At a business breakfast in Sydney this morning we were treated to not one but two New South Wales Government Ministers; Ageing and Disability Services (Kristina Keneally) and Health (Reba Meagher) giving us their view of their very troubled worlds.  Not the most exciting moments in a brisk Thursday morning in Sydney, you might think.  What was surprising was how good both these young ministers were.  Minister Meagher has had some very bad press ever since she took over the health portfolio about a year ago.  The headlines have screamed every nightmare scenario; dead babies, mothers' enduring miss-carriages in hospital lavatories, hospitals built on faulty plans, cockroaches in operating theatres.  The most troubling is that most of them are true.

I have not been a huge fan of Ms Meagher's media performances as she has tried to defend the indefensible.  We have some mutual friends who mostly tell me she is a hard worker who is misunderstood because, they posit,  she is young, attractive, successful.  Most of us are, of course.  However she is a shocker on the telly, and not much better on radio.  The poor woman - always well groomed (which often goes against her, I must say) - freezes.  Her eyes widen, mouth purses and she looks scared to death.  Her voice becomes strained, a real give away as to how tight her throat and chest muscles have become.  And so we don't hear her enough to work out if we believe her. In fact, we often wonder if she believes it herself.   What a damn shame.  This morning she was the second speaker after a very good performance by her junior, Ms Keneally.   Now there was some story-telling in action.  Ageing and Disability Services are not the best areas to get an audience enthused early in the morning.  I am not saying we were all jollied along, but those of us in the communication business listened, seduced you might say by her ability to craft a story.  Simply, she personalised the issue and told us about a woman called Allegra who has cerebral palsy and lives in rural Australia.  The story kept coming back to Allegra and how things can change for her despite some pretty rough cards being dealt her.  It was policy in action, if you like.   There were other little stories along the way that gave us the picture of what the government is trying to achieve.  All without the obvious use of notes, by the way.

Hmm, I thought,   poor Reba, having to follow that!  

 Well, she was much better than I expected.  She didn't use notes, told a few jokes - even against herself - and I for one, warmed to her.  I kept thinking that her staff must wish she can do the same in front of a television camera.  "Reba is not with out a brain," a mate told me. "She just hasn't had a real job."   Cynics like my mate might say that has she has been making speeches half her life and so should be getting better at it. Ms Meagher  was once the youngest member of parliament, after a stint working for a trade union which is a pretty traditional apprenticeship for a Labor politician in Australia.  That’s another reason why she is so misunderstood; not a lot of real runs on the board.

 So, memo to minders; get the Minister some decent media training which might include breathing techniques on how to cope when the body doesn't listen to the brain and goes into panic.