It takes time to settle into any new job.
It’s not just figuring out the printer or finding the best coffee nearby, there’s an enormous cognitive load of new information, and a steep learning curve, that usually results in mistakes and sometimes crushing fatigue that has nothing to do with ability to do the job.
As an employer, there are few things more frustrating than a new member of staff that is trying too hard to hit the ground running. When you need them to sit down, shut up, and learn what you’re trying to teach them so they can do the job, they are winding themselves up with anxiety that they aren’t delivering already. Some wind themselves up so much they bounce out the door, quitting five seconds after they start.
It would appear that the new member for the Northern Tablelands is one of these. Of course, he wouldn’t know that, because he’s only ever had one job since leaving uni.
As he faithfully relayed as part of his personal narrative in the brief by-election campaign, and laboured somewhat in his first speech, Moylan is a farmer’s son from Gunnedah who went to Joeys, then Albies, then to the law firm Webb and Boland in Moree, then parliament. Better than someone who went uni – political staffer – politician to be sure, but Mr Moylan is not blessed with an abundance of varied life experience.
In the early days, both in the campaign and before his first speech, there were a number of releases issued by his team that were either completely recycled from Adam Marshall (such as the Port of Newcastle statement of May 14, that was near on identical to Adam’s release of 5 April), or were very much in Marshall’s formulaic style (pun headline, announce x dollars given to local community y, quote Marshall, optional quote person from organisation getting money, congratulations or relevant dates to close).
I don’t have a problem with formulaic releases, and I don’t have a problem with the new guy picking up some of their predecessor’s work.
But what was of concern was that it seemed Moylan felt he needed to maintain Marshall’s frequency of media releases. Marshall wrote his own releases and put them out at a tempo no news agency could keep up with, and I’ve never known another politician to do. I did notice and respect, however, that they would usually bounce around the electorate, almost in a circuit, meaning that we – as a regional publication – would be one of only a handful of entities that would even notice. So to us it felt like a lot. To the voter in Moree or Inverell or Armidale or wherever, it would feel about right, just a regular reminder that he was on the job and delivering.
Not so with Moylan.
Since he was declared elected on July 10, or 7 weeks ago, Brendan Moylan’s office have issued 18 press releases. 12 of these were on broad regional or policy issues, just six the hyper-local funding announcement fare that dominated communication from Marshall.
- July 12 – $25,120 ‘RAISES THE ROOF’ ON WALCHA SHOWGROUND MAIN PAVILION
- July 12 – SIZZLING SERVE FOR WALCHA GOLF CLUB WITH $25,500 BOOST
- July 15 – MOYLAN CONDEMNS SERVICE NSW CUTS
- July 19 – NEW KITCHEN ON THE MENU FOR BACKTRACK ARMIDALE WITH $45,560 SUPPORT
- July 23 – MOYLAN RAISES CONCERNS ABOUT PROPOSED CHANGES TO NATIVE VEGETATION LAWS
- July 26 – KNOCKOUT NEWS FOR PCYC ARMIDALE WITH $21,717 FUNDING PUNCH
- July 30 – MP WELCOMES EARLY TALKS WITH HUNTER NEW ENGLAND HEALTH EXECUTIVES
- July 31 – MOYLAN PUTS FULL SUPPORT BEHIND NURSES PUSH FOR BETTER PAY
- August 5 – GONE WITH THE WIND: MP WELCOMES DOUGHBOY DECISION AMIDST COMMUNITY CONCERN
- August 8 – MOYLAN DELIVERS INAUGURAL SPEECH MARKING FIRST SITTING WEEK AS MP
- August 14 – MOYLAN CALLS FOR CREATIVE APPROACH TO HEALTHCARE CRISIS
- August 15 – MOYLAN HITS THE GROUND RUNNING IN HIS FIRST SITTING FORTNIGHT IN PARLIAMENT
- August 16 – DRYLAND CROPS DAMAGED BY GOVERNMENT WATER RELEASES. MOYLAN CALLS FOR ANSWERS
- August 16 – EXTRA CASH TO KEEP THE ‘NIGHT LIGHTS’ ON FOR TROUBLED YOUTH IN MOREE
- August 21 – NO GREEN SHOOTS IN CHILDCARE DROUGHT. FEDERAL GOVERNMENT URGED TO STEP UP
- August 23 – MOYLAN URGES MINISTER TO INCREASE CROSS-BORDER POWERS BETWEEN NSW & QLD IN WAKE OF CRIME SPIKE
- August 28 – NEW MOWER FOR GLEN INNES BOWLO WITH $17,599 BOOST
- August 29 – MOYLAN CALLS FOR MORATORIUM AND STOCKTAKE OF THE NEW ENGLAND REZ
By about now you’re probably wondering why this is entitled as an apology to voters in the Northern Tablelands.
I feel the need to apologise because we have not been holding the new MP to account. We have been letting him get away with saying absurd things that are quite simply without basis or just flat out wrong. We have been simply ignoring his ill-informed barrage of press releases, picking out the warm and fuzzy funding announcements, and not running the other stories, expecting that he would settle down soon enough.
That was wrong, and I am sorry.
On July 15 when he ‘called out Service NSW funding cuts’, we ignored his claims that would directly impact service delivery in the region or the hyperbolic assertion about the agency potentially being dismantled, dismissing it as partisan hackery.
By August 5 when he released his bizarre statement about the Doughboy Wind Farm not proceeding, I was sufficiently concerned about his off-the-mark and clearly uninformed commentary that I contacted a couple of people and encouraged them to offer Mr Moylan a briefing to get him up to speed. If nothing else, the apparent gloating about a development that was low risk and was withdrawn at a fairly early point the process – as most of them are – felt inappropriate.
It was around this time that I started to hear mutterings about Mr Moylan needing better staff.
On August 14, Moylan released his statement calling for a “creative approach” to the health care crisis. This statement was so full of nonsense I felt compelled to push back. It was based on a members statement he had made the previous night calling for health care workers to basically be given more money through incentives, tax cuts, and other measures, and for the federal and state governments to work together on the issue.
“The Federal Government should wipe university debts for all medical professionals who work for a minimum period in regional and remote areas,” he said to the parliament.
In my initial response email to the media release, I sought clarity on what he was asking for, as the program to wipe the university debts of health workers who work in regional areas has been in place since 2022 with a number of predecessor programs, and there are many other incentive programs already in place.
I got a response directly from Brendan, not his staff. With even more nonsense.
“Hi Raphaella
The point of my private members’ statement was to highlight the shortages of medical professionals in regional NSW right across the board. My suggestion is for all medical professionals such as speech pathologists, physios, etc, to receive incentives to live and work in the regions. I have also asked for both the state and federal government to get creative and look at fresh ideas such as tax incentives for medical professionals in the bush.
I accept that there are incentives in place, however, I feel that if the state and federal governments finally acknowledge that there is in fact a staff healthcare crisis in the regions then both levels of government can work together to achieve outcomes instead of buck passing. Even if my calls are ignored, I feel it is my job to raise these concerns in Parliament as that is what the people of our regions want and expect me to do.
Cheers,
Brendan”
All health workers do have access to significant incentives to live and work in the regions, including cash grants of up to $20,000 for any health worker to relocate to a regional area, and the crisis in health care has been a leading issue in every state and federal election for, oh, most of my life, so I needed to walk it off a bit before replying.
When I did, I pointed out where his information was wrong, that his response was even more wrong, and urged him to get a briefing. I also adulted and did my best to be supportive, with a level of understanding of the psychosis that drives the need to be seen to be doing something in a new job.
For full transparency, this is exactly what I wrote:
“Here’s the thing: no one expects you to be up to across this stuff yet! Settle in, find the paper clips, and enjoy the extraordinary power and privilege of being able to ask for briefings on anything you like from the dedicated public servants who work on these complex issues all day.
“You do not do your constituents any favours by raising issues in an uninformed way. And your constituents are not helped by claims that mislead them about the situation, unnecessarily stoking their fears and worries. We won’t run stuff like this unchecked, so please prioritise getting it right over getting it out.”
Because we were dealing with a new member of parliament who had clearly not found his feet, I did not publish a story calling out his health care statement for being ill-informed. People in new jobs make mistakes. People in all jobs make mistakes. What matters is that you learn from them, and get better.
His release the following day, August 15, about him hitting the ground running largely confirmed my suspicions about his unbalanced need to demonstrate performance just on the title, but the content was alarming, not impressive. Two notices of motion, 21 community recognition statements and 17 questions on notice, which can only mean a whole lot of ill-informed noise that will not have endeared the new opposition member to his new colleagues, nor would it have achieved anything for the people of the Northern Tablelands.
The day after that, August 16, Moylan made the most concerning choice yet (prior to today, that is) opting to be at the opening of the Armidale Women’s Refuge, and not with the Premier who was visiting Moree the same day. We did ask the Premier’s office if this was an error or Mr Moylan had not been invited to accompany the Premier, with no response.
This was then followed by series of odd, baseless releases (that were ignored, it seems, by everyone).
And then today. The absolute clanger of calling for a moratorium on the most significant growth catalyst to happen to the New England since … actually it’s difficult to come up with a comparator of the same scale. The establishment of UNE? The Tamworth Country Music Festival began? The first cotton crop on the plains? Sheep were introduced on the Tablelands?
The clearly baseless and ill-informed statement was truly shocking. While the news story about the day’s events are full of words like ‘disappointing’, on the phone today the initial response from almost everyone we called (and there were a number that were not prepared to go on record) was a lot of expletives. Even those who are generally not supportive of the pace or extent of renewable developments were stunned he would call for something even NSW Farmers said they didn’t want just a few weeks ago.
The most concerning is that he would blame local council concerns as a driver behind his call. That he would point to meetings with Uralla and Walcha councils, in the middle of an election where renewable projects are an issue is irresponsible, negligent, and will likely add fuel to community division. Particularly in Walcha, where pro- and anti-wind development campaigners dominate the ballot.
The New England is a passionate place with strong values, one of which is that we protect our own. Which is what I thought I was doing when I didn’t call Moylan out on his nonsense earlier. That was wrong.
And so I apologise. If perhaps we had called him out sooner, pushed back harder, then perhaps he would not have put that statement out today. We can’t go back in time and change it, all we can do is do it better going forward.
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