Sometimes things go wrong. It’s a fact of life. No matter how hard we all try and do the right thing, things can go astray.
Jacob Kovco, a Private in the Australian Army, was killed in Iraq last week in a terrible accident whilst cleaning his own gun.
Wrong Body Sent To Widow
Private Kovco’s body was due to arrive here in Australia this morning. A coffin did arrive. But it was the wrong body.
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Australian Defence Minister Brendan Nelson expressed his regret that Private Jacob Kovco’s body failed to arrive in Melbourne this morning as scheduled, but stopped short of apologising for the bungle.
From the media reports:
“He refused to apologise on behalf of the Government until an investigation identified who was to blame.” Source: news.com
Give me a break!
Of course he is to blame. As is the Prime Minister. They’re the one’s ultimately responsible. Sure, the error will have been made along the way somewhere, but as the leaders of their ‘organisation’ they’re the one’s who haven’t the right processes or people in place to do things right.
So it’s their fault.
I assume they’re not taking the blame to reduce any legal liability should the widow decide to sue for the distress caused to her and her family.
When things go wrong then your course of action is pretty simple:
1. Say sorry.
2. Fix the problem.
There is really nothing else you can do.
From A Public Relations Position
And from a public relations perspective, most Australian’s will read what Dr. Nelson has said and think “Idiot” and take a bit of a set against him. I have no doubt that this one incident will forever be a black mark on his career and will count very strongly against him in future elections.
Saying sorry is the right thing to do. Not because it would be politically smart but because it’s simply the right thing to do.
Regards
Brendon
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I don’t know that Nelson will come out of that debacle in all that bad a shape.
Name one other defence minister that has ever gone in person to the grieving relatives?
Name one other Prime Minister who has personally taken a phone call from a distressed relative when a digger has been killed overseas?
Don’t get me wrong – I have little time for Howard or his cronies but they’re handling this situation a lot better than you might think.
And just a little addition to my previous comment – don’t forget Howard is the guy who turned a normal humanitarian rescue at sea into an election win when he manipulated the Tampa crisis.
You should not be looking for an apology. You should be looking for him to correct the mistakes and get your soldier home where he belongs. Don’t use this as a political slam, I hate it when a fellow brother in arms gets pulled into a political game. There is no place for it.
Sadly, it’s as if the news gods read my comment over on the Tailoredpodcasting site yesterday and contrived to come up wiht a real world example.
Politics aside … and I see, sdaly, that Australia is no better than the US in protecting the reputation of a bumbling Defence/Defense structure that cares little or nothing for the troops involved (Rumsfeld telling the troops go find their own armor plate) and everything for their own political reputations … but the point of this sad story isn’t politics or who’s right, it’s about the dis-arming effect a simple ’sorry’ can bring to an otherwise very hard to cope with situation. Just say sorry _first_ and then figure out the legalities and the blame. It’s such a simple word and it’s so easy to say … if you give a care in the first place.
THe PR angle of it all, which is what I’m looking at, is an excellent example of how spin works.
I’ll be interested to see how the non-apology works.
Brendon