Turn on any radio or tv interview with a politician these days and you’ll likely hear some well-rehearsed verses.

“Let me be very clear…” is Bill Shorten’s favourite opening line in response to a journo’s questions, have you noticed?

If you’re anything like me, you’ll end up shouting at the image of Bill or Malcolm or Julie or any of the others. All I crave is a real-time, genuine human response. Instead of giving a straight answer, our politicians have been trained to push their own agenda, and to evade answering any unfavourable questions. The result is we don’t get a straight answer on anything, and they come off looking like a bunch of disingenuous bad listeners.

It’s bloody infuriating.

Who are these media trainers who teach politicians not to answer any questions? I honestly think this is one of the root causes for Australians having no faith in our politicians anymore. How can you have faith in someone if they won’t ever answer a question straight up?

I have deep respect for our nation’s finest journalists like Leigh Sales, who night after night have to deal with this issue, trying to draw water from a stone. All the while dealing with robotic answers that don’t mean anything and divert conversations away from what Australians want to know.

The latest example of this media-training-within-an-inch-of-their-life was this week on Lateline, when Emma Alberici interviewed Mathias Cormann on the Coalition’s decision to block a conscious vote on same sex marriage. I have my opinions on that decision, but they aren’t relevant here. What’s relevant, is Cormann’s ridiculous, robotic, overly practiced and unrelated response to Alberici’s opening question.

Alberici told Cormann that her daughter’s friend had told his parents he is gay recently, only to be kicked out of home at the age of 15.  Her question to Cormann was, “Whilst you and your colleagues are bickering in your party room, aren’t you concerned about the message you send to young vulnerable gay and lesbian Australians that they won’t deserve the same treatment as other Australians?”

Now he might have disagreed with the premise behind this statement, which is fair enough, he can have his own beliefs. But what about voicing them for goodness sake? That is one of the finest hallmarks of a democracy. The freedom to voice your opinion and defend your beliefs! Instead of answering the question, Cormann said this:

Emma, this is an issue in which there is a diversity of sincerely held strong views on both sides of the argument, and that is of course precisely why the government, in the lead up to the last election, made a promise to the Australian people that they would have a say whether the law would be changed for same-sex couples to marry.”

I don’t know about you, but I had to read that paragraph three times because my eyes glazed over half way through. Someone has practiced this with him. Some political staffer in the background whose name we will never know has strategised, probably for days, to come up with a vague enough response, a one size fits all, to cover all bases when it comes to opening questions in an interview.

Cormann didn’t respond at all to the real story about how policies in Australia are affecting Australian citizens and children. A child getting kicked out of home because their parents don’t like their sexuality is a story that deserves a response. Even if it’s a response some people don’t want to hear. Take out the reason he was kicked out of home, this is a 15 year old boy who is now homeless. It deserves acknowledgment at the very least. What about, “I’m sorry to hear about your daughter’s friend, does he have somewhere to stay?”. If Cormann had said this, it wouldn’t have made us all think he suddenly supported the concept of same sex marriage, it would just make us think he’s human.

I for one know a response like this would endear me more to Cormann. Instead, I think he’s a heartless, one tracked mind politician.

My wish is this: that politicians would return to the great hallmarks of good debating when talking to the media and the Australian public – critical analysis, synthesis, rhetorical skill, and wit. If they would only listen, and respond like a human being, without their own agenda being front and centre of every response, I would want to engage with them more and I think lots of Australians would.

And what of media trainers? There are the good and the bad. Good ones will teach you how to be confident in front of the media, how to pivot well in varying circumstances, how to gather yourself to respond to difficult questions, how to maintain your message while doing all of this. Bad media trainers will teach you to start with standard opening lines to give yourself extra time, they’ll teach you to avoid questions you don’t want to answer by diverting the conversation to a topic you want to discuss, they’ll turn you into a robot.

If you want some good media training, get in touch with Media Stable.  And of course, if you want some respite from listening to the overly trained responses, just turn on the latest Trump coverage, he seems to be untrainable.

By Emily Morgan – Media Stable’s Media Engagement Manager