Let’s take a look at today’s political “news”, News Limited style, and the ongoing construction of the “media narrative” that according to the press gallery gang, is the only news fit to print.
As noted here, The Opposition Organ spent a bucket of dosh to add extra questions to Newspoll, and chose to run with “Voters Want Costello” as its front page headline over the (presumably less welcome to the masthead of denialism) numbers on climate change, showing overwhelming majorities attributing climate change to AGW and support for an ETS, with a big majority for “not waiting on the world”. So that’s establishing the news agenda through polling to feed the current “media narrative” - centring on the Liberal leadership and Peter Costello lovin’ in particular. And selectivity in emphasis. Then we get selectivity in reporting. The numbers in Newspoll, as Possum points out, don’t show that the voters the Liberals need to persuade are particularly persuadable by a putative Costello return:
The Coalition needs ALP voters to shift to the Coalition, yet ALP voters have a breakdown of 15% more likely and 20% less likely. If Costello became leader, he might not lose voteshare, but neither does he look like he would gain much based on these results.
But Dennis Shanahan doesn’t mention that.
Let’s go back a bit and remember, as Mark pointed out in his review, that the extracts from Inside Kevin07 that kicked the Costello talk off were themselves highly selective - one bit of research done before Rudd became leader and highlighted while the other internal polling and focus group research showing Costello for PM being about as appealling as a piece of wet lettuce was studiously ignored. And let’s not forget either that the “Costello the Saviour” narrative basically depends on the publication date of a book! Leadership calculation by publishing schedule! Melbourne University Press and book distributors hold the nation’s future in their hand!
Then, the big showdown Bolta talked up on the Coalition’s emissions trading scheme stance comes - and Nelson gets rolled.
Meanwhile, the Labor government has basically done away with mandatory detention.
I would venture to suggest that is rather more important than all this other confected nonsense.
Update: John Quiggin on the immigration changes:
The euphoric honeymoon period for the Rudd government may be behind us, but we still get regular reminders that we made the right choice as a nation last November. Today’s news includes two such reminders
* The end of the brutal policy of mandatory detention…
Elsewhere: More on the immigration changes from tigtog, Tim Dunlop and Andrew Bartlett.
Update: John Quiggin on the immigration changes:
Elsewhere: More on the immigration changes from tigtog, Tim Dunlop and Andrew Bartlett.
Thanks Kim,
If the $weetie bag is not due from the $weet Shop until October, we’ve got MONTHS of this jabber to endure from the OO. That Organ is looking a bit silly with the very low support for the climate change denialist position in their poll. P’raps their mighty columns aren’t very influential at all?
One wonders whether Horatio Nelson’s loss at today’s meeting was partly caused by Lib hardheads pointing out that the poll figures on global warming indicated that his attempt at writing new policy on carbon/climate was highly likely to lead to disaster?
Did they urge him to “Try to defend your 14%, Brendan” ???
…and the resumption of the Timor Sea drowning policy. Just in time for boat season too!
Why can’t you Evil Pagan Lefties be as consistent as Bolt is in your beliefs on AGW? Some samples of Bolt’s stated beliefs which are entirely consistent and are not hedgy or confusing or riddled with inconsistencies. At all :
July 27 :
…a warming that seems to have halted a decade ago…
…the link between gases and warming was increasingly dubious…
July 25 :
…the world hasn’t actually warmed for a decade.
…in my case, you can think global warming indeed existed, at least until 1998, and may well resume…
…there hasn’t been any warming for a decade…
…there has been warming in the 20th century. No one has ever denied that…
This recent cooling doesn’t disprove the theory that man is warming the world.
…the world may yet warm again…
I’m not saying the world hasn’t warmed over the past century, and have never denied it.
…I’m not denying world temperatures have settled on a high plateau…
…I’m not denying sea levels have crept up for many scores of years…
July 24 :
…global warming theory is a crock…
July 23 :
Should we cut our own throat to stop a warming that may not exist?
…the truth about global warming - that it stopped a decade ago…
July 22 :
There has been no warming for a decade.
July 21 :
…the world has not warmed. It has not warmed for a decade, and over the past couple of years has actually cooled.
July 20 :
Sea ice now isn’t melting, but spreading. The seas have not just stopped rising, but started to fall.
The world simply isn’t warming…
———————
There does seem to be a lot of ’seems’ and ‘coulds’ and ‘maybes’ creeping into Bolt’s anti-Enviro-Pagan-Evil-Lefty evangelism of late.
Is Bolt still working part-time as a Labor Party advisor? He sure spends a lot of time helping to sow confusion and damaging dissent amongst the ranks of the Liberals. Three weeks of Liberal infighting and embarrassing, very public confusion on climate change is just the latest manifestation of Bolt’s solid work in keeping the Liberals out of office for as long as possible. Hilarious stuff.
Quick note. Each line is a single quote from a Bolt blog post. They should have all been in ” ” of course. If you need to do so, you can google each line + ‘”Andrew Bolt” for the appropriate link. I just noticed too that the above miasma of contradictions and position shifting are from one single week in The Bolt Cult.
Excellent links at comments 1 & 2 Kim. And of course Possum, Mark worth reading by way of links in main post.
News Ltd., bar a couple of saner types like Tim Dunlop, can get stuffed IMO (in my opinion).
I’ve had my fill of push polling & other rigged styles…this relentless day by day setting up by various News Ltd organs for a Australian version of the UK Sun style BROKEN BRITAIN campaign is annoying, laughable & predictable (focus last coupla years on lawlessness under Brit Labour, that ironically Murdoch’s organisations helped to create by HYPING, promoting celebrity louts & such in the early years of UK Labour…already tested to a degree w/ State Labor parties…fits in nicely, conveniently w/ bloviating morning shock jocks)…yep, they can take their sexual titillation, and fear & war-mongering and shove it!
Same goes for green energy promotion that is constantly offset by global warming skepticism. That’s Murdoch per usual having a bet both ways when push comes to crunch as new govts. & movements arrive on the horizon &/or dominate the public agenda and consequently Murdoch & his gatekeeper minions start wobbling & then move some of their usually FULL BORE on an issue to the more populist stance - think pro-Iraq War & anti-Global Warming stance in most of 2000s until Labor here & Dems in USA began to win & Blair made a last ditch move w/ clean energy to salvage his damaged reputation/legacy.
Rupert hopes to remain Kingmaker & make plenty moolah again…hopes he can ride the wave of CHANGE again and manipulate it to his & his allies profiteering ends…can be seen w/ economic tsunami reporting that is combined w/ constant calls for need to privatise, lower taxes for business & other pro-his side of politics corporate issues, carefully packaged…similar to that delivered by those carefully PAINTED as more moderate show hosts on Fox News…Brit Hume, Chris Wallace, Greta Van Susteren…but the pro-business, pro-fossil fools, pro-“I’m not happy paying taxes & helping the under-privileged & workers by way of govt services & opportunities”, anti-Union message becomes more OBVIOUS by the day to fit in w/ Murdoch & his allies Corporate Libertarian (oxymoron?) views.
This is devious propaganda & SOCIAL ENGINEERING practices one might see in a Third Reich trying to survive dissent 60 years down the road.
SHOW ME THE MONEY…& CONTROL…& ELECTION…yells Rupert to the troops down the line & by other means…more frustrated, but smiling that fake smile as each blogger & paper & internet site is grabbed for his EMPIRE.
Superb approach to demonstrating Bolt’s nutty mindset Darryl M. I did same to Shannahan w/ his Dick Cheney interview. It’s selective…but provides more insight into their character &/or stance…even inconsistencies, than we’d generally get from a News Ltd. character assassination piece…let them live or die on their own words.
Here’s my view on the possibility of Peter Costello grabbing the keys to the Liberal Party SUV from Nelson’s Column:
comment 11 at Road to Surfdom…in thread ‘McCain’s policy on Iraq’..strangely…;)…
http://www.roadtosurfdom.com/2008/07/28/mccains-policy-on-iraq/#comment-347798
N’
Speaking of immigration let’s not forget the unfortunate Dr Haneef. The SMH reports that a submission to the Clarke enquiry has revealed that ASIO (yes ASIO) ‘consistently’ advised the Howard govermnent that there was no evidence linking him to the British bomb plot, before his visa was cancelled and he was deported.
Another reminder that we got it right in November.
-sigh- I just don’t get what News Ltd is trying to pull here. What’s in it for them? I struggle to belive that Murdoch cares enough still to be directing this kind of piffle. It’s just the sound that comes from a vacuum isn’t it?
I’m with Nasking - New LTd can get stuffed whilst it continues to serve up this drivel dressed up as news and I’ll continue to get analysis and opinion from the blogosphere.
It seems like a lifetime ago that newspapers were worth the paper they were printed on.
It looks like The Australian is having a bob each way today, with Paul Kelly pouring scorn on the Liberal Party flip-flopping over the past few weeks, and Dennis Shanahan dumping Nelson’s advisers Peter Hendy (architect of WorkChoices) and Tom Switzer (former GG op/editor) in the poo, as follows:
“…The first sign that Nelson was beginning to consider taking the fight up to the Rudd Government on climate change was the submission of an article to The Australian earlier this month that smacked of a less compromising and more aggressive Liberal leader. The article, penned by former journalist and editor of The Australian, and approved by Nelson’s chief of staff, Peter Hendy, was a policy shift…”
What a weak little poodle is our Dr Nelson.
Grace,
It’s nice when someone spills the beans on the true authorship…
Peter Hendy is clearly the most in-touch political advisor in this nation; perhaps even the world.
First, “workchoices”, and now “no choices” on climate change.
Without question a brilliant strategist: Sun Tzu, Clausewitz and Machiavelli all rolled into one.
How lucky can the ALP get?
What are you on about there Craig?
The SIEV X tragedy was a product of the TPV policy - as it denied family reunion rights to onshore refugees arriving by boat.
So, it meant woman and children had to come along, instead of the old pattern of the father taking the sea risk.
happily, thats been abolished, so the Howard govt policy of high Timor sea drowning risk is now gone, and you can relax.
It also means fewer boat arrivals are likely. We never received som many by boat as we did after that idiot TPV policy was introduced by the own-goaling, Howard/ Ruddock “border protection” team.
Just goes to show - some people will buy any BS.
Dont forget the rumours of a return to Smirkchoices!
That’s the thing. They’re like the last outpost of a declining empire trying to maintain loyalty to the sacred gods, but they’ve done the deus absconditus disappearing act. They can’t read the signals, so when they try to interpret them - we get meaningless noise.
Or - to put it more prosaically - they’re completely disconnected from any political reality that can be envisaged.
That’s why it comes across as a sort of postmodern parody.
I have a post bubbling up inside me on this theme, but the psychology at work with many of the OO scriveners and a large part of the Anglophone Right is that they have constructed, on a dubious factual basis, a discursive equivalence between belief in the reality of climate change and the need to mitigate it, and TEH LEFT, and have therefore convinced themselves that to concede the reality of AGW is to concede that TEH LEFT is right about something and has been for 20 years. For them, the latter thought is so unbearable that it must be resisted using all the sophistic stratagems that cognitive dissonance has ever inspired in humans.
Costello would probably be a Beazley figure for the Libs. But Possum’s bald quoting of the ‘15% ALP voters more likely, 20% less likely to switch to Libs’ isn’t the relevant stat. The Libs can only get floating voters, not rusted on Laborites. If the 20% are mostly the latter, and the 15% were centrists/floaters, they’d be better of with Costello whatever his personal popularity.