By Bruce Guthrie
ANOTHER week, another disastrous poll for Julia Gillard. Like Britain's phone hacking scandal, just when you think it can't get any worse, it does. Again.
The latest Age/Nielsen poll suggests our Prime Minister is about as popular as Rupert Murdoch at a Greens' tree planting ceremony.
Or, for that matter, Bob Brown at a News Limited editors' conference.
Which is to say, voters seem desperate to show her the door.
''Labor plumbs new depths'', screamed the page one lead in Monday's Age, which, in case you missed the point, added the following helpful amplifiers: ''Carbon tax carnage'', ''Gillard's worst poll'' and ''Coalition lead grows''.
I don't know about you, but that little lot would give me an industrial-strength case of Mondayitis. But, to her great credit, Gillard hit the road and, armed with the usual post-polling cliches, did her stoic best.
''It's a marathon, not a sprint,'' was one. And ''democracy is not one long opinion poll'' was another.
Yes, and the Murdochs are thrilled their stocks have collapsed too. Literally.
Actually, Rupert and James Murdoch - and Wendi Deng - did Gillard a favour this week with their appearance before a committee of British MPs inquiring into the phone hacking scandal.
With their extraordinarily uneven and unconvincing performance, father and son pushed the PM's woes off page one, albeit briefly. Deng's roundhouse right and a prankster's shaving-cream pie helped too.
Amid all the theatre of the committee-room hearings there was at least one valuable lesson for Gillard - a well-turned sound bite can do wonders.
Murdoch senior's ''This is the most humble day of my life'' was clearly written for him and, no doubt, rehearsed dozens of times before Tuesday's hearings got under way. Indeed, he was so keen to get it on the record he interrupted his son barely 60 seconds in. Which, as American humorist Jon Stewart pointed out, suggested Rupert was ''not so humble [he] couldn't wait for [his] turn to talk''.
It worked, though. Newspapers around the world went with the line, relegating to the depths of media reports the ageing mogul's obfuscation, denial and apparent ignorance of extraordinarily serious matters within his company.
It was a lesson for Gillard, who still struggles with fashioning her key messages. In recent weeks we've had curious admissions - ''I'm shy'' - and ill-considered rejoinders when asked thoughtful questions about the state of the Australian media and what its role should properly be. ''Don't write crap,'' was all she could manage at the National Press Club recently.
I was reminded of her shortcomings in this area with the recent appearance of Paul Keating on ABC's Lateline. In 20 minutes, Keating turned the carbon tax into a compelling choice between a bright, shiny new future and a dirty, brown past and painted Tony Abbott as an economic and political vandal whose own message was, ''If you don't give me the job, I'll wreck the place.'' Added the former PM: ''Tony's got to have the political judo chop.''
Actually, Abbott does a pretty good job of hurting himself. In the kind of verbal lapse that is becoming all too common for the Opposition Leader, he questioned the logic of his party's commitment to reduce greenhouse emissions by 5 per cent by 2020, telling a group of pensioners: ''The other crazy thing about this is that at the same time that our country is proposing to reduce its emissions by 5 per cent, just 5 per cent, the Chinese are proposing to increase their emissions by 500 per cent.'' He spent much of the next day ''clarifying'' his crazy statement and the rest of the week cozying up to News Limited.
Rupert Murdoch's sound bite, James Murdoch's evasions, Julia Gillard's ramblings and Tony Abbott's verbal stumbles, were all reminders of how important language is in public life. Indeed, it plays a key part in the polls that are bedevilling Labor and the Prime Minister. Take The Age/Nielsen poll.
The key question in the survey was this: ''Do you support or oppose the introduction of a price on carbon?'' Fifty-seven per cent of respondents either opposed or strongly opposed, while only 40 per cent supported. That's not surprising, especially considering the question's phrasing.
But imagine if the question was rephrased to ask this: ''Are you prepared to support action by government to reduce carbon emissions if it is demonstrated this would benefit future generations of Australians?''
Given this country's history of sacrifice, particularly in theatres of war, I'd be stunned if the result wasn't at least flipped. Of course, the pollsters are unlikely to change their approach because it would be considered ''pushing'' the result. But Gillard would do well to start presenting the policy in those terms.
Then again, maybe she could start throwing the occasional round-arm right, or judo chop.
As Wendi Deng proved, sometimes actions speak louder than words.
Bruce Guthrie is a former editor of The Age, The Sunday Age and Herald Sun and author of Man Bites Murdoch, twitter @brucerguthrie
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