Why does PM&C have a media team anyway?

There’s a strategy being employed by some Federal Government departments right now in relation to how they can avoid being publicly accountable and limit any kind of information being released to the ‘great unwashed’.

It’s in how they are treating media requests and answers to questions submitted by journalists for news reports.

The strategy is to let the media outlet know they have received the enquiry – and then to completely ignore it.

The Department of Defence is renowned for it, but you would think the Prime Minister’s own department – the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet – would employ more tact and professionalism.

Not so, it seems. PM&C are now among the worst of offenders.

By my own experience, and from conversations with other Press Gallery journos, it’s almost like one could be forgiven for believing that when the Royals aren’t in town, PM&C’s media team consists of only one person replying to emails as a stalling tactic … before spiking it – when in fact, the media team is actually of a decent size.

At a time when Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is questioning why there are ‘so many public servants in Canberra’ it can’t bode well for any Australian Public Service team to be so eagerly putting their hands up to be considered redundant.

Here’s an example that got me to thinking about it being time to write a column such as this.

When the Coalition got sweaty under the collar last week about how much money APS agencies are spending on Welcome to Country ceremonies, my initial reaction was to ignore it.

That’s a ‘dead cat’ of a story the Liberals and Nationals like to keep revisiting, but it’s pretty dull and the rest of us have moved on.

When the Coalition’s spokesman on government waste, James Stevens, claimed that PM&C was one of the biggest spenders on these ceremonies – I still didn’t care.

What did raise my curiosity, however, was just how it is determined when and where Welcome to Country ceremonies are held across the APS and how much to spend on them.

I thought that angle might be a good public service related story and maybe a way to balance out the Opposition’s histrionics over it all.

So I shot off an inquiry to the Australian Public Service Commission’s media team, who I must say are always professional and helpful, and (in public service terms) quite quick to respond.

They were pretty quick to reply on this occasion too, but only to say that that particular question had been referred to PM&C and I should follow it up there.

It was a pretty straightforward question I thought, but fair enough. There are protocols in place and at least someone in government was onto it. Or so I thought.

Here’s the question I put to them via email:

“Are there stipulated requirements or protocols for agencies to hold Welcome to Country ceremonies i.e. when they should be held and how much should be spent on them, or are those decisions left up to each agency to determine for themselves?”

PM&C called to say they had the media request, were working on it, but they wouldn’t be able to meet my deadline for later that afternoon.

The conversation went a little like this (I’m paraphrasing as I didn’t record it):

PM&C: We’ve got your email but we’re unlikely to be able to meet your deadline.
Me: It’s a pretty simple question.
PM&C: We won’t be able to meet that deadline as it’s not far away.
Me: Well, I did send it to APSC earlier and I know they passed it onto you.
PM&C: We’re working on it and will let you know when we have something.
Me: It will be sometime today though, right?
PM&C: We’ll let you know.
Me: OK.

And that’s the very last I heard from PM&C about my media enquiry.

No response came that day, or the day after.

Region published the story two days after PM&C was asked the question, and the report had to say it hadn’t yet responded.

No one even messaged to say, ‘No comment’.

It also meant that instead of an explainer about how it all works regarding Welcome to Country ceremonies, we had to revert to the original report about the Opposition claims of PM&C running rampant with taxpayers’ money.

I have worked in an APS media team and I know that the staff on the ground in most instances whip up responses to media requests pretty quickly, but it’s usually someone (or some few) further up the food chain allowing it to come to a grinding halt.

Often some Band 1, either through a view that it’s not a priority or through a level of laziness, keeps it lying dormant.

If that’s what’s going on here it begs the question: Outside of a royal visit, why does PM&C have a media team at all if it’s not going to respond to media requests?

And a couple more questions: Does Glyn Davis know this is going on? Does Albo?