Remarks by Hon. Fred Mitchell MP Minister of Foreign Affairs &

The Public Service 

CARICOM Seminar on Public Relations Social Security
SuperClubs Breezes 

22^nd November 2006 

I want to welcome all CARICOM nationals visiting The Bahamas. 

At first I was non-plussed as to how I received this invitation.  Then my friend and former partner reminded me that our good friend Pandora Butler in public relations at the National Insurance Board is an organizer of the seminar.  We worked together on the newspaper of my party The Herald from 1981 to 1982 and she also worked in our public relations business then known as Al Dillette and Associates.  Mr. Dillette who is now the publicist for the Prime Minister will speak to you following my presentation. 

I want to say that small markets like The Bahamas have some special challenges.  I will speak somewhat from an historical perspective but also from the present experiences that I have with media in The Bahamas and on how one shares information with the public at large.  This is critical in the area of social security, since the government here is embarking on a major programme to reform health care in the country.  

It is possible for opponents of a perfectly good policy or programme to derail government policy if there are missteps in the way the Government itself sells the message.  So our job since we are committed to national health insurance is that we should sell the programme in bites that the public can easily understand and accept. 

I would for example reduce this down to a simple message; anyone who is against national health is against helping the poor people and the middle class. 

I would build around that message and put the question: why are you against helping poor and middle class people? 

There should be a direct appeal to the pocket and the expenses of health care and how a society, sensibly sharing the risk can accomplish a greater good; that it is the civic responsibility of every citizen to share the risk.  This is a programme that covers all from the cradle to the senior years.  A good programme, that simply makes sense. 

I like to quote a line from a favourite movie of mine ‘The Lion in Winter’ that is relevant to these matters.  “I don’t have to stop you, I need only delay you”.  My view is that this is not a issue that we should allow to be talked to death.  The policy is decided and we must go full steam ahead. 

There are two issues that should be aired: one, the question of whether this is a tax; the second is whether there needs to be further consultation. 

On the first point, it is clearly not a tax, no more than National Insurance contributions are a tax.  This a contribution to the cost of insurance which, though compulsory, will go directly for health care and nothing else.   On the second point of further consultations, the National Health Insurance Bill is only framework legislation, and regulations will have to be drawn up to deal with the issues of how care is accessed.  The entire society, all interested parties will be consulted on how these regulations will be addressed. 

I believe that the assistance of a professional public relations and advertising firm will assist greatly in this work.  What we have is a similar selling job that we had to do when National Insurance was instituted in 1974.  The same arguments were made; from the same people that we hear from today but no one can argue that National Insurance is not an unqualified success.  The same can be for National Health.  Remember too that National Health was derailed before over the same issues.  But clearly the poor and the middle class cry out for help and the cry must be heard and their request answered. 

What I wish to point out though is that The Bahamas of 1974 is different from The Bahamas of 2006.   That was a whole generation ago.  Consider that in those days, there was a stronger sense of national unity and patriotism as we were moving into Independence.  Those sentiments while still important today, are only marginally so in the debate we face today.  The world and public policy are more globally applied with a view that private sector initiatives are infinitely more successful than public sector ones.  So we have this uphill fight that the public sector is still relevant and can do some things better and more equitably than the private sector.  This National Health Insurance will be a private sector public sector partnership in the sense that many of the health care providers are private businesses, and that also is a matter to be stressed.  National Health will not bankrupt the country. 

In 1974, there were three media outlets: ZNS, there was no TV, only radio; The Guardian, The Tribune.  People listened regularly to something called the Community Announcements that told you where there going to be.  That is no longer the case today.   

Today, there are two TV stations, plus Cable and satellite radio and television.  You have a larger population, more widely dispersed.  You have local radio in a number of islands.  You have a local newspaper in Grand Bahama.  You have talk radio.  You have competing social events both in the public sector and private sector.  You have the church assemblies that have become important in moving public policy.  You have a more defined system of NGOs and a more defined civil society.   

Clearly the approaches have to be different.  You have the Internet.  Governments have to learn and inwardly digest where we are and embrace these changes and utilize the technology that is available to them. 

You also have a young population that has a short attention span.  They have grown up on video games and in a more permissive society.  The old religion in information dissemination won’t do.  A talking head on TV just won’t do.  The approaches have to be shorter, quicker, faster and more interactive. 

You must also learn to plug into cultural themes.  I think a very smart move recently was one made by a friend of mine through the Bank of The Bahamas tapping into the popularity of Ancient Man for the use of his popular song for the Bank of The Bahamas.  I am sure this will reap great benefits for the Bank of the Bahamas.  There is an explosion in Bahamian music now, and there is no reason why National Health Insurance could not use Bahamian musicians to sell the programme. 

An important thing to remember is that selling your message is a professional matter, not something that a few men and women sitting around a table can plot and execute.  Get professionals to do it.  

I end this part of my address this morning by this story.  The Heineken company came to The Bahamas around 1980 to build the Heineken Brewery, and they hired myself and Al Dillette to help to plan their advertising and public relations for them.  We had come out of the public sector and had the view espoused by many then that you could safely predict what Bahamians would do by making your own subjective judgments in marketing terms.  Heineken wanted to attack the Beck’s market, then the number one beer in The Bahamas with a new product. 

We watched with fascination as brand experts came in, product naming experts came in, focus group experts came in, advertising consultants came in, polling experts came in and each used their skills to find out what Bahamians would like on a scientific basis.  That together with some legal changes allowed them to take over the market from Beck’s.  They created a new product called Kalik from scratch from focus groups that over took Beck’s and virtually knocked it out of the market.  The interesting thing is that Beck’s virtually stood still in response to the onslaught.  That is another fact of life in this business of PR.  If your public doesn’t hear from you; they begin to accept the words of the other side.

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