As was always probably predictable, the Brian Burke/CCC implosion of the West Australian government has gone feralfederal. On the face of it, it would seem unlikely that there’s any real source for scandal - because Federal Labor members wouldn’t have been in a position to deliver anything to Burke and Grill’s clients, but it seems that the Libs (with Costello in full flight) are going to go after Rudd. Rudd’s admitted having had three meetings with Burke. Howard’s charging that Rudd would have been seeking to get Burke’s support for his leadership aspirations against Beazley. Rudd denies this.
One of the ABC journos was right to say that Rudd looked ashen faced in his press conference. Since the allegations are hardly particularly grave, I wonder why he went to the trouble. It didn’t appear that he handled the pressure very well. There’s almost certainly no whiff of corruption, and Rudd’s response was to those claims was cogent. Whether or not he was trying to use Burke to get the numbers against Beazley - well, that’s a separate issue. But the government won’t mind if they come off looking like mudslingers. The point is that the more mud that’s flung around, the less likely voters are to go for the alternative. The government are trying to paint Rudd as a stock standard pollie, same as all the others, rather than a white knight. Rudd would have been better off letting this particular ball go through to the keeper, rather than giving it traction with a forty minute press conference.
Mark - Rudd knows that, despite the wonderful poll resuls at the moment, he is pushing poo up hill with a pointy stick in WA if he is tarred and feathered with the Burke stuff. He needs the WA marginals. Burke would kill that over here.
The ALP is lucky that Kimbo isn’t still in charge - he had plenty of money raised for him by Burke and Grills.
As a minimum Carpenter needs to turf Shelley Archer out of the ALP. I also think he shoud resign himself and given the complete lack of faith that now exists in the Cabinet to run the State without being influenced by crooks it is time for an election. Shame the Libs and Nats are a schemozele.
Burke wasn’t merely the Premier who invented and propogated WA Inc. He is a convicted felon. He leaves a trail of destruction in the Labor Party wherever he goes.
Rudd was a fool to go within a million miles of Burke in 2005. much less meet him several times. Rudd now says. “in hindsight, blah blah blah”. This is ridiculous. What is Rudd going to do next? - slap himself on the forehead and say, “Oh, THAT Brian Burke”.
Question to Mark: why not repudiate any association/benefits from Burke/Grill in parliament
Hmm, the first time Dr. Death is placed under a bit of pressure he doesn’t handle it too well.
Not everything in politics is dorothy dixer interviews on the abc with tony jones.
Dr. Death had better stiffen his backbone, it is an incredibly dirty & unprincipled game.
Ruddster’s “nonchalant” reading of the order paper during Abbott and Costello’s schtick was particularly lame.
He needed an on-the-spot pushback response.
Something along the lines of:
Holding a press conference is better than giving a statement in the chamber - the press conference is much more genteel, and the electorate would want an explanation for Rudd meeting Burke.
I’d be surprised if many voters took Rudd meeting Burke as anything potentially nasty for Rudd. It’s a game full of very ambitious people and Burke was/may have been influential. I think that people understand that. It’ll be forgotten early next week when the next thing comes along in the 24 hr news cycle.
The fact that Rudd claims not to have known that Burke and Grills were embargoed by the Premier of WA from contacting ALP Ministers or their staffs demonstrates that he doesn’t really give a tinker’s cuss about WA. It was headline news at the time. It’s not like he doesn’t know who the Captain of West Coast Eagles is - something a good Sandgroper would know but no-one in the East would care about - this was an important political issue. And, Edwards would have known this but chose to ignore it - although he is bailing this election.
It may be more genteel, but more importantly it doesn’t present the consequences if the truth not be told, as it would inside the chamber.
Call me a pessimist, but the CCC has powers beyond a royal commission as there are NO terms of reference. The jury is still out
And replace tony jones with maxine mckew on the 7:30 report, wonder what she’s doing since her retirement.
I do not agree, Mark, that Rudd should have let it go through to the keeper. Indeed, the press conference was the right thing to do but Rudd handled it badly.
The damage to Rudd was not in the substance in the allegations but in Rudd’s reaction: he pathetically went to water.
Hence, the press gave him a touch up. Nothing is more guarnateed to enrage the reptiles when they see the contender powdering. Someone like Neville Wran has to talk to Kevin about not crying when the blowtorch is applied to the belly.
How would have Hawkie or Paul Keating dealt with that? Would they have been ashen faced?
What Kevin should have done
Instead of turning into a wallflower in parliament, he should have come out all guns blazing, confronting Costello, Abbott and Howard head on, on the floor. Letting others speak for him, worse, letting Albo try the lame counter-attack about Creighton Browne was a tactical error.
Kevin should have said: How dare you use this Parliament’s time to question me what and with whom I had for lunch one day in 2005!
Is this how the enormous investment in this institution is spent? Is this how you employ myriads of public servants?
You, Mr Costello, would be better off spending your time explaining the consequences of the mini meltdown of the stock exchanges around the world. How much was wiped out off our national wealth and superannuation funds of Australians in just a few minutes in Peking, new York and Tokyo?
And you Mr Abbott, you should be telling us what is happening on the long-promised dental clinic support for the states. I’m sure there are many people out there more interested in how they are going to cope with their own lunch than mine in 2005.
Anf of course you Mr Howard, you should be using the floor of this parliament to explain how come David Hicks is being charged under retrospective legislation, something that you yourself have said on numerous occasions that you would not countenance in Australia, and indeed, is the reason why you have not waved your magic wand and brought mr Hicks back to Australia.
What a golden opportunity muffed to seize the day.
Memo Kevin. Must do better.
“Holding a press conference is better than giving a statement in the chamber - the press conference is much more genteel, and the electorate would want an explanation for Rudd meeting Burke.”
Question Time is theatre and Rudd’s major mistake yesterday was to allow himself to look scared and evasive. Getting the Manager of Opposition Business to run a dire off-scenter about the Exclusive Brethren and Noel Crichton-Brown was just bad tactics - Howard turned it back on them effortlessly - and it opened Rudd up to charges of gutlessness. Anthony Albanese was OK as a front-bench spoiler with a line in faux points-of order but as Manager he’s indisciplined and inept. That ghastly whine……..
This will blow over pretty quickly in a public sense but it was a tactical and psychological own goal for Rudd.
“How dare you use this Parliament’s time to question me what and with whom I had for lunch one day in 2005!”
Unfortunately that was exactly what Rudd had been using QT for all week in respect of Howard and Ron Walker. Another dumb tactic. It went on way too long. They made the Industry minister look like a dill but didn’t quit while they were ahead. .
Sorry, Mark, but I agree with Sir Henry - but not for the expressed reasons. This could be truly damaging. The meetings (3 of them, remember) could only have been about the leadership. What else would they discuss - the weather? Perfect, as always in WA - a 30 second (tops) discussion.
Either he did know about the ban (and therefore the reasons for it) or he did not. If he did know about it then meeting Burke shows appalling political judgement and a willingness to deal with people that he should not even be talking with.
The less likely option is that he did not know of the ban. If this is the case it shows that his staff and colleagues, and in particular Edwards (who arranged the meetings) let him down so badly as to call into question their competence and even honesty.
Burke would not be doing him a favour for the hell of it. Incidentally, it also shows Rudd was undermining the Beezer long before he claims to have been doing so.
Is that the back yard man? Irrelevant, except that Rudd needs to get some mongrel in him, or the real mongrels will keep going for the throat.
Teacup, meet storm.
Fish and chips, meet yesterdays newspaper.
This is one of the problems with a forum like the CCC. While it’s a great thing that corruption is being weeded out, and I’m not sorry to see those ministers gone, the problem is that now just being mentioned in the same breath as anyone who appeared at the hearings is enough to threaten your career.
For those who didn’t follow what was mostly a WA story, Burke, Grill and the sacked ministers are in trouble for breaking Cabinet confidence and – in one case – linking fundraising with Ministerial approvals. Given that none of this was public at the time Rudd had dinner with Burke et al, I don’t see why Rudd should have been expected to know it. More importantly, the fact that Rudd’s a member of the opposition suggests that he couldn’t have done anything like the ministers who’ve been exposed by the CCC.
Sure, it’s not a good look for him now. But if they weren’t doing anything criminal or corrupt – and absolutely no-one has suggested they have – then the only thing he’s done wrong is met with a convicted crook who had served his sentence and was a free man.
Any ALP member in Perth would have told him at the time that it would be stupid to ignore someone like Burke, who wielded great influence within the Party. Politics is about meeting people, and you don’t ignore someone who controls that many votes. That would be idealism to the point of stupidity.
You may write me off as a Labor hack if you must, but the problem here is only that Rudd has handled a minor issue very badly. The Coalition and the media are using the fact that most people haven’t followed the story, and they are implying that the evidence just revealed was common knowledge two years ago to create a scandal that’s non-existent.
Wonder if ALL the wire-taps were presented at the CCC.
Steve at the pub is correct. This is really Rudd’s first outing outside the Luvvies cocoon of ABC-partisans and the seering interrogations of Mel and Kochie! When I switched the tele on I thought somebody close to him had died or he was resigning. He looked so ashen and afraid. I felt like reaching through the TV and giving a big cuddle to the poor poppet.
rudd doubtless looked blitzed, cowering with his back turned.
on the other hand, the literally hysterical reactions of costello and abbot were excruciating. and a fabulous spotlight on their state of mind of late - they rejoiced at some oxygen, but looked utterly mad.
rudd’s speed at admitting error will play well to a public too used to the ofuscations of the Coalition this decade past. i reckon it will play well ultimately.
watched Pasolini’s The Gospel According to St Matthew on Wed night - the actor playing John the Baptist looked spookily like the Mad Monk. Especially when he bagn pacing the cell ranting….
“it would be stupid to ignore someone like Burke, who wielded great influence within the Party.”
Which says a lot about the Party, none of it good.
Anna - you are trivialising what WA Inc meant to WA and the ALP. Gallop had banned his Ministers from having contact with Burke and Grills for very good reasons.
They did an Al Capone to Burke - couldn’t nail him for the WA Inc fiasco but got him for something else that was a criminal matter. Burke was unrepentant and Gallop knew that. WA Inc was a massive episode of corruption, which could have easily bankrupted the state. Maybe you are too young to remember or understand the implications.
For Rudd, and the others who continued to associate with him, to think that it was OK to associate with Burke because he had done the time for his crime demonstrates what a lack of moral judgement they have.
I’m no fan of Gallop, but his decision to ban Burke has been vindicated. Rudd needs to be assessed in the light of his failure of judgement, as does Carpenter. Especially Carpenter who was an ABC Journo during the WA INc times and spent many days sitting in the Royal Commission. How could he be so stupid? Hopefully the WA, if not the Nation’s, voters take stock of this when next they get a chance to place the numbers in the boxes at both State and Federal levels.
via collins
I think the entire electorate can see through the sham-outrage of the Libs. They had better back off or there will be a blood bath at the ballot box.
John Greenfield is right. The Libs are betraying themselves in their excitement, jumping up and down like pathetic schoolboys in parliament shouting “Gotcha Ruddie! Gotcha!”
That Howard, the arch dissembler, could get away with smearing Rudd with the dishonesty brush just beggars belief. The public is not that stupid.
At worst, Rudd made an error of judgement in meeting Burke. His handling of the misdemeanour, though, has made the alleged crime seem worse than it is. He needs to be careful, that in not trying to put a foot wrong, he overlooks the big picture.
There’s a long way to the election campaign. I very much doubt this will resonate with the electorate beyond today’s headlines. And in the scheme of things, it could be a valuable learning experience for young Kev.
I also noted on another blog how the ABC seems to be going in very hard on this story. It’s as if they’re using this as a case study in balance.
Razor, I am not trivialising anything. I agree that it was utter stupidity for Carpenter to overturn the ban on Ministers meeting with Burke. But note that the ban was on Ministers – not on anyone in the ALP meeting with him. I agree that Burke is a poison and I am not sorry to see him out of the ALP.
But no-one has suggested that Rudd actually did something wrong. He met with someone who controlled a lot of votes in the Party, and who had been around a long, long time. There are plenty of squeaky clean members of the ALP who have dined with Brian Burke. He’s got influence, though, not magical powers, and meeting with him does not automatically equal doing everything he tells you to do.
Rudd met with a guy who – for all any of us knew – had served his sentence and was a free member of society. And even now, the trouble he is facing involves violations of cabinet confidences. Nothing raised at the CCC in any way implicates Rudd or any Federal Labor MP.
I am not defending Burke. I am making the point that this is nothing but a smear campaign that boils down to the fact that two years ago, Rudd met with a guy who had been in prison, and had served his sentence.
I would like to see each and every member of the Coalition stand up and say that they have never met with anyone who has at any time been convicted of a crime.
I agree, via collins.
The PM oughta set up a House UnAustralian Activities Committee, headed by Tony Abbott, to look into all this this:
I can see it now: “Do you now, or have you ever known Brian Burke, or lit one of his smokes for him….and what didya get in return?”
The Mad Monk will soon root out those rotten corrupt Lefties.
Except, one would have thought, those members of the ALP (i.e., the Cabinet) who had been banned by the Premier from dealing with him. The ban was placed in 2002 and Burke was told there was no place for him in Labor politics.
It will blow over for Rudd but the fact that he was ashen faced actually speaks in his favour. No other ALP person in WA has been ashen faced except perhaps Alan Carpenter, the current Premier.
Why did Edwards set the meeting up? Because he saw no harm in it. He does not think Brian Burke is a despicable person. Nor does Beazley nor do any of the sacked Ministers and “disgraced” parliamentarians. The liked Burke and they still like Burke.
They themselves are morally perverted people. Even “good guys” like Beazley and Edwards don’t in their heart of hearts see what Burke is and that is the tragedy for Teh Left in WA. No skin of my nose I think it is all hilarious.
There are 3 people in WA you have nothing to do with. Burke, Bond and Kizon. Possibly Crichton-Browne and Grill but they are the top three. If you have anything to do with them professionally or socially then you are an arsehole. End of story.
The public is in shock that a politician has copped to having made a mistake. The pastor has been caught with a little too much sherry in reserve. Big deal.
Rodent came out today on the Hicks’ case saying that the one charge “isn’t retrospective but just recently included….” And previously, Ron just rang me up on Saturday morning with a few racing tips. Gawd.
Abbott and Costello really did look like hyenas with Rudd blood all over their fangs. That image was far more ugly than anything in the whole saga.
“Why did Edwards set the meeting up? Because he saw no harm in it.”
It was a dumb idea that was never going to end well. You could even say it had no legs.
Mr Deanmore, Can you give us a link to said Blog ?
And Re Meetings with disgraced Pollies, Wasn’t Noel Chricton-Browne caught meeting with former WA Opposition Leader Matt Birney in the Carpark of State Parliament the day before the LIberal Learship Ballot ??
Oh the hypocrisy of it all……
Mr Denmore has hit the nail on the head in his last par. This is a good thing for Kev in the sense of inoculating him with the germ of mongrelitis. In the “What doesn’t kill you will make stronger” sense this should be an invaluable lesson if he takes the trouble to learn it well.
Here are a few conclusions (flacks, please pass on to Kev courtesy of us here at LP):
1.If you profess to be the putative prime minister in waiting, fight your own battles, do not hide behind the skirts of others or you will look gutless and ineffective and hence unelectable.
2. Watching Costello and Abbott was instructive. They were going for each others’ throats as much as yours. Use this in the future, work the wound, split the fissure.
3. Never lose an opportunity to give Costello a serve. He’s a bully and a coward. Take the fight to him whenever you can and remember yesterday. Revenge is best served cold. Recall how Paul Keating taunted him with consummate ease. Replay the tapes. See his weaknesses. You are not as good but it doesn’t mean you can’t give it your best shot.
4. Stay away from WA. Period. Let Smith work the rooms there.
5. Have contempt for the Tories because they have contempt for you and where you came from. And remember St Paul’s epithet: “the Grinning Skull”.
The similarities between a contest held under the Marquis of Queensbury’s rules and Don King’s promotion, AND a Federal Election Campaign, are cliched beyond the point of mentioning. Indulge me,please.
On paper the opponents appear to be evenly matched, despite generational difference. Rat cunning is one thing, but the ability to unleash a bit of mongrel after taking a hit, is another. Punters take note of such traits before shelling out their hard-earned on The Big Fight Night.
Courage under duress is a quality of soul, not physique.
To Rudd’s credit, he declined to don the burqa worn by “Carmen of Amnesia.”
Perhaps Rudd was so ashen faced because he fibbed about what passed between he and Burke and he now knows that Burke knows that too. The media may have sensed that too and no more Mr Squeaky for them now. That may be the lasting fallout for Rudd here.
I’m not sure I like this “I made a clean breast of it” skiting today all over the place. This pious self-abasement is a bit of a worry. Not a good look from where I sit in brazen Sydney. And he still looks shellshocked. Jeeez. Maybe he’s been crying and praying all night? Get over it boy!
However, the $mirker is clearly overdoing it now, assiduously massaging the fast detumescing issue. It’s a race against time and Nature $weets. Stop it or you’ll go blind.
In other news today, Ratty’s intricate android ear-wiring tech was drawing the attention of the viewers to the inescapable fact that he is ancient and deaf, as well as mean and tricky in lying to poor Mr Hicks snr. on a talkback show. Soon it will be time to import some expertise from Russia from the lab boys who kept Messrs Brezhnev, Chernenko and Andropov going all those years.
Alexander was caught by the camera from below, giving us a very attractive perspective of jelly-wobbly triple chins held up by a club tie as he crapped on about the vewry vewry serious charge Mr Hicks was now facing. Cut to the trim and athletic Marine Major Mori (no luvvie he). And now for the weather…
Though he only continued to have influence because people gave it to him by continuing to meet with him.
…. and who at the time was not to have been in contact with any ministers from the ALP party. Surely that should have been a bit of a hint to Rudd that something was wrong. At the very least he was further increasing Burke’s influence, as Burke would have been able to tell people that influential people in the Labor party wanted to meet with him.
The problem Labor has is a tactical one where a junkyard dog is urgently required to counter an unashamedly biased speaker and to haul the Government’s attackdogs into line. All this could have been avoided if someone with the experience of Bob McMullin or someone nastier if need be is appointed Leader of Opposition Business.
For years the Libs have had a Peter Reith or Mad Monk ruling the roost and the current Leader of Opposition Business just has not got enough Mongrel to cut the mustard.
I noticed a while ago that the speaker put it all over him in regards to the ‘Dr Death’ nonsense and his reponse to the attack on Rudd yesterday was pitiful.
Labor needs a Mongrel bred cross with the spine to take no nonsense from the Speaker or the Government attackdogs.
Yesterday’s performance by Labor lacked both Rat Cunning and Mongrel.
Perhaps Rudd was so ashen faced because he fibbed about what passed between he and Burke and he now knows that Burke knows that too.
Whatever the detail, I do suspect that Rudd’s ashen face indicates that he’s been caught out at something which is personally shameful for him, whether or not it would matter to the public much at all.
I think this may end up being quite good for Rudd. It allows the Oz to announce “the honeymoon is over”. Then when the polls continue to be strong in both primary and 2PP terms, they won’t be able to sheet it home merely to a honeymoon …
I’m inclined to think there is nothing sinister to come out. It was the first time in his life that Rudd was hit below the belt by a seriously dirty fighter (well, two of them actually).
That’s if you don’t count Julie Bishop calling him a naughty boy and telling him to go to the naughty corner the other day because he stole his education policy from the dreaded Mark Latham.
I only heard Rudd on radio and saw the quick grab on the TV news. He seemed very reasonable and maybe the non-flustered calm style is going to work for him. I’d prefer it to the über-rantings of Abbott and Costello. How they can be considered PM material beats me.
Great reading at blogocracy while the local Queensland Liberals are crowing.
Any good day for the Liberals is a dark day indeed.
Rudd needs to get on the Government case quickly. But there is no doubt that it has been a wonderful circuit breaker for the Government.
Oh Dear, A Howard Minister has been caught speraking with Burke
[link]
THE Howard Government’s savage attack on Kevin Rudd backfired sensationally last night when Human Services Minister Ian Campbell admitted meeting in his office disgraced former premier turned lobbyist Brian Burke.
The Weekend Australian learned of the meeting, which occurred while Senator Campbell was environment and heritage minister, as John Howard and senior ministers continued to assail the Opposition Leader for consorting with Mr Burke in 2005.
Senator Campbell’s position in cabinet appears untenable after three days of relentless attacks by senior ministers, most notably Peter Costello, on Mr Rudd.
“Anyone who deals with Mr Brian Burke is morally and politically compromised,” the Treasurer told parliament on Thursday.
Talk about People in Glass Dwellings throwing solidified soil
Bugger Frank, you beat me to it!
This is all looking a bit ‘go to Western Australia and die’, isn’t it?
Yeah, but Ian Campbell is a WA Liberal senator, so he didn’t have to travel far.
But The Oz is getting as bad as The West in their coverage of this - Ch 7 & 9 didn’t lead with the Burke Story tonight.
So Rudd was playing a stock-standard and misjudged 4-5-1 when he really should’ve come out hitting with an agressive 3-5-2 and denied Costello and Abbott the midfield, right?
Perth. The new Sydney.
The Beluchistan People’s Daily must be feeling guilty for betraying the lads in the politburo and promoting Rudd in the first place.
Wel lwith Campbell being caught in the Crossfire, who knows what Rupert will do next.
Will they try and orchestrate the rise of St Julia to the top job ??
So does this make Ian Campbell’s position in Cabinet untenable, particularly after the Treasurer told Parliament on Thursday:
This has blown up in the governments face and I can’t wait to hear what Peter Costello has to say for himself and for Ian Campbell for that matter.
It would interesting, to say the least, to have a Captain Cook at Brian Burke’s diary.
The cowboy business culture in Perth really is quite unique.
The culture in Sydney is spivs, in Melbourne it’s old school tie and in Brisbane it’s a strange mix of old school tie and white shoe. But in these cities the culture is counter balanced by other influences. But in Perth it’s pure cowboy. Buggar the rules, get the deal done.
This is why Brian Burke has a rolodex full of business clients and political contacts on both sides.
Burke gets the job done.
I think Rudd looked ashen-faced for a very good reason. That there is perhaps a lot more to this than he is making out in the press conference and it is going to be very difficult to talk himself out of it. Despite his twin-set and pearls goody two shoes Christian image, Dr Death is probably a very complex operator of the Machiavellian persuasion who knew a chance at promoting his leadership chances when he saw one. Brian Burke seems to be quite an accomplished lobbyist with a huge coterie of business people under his sphere of influence. And you probably don’t have to be very specific with lobbyists either, operating as they do with all the subtleties of persuasion at their command. A dinner with him and 30 or so invited guests and a conversation about ‘general politics’ and Burke would be sailing out there pulling strings for him. Things would be understood without it being said. As it is one of the guests has piped up and contradicted what Rudd has been making out
But at the end of the day what damage has Rudd caused? Alexander Downer - Mr ‘I didn’t know AWB was corrupt!’ was whooping it up with self-righteous glee at Rudd’s obvious discomfiture but I don’t know - $300 million paid to an enemy Australia was fighting and all the questions that invites is a good deal more serious than a bit of dumb wheeling and dealing. And of course from the letters a number of people are disappointed and disillusioned with Rudd, but they should get a few extra neurons. Politics is no place for the likes of the lily white Sir Galahad the Chaste and any prurience about Rudd’s minor imbroglio is just political naivette, or as in Howard’s case completely self-serving.
What about all the CEOs and other Business representatives that were at those functions held and were invited by Brian Burke, are they also now tainted and morally corrupt? Is there position now untenable?
Ian Campbell’s sin must be bigger as he met Burke one on one in his office, while Kevin Rudd’s meetings were at functions held for them to meet with a rising star in the ALP and a potential future leader.
Kev may be contrite but The Weekend Choson Sinbo is unrepetant and unrelenting.
Coalition senator admits meeting Burke, ostensibly about Campbell but… “Mr Rudd spent yesterday still in contrition mode”
How wild West men revived a pariah … ostensibly about Burke and Grill but… “On the other side of the country in federal parliament, the stench from Burke and Grill is wafting around Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd”
Plus more straight-out anti-Rudd vitriol:
Rudd dinner was ‘to introduce future leader’ (by Dennis Shanahack)
The man who fell to earth (nice headline)
Editorial: Rudd’s judgment now in question
Hey, Spiros:
“This is ridiculous. What is Campbell going to do next? - slap himself on the forehead and say, “Oh, THAT Brian Burkeâ€?.”
Pot calling the kettle, wouldn’t you say?
This one’s blown-up in the Libs faces.
Sir Henry:
Lets see how the Lib Propaganda Machine that is the Orstrayun, and its resident “expert” political editor deal with this.
I think it’s a safe bet we’ll hear no more from them about Rudd’s alleged lack of judgement in meeting Burke. They’ll prolly move onto something else, like the rumour that Rudd causes prostate cancer.
As usual and as he/his proxies intended, Murdoch is the only winner here. His foot soldiers have reminded both Rudd and Howard, along with everyone in their teams, that while they remain free to play-act at democracy in this election year, neither of them will win unless they please him, or more pathetically his local proxies, sufficiently. Within reason, ‘pleasing Rupert’ requires no particular ideological or political stance; all you really have to do is pay tribute to Rupert’s sunkingliness, making Murdochian faux-democracy in our part of the Western world at least splendidly hermetic and self-perpepuating. (This applies to Cameron/Brown in the UK, and Clinton/McCain or whoever in the US, obviously.) So consider this now-’bipartisan’ little nothing fuss Rupert’s gentle reminder that none of our elected (and accountable) pollies ought get too carried away about the extent of their democratic power, current or future. Rupert doesn’t really care whether Rudd or Howard wins now, although a Rudd victory, along with a Clinton and a Cameron one, would of course allow him to leave past-their-use-by-date ‘ishoos’ like Iraq and global warming ’scepticism’, which he/his proxies got thuddingly wrong for so long, neatly behind. Still, just so long as the winner has been News-domesticated. Howard, of course, is nicely thus tamed already. Now Rudd’s abject public grovel shows that he too has a splendid Howardian aptitude for this game of Dunny Roll Democracy: one’s elected government is free to do and say and legislate whatever they feel they have a democratic mandate for…provided it falls somewhere within the trundated, dim vision of democracy available through the empty bogroll tube labelled ‘Ordinary Australian Common-sense’ that Murdoch’s/proxies disingenuously and self-servingly hand them, by way of their severely conditional, absurdly skewed News Limited coverage of ‘our’ public debates.
You will remember, of course, that the only reason Rudd feels he must apologise for anything here is that…a few Rupey bylines - Steve Lewis, Denis Shanahan, headline subbers, editors, Thee Who Daily Decideth What Is To Be Tommorrow’s ‘news’ blah blah blah - writing with the self-appointed authority of ‘the Australian Peepel’, told him he did. So..he did. Now they, and Rupert, effectively own him. That’s how it works. You roll over for a Murdochian speculative threat-tease once, and you haven’t just lost your Rupey virginity, you’ve become a News whore overnight.
And lo, today’s Oz editorial is exactly the masterpiece in pompous, self-appointed, head-patting, implied-threatening, bully-boy Straightener-hood that such an abject surrender of democratic autonomy (and, incidentally, personal self-respect and stones) deserves. If you give in to bullies, they just kick harder next time. In a sane democracy that attracted the best anbd toughest real leaders to the top, Rudd would have stood in front of the TV cameras yesterday waving that ‘bruising’ Oz front page and telling Chris Chickenshit Mitchell and his gang of chickenshit professional gossips to go shishkebob themselves one-by-one sideways on a galley spike. F**k them all, these byline nobodies, these grubby little turds and tramps whose petty obsessions and pieties are daily overamplified by the twin banalities of Information Age technology and commercial imperative. At least Latham didn’t go quietly and took his self-respect and his unrepentant human shagginess with him intact when he walked off the public stage forever.
This grub Rupert and his (wordwide) press gang are like that nasty old bag who sits by her window all day and all night long, peering down her supercilious sticky nose, making notes about who in the street is behaving morally and who is not, and circulating anonymous letters to that effect…then, whenever anyone calls her on it, piously claiming to be just a ‘harmless little old lady’ who minds her own business and is, of course, above moral reporach herself. By this nasty mechanism, she wields enormous power to do no good but great damage - turn people in the street against other people, bring out the nasty side of everyone, deracinate the street’s belief in hard-won ideas and institutions that are important to the street’s collective and individual well-being. Dumb the street down into nasty mediocrity single-handedly, because no-one will call her on it.
That, to me, is Murdoch in a nutshell. Everyone’s scared shitless to call this crap what it is, and take it on head first. No-one wants to be Lathamed, Keatinged, Gored, Clintoned…everyone lines up to kiss the ass of the most powerful man in the Information world. Well, one day - putting aside (exhausted and in tatters) our sophisticated irony, our wry detachment, our self-effacing chuckles about Rupert’s ‘Evil Empire’, our lofty ‘balanced’ critiqueing and all the other dishonest intellectual mechanisms by which we wimpy clever-cloggers avoid taking the bullying prick on head-first - maybe civic society will wake up to staggering damage Keith Rupert Murdoch has done to democratic life over three ugly decades. We might even set about doing something to counter his anti-democratic bullying from spiralling further out of control as our relativistic Information Age accelerates away from Enlightenment ideals, and ‘public debate’ becomes an evermore Darwinistic battle between ‘Information Incumbents’ for ‘Information Superiority’. In a time when no-one trusts any notion of objectivity or truth, and everything is seen through a cynical political prism of some of other kind, the enormous epistemological power we have handed, in the form of now-effectively unchecked and uncheckable Media Licenses, to relatively ignorant, self-serving and unaccountable mediocrities like Rupert is an act of cultural suicide. Moguls, editors and journos are the pre-Enlightenment popes, bishops and priests of our times, maintaining an effective stranglehold on not just the daily weft and weave of public information as such, but something far more important and powerful: the actual terms of information exchange, AKA that which can (effectively) be debated in the mainstream.
That is what this story - today’s and yesterday’s Australian front pages - is really all about: it’s Rupert, by proxy and in an indirect way, reminding us that if public debate in Australia is open and free, it is open and free only to the extent that it pleases him.
Meaning, of course, that’s it not open and free at all. What our sole national broadsheet chooses to print - and what it doesn’t - defines the limits of what mainstream public debate can become. Let us not pretend otherwise anymore, as intimidating as are the Burkean (Edmund, that is) implications for anyone who cares about democratic freedom - ‘left’, ‘right’, ‘anarchist’, ‘libertarian’, ‘centrist’ or any other sic ismic label you want to fling about.
Keith Rupert Murdoch is shit for public debate. Shit. And it’s sad, sad, sad that we have tolerated his shit for so long. It’s also a very good reason to wander away from politics, and find another avenue by which to express publicly your better angels. When a mediocre man like him is democratic kingmaker, only the mediocre can ever reign.
(Sorry about the unbloggy length, LP. But I’d rather write the truth craply than lies brilliantly. cf. Hitchens, for example. Last time I looked, good non-fiction was defined by content not style, anyway.)
Spiros..’The culture in Sydney is spivs, in Melbourne it’s old school tie and in Brisbane it’s a strange mix of old school tie and white shoe. But in these cities the culture is counter balanced by other influences. But in Perth it’s pure cowboy. Buggar the rules, get the deal done.’
Well if in Perth it’s pure cowboy, what’s with Burke’s panama hat? I would have thought Burke with his insouciance, his white suit and his panama hat belongs to some black and white film noir scene from a city like Casablanca in the 1950s. It’s a shame, he kind of gives panama hats a bad name. But there seems to be something about the culture of WA that you’re missing. Maybe it’s all those hot, hot port cities on the Indian Ocean seabord …
Megan,
not Casablanca, maybe Panama, or another banana republic. There must be a brief cases full of $US somewhere in this story
Don’t agree there, Jack. Not only are they not mutually exclusive, they’re not even separable.
A fine rant Robbo! As a young fellow I took part in a demonstration where we burned a stack of News papers at the cnr of Holt and Kippax St.
PS Some of Murdoch’s headline subs aren’t such bad people… just sayin’…
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
And now, a film adapted from the acclaimed play “Everybody comes to Perugino’s”, starring:
Humphrey Bogart as Kevin Rudd
Ingrid Bergmann as Maxine McKew
Sydney Greenstreet as Brian Burke
Peter Lorre as Julian Grill
Claude Rains as Capt Peter Costello
SZ Sakall as Alexander Downer
Conrad Veidt as Tony Abbott
Paul Henreid as Antony Albanese
Dooley Wilson as Ian Campbell
and
Leonid Kinskey as John Howard
Looks like there was more to it - and Rudd was telling porkies. It was not a last minute - “Oh, OK, Graham, I will come along”, but a dinner arranged by Burke for Rudd. Spot the difference between what Rudd had said and this.
Three meetings with Burke and no “business” discussed after Burke does a favour for Rudd in helping him against Kimbo? Yeah, right. No wonder the ashen face. How long before some tapes come out and Gillard is the Leader?
That is a collectable quote.
As Marge Simpson says, threats and intimidation are the only things a bully understands.
Ho ho. Ian Campbell’s gone.
Oh, he has too. I thought CK was just predicting.
Reminds me of that old Gilles Report line about how “Mr Peacock was cleaning the Party when it went off”.
Yes. I think the Romanian People’s Trumpet should be running with a ‘Gillard Does The Numbers’ yarn at any moment.
It certainly seems appropriate that a minister should fall on his sword for doing nothing. So many times others have done more than enough to be sacked but remained in the ministry.
If you know what I mean in a Howardian kind of a way.
Yes, Miss Keeler, but is Ian Campbell some cheap fall guy ahead of King Rat unleashing a tag-team of his Praetorian Killer Kommodos: $weets, Dolly, Mad Monk and (breathless) Stud Nelson V.C.? The kid gloves may be well and truly off at this juncture. Team Rodent could be positioning themselves for a K.O. in the second round. Brian Burke has been known to infer all sorts of things if the price is right. The heat is on. Some of the lady spectators are sqealing uncontrollably, Miss Keeler. Can Team Tin-Tin rise to the challenge?
“There is of course no comparison between the well-planned and well-thought-out meetings with Mr Rudd, and of course my short, incidental meeting, but it is very much in the interests of the Government that I resign so there can be no confusion over this.”
Howard may have sacrificed Campbell in a bold chess move to check his opponent’s king (Rudd), but two better metaphors might be:
a) Howard has set a trap, but one of his own has fallen into it; or
b) Campbell has kicked an own goal.
“Last time I looked, good non-fiction was defined by content not style, anyway.”
“Don’t agree there, Jack. Not only are they not mutually exclusive, they’re not even separable.”
Pavlov’s Cat, in kinder times I would concede. In fact I kind of do: the way I expressed my assertion was nonsensically circular. Of course ‘good’ non-fiction has by definition to have ‘good’ content. I agree that the two parameters ought to be inseperable. Touche.
What I meant was more along these lines, by way of pointing out that the Enlightenment ideal above is manifestly not the case these days:
Triumph of the Will (to filch a JPZ teaser from another thread hereabouts) is emphatically not a ‘good’ documentary. No matter how much any celluloid enthusiast cares to wax fanatical about its craft, its technical scope, its aesthetic wonders, it’s a ‘bad’ non-fiction film because its (non-fiction) content is ‘bad’ (ie untrue in the broad sense of its being rank propaganda)…and this parameter must always trump style when judging its overall merits, especially if there is a serious disconnect. So, likewise, a ‘good’ Op Ed piece in support of invading to rid Saddam of ‘his WMD’s’ must be in fact an oxymoron. Saddam did not have any WMD’s to disarm. That piece must now be adjudged as ‘bad’ non-fiction writing, no matter how ‘good’ its writerly style. And while a stylistically ‘bad’ piece that (clumsily, perhaps even counter-productively) sought to demolish the WMD argument - and I wrote my fair share for Webdiary, as you can see - doesn’t necessarily deserve the assessment ‘good’ non-fiction just because its content was more or less true and prescient, it is (must, must) certainly be ajudged superior non-fiction to even the stylistically finest pro-WMD invasion stuff that turned out to be…er, plain wrong.
PC, in times when there is ubiquitous cognitive dissonance between content and style - when great writers allow their masculine (usually) egoes to get shackled to doomed ‘ismic’ causes - lesser writers have to work bloody hard to make sure they keep their readers’ eyes on the non-fiction qualitative ball. Which is simply…what is true of the concrete world out there, and what is not true. That’s why I made my original point by way of bombastic counter-reaction: if we as a literary society are to insist on splitting the two, I’d rather we judged non-fiction solely on content than style, thanks. To me, manfestly the ideal you and I agree on ( I think) is now so far from being realised as to be philosophically dizzying - worse, when making qualitative judgements about non-fiction allowing style to triumph over content has long become the banal orthodoxy. Wet, weak, profoundly irrational phrasing like ‘whatever you think of X’s politics/views/actions, one cannot help but admire the brilliance of his writing/speaking/political ability…’ are now such ubiquitous preemptive disclaimers in the ebb and flow of public discourse as to be like beige swastika wallpaper. You don’t even notice it’s there, framing every utterance and debate, let alone its profound offensiveness. Yet that you can too-easily imagine even the ruddily sceptical Peter Cravens of the moment writing, of Mein Kampf’s Nation & Race chapter (just to bust Godwin’s Law again): ‘But let us put aside what Hitler is saying here, and turn to the writing itself…’ tells us an awful lot about how much we have forgotten what our non-fiction words are supposed to do for us - beyond preen themselves in the mirror of our over-educated literary sensibilities.
Let me put this in sickeningly narcissistic terms, PC, because it’s the only way I can illustrate what I’m trying to say here with any concrete meaning. (The fact that I feel moved to apologise here is symptomatic of the way things are now.)
As obtuse and obnoxious and overblown - as stylistically ‘bad’ a writer as I well know I am by now - I would still rather have my pre-war debate archives to defend than a Hitchens’, say. I may be a lousy non-fiction stylist, but if you can pick your way through the jungle of jostling adjectives and long sentences, you will find that I was essentially right about the big items: WMD, al-Qaida/Saddam connections and post-invasion implications. But to get to the corresponding meat of Hitchens’s output - and he largely got those key matters wrong, wrong, wrong - you have to navigate the far more daunting and seductive stylistic blind that is his obvious talent with words: his brio, his wit, his erudition, his literary likeability, even. All these are doubtless ‘goods’. But if you deploy them in the prosecution of arguments that subsequent facts prove were manifestly ‘bad’ arguments (ie the case they argued was wrong…this was NOT a bloodless Oxford debate, it was one to decide whether or not to launch an entire war in the real world ie BEING PROVED RIGHT MATTERED, pro-invasionists - it was and remains ALL THAT MATTERS when assessing your own pre-invasion arguments now)…your writing cannot remain regarded as ‘good’ writing. To me this is an epistemological necessity of fundamental criticality. If you’re wrong, you’re a bad non-fiction writer. If words are to mean anything, that is. Because the way we judge the ‘goodness’ or ‘badness’ of our non-fiction lies at the heart of everything else we as a society judge about ourselves and our concrete actions, too. It’s hardly a stretch to observe the implications of this rush to seperate style from content on the page: John Howard lied to us about kids overboard. Surely we could not elect him in an election over Trust? John Kerry was wounded and decorated in Vietnam, while Bush came perilously close to being AWOL…surely, in a US election in which the ‘Fit to command in war’ question is central, Bush cannot prevail?
Well. I think it’s this increasing seperation of style and content on the written page that lies at the core of the anti-Enlightenment crisis of confidence the liberal West is facing. We’ve all forgotten how to say the simplest of things - Yes, that is true. No, that is not true. - without hiding behind a stack of disclaimers and second-guesses higher than Everest. We all seem to have forgotten that when we make such statements, it is taken as read that we accept that we don’t mean in a God sense. For most of us, our inherent implied standing acknowledgement of our own epistemological limitations comes - or used to - as part of the package with even our most bombastic assertions. It’s not as if we any of us need to attach an entire Ph D worth of philosophical bet-hedging to each concrete statement we take a chance and make. Just because I boldly assert that ‘I’m right’ and ‘you’re all wrong’ - it’s true, by the way - doesn’t mean I really think so in an absolute sense. But we don’t have to punctuate every other sentence with that sort of epistemological redundancy. We’re human. Of course none of us knows for sure what is true in a non-fiction sense.
Like scientists, what we can know for sure is what we have proven to our own satisfaction to be UNTRUE. We know, for example, that it is UNTRUE that Saddam Hussein was ever even vaguely close to making nuclear weapons, as was repeatedly claimed by many and varied pro-invasionists. That ‘argument’ was simply wrong. It happens to us all. All we ever really need to do in an epistemological or po-mo sense is make fucking sure that we don’t go round maintaining that any non-fiction writing that did advance this argument is or ever was ‘good’ non-fiction writing. This is no less important to those who made the bloody case than to those of us who suspected it was horseshit, and tried to argue that case. Nobody wins the Information War in the long run if none of us can ever admit when we were wrong. Except those like Rupes and his proxy goons (or, if you dress more right-ish, the Marxier loon remnants still feralling up the ABC) who control and occupy the daily Information War weapons. They just keep reloading their word-ammo, keep churning out the next wrong bit of ‘good’ non-fiction writing.
And right now, that simple ‘fact-based’ notion is clearly not in play. Right now, an epistemologically catastrophic quarantining of content from style is being aided and abetted, routinely and without thought, by non-fiction commentators, critics, analysts, academics and writers of all stripes. Me, I think the origins of this lie deep in the unpredecented shocks of WW1 and WW2/the Holocaust/Communist Russia, which over a 30-40 year period gelignited to smithereens Humanity’s post-Enlightenment collective confidence in the possiblity of any trustworthy relationship between the abstract and the material worlds, in a kind of epistemological heart attack from which we’re largely still to recover. But that’s just me and my silly meta-historical fantasies. What matters is that since 9/11, we’ve seen an accelerating epidemic in this parsing of writerly ’style’ from what that style is actually saying about reality. More’s the point, it is the ’style’ aspect that is now increasingly taking the dominant role when we come to assess that writing. (Hence, as I say, PC, my countervailing counter-attack above, btw - if we are going to split the two, then we must at least make content still the final benchmark of non-fiction.)
In short, we’ve forgotten how to seperate what ’sounds like’ good non-fiction writing from what is actually good non-fiction writing. A non-political example is this sort of sentence, which I’ve often seen quoted as an alleged marker of his non-fiction ‘goodness’, by Clive James (re: his own mock-humble approach to non-fiction):
“All I can do is turn a phrase until it catches the light.”
Sounds great. Sounds erudite, witty, acute, self-effacing and hale-fellow-well-met yeomanlike. So off we trot and laud James’s ‘brilliant style’ - his ‘goodness’ as a non-fiction writer.
But then you stop and think…hang on a tic. What does that non-fiction sentence actually say? How does its content actually relate to the concrete world? And pretty soon, you expose the glib superficiality of it, the emptiness underneath it. Is James trying to say that when he writes a review or a think piece, he takes his (admirable!) arsenal of words and keeps shuffling them around until ‘the light’ of truth catches…well, catches what, exactly? And where does the light come from, for that matter - god, the subject or work under review, his carefully positioned words, his intellect? Any one would be fine if he made it clear, but don’t forget that to ‘catch the light’ means that it reflects into one set of eyes (ie James’s own, as he ‘turns his gemlike words’), which also means that the so meticulously-crafted ‘turn of phrase’ is not going to be catching any other reader’s eye…unless of course they choose to stand chummily up Clive’s clacker and peer admiringly over his hairy, chubby shulder. My point is not to bag a manifestly dazzling writer; it’s to make a claim that what sounds to our over-educated ears like ‘good’ non-fiction writing is very often really just stylistical glibness. For all the po-mo unpacking (and bloggy Fisking) that goes on nowadays, I reckon much more shallow pap passes through to the keeper unchecked now that ever did when all them clever Frogs were but gleams in Eric Blair’s dour eye.
There are many glib give-aways to ‘hollow high style’ in the post-9/11 era. All the profound-sounding but meaningless abtractions - ‘moral clarity’, ‘appeasement’, ‘intellectual rigour’, ‘civilisation’, ‘Judeo-Christian’. Neologisms - ‘Islamofascism’, ‘Horrorism’ (time to go teaching Mart!). Pompous Capitalisations: War on Terror. Axis of Weasels. Axis of Evil. Operation Freedom. But I would say that the triumph of writerly style over content has been so overwhelming that most writers, even good ones, not only won’t agree with this long screed, but will also think that I have rather quaintly missed the whole point of how contemporary discourse is conducted.
To which I can only say: I hope so. I truly hope so. Because I think, PC, that the non-fiction ideal of yours - and I hope I haven’t got your PoV horribly wrong - is fast becoming one of those Rumsfeldian Unknown Unknowns. With ‘truthiness’, a rare post-9/11 neologism with bite and relevance, I think. Typically, it’s the one RWDB trope that even Rummy’s own side seemed to agree was weirdo bollocks, and helped trash. I think there’s something ironic in that, PC, but who can tell these days.
Comment length. Hideous. It seems I can do no other. Sorry, LP. I do try to pay my way.
PS: Thanks for the kind head-pat, Sir Henry. Verily I can rant with the best of them, sirruh.
It seems Julian Grill even lobbied for the Libs at the last State Election as well.
[link]
LOBBYIST Julian Grill worked against his own party at the last state election when he was paid “thousands” of dollars to help a campaign against the Labor Government.
And disgraced former premier Brian Burke helped the campaign with “advice.”
Rockingham Mayor Barry Sammels confirmed yesterday that the council paid Mr Grill thousands of dollars and t