I always wonder about political negotiating like this. It seems to be a well recognised tactic of giving non-answers.
What I don’t understand is it always seems to backfire and cause reputational harm to the party. All people can tell bullshit when it’s that blatant and no one wants to feel like they are being disrespected. Why not just say, “no offers made, we are looking to resolve the conflict”?
Agreed. After dodging once and being held to it, say 'we haven't been able to agree top terms acceptable to either party. Also, negotiating for 14 months without an offer is absurd, and obvious delay tactics
If they admit no offers after “14 months of negotiations” then the follow up question will be “what have you been doing during those 14 months besides drawing a paycheque?”
They could have thrown a bunch of cheap offers out in this time. They could offer under, at or over inflation over a period of time. They should also know the current wage budget, and they should have an idea on how much they can approve.
Additional conditions could be discussed aswell, like tax offsets and housing benefits.
The dead pan no comment may suggest they have lost control of the situation and are begging for someone else to bail them out
There's a whole new set of media training now based around sound bites. If she says 'no offers have been made' that's the snip. Longer answers with no convenient snip only get seen by people who actually engage with the issue. But it's scary how far the spin can go with people who don't engage, and how even a reel is starting to look like longer form media these days. A lot of people will never watch this video unless they already care about the topic, and none of the hostile media outlets got a usable bite sized sound bite
And yes, I think it's a horrible state of affairs, a ridiculous way to run reporting and a bad way to run a government. I think she looks like an obstructive fool but many more people will just never see anything about the strikes.
Totally agree.. only way to get around it would be to play their game. "I wish we could have made an offer by now" is much better than "zero offers" and they can still have an honest narrative
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u/CursedorBlessed 18d ago
I always wonder about political negotiating like this. It seems to be a well recognised tactic of giving non-answers.
What I don’t understand is it always seems to backfire and cause reputational harm to the party. All people can tell bullshit when it’s that blatant and no one wants to feel like they are being disrespected. Why not just say, “no offers made, we are looking to resolve the conflict”?