NBN: Turnbulls' FAIL as a communicator

I don't often find myself wanting to shout at the TV, and never at business shows. But that's what I felt when Turnbull was interviewed by Alan Kohler on Inside Business yesterday.

While I subscribe to Kohler's view that now, while not equal, both NBN policies are sufficient, I was infuriated by two things:

• Turnbull constantly interrupting, challenging and correcting his host/interviewer, and
• Turnbull wasn't challenged over his outrageous claim: Competition is good for Customer Access Networks.
• Kohler could've said: How did that go with the Optus/Telstra Cable TV rollout 94/97? They both lost their shirts and we ended up with a dead-duck Pay TV industry, a laughing stock around the world.

If Mr Turnbull had already done his job in communicating his vision, then his host wouldn't have had to have simple things explained to him (a FAIL right there) and Turnbull wouldn't have felt compelled to jump in and constantly correct his host. Huh?!?! what is with that?

It's not just rude, but interviews are about providing insight for the audience and chopping up the flow of conversation destroys intelligibility and communication flow: if you want to get a message across, this isn't just counter-productive, but almost anti-optimal, you cannot do worse. [Abusing the host or walking out are the worst. See Johnny Rotten's recent interview on The Project.]

At least Turnbull wasn't so over-the-top attacking that he had his mike cut, as on Triple J's "Hack" [14.3Mb MP3] program. Well done, Sophie!

Turnbull is smart, incisive and well-informed. He's had years in Banking and Investment where you have to sell your message and convince, not just badger and harangue, people of influence. Did a failure to sell contribute to his move into Politics? His stint as Coalition Great Leader showed him as arrogant, intolerant of criticism and unable to listen. He definitively was unable to sell himself or the Liberal Party message to the electorate, so was that the Real Malcolm?

Has he ever learnt how to "Communicate"? It could be that he never did. If he has, then this current obnoxious and obfuscating behaviour is deliberate and designed to prevent the hard questions being asked and Turnbull being forced into giving answers.

Either way, we're on the way to an Epic Fail with him communicating the first Coalition Policy of this campaign.

If he's ever perceived by Public Opinion to have been less than honest, slippery and misleading, this taint will spread to the rest of the Opposition and their policies.

Given time and scrutiny, the many deliberate omissions and mis-statement in the Coalition NBN documents will be brought into the light: will Turnbull be gracious, honest and believable or escalate his attack-the-messenger approach?