Who pays the ferryman (and how much)?

What public transport policy tells us about government decision-making. Understanding how governments make decisions is essential for any organisation seeking to influence policy. While advocacy often focuses on making a compelling case for a particular outcome, it is just as important to understand the forces shaping government choices—political, economic, and social. Public transport policy – and in particular, fares policy – provides a useful case study that highlights the competing factors driving government decision-making. Not many PT networks around the…

What to do when issues aren’t issues

Any corporate affairs and communications practitioner takes pride in their ability to see reputation risks from a mile away. But what happens when the issue we believe we can see on the horizon fails to materialise? Is our radar failing us? Earlier this year a client of Daymark’s discussed what they saw as a looming issue that required some preparation in case a quick and substantive response was required. This was in the face of a widely held view within…

Building resilience and trust in crisis preparedness

The recent independent report on Australia’s COVID-19 response presents a valuable opportunity to examine why businesses and organisations should strengthen trust, resilience, and transparency in challenging environments. Whether navigating complex stakeholder relationships or meeting heightened public expectations, there are key insights that can be applied for future crisis preparedness and to help build community confidence. A reminder too – trust, clarity, and adaptability are not just crisis management tools; they should be key principles for sustained growth and connection. 1.…

Are you cyber crisis ready?

The chances of an Australian company falling victim to a cyber attack have never been higher. In the 2022-23 financial year, the Australian Signals Directorate received one cybercrime report every six minutes, and artificial intelligence is already enabling criminals to target more victims, more quickly. The cost to the global economy is in the trillions, while for individual businesses the impact on operations, reputation, morale and share price can be catastrophic. It’s the risk everyone is talking about (when it happens…

Gender pay gap data… and how employers respond

Shock, horror…we have a gender pay gap problem in corporate Australia! On 27 February, the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) released data on median gender pay gaps* of over 5,000 private sector employers with 100 or more employees noting that publishing employer gender pay gaps aims to help accelerate employer action. This data has been collected for many years but never published in this fashion. Just under a third of employers have a median pay gender gap within the target…

It’s a New Year so let’s rewrite unhelpful narratives

It is an overlooked strategy when coming out of a sustained period of downward pressure on an organisation’s reputation to consider rewriting unhelpful narratives. Done correctly this can move an organisation from a reactive communications footing – or responding constantly to issues – to a proactive footing where the communications are more on your terms. It is also a great New Year’s activity that can be applied in a personal sense as well as for a business or a business…

What government thinks of ‘company profits’

Daymark recently subscribed to GovConnex, a platform that enables us to monitor and research government activity on issues of relevance to our clients. So, with another company results and AGM season behind us, we thought it interesting to see what politicians think, say, and do when it comes to ‘company profits’. Using GovConnex we searched ‘company profits’ and found: Trends over time – Between 2010-2017, the term ‘company profits’ was rarely mentioned but from 2017 onwards it’s regularly mentioned in…

Year in review reveals additional priorities for Daymark clients

As reputation challenges continue to mount, nothing stands still with the issues and communications needs of our clients. Here we take a dive into the over 60 projects completed in the past year for clients to see what we can learn for you when it comes to building, managing, protecting or restoring reputation. The breadth of stakeholders is increasing We have engaged with hundreds of government and industry stakeholders on behalf of our clients in the past year. They have…

Just ask me…

Daymark is in the midst of stakeholder survey ‘reporting season’. Several of our clients have asked us to complete stakeholder sentiment surveys for them; some for the first time, others are on their fourth or more annual iterations. Our sentiment surveys generally involve one-to-one, face-to-face surveys based on an agreed set of questions with a combination of quantitative questions and qualitative as well. We encourage interviewees to be open and honest and we capture verbatim comments which are supplied to…

ChatGPT – why humans still trump the bot (for now at least)

While artificial intelligence has been used in a range of ways for years, the arrival of ChatGPT late last year has put the power of AI in the hands of mere mortals. Judging by the takeup of the technology (ChatGPT had around 100 million users within two months of its launch) its potential has been enthusiastically recognised. It is, frankly, mindblowing what ChatGPT can spit out in less time than it takes to put the kettle on, and social media…