When building a campaign, don’t preach to the choir
By Rory Parker
There’s no doubt that a diversity of views is good for democracy. Differing views, differing perspectives, and differing lived experiences can hold governments to account and ensure that they govern for everyone.
Within political parties, it can ensure that they better represent the constituency—regular Australian voters. But, for party leaders, it can be the bane of their existence when ‘unity’ and ‘stability’ clash with dissenting views.
And for social sector organisations engaging with governments, it can certainly complicate things…
Losing the ‘middle ground’
At a recent LNP convention, Queensland’s LNP leader David Crisafulli—still less than a year into his stint as Premier—addressed his party faithful and called on them to not be distracted by culture wars or ideological infighting and focus on the issues that ‘are confronting Queenslanders’.
…You can see where this is going.
Mere hours from his speech, the conference floor shifted their efforts to endorsing motions that weakened hate speech laws, attacked transgender people, axed domestic and family violence leave, and rebuked renewables.
It was as if the party’s branches ignored his recognition that their successful election was a result of discipline and that their decimation at a Federal level was due to “a plethora of well-meaning, right-wing campaign groups and minor parties [that] fractured our vote”.
If Crisafulli is right then one must feel for Federal Opposition Leader Sussan Ley, who shortly thereafter had to walk the tightrope as the Coalition reviewed their Net Zero position. Despite climate-focussed policy a seemingly simple solution to their electoral woes, Nationals MPs openly advocated against the commitment to reach net zero by 2050 and continued to push for the nuclear policy that likely contributed to Dutton’s defeat.
Factions and the Party Line
Of course, it’s not just the Coalition who suffer from the ‘broad church’ of views (as John Howard famously described the Liberals many years ago), it’s something that all political parties have to reckon with.
Some are just (mostly) better at hiding it.
Labor has an expectation that its MPs publicly toe the party line, in keeping with its values focussed on ‘solidarity’: to have the tough conversations behind closed doors and support each other publicly.
Its defined factions help this, for the most part, ensuring that most dissent is resolved before it comes to a vote.
But that’s not to say there aren’t dissenting views.
Famously, in 2024, Senator Fatima Payman crossed the floor of Parliament to criticise the government’s response to the war in Gaza—for which she was suspended from the Labor caucus until she quit the Party a short time later.
Diversity of thought in campaigning
If your organisation wants to shift the dial on an issue, there’s likely to be a couple of MPs who agree with you.
The trap here is, that organisations often identify these MPs and then use all their efforts speaking to them…despite the fact that these aren’t necessarily the people you have to convince.
Just as Crisafulli called for his party to not lose sight of the middle ground by fighting in the fringes, so too should any effective campaign.
For better or worse, democracy is about compromise—which means that the greatest way to shift the dial on the issue is to bring people along with you.
Think of any issue as a scale from ‘Strongly opposed’ to ‘Strongly support’ with ‘Neutral’ sitting in the middle. Your goal should be to move people up the scale. You won’t be shifting someone form strongly opposed to a key champion overnight, but you may be able to get them to neutral (or maybe just slightly less opposed). If you're focussing your efforts on the ‘strongly support’ cohort, there’s really nowhere further up the scale you can push them.
Before any advocacy it is imperative that you sit down and map out where you want to get to and what you want to achieve. Consider who the key stakeholders are along the way, their views, find your middle ground—and focus on those who you may be able to bring along the journey with you. Be sensible and be fearless.
One of Australia’s strengths is our diversity of views, and that our political system reflects this as a ‘broad church’. Keep that in mind for your campaigns, because preaching to the choir is a wasted effort.
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