Announce First, Think Later

“Consult” comes from the Latin consulere: to deliberate, to take counsel, to think something through before deciding. It was the step before the decision.

In modern government, it seems to be the step after the press release.

Take the Coalition’s promise, in the run-up to the 2025 election, to end work from home for federal public servants. It sounded decisive. It fitted the campaign. It lasted a few weeks. Then the people it affected responded, a lot of them women who rely on flexible work to manage caring, and Peter Dutton dropped it. “We got it wrong,” he said, “we’ve apologised for it, we support flexible workplace arrangements.”

That’s a cleaner admission than most of us manage in a performance review. It’s also an admission that every fact that sank the policy was sitting there before anyone said it out loud.

Now the other side. This year the Reserve Bank banned card surcharges, welcomed as a cost-of-living win. Then somebody noticed that the Australian Taxation Office also takes cards, also pays merchant fees, and now couldn’t pass them on either. Bill: about $200 million a year. So the ATO announced it would stop taking credit cards from 1 December, with about eight weeks’ notice. Asked about it, the Treasurer said: “But I don’t know the specific timing.”

Neither, it turned out, did anyone else. Within days came the backlash, then the delay. Credit cards are now in until 30 June, taxpayers are picking up the fees, and the ATO gets time to “consult more” and “get it right”.

Which is to say, to consult. In the original sense. Afterwards.

None of this is unique to Canberra. I’ve watched it in boardrooms for 25 years: the strategy launched before anyone can explain it, the restructure announced before anyone knows who’ll do the work, the value painted on the wall before anyone has decided what it rules out. Saying something feels like progress. The words sound finished, so everyone assumes the thinking is too.

Both policies would have survived one question, asked in a meeting room rather than on the evening news: what’s the first objection we’ll hear, and what’s our answer?

If you can’t answer it, you’re not ready to announce. You’re ready to consult. The old kind.