There was a fascinating snippet in Crikey earlier this week about how the (anti-Green) news gets made at News:
An example of how they will try happened earlier this week. On Monday, The Australian put together a story about Greg Combet and his attitude toward coal, given its prominence in his electorate. A journalist from the paper called the Greens to invite them to respond to Combet’s comments. Sensing a trap, the Greens refused to cooperate, offering an anodyne comment about “building a working relationship” with Labor. Yesterday, according to the Greens, another journalist from The Australian called again to try to extract a more useable, aggressive quote about Combet and coal, and when the Greens refused again to play along, threatened to run a “Greens going soft on coal” story and ring around environment groups to elicit hostile comments about them. The Greens have mentioned the incident to environment groups and suggested they be on the alert for journalists from The Australian trying to manufacture splits in the environmental movement.
More from Mr Denmore at The Failed Estate.
In a similar vein, here’s another example of bad journalism in the making from Tim Dunlop, who also has a cracker of a post on the crisis in political journalism and journos’ interaction with their audiences.
Great article. Thanks Kim.
Does anyone else find this kind of stuff terrifying, or is it just me?
@2 – Yes, I do Pavlov’s Cat!
Yesterday, according to the Greens, another journalist from The Australian called again to try to extract a more useable, aggressive quote about Combet and coal, and when the Greens refused again to play along, threatened to run a “Greens going soft on coal” story and ring around environment groups to elicit hostile comments about them.
Divide and conquer fail. The whole environmental movement is aware of the trashing The Australian is giving the Greens. They don’t trust The Oz either.
PC,
It’s extremely disturbing. However, having, in the dim distant past, done a close study of Journalism during WW2, I don’t think its that different. Frank Packer was renowned for his anti-Labor stance all through the war. (I can rember taking part in quite a large demonstration against the Daily Telegraph outside the Tele office sometime in the late 60s, I think.
Similarly, those of us around at the time can vividly remember how Murdoch turned on Whitlam in the long, long leadup to the 1975 election. (Had something to do apparently with Gough telling Murdoch soon after he was elected, that he was running the country, not Murdoch. Murdoch was enraged. At least that was the scuttlebut going round at the time.)
Now, though, the pollies are taking them on. The Greens as shown above, and Julia telling an ABC reporter he was up himself because he was just repeating Turnbull’s talking points. (She was politer than that, but that’s what she meant.)
I actually see hope in the new attitudes of the Greens and Labor toward the gutter anti-Labor press. I don’t think they will be able to get away with much without the Murdochracy being exposed for the frauds they are.
Though, of course, there is the problem of getting the rebuttals into print and on air in the MSM.
After hearing John Menadue’s opinion on the OO this week, should we be surprised at this latest aggressive unprincipled tactic against The Greens?
Not just undemocratic but fundamentally antidemocratic.
As I think Menadue inferred or maybe even specifically stated about the media in general and the OO and ABC more specifically.
I think he mentioned the impact on democracy of the media but the closest I could get to a direct reference from Diogenes’ transcript was this:
“They failed, in my view, very substantially to allow the Australian public to understand the policy issues on which the future of this country must rest.”
PC
You have the entire transcript I believe, was Menadue more specific about democracy and the OO/ABC/media?
It would be good, legalities permitting, to have the transcript as the basis for a post [hopeful hint, please visualize appropriate smiley].
Its an extremely important series of statements by Menadue.
Substitutions as required:
hannah’s dad, here is an article by John Menadue, dated yesterday, which you may find interesting, the title of the link gives more than an idea of the content.
http://cpd.org.au/2010/09/john-menadues-sizzling-critique-of-the-media/
Brilliant quote from Yes Minister!
Yoe’ve got to hand it to the ABC. I think they’ve been stung by criticism that most of their news bulletins begin with the phrase ‘The federal opposition says…’
So this morning all the radio news bulletins had the phrase: ‘The federal opposition has reiterated…’
Creative journailsm at its finest.
Pavlov’s Cat @ 2 – No it’s not just you.
Thanks Dio.
I listed to SEN because I’m an AFL tragic, and the hourly ‘Macquarie News Service’ bulletins are appalling. The lead story is, if politicial, essentially the reading out by the newsreader of an Opposition press release, with a snippet of a quote by the relevant Liberal / National Spokesman. Heck, most of the time, they don’t even both seeking or quoting a Labour response!
Hey, that sounds just like the ABC!
It is an interesting process. While the Australian media has on prior occasions behaved in an unconscionable fashion, like the lead up to the sacking of Whitlam (see PB above) and like (to the best of my recall) the record 17 editorials in a row published by the SMH condemning the NSW BLF during the height of the battle for Victoria St, the anti-Green effort at the moment is bringing the whole of the media, public and private, into general disrepute.
That’s a good thing, really, as a broad spectrum of people who never previously gave the matter much thought are now learning to check their facts and to discount certain media outlets as the mouthpieces of class interests.
At the height of the anti-uranium campaign in the late 1970s, I was working in a voluntary capacity with Friends of the Earth in Sydney. I remember two occasions in which I had a run-in with the media.
The first time we were outside the Lucas Heights reactor protesting the transport of uranium to the Glebe Island docks. A Channel 9 TV interviewer asked me if we were going to “get physical” in our protests. I was a bit hesitant in answering, because I couldn’t figure what exactly they were inferring. When asked again I replied “yes,” but added that we were keeping a secret just what our actions would be. I was making it up, because none of us had any idea what we were going to do, only that it should be creative enough to get to air, but nevertheless non-violent, as was our policy. When the interview went to air that evening, they edited the interview seemlessly to make it appear that I agreed readily to their proposition, and one of my relatives told me shortly afterwards that she was shocked that I was advocating violence, which I certainly wasn’t. It was just that they had used a word – “physical” – that could be interpreted ambiguously.
On another occasion, I was working in the office and I was contacted by a journalist from The Daily Mirror (owned by Murdoch!) about an incident on the North Coast in which persons unknown had placed a log on the track at a bush car rally, nearly causing an accident. The journalist wanted to know if a local Friends of the Earth group had done it. I stupidly and naively replied that I did not know if we had a group in the area, so it might or might not have been associated with us. On the front page of the next day’s Mirror, I was misquoted as saying that FoE could have been responsible for the near mishap. There was a terrible storm at FoE following this report because of my foolish response. Obviously I had been set up. The FoE lawyers got onto The Daily Mirror and forced them to apologize. They printed a small retraction on page 17 a few days later, but the damage had been done. Some good came out of this incident. As a result of my poor response to this journalistic trickiness, FoE set up a media response unit that gave training to selected representatives (but not me).
No-one expects newspapers not to campaign through their leader pages on certain issues of national interest. But this is different.
We are talking here about manufacturing quotes, deliberate slanting of event coverageand using the NEWS pages to create public perceptions unrelated to reality.
Put this together with the exposure in the UK of the Dirty Digger’s phone tapping techniques, and a truly disturbing picture emerges.
The movie Mr Smith Goes to Washington provides a pretty vivid depiction of how media manipulation was done during the WR Hearst days. This Murdoch stuff is unpleasant, but it’s nothing new.
Forewarned is forearmed and it is good that the environment movement and the Greens are alert to this campaign. Blogs like Mr Denmore and Tim also help.
I hope that the government is by now alert to this misinformation campaign – and Gillard’s slapdown of the relayed Turnbull points on ABC Radio was a good start.
I wonder if the government needs to plan counterattacks. In particular, it’s becoming clear that NBN is a target, and the government cannot afford to ignore this misinformation, as they seemingly did with home insulation and BER.
In the case of NBN, it is vital that it not be sabotaged by these attacks. I’d urge the government, via Crean, Conroy and whoever else can be spared to set up direct meetings with educational and health groups in the regions affected to explain fully the benefits of having NBN locally.
If there was enough community support it may help counter what seems to be an Orwellian campaign against it. What saved the government ultimately was a few country politicians relatively untouched by media hype.
I think Bob Brown’s wish is coming to fruition, the cat is getting belled. The Australian, I would like to believe, is losing it’s credibility. The big issue is trying to wean ABC journos off it.
Tim Dunlop’s piece is an interesting one but I do tend to agree with many who, while disliking the Oz’s politicisation of news, don’t see a lot that is particularly new. I’m reading a book on the Lincoln administration at the moment and the author points to the coverage of the Lincoln-Douglas debates and how two chicago papers gave completely different interpretations of the same event so as to support their preferred candidates. This extended to one saying that Lincoln was heckled from the stage to the other saying that Lincoln was carried off the stage amidst rapturous cheers. I’d also point people towards the Northcliffes and Rothermeres of the world that controlled papers like the Daily Mail in the UK in the years before WW2. They were very often instruments of propaganda and produced even grosser distortions than News Limited does today.
LO
That, of course, is absolutely no excuse for what the OO has done and is doing.
That other media outlets elsewhere have done worse in the past, or as I understand Fox for example in the US is doing, is a matter of degree only.
The OO here, Murdoch media in general and the ABC with its copy cat ways, need to be pulled into line because what they are doing is blatantly, inexcusably intolerable.
To those who say that wilful manipulation of news by mainstream media is not entirely new, that’s true. But what you have to consider is News Ltd’s market dominance.
See my post‘Targeting the Deathstar’ on the Failed Estate blog, for details on what News Ltd currently controls in the Australian mainstream media space.
Of course, this does not account its huge influence on the news agenda of the commercial radio and television networks, and, most disturbingly, the ABC.
While sometimes prone to hyperbole, John Pilger was not far wrong when he described Australia as the world’s first Murdochracy. This sort of market dominance undermines the quality of our democracy as people are unable to make decisions based on correct information.
It’s hard to know what the government can do, but following the UK example and kicking off an inquiry into the media laws would be a start; that, and ridding the ABC board of the last of the Howard culture war warriors.
I didn’t say that it was an excuse, but there is a tendency on this site to make out that what the Oz is doing is historically unprecedented and that the sky is going to fall in. I hate the Oz’s coverage as much as anyone but I’m just not in the democracy is threatened camp. Labor has and will continue to win elections despite the conservative bias of the print media. The Greens managed to increase their vote at the last election despite very little media sympathy or coverage. Most voters are brighter than we give them credit for and can see through much of the distortion.
And I will ask you this – who is going to bring the Oz into line and how?
Mr Denmore. Yes, the media is reasonably concentrated but we are far from a Murdochracy – fairfax controls three major newspapers, he controls neither ten, nine or seven (sky remains a bit player in the television market), much of radio is outside of his control, and then there is the new media. Although his reach is significant in print media, most of the people that read his papers don’t read the opinion stuff anyway, and if they do, are able to form their own views about the issues of the day.
LO
You know the story.
After a storm a bloke and his mate are walking along the beach and the bloke watches with amusement as his mate picks up sea critters of some sort that are lying in thousands stranded by the storm and dying on the beach.
Finally he says as his mate picks up yet another sea critter gasping away and returns it to the sea “Look, its hopeless, you can’t possibly save them all”,
To which his mate responds “Maybe not, but I can save these”.
In the immortal drawl of John Wayne:
“A man [or woman] has gotta do what a man [or woman] has gotta do”.
Now John didn’t add the bit about women but his basic point applies.
We can’t tolerate this attack on democracy, which is what it plainly and transparently is, and we have to do what we can however limited in terms of functional political that may be.
Want to get on board?
I think the echo-chamber nature of the ABC with respects to the Australian reflects the self-doubt in the organisation and it’s journalists. They have been subjected to relentless attacks of bias over the last decade or so, and have become somewhat cowed. As a result there doesn’t seem to be much stomach for setting an editorial agenda.
In the same way that “Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM”, no ABC journalist could be accused of (left-wing) bias if they follow the lead of the Australian.
Let us hope that is about to change.
I hate the Oz’s coverage as much as anyone
WADR, LO, I reckon some people hate it more than you do.
who is going to bring the Oz into line and how?
To begin with, as has been stated ad nauseum, the ABC could stop treating it as the journal of record.
Next, all from the PM on down, when asked about any report/opinion in it, should simply give the Mandy Rice-Davies response.
The way to bring the OO into line is to take out its portentous self-importance.
I posted the figures on another thread, but the extent of Murdoch domination would suprise many – they have 60-70% of most newspaper markets and these papers tend to influence the news that other organisations, particularly the ABC run with for the rest of the day.
And the whole point of ‘opinion stuff’ is that it is all too frequently mixed with ‘news stuff’ to create an objectionable and highly toxic blend.
There was an interesting analysis on Poll Bludger about the way in which the ABC reported the AFP findings re alleged treasury leaks, and the way in which opinion and innuendo was dressed up as fact.
ABC radio gave quite some airtime to Andrew Robb today to explain away why the Federal Police’s decision not to investigate any more of the treasury leaking was actually vindicating Coaltion. You have to hand it to Robb who has the skin to argue black is white. Of course without much critical questioning from ABC.
Any one noticed also that buried in the last item of the radio news was that AEC’s final count showed ALP wins the 2PP vote. Two weeks ago ABC ran several headline news that Coalition was ahead in the count (without mentioning of course the count excludes 8 seats).
I think that’s very true aidan. I have quite a few friends in the ABC and their stories of harrassment about anything that could be construed as being left wing are hair-raising and lead to self-censorship. Add to that the fact that they don’t have nearly the funds to do what they’re supposed to be doing and you’ve got the recipe.
HD, I’m just interested in hearing what you think can be done. From my perspective there are three main things that can be done. First, invest in a high quality education system that encourages critical thinking. Second, work to further develop the diversified online media-space. Third, ensure that competition policy is properly applied to Australia’s existing media space. But I’m not going to kid myself that these things are going transform the way that the media covers politics. I do hope though, that over time, the older parts of the media reform themselves as the new media further dents readership/viewership and people just generally switch off through dissatisfaction.
As my partner is American I have for sometime watched American political trends quite closely (and got quite involved for a bit), and of course I have the benefit of her insight too.
What strikes us both is that you can forecast with decent accuracy Australian trends in political narrative, ideological shifts and the influence of the media on these by looking at the USA about 10-15 years ago.
I would therefore agree with others here that there’s absolutely nothing new about the OO’s approach, or for that matter the ABC taking its journalistic direction from it – just check out what’s left of the poor old PBS and it’s reliance on the dominant right wing US MSM in the same fashion.
So perhaps what’s more useful is to focus on what the progressive side of politics has done in the US in response. In a nutshell, from the election of Dubya in 2000, they started to get organised, particularly online, and overtly set out to create a ‘left wing noise machine’ to counter that of the right wing. Their success has led to the return of prominent left wing commentators such as Olbermann and Maddow, and Stewart where only a few years ago there was a near-total vaccuum, and the creation of online media / commentary sites that are unapologetically left of centre – Huffpo and Daily Kos come to mind immediately.
So for me, my question is now that the OO has been clear that it’s war, what are we going to do about it; and I’d argue that it’s a matter for all progressives even if not all are Green, because their targeting of the Greens is really only an extreme expression of their hostility to all things left, as evinced by their coverage of Gillard in particular.
To be clear I’m not advocating we blindly do as the American left do, but I think it’s well worth understanding what’s happening with News Ltd as the repeat of a tried and true pattern OS, and to think about how we preserve and Resuscitate journalism in that context.
ha, too slow and see others have moved to this part too – I agree with LO @ 31 and Mr Denmore (love the Deathstar analogy!)
Sam, it would be nice if parts of the ABC (it is by no means universal there) took less of a lead from the Oz. And sure, Labor could be a bit better at not buying into their narrative. But I really think you are playing around at the margins here. Good politicians have always been able to manage the media to their own ends. That Labor’s leadership lost this art during the last couple of years says more about the quality of the current crop of leaders than anything else.
Labor Outsider, here is the list of newspapers owned by Fairfax and those owned by News Ltd
AFR – Fairfax Media
AFR – (Sat) Fairfax Media
SUN-HERALD Fairfax Media
CANBERRA TIMES (Sat) News Ltd
CANBERRA TIMES (Sun) News Ltd
CANBERRA TIMES (M-F) News Ltd
SUNDAY MAIL (QLD) News Ltd
AUSTRALIAN (Mon-Fri) News Ltd
NORTHERN TERRITORY NEWS (Mon-Fri) News Ltd
SUNDAY TELEGRAPH News Ltd
SUNDAY TERRITORIAN News Ltd
DAILY TELEGRAPH (Mon-Fri) News Ltd
WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN News Ltd
COURIER MAIL (Sat) News Ltd
SUNDAY TIMES (WA) News Ltd
AGE (Sat) Fairfax Media
COURIER MAIL (Mon-Fri) News Ltd
MERCURY (Mon-Fri) News Ltd
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD (Sat) Fairfax Media
ADVERTISER (Sat) News Ltd
NORTHERN TERRITORY NEWS (Sat) News Ltd
SUNDAY MAIL (SA) News Ltd
AGE (Mon-Fri) Fairfax Media
SUNDAY TASMANIAN News Ltd
SUNDAY HERALD-SUN News Ltd
DAILY TELEGRAPH (Sat) News Ltd
ADVERTISER (M-F) News Ltd
HERALD-SUN (Mon-Fri) News Ltd
MERCURY (Sat) News Ltd
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD (Mon-Fri) Fairfax Media
HERALD-SUN (Sat) News Ltd
SUNDAY AGE Fairfax Media
Myriad @32
Good points.
Good points myriad74, although I’d disagree that there’s nothing new about all this, certainly regarding the ABC (If that was what you were saying). What is happening at the ABC is the result of deliberate and co-ordinated policy, as many posters on other forums have shown. The laziness/lack of resources excuse doesn’t make sense – why choose your cut and paste source as the most right wing newspaper in the country? Why begin most new bulletins with ‘the opposition says…’? etc etc etc.
Sure, as aidan says it reflects self doubt, but I think it’s a lot more than that.
But your emphasis on what we can do about this and the focus on organisation and what’s happening in the US is a good one. From an Australian perspective it always appears as though Fox News sets the agenda, but that is just an impression. It would be interesting to know if their audience share is increasing and what specific techniques the left have used to combat the influence of Fox etc.
We certainly need to get a bit organised and co-ordinated here.
Diogenes – what is your point? That News own more papers and that their ownership is more concentrated in smaller markets? I would have thought that was pretty well known. Point is, fairfax own three important and influential papers – the age (and sunday version), the smh and the afr. The two city based papers – smh and the age – are widely read online by people not living in those cities/states. I’d also mention that all states have a number of smaller, independent newspapers. People that want an alternative view to News can find it.
These were the figures in 2006. I think News has expanded significantly into regional areas since then:
* 68 per cent of the capital city and national newspaper market;
* 77 per cent of the Sunday newspaper market;
* 62 per cent of the suburban newspaper market;
* 18 per cent of the regional newspaper market.
Diogenes @ 35:
That list excludes all the suburban weekly newspapers owned by News International / News Limited in the capital cities, and all of the regional newspapers around the country that are in the News stable.
LO
I can agree with your 3 general points at #31.
I also agree with myriad again generally with his reference to ‘left wing noise machine’.
My immediate aim here this arvo was to get you on board.
One more noisy lefty.
There are a lot of things we can do, the less disempowered we believe we are the more likely we are to do something, anything.
I intend to make a pest of myself about the ABC colluding at Radio National to attack the ALP NBN with a coordinated propaganda programme [see thread below - the big one].
A letter of complaint maybe [yet again], noise. Or even NOISE!!!
Support Menadue’s call for an investigation into the ABC’s echo chamber role re the OO.
Plus a few other things.
Acorns and oaks.
I thought my point was obvious, Labor Outsider, in that I found your following statement questionable, that’s all.
LO, the Fairfax papers are in terminal decline because the internet is stealing their classifieds, and people are reading them on line for free. Murdoch’s papers have the latter problem but not the former, so he has less of a problem and also a very profitable empire to cross subsidise the loss making bits.
I’m not sure that the three Fairfax papers will even exist in 10 year’s time.
As for my suggestions only playing at the margins, I did say “for starters”. I do agree that the Labor leadership have been hopeless with the media. It all comes, I reckon, from lack of self-confidence. It’s about time they realised that they are running the country (or at least the government).
Diogenes, I was correct in that. The ten, nine and seven referred to television stations, not the number of print publications controlled by News.
I think your statement, again quoted, may have been correct in your mind in what you were trying to say but the way it was written could be easily interpreted that you are referring to newspapers and not television stations.
So let’s agree to disagree and leave at that.
Labor Outsider, I was at Fairfax before I quit journalism for good and I can tell you that is a terminal organisation. Their newspapers are not only leaking readers and advertisers, they are leaking their best journos.
Murdoch has given his editors an open cheque book to entice the AFR’s most respected business writers in the past few years – including John Durie (Chanticleer), Jenny Hewitt, Brett Clegg, Helen Trinca, Damon Kitney etc; etc; Other good names at the AFR quit for PR or corporate communications or academia; the highly respected Laura Tingle is virtually the last woman standing. At The Age, Michelle Grattan is a spent force, while Peter Hartcher at the SMH looks to be increasingly modelling himself on the pope of pomposity, Paul Kelly.
You can discount Channel Seven. Nothing of quality ever came out of that network. Nine has got Laurie, for sure and Ten has a couple of good ones in Hugh Riminton and Paul Bongiorno. But it’s not exactly a great diversity of voices once you move beyond News Ltd.
I would argue we HAVE got a Murdochracy. Your point about the Labor Party’s lousy communications strategy in the past two years is taken, but bear in mind that a lot of its media minders have come through the Murdoch machine themselves, so the influence is utterly pervasive.
Hawke and Keating gave Murdoch his market dominance on a plate by allowing the sale of the Herald and Weekly Times to him back in 1987 and he has repaid that largesse by seeking to stitch up progressive politics ever since.
I agree there is not a lot that can be done now the goose is cooked, although putting some spine back into a terminally compromised ABC would not be that hard. And that involves getting rid of Mark Scott and buying in some editors with some intellectual grit.
Railing against News Corp is just a waste of time, imo.
What hopefully can be turned around is the overall shoddy standards displayed by ABC journalists & News Depts over the past 6-8 years or so. Sliding slowly but inexorably towards being merely an echo chamber of the OO.
And I don’t want the ABC to be merely a cheer squad for Labor.
Just old-fashioned straight news reporting without the pejorative editorialising inserted.
Some basic and fundamental understanding of what “the public interest” actually means.
Journalists who can call BS on pollies talking shite from either side – this may require them actually doing a bit of research before they turn on the microphone or open their notebooks (analogue or digital).
Bulletins that aren’t lazily book-ended with Opposition talking points & interviews full of distortions/errors.
No interviewing other journalists from whatever media org. unless they actually have a ‘scoop’, not merely rehashing their own opinions to fill in the gnawing space.
Journalists who remain respectful of the office of PM and senior Ministers etc. & Opposition Leader etc. whilst still being able to thoroughly interview etc.
……………..
And for Labor politicians to lose their ‘deadly dull droning talking points-on message’ juvenalia.
And for the Labor machine to stop regurgitating vomit from bulimic focus groups and pushing it back down the public stomach.
And to take the time to call out Opposition/News Ltd talking points as they are made – directly and boldly.
…………….
Now for the magic wand *sigh*.
Hi Adrian
actually it’s important to understand that what’s happened to the ABC – ie the coordinated attack that you neatly outlined – is exactly what happened to PBS. First the right mounted a relentless campaign against it’s “left wing bias”, successive Republican administrations (with the help of a fair few right of centre Dems of course) gutted its public funding, and they stacked and skewed PBS’s administration until it capitulated. For eg, my partner when listening to Radio National frequently comments on how it resembles PBS before it was gutted, and has noted with alarm the steady erosion of not just it’s (RN’s) credibility in terms of political commentary, but the quite ‘disappearance’ of specialist media reporting on religion, environment, science, legal matters etc. For her it’s deja-vu all over again.
I think it’s important to understand this not to say that the USA is the arbiter of all things, but to understand we’re up against a tried and true strategy here, including the treatment of our public broadcaster.
Gotta go, but pleased to see others agree the real question is ‘what are we going to do’.
On a minor flippant note, I certainly know more greens who are actively enjoying reading the OO now – you can hear the distant sounds of right wing heads there exploding, like popping candy.
gah, quiet, not quite
Myriad74, yes they’ve cut the editorial heart out of the ABC. The loss of the Media Show on Radio National last year, for instance – inexplicable.
And you can be sure that the right-wing machine would gut ABC television’s Media Watch as well if they had the chance. It seems even 15 minutes of scrutiny once a week is too much for these people.
My take on the ABC is that it is frightened. So it retreats to this bland, credulous editorial position that, if anything, errs on the side the conservatives.
From a professional journalist’s perspective, they seem actually scared of providing CONTEXT for their listeners and viewers, lest this be read as comment.
So they are content to merely ape the News Ltd agenda. I find it incredible and indicative perhaps of a safety-first careerist mentality within the broadcaster.
It is very frightening PC, but it seems the Greens have not only called their bluff but have now gazumped Rupert’s messengers from hell by making their tactics public.
I feel cautiously optimistic now that the Greens have fired another shot in the OO’s direction. I hope it emboldens other recipients of their unscrupulous attacks to call them out.
You never know, it might even lead to our ABC regrowing a spine.
I don’t expect anything from journalists,after many years of contributing ideas including the ABC who are in one respect more ruthless,because of their endless claims about themselves.Having ended up in a mental clinic because of a Grafton ABC person pulling a “get your complaint forms here”, blog subjects like this,also overlook the reality of the strangeness in Community Radio,which also isn’t print media.Cynical journalists once they know who you are ,will over time be fairer.If you look at Milne in the proper light and confronted him to a challenge of listening to you at a pub after work he probably would take up the challenge.They are really wanting people to be genuine,which they may not feel that about themselves as much as anyone else.Why have problems with these people accept them as they are,it will lessen the drama.Denmore could be seen as offensive to Muslims in his use of the word Jihad.Was that journalism that cares,that usage!? Or an ill determined smart arsery under wraps!?
My take on the ABC is that it is frightened.
Maybe, Mr Denmore. But why has it become more frightened since Labor came to power?
A very good question.
Insiders in specialist areas could write anonymously to a high depth on online sites and direct the interested over via twitter? the journos and public servants are doing that already on blogspot.
somethiing has to be done.
And you can be sure that the right-wing machine would gut ABC television’s Media Watch as well if they had the chance.
This is an imaginary threat. After eleven years of conservative government the ABC remained intact, and maybe even slightly left leaning.
If you want to claim that the ABC is kowtowing to the right, it would be good to offer up some evidence.
PeterTB,
I always knew those ABC commentators Andrew Bolt and Piers Akerman were rabid left wingers, and part of a cunning and subtle plot to expose the evils of capitalism by pretending to be mindless right wing ratbags. Thanks for clearing that up for me. I thought I was the only one who had ever woken up to their real agenda. Its good to know I’m not alone.
The half-hour soapbox they donated to Barnaby Joyce (and Barnaby Joyce alone) on News 24 immediately after the Windsor-Oakeshott announcement was a left-wing master stroke!
Paul and James,
We can all quote instances where we feel the “other side” were advantaged – like the Australian Story puff piece on Julia the week before the election, and the other one on Rudd’s nephew during the election, and the ongoing presence of Jonathon Green. So what?
The studies on ABC bias that I have seen reported show only slight leanings one way or the other, and given that 80% of Australians (my figure) are conservative, I would expect the ABC to adopt a centreist position, rather than one to the left. Wouldn’t you?
Well, actually,PeterTB, I would expect the ABc to be as it once was, but sadly is no more. A professional news organisation that breaks political stories without fear or favour, rather than the pallid copycat of The Australian that it has become. News from the ABC once used to be reliable, questioning and upsetting to politicians whatever their colour. Now it is mostly a repitition of Opposition talking points, straight from Opposition press releases. And I do remember the days where you wouldn’t go anywhere else for domestic news.
PeterTB, after the last assault on the ABC by Richard Alston, the organisation was found to be more Right leaning than a crowd of left wing ratbags bent on the destruction of the Rodentocracy.
But back then, “everyone’s ABC” just reported the “facts, ma’am” as opposed to rummaging around in Shanahan and Milne’s wastepaper baskets for what passes for news reporting since the government changed hands.
Perhaps the present government should conduct a campaign of terror against them similar to Alston’s.
I want the ABC to return to the organisation you could rely on to provide truth and balance in its reporting, not
an echo chamber of Murdoch’s gossip columnists.
PeterTB, the giveaway that the ABC is either biased to the right or terrorised is that every news item on Australian politics starts with “The Opposition spokesmouth has stated … ” or something similar. It’s a bit like Stockholm Syndrome, I guess.
I, of course, only chose one particularly striking example of ABC stenography for the Opposition. I watch ABC news programs most nights; if the corporation’s an insidious left-wing enclave, I’d like to know whereabouts they’re evincing it in their schedule. Gardening Australia? ABC3? That show that so charmingly courts the advertising industry?
I was listening to Radio National one day a few days before the independents made their decision and the news bulletin started off with its usual introduction..”The Leader of the ..”.
But instead of it saying what it generally says, “Opposition”, it said “The Leader of the COALition” [without the capitalisation].
So it perked my attention cos it was unusual.
Then followed Tony Abbott saying “We are no lomger an opposition but a government in waiting”.
See what had been done?
Tony was pushing the line that his mob should be governing and the ABC changed its normal introduction and the normal title Tony is addressed by to fit into and reinforce his partisan spin.
Now that wasn’t accidental.
Those who produce the ABC news, the news team, had to think about how they could accomadate Tony’s spin and deviate from their norm to do so.
It was a considered pre meditated careful change to push the COALition line.
It shows the mind set of the news team and the ethics and attitudes of the management who allowed it to happen.
Small thing really, they just changed one word [opposition to COALition] but so revealing.
Of course they have since gone back to ‘Leader of the Opposition”.
Reluctantly.
James: it is very clear that the ABC gardening show, hosted as it was by an ex-communist mulch lover for so many years and being dedicated to undermining the agro-industrial production off veggies, was the very core of socialist bias within the ABC. Landline is probably the most subversive program on Australian airwaves.
Ok, all the hysteria aside about how much the media is against Labor, (because when the coalition is in government we hear them bleating about the exact same thing) and lets face it, if our media wasn’t ask the current government and it’s own coalition the hard questions things would really be wrong.
This might put a shiny sharp new pin in all of your big red and green balloons,(and I await the typical onslught of flaming that goes with disent for the Labor party) but really isn’t it about time the Greens expalined exactly how they intend to compromise their environmental position, their policies on finance and how that is going to be effected without seeming to be opposed to Labor’s center left policies?
The Greens have been almost free of any media scrutiny about thier policies at all really and I’ve personally asked one question and have yet to get an answer from them.
Q; If both major parties can promise that within a few years they can have the budget in surplus, why do we need to go back into the past and dredge up one of the most draconian, invasive and repugnant taxes ever, death duties, what do the greens intend to do with the money that hard working Aussies earned, payed their taxes on and saved?
A; (no answer)
Well named.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/18/3015416.htm
Please, Aunty, tell me where and when she actually said what you manufactured just there?
From my reading of Fairfax she said something quite different to your beatup which we can be assured will be built on further with opposition help.
You obviously haven’t asked the right people (ie, any members of the Greens), Drunk Guy.
For starters, the Death Duties proposal is, as far as I’m aware just that: a proposed policy under discussion. (For the record, my Branch didn’t support it when it came around for discussion, but that’s by-the-way. We preferred the alternative of income taxes on the obscenely wealthy while they’re still alive, partly because it’s a bit harder to evade.) Any other Greens with more up-to-date knowledge, feel free to correct me.
Secondly, if it does become party policy it will, from memory, be limited to properties worth more than $5M, and there will be exclusions including, but not limited to, family homes and farms.
Thirdly, I just looked in the most recent Policy document I could find and there’s no mention of it. Nothing.
I think the real question that needs to answered, Drunk Guy, is why do you feel you should have the right to just make shit up?
Where News is most pervasive i.e. where it has a district monopoly on newspaper titles is strongest in Queensland and that is where Labor’s fortunes ebbed most strongly too.
The Australian (Nationwide)
The Weekend Australian (Nationwide)
The Courier-Mail (Queensland)
The Sunday Mail (Queensland)
The Cairns Post (Cairns, Queensland)
The Gold Coast Bulletin (Gold Coast, Queensland)
Townsville Bulletin (Townsville, Queensland)
Innisfail Advocate (Innisfail, Queensland)
Tablelander (Atherton, Queensland)
Queensland Newspapers, generally, it also owns some titles as above, as well as local titles
The Daily Telegraph (New South Wales)
The Sunday Telegraph (New South Wales)
Cumberland Newspapers (suburban Sydney)
The Herald Sun (Victoria)
The Sunday Herald Sun (Victoria)
The Weekly Times (Victoria)
mX (Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane CBDs)
Geelong Advertiser (Geelong, Victoria)
The Advertiser (South Australia)
The Sunday Mail (South Australia)
The Sunday Times (Western Australia)
The Mercury (Tasmania)
The Sunday Tasmanian (Tasmania)
Northern Territory News (Northern Territory)
The Sunday Territorian (Northern Territory)
Personally, DI(NR) I see no basic problem in principle with death duties. If levies are to be amde on the population, relieving the dead of assets they plainly don’t need seems perfectly reasonable.
As a matter of practice of course, it’s a lot more complicated. As yhou say, there are any number of ways to do an end run around laws that seek to capture those assets and return them to the public. Moreover, if the laws were structured in ways that were carelss, you could end up imposing hardship on surviving family members whow would be benefciaries but who lacked the resources to live out their last yeasr in dignity.
Not uncommonly too, assets like houses are collateral for businesses and fiddling with that might have unintended consequences. As a matter of practice, I’d be happy to have a threshhold on death duties that allowed assets up to a value of 25 times AWFTE each year to be exempt.
What are sometimes called “reverse mortgages” are one way in which asset rich but income poor people can live reasonably and it would be worth exploring structures to prevent vulnerable people from being ripped off.
That all said, there are almost certainly better ways to ensure that wealthy people shoulder an appropriate share of the burden of community provision than death duties and politically, precisely because death is so culurally marked, it’s a tough gig getting such policies up. Fodder for the tabloids really.
More sensibly,policy ought to be moving away from the whole notion of home ownership in favour of something more like being a lessor or someone doing time-share. We ought to have policies that make rises in post-inflation property values the exception rather than the expectation and a lot more public-housing like provision.
Have I read this thread before?
I have this incredible sense of deja vu.
A lot of our Branch’s reason for disagreeing with death duties were pragmatic, Fran. Anyone over 50 would remember the flight of capital to Qld after Bjelke-Petersen repealed that state’s death duties, plus all the tricks old rich people used to pull when they gave stuff to their kids (thus causing Gift Duty to be imposed).
However, I was more interested in calling Drunk Guy on his bullshit than discussing the pros and cons of death duties. One of the smugger Libs on the polling booth I was working at was banging on about it as well. I put him in his place.
In Measure of Australia’s Progress,
Fran Barlow wrote:
Above, Fran Barlow, you wrote “amde” instead of “made”, “yhou” instead of “you”, “carelss” instead of “careless”, “whow” instead of “who”, “benefciaries” instead of “beneficiaries”, “yeasr” instead of “years” and “culurally” instead of “culturally”.
The teacher/pedant is human.
Diogenes @ 74. We all are.
I’m not.
Fiona Reynolds @ 75, that’s my point.
“I didn’t say that it was an excuse, but there is a tendency on this site to make out that what the Oz is doing is historically unprecedented”
I don’t think that’s the case at all. I and many others have pointed out historical examples of the press attempting to manipulate the public debate. There are a variety of reasons for this. My own view is that “fearless” journalism in the Watergate sense is more the exception than the rule. I think your statement underestimates the breadth of experience of the people who comment here. We are not neophytes when it comes to the observation and analysis of matters political or media related.
“other dogs bite their enemies, I bite my friends to save them.” I tip my hat Diogenes
Point taken Diogenes
This is the first time I tried using a phone — my new X10 Android — to do this.
It might be my last!
Oh I’m sure you put him in his place David Irving, but you might try actually looking into the Greens policy Docs a little before you make accusations that it’s just made up, and BTW I looked through the membership and you’re not on it, busted!
Fran actually has a very real point in her comment, and not the one where some government bean counting ghoulish buzzard hovers over the deceased corpse counting their assets and presenting the bill as some form of Ludicrous return of wealth to the people, but where she talks of reverse mortgages a financial tool which allows people with no income except a pension to access funds by liberating them from their asset (usually the home)
I can see a future not too far in the distance where it will become mandatory for that to occur before the government will fund a nursing home bed.
The thing is the reverse mortgages have almost as bad an image problem as death duties, and that’s mainly because people have worked hard, and sent the best years paying double the cost of that home to make bankers very rich and they feel as if it is the one thing they can call their own, they are very reluctant to borrow against it.
Can I just take a minute to explain a little about the Australian version of Reverse Mortgages, and how they differ to their originators from overseas?
When they were first introduced, there was no limit and no guarantee, mainly in Britain and Europe and older people took equity money out of their home to go overseas , buy new white goods and cars etc. and within a few years maybe 10 or so, the lenders were knocking on the door telling them they no longer owned their home and that interest accrued was now more than the home is worth so either pay up or get out. not very nice, right?
So we have learned from that and put in some real controls in Australia, the first of which is they can never ever evict the owner or even remove their name from the title document and never accrue interest over the value of the asset (home). Further the borrower can ensure at the onset that they can have a guaranteed portion held always so that there is always something for their kids inheritance. They can also have fixed interest right up front and have the borrowing capacity limited so that they can know the end result of the deal at any time should they want to buy the debt back.
As for David, he can keep up the propaganda, as can Bob Brown, but for me I know very well a couple of high profile Greens members and even they are not allowed to tell me the exact use of funds gathered by a proposed (and lets face it every party that is not in actual government only has “proposed” policy) death duties.
“I looked through the membership and you’re not on it, busted!”
You can’t have looked too hard mate, i happen to know DI(nr), and he is the secretary of his local Greens branch.
Personally, i reckon you might try looking at the Greens policies a bit more deeply, rather than trying (and failing) to score pathetic “gotchas”
Actually having some idea of what you are talking about helps when debating an issue drunk guy, laying off the turps might help too.
DI[nr] is most definitely on the Greens membership list.
Indisputable fact.
Thank you gentlemen.
Drunk Guy seems to be able (as a non-member) to get hold of a more recent copy of the Greens policy documents than I can, which is … curious.
Typically, you are fixating on how i come by the information, and yet you still have no offering on my question despite your cliams of being a ranking Greens member, very strange, what do you have to hide?
And you assume I’m not a member, are you sure?
Not that I’d want to inject anything factual into this mini-debate, but:
a) the Greens policy is for an estate tax (scroll down to measure 23), which is one form of death duty (a term used to apply to a number of taxation regimes related to death).
b) why we’re talking about it unless it’s in the context of a complete beat-up I don’t know because even in the OO above they couldn’t get away with not putting on record that Bob Brown said:
Greens leader Bob Brown said this week that given both Labor and the Coalition oppose death duties, he had no plans to pursue the issue in the next parliament.
Greens advisers yesterday reiterated the tax was not a priority.
c) political parties don’t list full memberships publicly. They are required by law to list a minimum to show they are a legally registered party, but understandably most members don’t want their membership broadcast to the hills, and aren’t required to.
All in all this thread seems to be turning into a demonstration of the topic.
And FYI, the death duties “wannabe” policy has been all over the news since the election was announced, so you must be right, it cant be a Greens policy , there are just a lot of people all over the place “making this shit up” the exact identical shit, right?
Come on , no wonder you have all these conspiricy theories about the press, you’re scared to answer a few questions, and hiding from scrutiny.
You’re never going to convince anyone that way, myriad74.
The ALP policy is for the democratic socialisation of industry, production, distribution and exchange, to the extent necessary to eliminate exploitation and other anti-social features in these fields. (See Objectives, PDF). I’m just saying.
Thanks for setting me straight, myriad74. I must admit I didn’t realise it was firm rather than proposed.
Still, IIRC there are a hell of a lot of provisos and exceptions around it, so it would affect, what, the richest 0.1% of the population?
Liam, I confess to comprehension fail – not sure what you’re trying to say?
I believe Liam was being somewhat uncharacteristically charitable to your political movement Myriad, by suggesting we should hold it to no higher standard than his own (in terms of actually following through on stated policy directives).
You’ve said it better than I could, FDB.
On the subject of estate taxes, I’m proud to stand with arch-scumbag, unionbuster and robber baron Andrew Carnegie.
“there are just a lot of people all over the place “making this shit up” the exact identical shit, right?”
Could be Drunk Guy..
For example, lots of people have been saying that the Greens want to ban fishing and hunting, that they want to ban mining and heavy industry and are demanding an end to all logging.
These people have in fact been “making shit up”, or have taken seriously those who make shit up, without bothering to read the Greens policy for themselves.
Guess who:
some radical socialist I see Gummo.
Thanks Liam and FDB.
The thing I always find particularly amusing – or depending on the circumstances, contemptible – is that Greens policies are more accessible than just about any other party’s. You go to our website, click on the large front page heading ‘policies’ and then scroll at your leisure. Or download the lot.
If people feel we’ve hidden our agenda from them I’m thinking they also find the location of their car (in the garage) a mystery, the near-daily whereabouts of their children (at school) a daily agony, not to mention the extraordinary lengths they have to go to to locate their pay (in the bank).
I wasn’t saying the “Poilcy” was hidden, the oposite in fact, I was saying it’s there and yet it’s not explained and it does not necessarrily bear up to scrutiny. It’s easy to say this is a “Robin Hood tax” because it has exceptions, but the exceptions do not appear to be guaranteed and they are pretty loose. As rightly pointed out when BeJelke Petersen removed death duties in Queensland it was not the rich who packed up and moved, they already had a way around it, it was the ordinary workers who thought it was a “Robing Bastard Tax” who packed up and moved to Queensland so their kids could get the inheritance rather than some fat rich politician taking countless overseas trips.
And still my question remains unanswered, the policy is there, so what exactly are the Greens going to do with the money considering the Major Parties don’t need it?
.
@Drunk Guy,
It’s hardly a secret that the Greens want to invest more public money into health, education and conservation programs than is currently being done. Those investments need more funds to be available from General Revenue. What more do you need to know?
Tigtog, The Greens are out there, in the real world and it’s now the big world of the Lower house, What I guess I’m really asking is for propper budgets from them and for policy costings to be documented and transparent, i.e. put them through Treasury.
It’s a cop out saying they want to spend on education too when one of their policies is clearly about cutting federal funding to Private schools (remember they get nothing from the States at all) and worse taking over control so that the great education given to kids that go to them is pulled back to the same level as the State schools.
When the debarcle in Qld was on over the Dam’s issue i.e. Rathdowney (knocked back) Wyarralong (already completed) and Traverston’s Crossing (knocked back) the Greens attended even their Leader, they copied and pasted local community’s hard work and used the rally’s as fund raisers for the party. People in the areas where the environment won over the corpulant greed of the State for providing infrastructure to service development on nearby land owned by or controlled (options purchased) by major developers, know that it was the minister who had to follow protocol and the guidelines to make a decision rather than any pseudo lobbying (if any) by the Greens (exept by local members as part of the communities actions)
Honestly The Greens need to get off the excuse that they exist to be a saviour of the environment, and put up or shut up.
.
“What I guess I’m really asking is for propper(sic) budgets from them and for policy costings to be documented and transparent, i.e. put them through Treasury.”
I would be quite surprised if the Greens did not jump at the opportunity if treasury officials were made available to them. Funny how the Greens are the target here, though, when a prospective liberal government failed to do just that, after creating a charter of budget honesty to demand it.
I should also have mentioned that Drunk Guy could easily be employed to manufacture(anti-Green)News. Sobriety has obviously never been an issue for Glenn Milne and his employment prospects. And Drunk Guy has the same capacity to make stuff up, out of nothing.
DG said:
That is said of The Greens by those hostile to us, many of whom should know better, but I do wonder why someone who claims conversance with Greens policy would say that.
The rationale for The Greens as a party rests on the pillars of equity and sustainability, of which concern for the integrity of the local and global environment are features.