What's a politician worth?
A question worth answering
In the middle of summer, as everyone stumbles towards an inevitable election, the Liberals in Newfoundland and Labrador delivered what you could call a teachable moment in political issues management.
This is a “how not to” lesson.
The project:
In order to treat Cabinet ministers fairly under a new severance payment for the House of Assembly, cover that portion of a minister’s salary that isn’t from their pay as a Member of the House of Assembly with a new severance payment from the Government’s account.
Potential Issues:
In 2018, Cabinet eliminated severance for public servants. This new payment would give Cabinet ministers a benefit no one else in the public service receives.
People outside Government don’t distinguish between the House of Assembly and the Government so existence of the severance payments may stir criticism for all politicians.
What the Liberals did:
Approved the payment.
Kept quiet about all of it, including the House of Assembly portion (aside from mentions in transcripts of the House Management Committee). Otherwise, no information and explanation.
Let the story appear with limited comment beyond noting that Premier John Hogan wasn’t in Cabinet when it approved the payment. This let news media and the opposition to frame the Cabinet portion of the severance as a secret bonus payment unconnected to the House severance package.
Kill the payment without killing the story, and set up candidates for an attack during the election.
20 years of teachable moments explained by Bond Papers.
You can see a good example of that last one in the way Tony Wakeham went after John Hogan on Facebook Monday. Killing the payment means Hogan never backed the payment, Wakeham pointed out. Absolutely true. That’s the first hit: attacking Cabinet solidarity. The second hit is worse: attacking the Cabinet ministers who will be running for re-election and tagging them with support for the payment in the first place.
This is a solid political hit by the Pea Seas, with a huge strategic implication (good for Pea Seas/Bad for Liberals) so close to an election. Hogan and the Liberals fumbling but this time Wakeham and the Pea Seas hit solidly rather than just let it happen. Big, downward pressure on Liberal morale.
Meanwhile, AllNewfoundlandLabador’s story Tuesday - “Parsons received new cancelled ministers’ bonus” - picked at the political scab a bit more with three new tidbits on top of framing the payment as disconnected from the House severance:
Popular and now former Cabinet minister Andrew Parsons got the severance payment.
Andrew Furey - the Premier whose Cabinet approved the payment - refused to take it.
Parsons will have to pay the money back because unlike the scheme itself, the decision to cancel it wasn’t backdated/made retroactive.
The real damage is the second and third one. Furey’s refusal to take the money his Cabinet approved suggests he didn’t want it but couldn’t or wouldn’t stop it. That’s at the very least. At the most he performatively refused the money therefore protecting himself should a controversy happen while throwing everyone else under the political election bus. That raises serious questions about Cabinet cohesion as well as about Furey’s actual political power within Cabinet. And it really makes Furey look like a self-interested jerk right on the heels of his sudden and still unexplained need to quit politics, while leaving his party floundering.
Not making the cancellation retroactive now forces Parsons to dodge questions from media and may put him in the spot of deciding whether or not to return the cash voluntarily. In politics, every week is f*%k your buddy week.
This story also shows how local media have radically changed. Even though there’s more to its original story, CBC abandoned this one as of Friday. CBC really is way out of the hard news business, especially when it comes to politics. NTV also doesn’t appear to have done anything since last week. VOCM covered Wakeham’s statements and likely will keep doing it. But unless there’s something I missed, AllNL is the only newsroom that added new details.
Meanwhile, with nothing else better to do on Monday, soon-to-be-ex Cabinet minister Gerry Byrne wound up on Open Line. Not sure if he was trying to attack Wakeham or make the situation worse but whatever it was, Gerry wasn’t quite making it.
Gerry said people don’t want to pay politicians for the work they do and anyone wanting an increase in pay should say so publicly. Someone needs to ask Gerry how he voted in Cabinet on the payment when it went through and why he changed his mind. But basically, he’s trying to change the story from the Liberals collective cock-up to something else. Had they been politically smarter, the Liberals wouldn’t be struggling so badly as to send a weak vessel out carrying a weak message but there you have it.
Unfortunately for Byrne and the Liberals, the damage is already done. If this were 2015 or early 2016, the Liberals could blow it off easily and the public would have forgiven them for a small mistake. But a decade into their string of blunders and self-inflicted wounds that days after taking office in 2015, the Liberals will feel this one as it reinforces existing negative ideas about them. Doesn’t matter if it vanishes quickly. Like sugar tax or Ed Martin’s severance and Muskrat Falls and… and… and…, this one ain’t gonna buff out. The Liberals need genuinely new, positive stories about change. They delivered more of the same.
Give Gerry Byrne credit for one thing, though. He did raise the issue of MHAs and what we pay them to make tough decisions for us. They are woefully underpaid even if at the same time the rubber stamp they are reduced to since 2003 means they are also underworked.
That public perception Gerry talked about isn’t made better when politicians like Dwight Ball and Andrew Furey - both wealthier than all but a handful in the province - attack politicians and their pay. Ball called the pension plan “gold plated” and Furey refused flatly and without explanation to accept the recommendation from the recent commissioners report that MHAs received their first raise in 30 years. Both were arrogant, ignorant, and entirely self-interested in what they did and said.
But does it need to be this way?
What work should politicians do?
What should we pay them?
Give it some thought.
We’ll turn to that on Friday.