Andrew Norton argues that the controversy over Julie Bishop’s lifting of a form of words from the Wall Street Journal is irrelevant, and tries to excuse it by arguing that politicians recite speeches written by departmental or political staff all the time. Hmmm… I don’t think it’s quite the same thing, for two reasons:
(a) Bishop is being heavily touted by the Opposition and their cheer squad in the media as being part of the magic restoration of the Liberals’ putatively natural advantage on economic management. This despite the fact that Malcolm Turnbull has given zero evidence of departing from either Nelson’s populist nonsense or his own wildly incoherent “inflation doesn’t exist, and if it does, it’s Wayne Swan’s fault” puerilities from earlier in the year. Bishop is a lawyer, and I suppose lawyers prosecute a case for their clients. Perhaps therefore lawyers can be excused from not understanding what they’re saying? Her alleged forensic skills as an advocate are supposed to be one of her pluses - according to the aforesaid press gallery boosters. But isn’t there a problem - as with Peter Costello - when lawyers holding financial portfolios basically know stuff all about the actual economy and are only touted as having “credibility” because they’re able to argue a case?
(b) This stuff sticks. Just ask Joe Biden. He’s still living down having plagiarised Neil Kinnock (of all people) in his unsuccessful run in the presidential primaries in 1988. So in the terms of realpolitik, it doesn’t matter if it should be a problem when politicians plagiarise. When they do, particularly - as with Bishop - right at the start of their tenure in an important new job - it won’t be forgotten by the public.
I think you are overestimating the effect of this embarrassing episode, Kim. It will be forgotten by pretty much everyone within a week. It is not a long term issue. And neither (a) nor (b) really touch on AN’s primary argument: that politicians, of whatever stripe, have their material written for them and that the only difference here is that the staffer was too stupid to even bother paraphrasing as per normal. I mean, Wayne Swan is actually in charge of economic policy, and he still relies on staff-written paraphrased material! The fact that his opposite number does so is hardly worrying or politically damaging.
For puerilities, how about: “the Helen Demidenko of Australian politics”, “the Merchant of Venice”, “Turnbull thinks alcopops are the sounds of the Moet corks…” and so on, and on the populism front, look no further than the GroceryWatch and FuelWatch debacles, Gillard’s ‘rank the schools’ plan, the luxury car tax, &c.
As for Joe Biden, do you think this will stick:”When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the princes of greed,” Biden told Couric. “He said, ‘Look, here’s what happened”… It’s Quayle-esque in its magnificent stupidity. I don’t expect it to have an effect on anything.
BBB
Biden’s a useless pompous windbag, BBB, as I’ve said before. He had it right when he said Hillary would have been a better candidate than him.
I think you underestimate how first impressions last. Remember - most voters only pay very occasional attention to politics. They do pay attention when things change - as in opposition leader, front bench. Bishop’s popped into prominence suddenly in the public eye with her elevation. She’s not off to a good start.
This isn’t a first impression, Kim. The first impression was that creepy ‘naughty boy’ stuff over the despatch box. And the eyes. Don’t forget the eyes.
BBB
Who could, BBB? They haunt all of us in our darkest nightmares!
Departmental and political staff are agents of a minister. As employer/principal of these people, a minister is both resposible for and has intellectual property in, their professional output.
Plagiarism by a minister from the WSJ is theft.
Bishop is a thief.
I felt that her slight mistake on interest rates numbers was ridiculously over blown by the press, but plagiarism like that is just so dumb. It was a bumbling school kid cheat that was bound to be caught out.
She demanded the shadow treasury , like a spoilt brat, and Turnbull should have stared her scary eyes down. I do not reckon Julie will be able to manage the job despite her over the top claims of suitability for the position.
Katz, Bishop is not a Minister and has no Ministerial responsibility or staff.
Whoops.
Force of habit ingrained by too many years of Ratocracy!
We have an ALP govt now.
Funny I’d hardly noticed.
Bishop is still a thief, but.
Like Andrew Norton I’m finding it hard to muster up outrage.
While Katz is right that politicians are responsible for their words in Parliament, all this shows is that Bishop, or someone in her office, actually reads the WSJ—which is better than the alternative.
I don’t expect Shadow Ministers to have the same grasp of their portfolios as their counterparts, who have access to the briefing and resources of their Departments. I do expect Shadows to have an extensive general knowledge of their area and to show that they’re up to date with the activity of the Government. Bishop passes, IMO.
And let me stick up, Kim, as a self-identifying UPW, for the valid role in society and politics of useless pompous windbags.
Its really a question of stupidity. Can we trust a shadow treasurer who is too stupid and so not on top of the job to realise her staff plagiarise? (And incidentally, assuming said staff member has a degree, did they also plagiarise and not get caught while at uni?)
Maybe, given her limited resources, she should read at least some of the WSJ?
Well said Banal.
More concerned about from where Bishop chooses to source her financial information and opinions. Two problems with WSJ - firstly it is no longer the journal of record concerning financial matters, and has not been for some time. Its coverage of the unraveling of the US market over the last couple of weeks has been abysmal, in contrast to say Fin Times or online sources such as Bloomberg.
Secondly, for whom does WSJ now speak? News Ltd didn’t buy it to entirely stroke the ego of an aging media baron - it represents economic interests global in scope and hostile to governmental regulation.
Though Bishop may be the Opposition’s Treasurer, she has access to Treasury notes and advice - why then rely on the WSJ? This applies to ALL politicians - the quality of their “debates” on the floors of the House and Senate should not be relying on the journalistic baubles from any media source.
If mah plagiarism had been detected earlier ah would never have been assassinated, as ah would never have ‘had a dream” to give a speech on as ah would never have amounted to anything more than pumping gas.
This Bishop broad is only a pollie, not a scientist. Y’all all need to go back to chillin’ wit your bitches and homeys. Yo!
Tasteful, MLK. How about waving your hands palm-forward in the air and a chorus of “my dear old Swanneee”?
Using somebody else’s words to lecture the rest of nation is a crime against humanity. I apologise and am sorry on behalf of the entire nation.
I’m already anticipating the next government advertisement:
Wot Bernice said. If the steel lady’s going to steal, surely should choose the best available, not the rag the WSJ has become.
I can assure you bloggers that I take plagiarism very seriously indeed, as do my small army of lawyers whose skills in this area are, I can assure you second to none.
I am however, inclined to make an exception for a fellow traveller, so to speak. But just as long as she continues to follow the script.
All of that, Paul Burns, was what I too first thought. But stupidity and plagiarism go hand in hand. I once marked an essay containing big verbatim chunks of something I’d written myself. The student seemed incredibly surprised when I recognised it, too.
What surprises me is that Bishop could have added “According to the WSJ on umpteempth day, some month, page whatever” before that piece, and saved herself the grief. People are allowed to cite things in parliament, aren’t they?
That’s a good one, Dr Cat. My favourites are the students that have obviously just cut and paste from the first item that comes up when you enter a couple of keywords into google. Do they not think we have access to the internet on campus?
It’s definitely a sign of a lack of understanding and engagement with the material, and there can be lots of reasons for that. It’s a symptom of some underlying, and ongoing, problem with learning: that problem can be poor teaching (skipping important steps), poor time management, too many commitments, the (unacknowledged) absence of certain necessary skills. While I am sometimes sympathetic with students who use this strategy, it is never a good sign. I’m inclined to think that something is not right in the Bishop camp.
She’s not even the first female Bishop in the Parliamentary Liberal Party.
Copycat.
Does Bronwyn have an action?
PC,
Yeah. Students seem to thiunk we don’t read the all lterature on a topic we teach and know it backwards - silly girls and boys.
Klaus K,
Unless there’s something incredibly new up, if you can’t find everything on a topic on the Net to check for plagiarism in half a day, you’re not very bright. Beats me how some students seem to think their lecturers aren’t bright.
Like Bishop and her staff, I suppose.
Maybe we should send ‘em all back to first year uni to learn the basics.
I left academe before this became as commonplace as it is now, but I was always grateful for the now totally-out-of-date intensive training from my student days in close reading and style analysis that made it very easy to see the joins between the plagiarised bits and the students’ very own work (if ‘joins’ is the word I want, implying, as it does, at least some form of continuity). Most students who are dumb enough to plagiarise, or to ‘need’ to plagiarise, are also unaware of the glaring differences between plagiarised prose and their own. Said differences were even easier to spot in the days before spell-check, but it’s still dead easy if you’re looking out for it.
God forbid I should defend Julie Bishop but this business is absolutely the responsibility of the staff whose job it is to provide her with material, just as some gross howler in the MSM would be if it turned out to be the work of a sub rather than the journalist (which it frequently is, BTW). Bishop’s culpability lies not in not recognising the offending passage as plagiarism (why should she, after all?) but in publicly making light of it, as per that article Andrew Norton linked to. If she hasn’t sacked whoever did it, she’s nuts.
“If she hasn’t sacked whoever did it, she’s nuts.”
Even if she hasn’t she still is.
It doesn’t matter to me because she’s in opposition and I had a very low opinion of her already anyway.
Remind me, who was the VC who had a similar situation - staff wrote his speech which turned out to be plagiarised from Wikipedia? Maybe these people shouldn’t give speeches about things where they don’t know the material. Perfectly fine if someone else writes the actual speech, but safer really to have them write speeches about stuff you have told them to write about, or at least discussed with them.
It was Ian o’Connor, VC of Griffith, but the paper with the Wikipedia plagiarsim was written by his policy adviser, Gavin Moodie.
I’m not too fussed about the plagiarism since Bishop is hopefully not being graded on the quality of the speach. I remember Reagan’s compassionate but inspiring speach after the Challenger disaster. He didn’t write it, but I have no doubt that he subscribed to it and deliberately chose to run with those words.
So my concern is with whether or not Bishop fully understands the material she has plagiarised and has made an informed decision that those words represent her views. Or perhaps whether she is totally clueless about the issue and is grasping onto any lifebuoy that goes floating by. Only time will tell.
But that only follows if one thinks of plagiarism as nothing but an academic issue, which of course it’s not. Among other things, it’s a character issue: it’s about theft and deception, deliberate or otherwise, in passing off somebody else’s words as your own. How are we to judge the Deputy Leader of the Opposition’s beliefs, thoughts and rhetorical skills if they turn out to have been pinched verbatim from somebody else?
And anyway, why should be not be judged on the quality of her speech? On what other evidence are we to judge her?
‘ … why should she not be judged on the quality of her speech?’
As I on the quality of my proofreading.
*blushes*
Reading further, this is very bad form on the part of “coalition sources”. Staffers are not there to eat their bosses’ shit sandwiches.
I’m not too fussed about the plagiarism since Bishop is hopefully not being graded on the quality of the speach. I remember Reagan’s compassionate but inspiring speach after the Challenger disaster. He didn’t write it, but I have no doubt that he subscribed to it and deliberately chose to run with those words.
So my concern is with whether or not Bishop fully understands the material she has plagiarised and has made an informed decision that those words represent her views. Or perhaps whether she is totally clueless about the issue and is grasping onto any lifebuoy that goes floating by. Only time will tell.
Maybe not usually, Liam, but what if was them what made said snack in the first place? Surely it’s the responsibility of the speechwriter not to write a shit-sandwich speech?
Heh, Nabakov.
Where’s John Greenfield when he’s needed? His insights into cutting ‘n’ pasting would be most apposite.
PC, certainly I don’t envy the staffer. Whoever they are they’ve broken the first (and only) staffer’s commandment “Thy Boss Shall Not Fuck Up”.
A parliamentarian is responsible for her own words in the House, though; her employees are only there to inform, advise and research for her. Ultimately the responsibility lies with Bishop.
It will be forgotten by pretty much everyone within a week. Departmental and political staff are agents of a minister and are not there to eat their bosses’ shit sandwiches.
I mean, can we trust a shadow treasurer who is too stupid and so not on top of the job to realise her staff plagiarise?
Only time will tell.
Maybe he’s been headhunted.
How many times have I heard that one before.
From the Liam’ link @32
Ms Bishop …..
“Is that headline news?” she said. “I just thought it was puerile”.
Funny that, I thought the opposition/ Gerard Henderson inspired line, that Kevin Rudd should be not visiting America during its likely most major economic meltdown, ever, was the really bloody “puerile” headline news.
A friend tells juicy horror stories of writing speeches for a former UNHCR High Commissioner and other high-profile types; ‘Thy boss shalt not fuck up’ was always engraved on her job description, and all shit sandwiches were engraved with her name.
Is this the case in the Liberal Party?
Only time will tell.
Only time will tell.
PC, as a lowly secretary, I once actually caught a senior academic doing this in correspondence. The giveaway was the abrupt change in tone from pure snark to indifferent (and plagiarised) exposition of some rather obscure and humorous-sounding concepts that just begged to be Googled. Doing so produced only one hit, which had been incorporated word for word. (Privately) pointing out to him the potential embarrassing consequences of his behaviour almost resulted in me losing my job.
She was trying to make out she was more knowledgeable than she was. Instant Expert.
She should have used her own words.
PC: “Engraving shit sandwiches”. That’s going on my resume, hell, it’s going on my business card.
(Along with these two third party endorsements).
Pavlov’s cat:
Sorry - what I meant is that she shouldn’t be judged on her linguistic or speach writing skills, but rather on the views she is espousing.
Close reading skills are very useful, I agree. I’m glad for those I’ve managed to acquire, and really wish I’d had some training. Discrepancies in style always prompt me to run a sentence or two through google. Sometimes they’ve had the sense to find something relatively obscure in the library and actually type it out themselves, thus prompting questions and comments from me about referencing and sources, or whether or not what is written is totally relevant, but no forwarding to conveners or heads of department.
Sorry, I still don’t see that. She is the Deputy Leader of the Opposition; her linguistic and speechwriting skills should be exceptional, as should her other skills. I know it’s been the educational fashion for the last 20-30 years to teach that writing and communications skills don’t matter and that there is some kind of complete disconnect between what one says and how one says it, but that is, if you will forgive me, rubbish.
Oh, I bet. A senior male academic, caught out by a woman and a lowly secretary at that? You’re lucky he didn’t push you out of the window.
Same happened to me. I was rather stunned. I mean, it’s flattering in a way, but how could the student have expected me not to recognise what I’d written?
Re Bishop. I gather what people are suggesting when they say staffers should not eat Minuisters’ shit sandwiches, is some level of ministerial responsibility - hey, this is the Coalition in Opposition. Ministers from said shattered organisation never to responsibilty for stuff ups or conspiracies while being led by He-Who-Lost-His-Seat-To-Maxine-Mckew. So why should they have changed their spots? Leopards don’t, especially creepy ones with stary eyes.
Correction @ 49. never admitted to responsibility
Many years ago I was helping my partner do a literature search. We compared notes on dissertations. Two sounded quite similar.
After lunch we put them in adjacent microfilm readers.
The two dissertations were identical.
The later-submitted dissertation was the work of an academic who became prominent in his (admittedly narrow) field.
“Most students who are dumb enough to plagiarise, or to ‘need’ to plagiarise, are also unaware of the glaring differences between plagiarised prose and their own. Said differences were even easier to spot in the days before spell-check, but it’s still dead easy if you’re looking out for it.”
Sure is, PC. Probably even easier for me in the field I’m teaching than in Lit, where you’d expect students to at least be aware of style. Though as you imply, students who can write well usually understand (and I sure as HELL drum it into them) that a properly cited quote or paraphrase worked neatly into your own prose is evidence of research (!) and therefore likely to earn a better grade than getting away with chucking a Greenfield.
I can just imagine you, FDB, with your right foot on the kick pedal, mashing the snare with your left hand, and the thumb-little-and-index-finger salute with your right. SATAN TOLD ME NOT TO PLAGIARISE THHMMM THMM TSHH
“…and therefore likely to earn a better grade than getting away with chucking a Greenfield.”
But it’s not his fault - it’s the feminazi cultural warriors who have brought western civilization to its knees through the sociology departments of universities. Or something.
That’s about the size of it.
That or bringing in the ol’ vocoder and handing it down robo-style. For some reason cyborgs have this air of authority. It’s quite chilling.
Exterminate them! Exterminate them!
You only have to ask Julie if Workchoices is totally dead and buried to see that preserved body she keeps in the closet. Quoth the raven ‘Nevermore’
“Exterminate them! Exterminate them!”
No, no…work the nodules baby
Her plagiarism does nt matter to me because I dont need any further evidence involving an individual I always took to be fundamentally and foundationally devoid of any ethics in the first place.
The thing I find most disturbing about this is the suspicion I have that Botox Barbie doesn’t understand things well enough to put it in her own words. Still, I guess that was the case with Tip for the nearly twelve years he was “managing” the economy.
That was kinda what I was suspecting too. See the post!
My take is this woman has a tone in her voice that will go down well with many old libs and many not so old swingers.
I saw her being interviewed for about 50 seconds in some corporate waiting room last week. In terms of personal projection she was impressive. I wasn’t paying attention to what she said but the way she said it. Of course if she really wants to be impressive she’ll have to do better than the above.
.
It’s worth noting that the failure here is probably that of her staff. I doubt she personally write her speeches.
.
Inflation is Wayne Swan’s fault Kim. Okay. Just admit it. If you won’t now then you will once we’ve repeated it a million times. The Liberals are excellent
at avoiding government when the economy goes southmanagers. As we all know a market economy is managed by the government. That’s what distinguishes it from a socialist one….
Um.