Tag Archive for 'News Limited columnists'

Live by the sword…

Published
by
Mark
22 hours, 37 minutes ago
in Media and Politics
. 21 Comments

Julie Bishop’s been copping it from unnamed “senior Liberals” for her poor performance as shadow Treasurer, who’ve helpfully implied Malcolm Turnbull shares their worries, and suggested a few names to replace her (Dutton, Robb, Hockey) for good measure.

While Bishop has been massively unconvincing in the Treasury portfolio, it’s not only the Deputy Leader who should be concerned over this latest outburst of leaks to The Australian. Malcolm Turnbull and the rest of the Libs should also recall that Brendan Nelson was brought down as much by the constant dripfeed of negative stories to their mates in the press gallery, as by his own hapless efforts as Leader. What is now being done to Bishop (and the articles have been cleverly framed to keep the “narrative” alive for quite a while - by forcing her putative replacements to deny an interest, and thus further fuel the story) could be done to Turnbull tomorrow. As if to lay down a few markers, Peter Van Onselen published an otherwise bizarre op/ed on Saturday praising Peter Costello as the best available leader.

I’ve observed before that the opposition’s coziness with the press gallery does them no favours. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find a way of resolving problems internally rather than in newspaper columns.

Let’s ban postmodernism!

Published
by
Mark
1 week, 5 days ago
in Culture, Film, TV, Video etc and Politics
. 357 Comments

I think it was klaus k who once suggested on this blog that we should completely eschew the word “postmodernism”, so vacuous and meaningless has it become. That seems a proposal worth reviving when you read an astonishing take on the ABC’s decision to reallocate resources away from specialist Radio National programs, particularly the Religion Report.

The questions facing mankind are, essentially, the same as they have always been: the age-old questions about what is good, true and beautiful. How do we identify those characteristics in our own and others’ behaviour? How do we achieve them in our lives?

Inevitably, we will never answer them validly if - confusing the medium with the message, to put it in Marshall McLuhan’s discredited formula - we confuse the garments for the person, the cover for the book.

Apparently, the ABC’s remit is to pose (or answer?) eternal questions, and any management decision about Radio National demonstrates “relativism” and that “they hate religion”.

I’m actually not a huge fan of Stephen Crittenden’s, but there can be no doubt that discussing programming decisions in this fashion is, well, just demented. Continue reading ‘Let’s ban postmodernism!’

Labor states on the nose!!!

Published
by
Mark
3 weeks, 4 days ago
in Federal Elections, Media, Polls, Sociology and State/Territory Elections
. 58 Comments

I’ve written before about why I think that the “media narrative” masquerading as psephological analysis that there’s some sort of automatic fall in support for state Labor parties because of some putative desire among voters to have different parties governing at different levels. I suspect the proximate origin of this meme is actually the “wall to wall Labor” scare the Liberals ran in last year’s election. As Kim was suggesting the other day, this is a political tactic that normally indicates despair among incumbents, and it’s completely wrong to assume it reflects some sort of psephological law or reality in voting behaviour. Anyone familiar with the political science literature knows that attempts to demonstrate any posited strong correlation between state and federal partisan choices over time falls down very quickly - even in New South Wales where it’s long been political myth that the strongest case can be made. In part that’s because there are two few cases of actual partisan change in elections over much of the postwar period - something that becomes immediately apparent when you think about the fact that the federal government didn’t turn over at all between 1949 and 1972.

There was another outbreak of this guff on Monday in The Australian, apropos of quarterly newspolls in New South Wales and Victoria. There was the usual news story and two op/ed pieces to ram home the point. It was intriguing to see the frame applied to the comments of ABC election analyst Antony Green: Continue reading ‘Labor states on the nose!!!’

Malcolm Turnbull haunted by Paul Keating

Published
by
Mark
1 month, 1 week ago
in Economics, Howardia, Markets and Media
. 28 Comments

As I’ve commented before, it’s always a bit difficult to keep track of Malcolm Turnbull’s economic narrative du jour. At least with Emo Man Brendan Nelson, we could always rely on undiluted populism with not even a minimal pretense at making any sense. Turnbull’s supposedly better than that, but in the lead up to the budget we had accusations that Labor were wimping out by not cutting spending aggressively enough, followed in very short order with claims that the surplus was unnecessarily large. We’re being treated to something comparable now, with the switch apparently flicked randomly between solemn appeals for bipartisanship, insinuations that the fiscal stimulus package is too big, loose language - subsequently repeated - about the global financial crisis being “hyped”, and now I think the beginnings of a “don’t spend the surplus” theme.

Jacques Chester, I suspect, has pinged what’s going on with all this:

It’s a lawyerly way of arguing. Pick an argument, any argument, that might be plausible, and throw it at the judge. You never know, it might stick.

There are certainly some straws blowing in the wind over the past few days, which in the way of these things, either represent columnists in The Australian flying kites for the opposition to grasp, or reciting lines fed to them by the Coalition. Continue reading ‘Malcolm Turnbull haunted by Paul Keating’

Confidential sources

Published
by
Kim
1 month, 2 weeks ago
in Education and Media
. 32 Comments

Glenn Milne used to be frequently accused of being a mouthpiece for Peter Costello. Guess who he’s talking to now?

Pyne, one of Turnbull’s key leadership backers, has now been promoted into the frontline education portfolio and it is Julia Gillard, his opposite, whom he now has in his sights. Pyne has finally assumed his rightful position at the epicentre of the Opposition, a role that was bloodymindedly denied him by Howard for two reasons: he was a Liberal progressive and he was a supporter of Peter Costello. It was enough to generate such negative personal energy from Howard that he continually blocked Pyne’s promotion in what turned out to be part of an act of self-destruction.

Pyne is now where he wants to be in the Liberal pantheon and, more critically, where Turnbull wants him to be.

In case you don’t feel like reading the rest of this guff, Christopher Pyne has “lighted onto” a “proposition” - that while Kevin Rudd and his ministers are portrayed as “Howard lite”, they’re actually hiding their socialist lights under a bushel! Exposes such as Christopher’s clever realisation that transparency in private school funding might lead to Class Warfare will be their secret weapon as they go on the front foot…

Memo to Kevin Rudd: these guys think they can win. And they will now do whatever it takes to do so.

Whatever…

The Costa Diaries

Published
by
Kim
1 month, 3 weeks ago
in Books, Writers & Writing, Economics, Media and NSW Government
. 41 Comments

Michael Costa has taken a leaf out of Mark Latham’s book… Forced out of office and Parliament? Write op/eds attacking your former party!

LISTENING to Kevin Rudd at Council of Australian Governments meetings as he tried to connect the global economic situation to the more mundane items on the national reform agenda was often excruciating.

Anybody with a rudimentary understanding of economics would have quickly concluded, as I did, that the Prime Minister didn’t have a good understanding of these issues.

Can a tell all book be far behind? Would it need to be a three volume set to contain slurs on all the people Michael Costa doesn’t like?

Here’s a suggestion for the under-employed former pollie - why not join the Liberal Party? You’ve already got News Limited Columnists eating out of your hand (you actually are one too!)… And your right-wing views should see you fit in nicely. Perhaps with your added ruthlessness, you could spark endless speculation about Malcolm Turnbull’s polling and leadership and unlike the Great Pretender seize the top job by the power of the Word!

Happy blogiversary, Pavlov’s Cat and Hoyden About Town!

Published
by
Kim
1 month, 3 weeks ago
in Blogging, Life, Media, Sociology and The Web
. 12 Comments

Spring must be the season when people turn their minds to starting blogs, or at least spring 2005 was when some excellent people did. It’s the three year blogiversary for both Pavlov’s Cat and Hoyden About Town. Warm salutations and felicitations to both!

Pavlov’s Cat also has some interesting reflections on being a sociable blogger, and how addictive it can be. It’s well worth remembering that there is stuff to do other than correct people who are wrong on the internets. Continue reading ‘Happy blogiversary, Pavlov’s Cat and Hoyden About Town!’

More Governor-General dissing: Quentin Bryce a “radical feminist”!

Published
by
Kim
1 month, 4 weeks ago
in Media and Politics
. 17 Comments

Those freethinkers and mavericks and contrarians at the Opposition Organ are at it again. In the wake of the serve Christopher Pearson gave Governor-General Quentin Bryce on Saturday, his colleage Frank Devine piles on today. But with even less sense!

This is not an attempt to portray the accomplished and charming Bryce as a Cromwellian dark star on the horizon.

Sometimes the kowtow can make a useful contribution to the common good, but to be characterised as a kind of household robot would have been hard to take for a girl from the bush who has raised five children and climbed to the top in the demanding profession of the law.

There was also a disconcerting ambiguity about Bryce’s announcement that her first travels would be to the Murray-Darling. Did she mean she would traverse these two immensely long rivers and make whistlestops at all the settlements within their vast embrace? Or was she intending to brief herself on the politics of climate change, conservation and state-commonwealth relations now implicit in the phrase Murray-Darling?

Entirely shamefully, as I contemplated the elegantly coiffured and accoutred new GG, admired her perfect profile and struggled to share her angst, it crossed my mind that if we had played our cards differently we might have recruited Boris Johnson.

Go figure.

Left right hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing

Published
by
Kim
2 months ago
in Federal Elections, Media, Polls, Queensland and State/Territory Elections
. 5 Comments

The other day I pointed to ludicrously misreported Galaxy polling showing federal Labor improving its vote in Queensland. Yesterday, the other bit of the Galaxy Poll was published in the Courier-Mail showing state Labor going backwards in Queensland. (Although actually, it only shows this if the comparison is with February - the last three polls show the 2PP bouncing around 52% for Labor and the margin of error isn’t stated. But as usual all the focus is on preferred Premier - where, of course, Anna Bligh is still ahead - but not by so much.)

Richard Farmer has pinged what the national News Limited polling pundits haven’t noticed - the movement in inconsistent directions (although the trend in both cases is weak) shows that their current narrative of “balancing” Labor’s federal dominance by turning on state Labor.

Incidentally, Lawrence Springborg shouldn’t get cocky (heh! bad pun!) about all the good news from the meejah. Continue reading ‘Left right hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing’

Governor-General “not especially bright”, columnist claims

Published
by
Kim
2 months ago
in Climate change, Howardia, Law and Media
. 45 Comments

There’s an extraordinary rant from Christopher Pearson in today’s Opposition Organ, beginning with a big spray against Quentin Bryce. Let me just observe that her opinion that the reserve powers can be codified is a respectable one, and that Pearson is committing a significant fallacy when he conflates that opinion with the analytically separate question of the political feasibility of such a change to the Constitution.

The actual occasion for his condescending twaddle seems to be a lamentation about the ideological unsoundness of the Liberal Party leadership:

Until recently, it would have been hard to imagine a candidate with Bryce’s limitations and ideological baggage winning the level of broad acceptance within the conservative wing of the political class necessary for her to function as governor-general. Indeed, since Brendan Nelson, Julie Bishop and Malcolm Turnbull could not be described plausibly as conservatives, it may not be safe to assume that Bryce does enjoy that kind of acceptance. In less than a year, the values for which John Howard, Peter Costello and Alexander Downer provided so formidable a bulwark are no longer taken for granted in the Liberal Party room.

More power to Nick Minchin and Tony Abbott appears to be the suggestion. Yep, they’re electoral gold. Attack Rudd from the hard right, urges Pearson.

Continue reading ‘Governor-General “not especially bright”, columnist claims’

Labor takes a hit in the polls in Queensland and South Australia

Published
by
Mark
2 months, 1 week ago
in Elections, Federal Elections, Polls, Queensland and State/Territory Elections
. 23 Comments

I’m planning at some stage in the reasonably near future to write a longish post about Anna Bligh’s prospects (and I wouldn’t comment on Mike Rann’s, not being a resident of South Australia, and thus I don’t think able to assess them with any authority). But there’s a bit of an indicator of the trend from Newspoll which finds a dead heat in South Australia (50-50 down from 54-46 in the last quarterly poll) and only a slight advantage to Labor in Queensland (51-49 down from 55-45).

However, I don’t buy the whole “balancing state and federal governments” argument. States have political cycles of their own which are substantially independent of federal swings of the pendulum. In Queensland, changes of government are very rare, with only six since 1915. That might give you some idea of why Peter Beattie hung on in 2006 when by rights (and he knew it) he should have lost. And the LNP is still looking quite messy. Aside from the internal shenanigans associated with the Nats takeover, Lawrence Springborg has made a couple of big mistakes by not following up on his teaser campaign with any substantial policy in areas such as infrastructure, health and education and by going relatively silent since his great conservative union was kinda consummated. The Borg is now back in a no policy, carping oppo leader zone - with internal rumblings. So I think 2009 in Queensland is still Labor’s to lose.

Continue reading ‘Labor takes a hit in the polls in Queensland and South Australia’

Turnbull poll bounce? ACNielsen 52-48, Newspoll 55-45

Published
by
Kim
2 months, 1 week ago
in Media and Polls
. 39 Comments

ACNielsen has Labor behind the Liberals on primaries 42-41, the first time the Libs have been ahead of Labor in the Nielsen poll since September 2006. Labor leads in the 2PP 52-48, and Kevin Rudd leads Malcolm Turnbull on PPM 56-33. Rudd led Brendan Nelson 65-19 in the August poll.

The Liberals have gained 3% on the primary vote and 3% on the 2PP since the August Nielsen poll.

I observed the other day that Possum had calculated opposition leader change bounce averages. It’s for Newspoll, but here it is for purposes of comparison:

…the average Coalition bounce from a leadership change was 5.7% on the primary and 6% on the TPP.

Speaking of Newspoll, The Poll Bludger reports rumours of an early release for the one that normally appears first on Lateline tomorrow night. I wouldn’t be at all surprised, as otherwise the OO will be reduced to writing their new narrative on the basis of a story in The Age. So get in quickly for Possum’s guess the Newspoll bounce competition.

Update: That was quick. Dennis gets to write his story on the basis of the poll he owns. Newspoll has the primaries favouring Labor 42-38 (down 2 and up 1 respectively, and within the MOE as Shanahan notes). The 2PP is 55-45 in Labor’s favour. It was 56-44 last time. Without mentioning the ACNielsen poll, Shanahan has actually written a story that would fit its findings better than Newspoll’s, having to construct his narrative out of the frippery of the PPM where Rudd leads Turnbull 54-24. As The Poll Bludger observes, this matches the Galaxy Poll in the News Limited tabloids on the weekend.

So if we do the comparison with Possum’s calculations, the Turnbull bounce is almost non-existent. Heh.

In reality, we should wait before passing judgement, but it’s fair to say that the previous trend is still very much apparent. Rudd’s losing some of his shine, but Labor’s vote is holding up well.

Continue reading ‘Turnbull poll bounce? ACNielsen 52-48, Newspoll 55-45′

B… b… bounce?

Published
by
Kim
2 months, 2 weeks ago
in Media and Polls
. 18 Comments

Oks, there’s got to be some way to work this into a drinking game. Just to prove that political tragics are rooly cool like the kidz on West Wing and not strange nerds really.

Possum has enabled a feature on his blog where you can guess the size of any Newspoll bounce that might occur now that Malcolm Turnbull is Oppo Leader. Wisdom of crowds and all that. No mention of any prizes (hint! hint!*) - at least you can make a buck from the betting markets…

So saying, the average Coalition bounce from a leadership change was 5.7% on the primary and 6% on the TPP. This compares to Labor’s average leadership change bounce of 3.6% on the primary and 1.7% on the TPP. The total average leadership change bounce was 4.6% on the primary and 3.8% on the TPP across the 6 historical examples we have available.

And I’ve got my own idea for a bit of crowd sourced political commentary. Let’s pretend we’re the press gallery and set a % which, if not met, will be decried as a setback, or completely unrelated and probably because of the current position of the moon in the lunar cycle, depending on what mood Dennis Shanahan et al are in. And then we can set a % sufficient to ensure the production of headlines like “Australian politics has fundamentally changed”, “the honeymoon is now over”, “Turnbull reinvigorates Coalition” etc, etc.

Be your own press gallery. Write your own political narrative.

Ps: If Turnbull can’t get 5% on the 2PP, he’s toast. Peter Costello is willing to be drafted. ;)

*Update: Now there’s a prize!

Costello memoirs: Bored now?

Published
by
Kim
2 months, 2 weeks ago
in Books, Writers & Writing, Media and Politics
. 52 Comments

I’ve got a question about the Costello memoirs. Is anyone going to rush down to the bookshop today and hand over $55 of their hard earned for a copy? I mean - courtesy of the neverending promo show - we now know $weetie doesn’t like Janette, Malcolm, Barnaby or Little Johnny, thinks Tony Abbott is two faced, and that he wanted the leadership handed to him on a platter. And that the election loss was all Howard’s fault, or all Jackie Kelly’s fault, which comes to the same thing really, doesn’t it? And of course all this is such a surprise! Is $55 worth the punt that we might find out that The Great Pretender also wants revenge on Bruce Billson or Wilson Tuckey or Peter Lindsay or someone?

Boycott the thing, I say!

Continue reading ‘Costello memoirs: Bored now?’

Holidays in blogging hell

Published
by
Phil
2 months, 2 weeks ago
in Activism, Blogging, Books, Writers & Writing, Developing world, Media and Politics
. 5 Comments

picture.jpg In The Blogging Revolution Antony Loewenstein takes us on a personal journey through some of the more difficult places in the world to blog. Iran, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Cuba and China.

It’s a timely book on the importance and necessity of blogging and the open web given recent un-informed opinions by writers like Christian Kerr.

The book is also important in that it more thoroughly expands on ideas expressed in David Burchell’s clumsy opinion piece in the Australian in July of this year where he attempted to contrast the “pseudo-expertise and vituperation” of Western bloggers with their counterparts in the less democratic corners of the world; using Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez as an example.

The most impressive thing about Sanchez is her complete disregard for the bad habits of Western bloggers. She refuses to engage in histrionics, vainglory, pseudo-knowledge or personal posturing. Instead she trades in the gentler arts of allegory and satire.

Sanchez is also mentioned in The Blogging Revolution and Burchell is right. She does not engage in the histrionics of so many Western bloggers (mea culpa) but then again our personal circumstances are different to those that live in repressive states.

Are critics like Burchell and Kerr right? Are non-Western bloggers really better than their western counterparts? Are they less vituperative and undergraduate in their opinion? Does living in an information poor society mean that their views can be nothing more than that of a pseudo-expert? What do non-Western bloggers sound like? The Blogging Revolution gives us a peek behind the government filters.

Continue reading ‘Holidays in blogging hell’