Opposition Leader Kim Beazley has trouble with language. And it could cost him the election.
It was more noticeable on Sunday night when we had prolonged exposure it. His good points got lost on me. And I am intently interested in political debate. Most of voters he is chasing are not.
On Sunday night Beazley was high on the fog index. He is usually that way. This is not because he uses big words. It is because he uses long sentences. These sentences require people to hold clauses in their brain while they wait for the rounding of the idea at the end of the sentence.
He uses a lot of double negatives. He uses conditional tenses. He uses a lot of noun clauses, rather than a simple sentence structure with subject, verb, object. He uses a lot of “”If …then…” sentences. He uses interpolation. These things blur his message.
Let’s look at some examples.
First to noun clauses. This form of sentence structure puts the main point last, as a noun clause. The first part of the sentence is superfluous. Instead of saying, “”Phar Lap will win the cup”, you say, “”What all punters must realise is that Phar Lap will win the cup.”
The guts of the sentence is that Phar Lap will win the cup. Whether punters realise it or not is neither here nor there. But the speaker subjugates the prediction of Phar Lap’s success to a mere noun clause and it loses its power.
Beazley does it all the time.
On Sunday night he said, “”What Mr Howard has is not a plan for a nation but a plan for a tax.”
How much more forceful to say: “”Mr Howard has a plan for a tax, not a plan for a nation.” Or even, “”Mr Howard does not have a plan for the nation. He has a plan for a tax.
Again on Sunday night: “”Now what this election needs to be about is a plan for a nation, and what constitutes a plan for a nation is something which guarantees security and opportunity for all Australians.”
How much more direct to say: “”This election should be about a plan for a nation. That plan should guarantee security and opportunity for all Australians.
The noun-clause sentence structure subjugates the main point of the sentence. The main point of the sentence comes after the word “”that” or after the word “”is”.
Some more examples from Sunday:
“”There is nothing that gives an Australian a sense of security more than if he or she falls down in the street there will be a decent public health system to deal with their problems.”
This was a shocker. The sentence structure was bad enough. The example was worse. And the abstraction — “”problems” — turned a thoroughly good point about health care into an attack from a dead sheep.
Why not say, “”A decent public health system gives security. The public system treats the serious cases — heart attacks and cancer. But John Howard is squeezing the public hospitals.”
Falling down in the street and having a “”problem” is a spiritless example.
And here is another noun clause followed by needless convolution:
“”And what they’ve got at the heart of their position is a tax proposition which is desperately unfair. And if it’s unfair, it’s unsustainable, and it’s got $18 billion worth of invasion of their surplus if it’s going to be delivered with the tax bribes that have been associated with it.”
And another:
“”And one of the many problems with John Howard’s tax proposal is that it requires us to invade a surplus, which in all probability is not there in the dimensions he talks about.”
Why not put it into language ordinary voters will follow:
“” A desperately unfair tax is at the heart of John Howard’s position. He says he has created a surplus. Well, he is going to blow it on $18 billion worth of tax bribes to convince us to cop an unfair tax. And anyway the surplus he goes on about is not as big as he thinks.”
Beazley’s speech is full of academic qualifications “”is not there in the dimensions he talks about” (instead of “”is not there”). It stems from a fear of contradiction. But the qualifications blur the message.
Beazley also engages in interpolation:
“”Now that is why in our tax-reform package, which delivers real reform in the sense of making those who are evading tax pay it and then encouraging people to get off welfare and to work, rewarding families and then rewarding business, is at least deliverable in all economic circumstances.”
Kim, Kim, the dear little voters cannot possible hold all that in their heads while they wait for you to finish the sentence. Tell them in smaller bits: “”Our tax package can be delivered even if things go bad in Asia. Our tax package makes tax avoiders pay. It helps people get off welfare and into work.”
Here’s another example. (SUBS: leave figures spelt out and tell Ken May!)
“”The middle Australians pick up — these folk earning thirty to fifty thousand a year — pick up from our innovative — this is the only new thing in either of the tax packages — our innovative tax credit system, they pick up twice as much.”
It is almost sad. Beazley’s “”tax credit” system is the most undersold tax reform in Australia’s history. Undersold by Beazley himself. Howard does the lazy tax cut. He raises the tax-free threshold and gives tax cuts to everyone, even those on a million a year. Beazley’s tax credit (or negative tax) pays people from the Government as they get off welfare and go to work to make sure that going to work is worthwhile.
But Labor has not explained, let alone sold, the idea.
Sure, people do not speak as they write. You have to make allowances for marking time. People put on the spot verbally often spout some useless words to give themselves time to marshal their thoughts. But that is not Beazley’s difficulty. Rather his central message is tied up in the word wastage and is in danger of getting chucked out with the bath water.
Beazley often uses the “”if … then” sentence structure.
“”If you want to solve the problems of the aging economy, if you want to solve the problems of the impact in the social security system of aging in our economy, [then] you ….”
Beazley is asking the viewers to hold the problems of the aged and the welfare trapees in their brain until he gets around to giving us the solution at the end of the sentence.
Again:
“”If you increase by $500 million per year the amount made available to the states to operate their public hospital systems you will transform the position of these hospitals in regard to their waiting lists.”
Aaaaagggggghhhhhh!
Why not say: “”John Howard has given a big freebie for rich people with health insurance and a big freebie to health funds. He should have given the $500 million straight to the public hospitals. Then they could have cut their waiting lists.”
. . . “”transform the position of these hospitals in regard to their waiting lists. . .”. Come on, Kim.
Caring Ray had it right. He used the Anglo-Saxon verbs of old. Will “”mum be able to get a bed in a public hospital tomorrow”? You can picture her in the queue.
Beazley may have better policies, but you wouldn’t know after Sunday night. Indeed, I thought he had only one thing going for him: Simon Crean and Gareth Evans are worse.