tuesday’s Australian newspaper under the title Novices at the wheel of state. (Note: Peter van Onselen the journalist who wrote the story is only 34).
Whilst running the country vs. running Sunrise may seem an inequitable comparison, what is it that makes one young manager a ‘wonder boy’ and the others ‘novices’? It may simply come down to how they tackle the challenge.
Age discrimination - or simply too young?
With more and more young people ascending to management positions, it is often these young highly capable managers and advisers who face roadblocks because older people use their ages against them.
In the case of the PM’s three young guns, are we simply seeing an older caucus speaking out because they are struggling to accept the tremendous power these youthful advisers have, and now that things have gone bad, looking for the easiest excuse?
Then again, it makes every sense to ask, especially as the wheels are coming off, is there a lack of experience here which needs to be addressed? And, are these young advisers doing what they should to ensure their short years do not translate into a lack of experience or strategic ability?
Politics not friend nor mentor
Adam Boland took steps to counter his young age. “Being so young, I had to become a student of TV, because I wasn’t around for the first 20 years of television… I’ve also surrounded myself with people such as Graeme Rowland who has been there for most of that time.”
Rudd’s advisers appear to really only be surrounded by Rudd, and the nature of politics is such that adopting experienced Labor party mentors to tell them the political lessons of 20 years ago…is not really possible.
The ‘trust’ and ‘confidentiality’ inherent in the role of a political adviser, spurned by the ever present threat to their boss’s leadership, leaks, and the need for the PM’s office to look like it knows what its doing, makes it hard to see how they could engage a mentor to bounce their ideas off and learn from.
And there is the obvious point, that Rudd would also be worried that asking the advice of others would be perceived as a sign of weakness on his part, and no doubt there would be those who would like to interpret it that way.
Learning on the job
So while a mentor may be out of the question for Rudd’s young men, there is no limit to these three advisers becoming ’students of politics and public affairs’. As Bernard Keane said in Crikey last week, talking more directly of Rudd, “there is no shame in learning on the job…John Howard almost managed to make himself a one-term wonder, but went on to do OK.”
A point made in yesterday’s Sydney Morning Herald was that van Onselen ‘forgot to mention’ that Bob Hawke had many successful ‘young buck’ advisers, while John Howard’s chief of staff in his first term, Grahame Morris, “was a man with years of experience when he was forced to fall on his sword.”
Maybe if Rudd’s three advisers were older they would have remembered first hand when in 1987 the Hawke Government introduced a 40 per cent profits tax on off shore petroleum and the industry’s response was by all accounts similar to that of the proposed super profits tax, one of the main issues behind all this finger pointing.
If they had worked around government then, would this be an example of how they would have had the ‘experience’ critics say they lack? No doubt this experience may have helped, but ultimately the challenge is as Keane says”…communicate effectively the case for reform, detail the flaws in the arguments of your opponents, and show you’re determined to achieve what you set out to do.”
What you don’t know - the past and human behavior may tell you
Communicating effectively and detailing the flaws in the opposition is in essence the crux of Alister and Lachlan’s job and on a positive note where they actually have proven they can do it; Lachlan through developing and managing the media strategy for Rudd in the 07 election, earning him his job today, and Alister through his years working by Rudd’s side in shadow government, most effectively and expertly causing political damage to the Howard Government over the AWB “wheat for weapons” scandal.
Showing that you’re determined to achieve what you set out to do may be something they have less experience with, and something they need to man up about when dealing with ‘the man’, who’s ultimately responsible for this.
Experience isn’t everything, and years passed do not guarantee a pay off in the rise of one’s intelligence, especially in the areas of social and public affairs, where instinct and generational understanding is key. But if young advisers look to the past to manage the present and future political challenges, their chance of success will no doubt improve.
For as we know, human behaviour and responses are more often than not predictable. This is the very reason the Kevin 07 campaign was designed and built around Abraham Maslow’s ‘hierarchy of human needs‘.
You are never too old to ask for help
The lesson to take away may be that you’re “never too old to ask for help“, something Rudd was told recently by Jack the Insider. He tells the PM that Hawke and Keating are real assets for him and the fact that their advice is not sought “is staggering”. “If a government finds itself in trouble as this one has, it would be sensible to go first to the caucus and then place a call to the old salts; the combat hardened political men of yore to seek advice.”
At the end of the day, its safe to say, no one is ever experienced enough, but how they manage that, whether they ask for help or not, is what proves are they driving the train or should they get off at the next stop?
Ruci Fixter
