In support of Julia Gillard’s Citizens' Assembly on Climate

I suppose we should not be surprised that most journalists have sneeringly dismissed the proposal by Julia Gillard to convene a ‘Citizen’s Assembly on Climate’ as just another ‘talkfest’ or more derisively a ‘gobfest’, or just a cynical ‘stunt’ to make us believe she is doing something about climate change, or to enable her to coast to the election without a proper policy. Some journalists have called it a ‘massive failure of leadership’, and ‘an excuse for inaction’. Miranda Devine’s PM’s so sure Bob’s your uncle wrote one of the more acerbic pieces about it.  As one would expect, Lenore Taylor wrote a more balanced piece: Gillard seeks citizens' group on ETS policy.  

Of course Coalition members have joined in the chorus, but so have several niche columnists and bloggers, some of whom I respect as writers. Mungo MacCallum says: “Gillard’s idea of a people’s assembly to achieve consensus under the guidance of a commission of experts is the silliest and most pusillanimous proposal to date…”. Grog of Grog’s Gamut talks about “…her mind numbingly stupid climate change policy, I think this is proof that whoever advised her to adopt the citizen’s panel should be taken out back and shot…” – pretty strong sentiments that reflect annoyance and disbelief.

Even nine out of ten in an online poll, for what it’s worth, thinks the idea is ‘a lot of hot air’, having selected the option that canvassed that answer.

But is this onslaught of negativity based on knowledge of such forums, or experience in educational settings, or an understanding of how public opinion is formed and can be influenced? Or does the idea just seem daft and therefore something to be flicked away like an annoying cattle fly?

Writing in the National Times, Carolyn Hendricks, political scientist at the Crawford school of economics and government at the Australian National University, is not so negative, although you might not think so from the title of her piece: Citizens' assembly on climate may turn the heat on Gillard.  In The Australian Mike Steketee writes positively in Academic sees merit in citizens' assemblies.  

Education the answer

Those of you that have a background in education will be less skeptical than most in the media, most of whom are trained as journalists not as educators or in public relations. You will remember the work of Kurt Lewin who pioneered social psychology, group dynamics and action research. You may recall the way he used groups to persuade housewives to use offal in place of better animal protein during wartime shortages. He tried traditional ‘instruction’ with almost no resultant change in their behaviour; it was only when he involved the women in group discussions about how THEY might use offal, and how THEY ACTUALLY HAD used it, that a substantial change towards the use of offal in their kitchens resulted. It was the discussion that did the trick – the women reached conclusions themselves; it was that which changed their behaviour. Since then group process has been used extensively in education, health care, science, the arts, business and commerce to effect behaviour change. It works.

If this group process is what Julia has in mind, it stands a good chance of meeting her aim – to facilitate a new and deep consensus in the community about the need for action about climate change, the options for action, and the consequences of those actions.

So let’s not join the knockers without giving it a go, condemning it out of hand just because it doesn’t ring a positive bell. It’s the knockers who need to ask themselves: ’Why am I knocking this idea?’ and ‘What is the evidence I have to support a negative attitude to it?’ If they come up short, they might care to read on.

Unlike journalists who fume about the idea but offer no reason why ‘it won’t work’, my support for the idea will be accompanied by an account about how it might produce the results Julia seeks.

What is needed?

First let’s be clear about the skeleton of what’s proposed. The Citizens' Assembly is to be informed by an independent commission of experts whose task is to explain the science behind climate change and report on international action. This body will include climate scientists and credible, with the emphasis on ‘credible’, skeptics. There would be little point in including rabid deniers who cannot support their stance with scientifically verifiable facts and figures, and who have no intention of being persuaded from their viewpoint.

So the first point to make is that the Citizens' Assembly will not be required to collect its own scientific information; instead it will be presented with this by the independent commission and asked to appraise it in the context of what the nation ought to do.

So if one had the responsibility for fashioning such a Citizens' Assembly, what approach might work?

First, the aim of the exercise

It seems that the ultimate aim is to restore the resolve of the Australian electorate to pursue climate change actions that have the possibility of slowing, halting, and perhaps even reversing the adverse effects of climate change and global warming, and mitigating its immediate cause, carbon pollution.The more immediate aim seems to be to use the citizens’ group to create a narrative about the need for climate change action that is plausible, understandable and appealing, even although it might include elements that are discomforting, such as increased costs of energy and products and services that depend heavily on energy. The narrative would then be used to influence thinking in the community towards rational and timely action on climate change.

Some argue that the public already supports action on climate change and that the Government, having been given a mandate to act at the last election, should ‘show leadership’ and ‘just get on with it’. But since then, with the Coalition’s negative ‘Great Big New Tax on Everything’ mantra perpetrated with vigour by Tony Abbott and Barnaby Joyce, support has fallen. Look at the graph on Pollytics: Lowy Poll – climate change and public hypocrisy which shows a fall from 68% in 2006 to 46% in 2010 among those who want immediate action, and the rise in those who want something done, but at low cost and with little urgency from 24% to 40%, while the real deniers have moved from 7% to 13%. Moreover in 2010, 33% are not prepared to pay anything extra for electricity, whereas in 2008 it was 21%. Only one in five are prepared to pay $21 a week or more extra for electricity to tackle climate change.

This is why Julia is seeking ‘a deep community consensus on climate change’. There is NOT a strong enough consensus now, yet such a strong and deep consensus IS needed to support the radical changes to the economy and the lifestyle and budget of ordinary citizens that action on climate change entails.

Parliament not the answer

Some, including Abbott himself, says that the nation already has a 150-member forum to reach consensus on what to do about climate change, - it’s called parliament. That he could have the effrontery to say this is breathtaking. It was in parliament that he led the push to destroy consensus after the Coalition under Malcolm Turnbull had reached agreement with the Government to pass the ETS. It was HE who ensured that parliament could not be the forum where consensus was reached, a consensus that would have brought the country along in its train. No, destruction of consensus was Abbott’s intent, and he succeeded.

So how could this Citizens' Assembly work?

Choosing the citizens

First, the 150 citizens need to be chosen. To represent the Australian community they need to reflect the demography of the country, the age and gender mix, the geographic distribution and the mix of occupations. The Bureau of Statistics would be capable of randomly selecting a group that reflected these parameters from its census data. No, it would not stick a pin into a telephone book as Greg Hunt suggested. It would need to select many more than the 150 required as many would not be able or willing to participate; perhaps a thousand would be needed initially.

The next step would be to whittle this larger group to the 150 required. This could be done by communicating with them asking if they are interested and willing to be involved. If they were, they would then be asked to answer questions about their country of origin, ethnicity, educational achievement, past and present occupation, their status in the community, their beliefs about Australian society and their aspirations for it, and their beliefs about climate change and what ought to be done. Attention to these details would allow a spread of people to be selected that represented the wide variety of opinion that exists in our community.

Once the 150 had been identified an educational process would be needed to ensure that all had a similar understanding of the scientific evidence for global warming, the consequences of doing nothing about it, the action that could be taken to mitigate it, the costs and implications of taking suitable action, and the likely sources and nature of opposition to action. This educational process could begin with written material prepared by experienced educators that explained all this in a simple, understandable and convincing narrative, attractively laid out with check lists, diagrams, illustrations, graphs and photos, complete with references, particularly those available online, for those who wish to delve more. The information upon which this would be based would be derived from the independent commission of experts on climate change mentioned above, which would provide the facts, figures and pros and cons of the climate change debate.

The first meeting of the citizens

The next step would be a preliminary meeting of the 150 to ensure that the written material had been understood and assimilated, and that the task for the group is explained and agree with the participants.

The task would be to digest the material, clarify with the independent commission of experts anything that is not clear or is incomplete, and discuss the veracity of the arguments for and against global warming and taking action to mitigate it.

Then the group would tackle the question: “How can we convince the Australian community about climate change, what we need to do about it, the cost and expected outcomes, and the cost and consequences of doing nothing, or doing less than is required?” and “How can we achieve consensus in the community?”

Small groups of around ten to twelve would discuss all this in the security of a small forum with group facilitators to assist, and experts available on request to answer questions. Different groups might be assigned different aspects of the matter to discuss. Plenary sessions, where the small groups gathered together, would share the output from these groups. An iterative process would be followed until some concrete proposals for informing, educating and convincing the wider community emerged. These would be consolidated into statements that might be useful in community settings. This process would be commenced at the meeting and got into usable form by the facilitators.

Initially, a two day meeting, where most participants could fly in on day one and home on day two, would be the most economical.

Community consultations

The next step would be asking the participants, armed with the output of the first meeting, to discuss the material at a local level among friends, workmates, community groups and any other interested forum to gauge reaction, seek feedback, solicit changes that might improve the impact of the material, and elicit support. The outcome of these ‘community consultations’ would be fed back to the facilitators of the 150-strong Assembly for consolidation.

Meeting two – message consolidation

Then it would be time for a second meeting – a message consolidation exercise. At this face-to-face meeting, participants would share their experiences at a community level. Messages that resonated positively would be confirmed as useful, while those that didn’t would be discarded or modified. Responses from the community would be shared, analysed and examined to determine how best to respond to them. Some would be negative and need counterbalancing messages. Geographical and demographic variations in community opinion about climate change might emerge which would need to be accommodated. Some would signal areas not to be traversed. By the end of this two-day meeting the aim would be to have consolidated messages that worked, and to have modified those that needed further field trial. 

Second community consultation

After the second meeting the next task would be to field-test any new or modified messages. This time the testing would be more extensive, with community meetings being organized by the local Labor member and in Coalition-held electorates by a Labor official. The messages would be subject to scrutiny by as wide a variety of citizens as possible where feedback would be welcomed and advice solicited about how to improve them. Several local meetings might be held; the more the better will be the outcome. Group process would be used in these larger forums.

Meeting three – message finalization

The third meeting of the Citizens' Assembly would examine the outcome of this second community consultation and the same iterative process would occur with the aim of fashioning a set of convincing messages that could be used in a community-wide information programme.

At this meeting graphic designers would create and present near-final mock-ups of promotional material: fact sheets, graphic representations of the facts, pros and cons of action and non-action, an argument for action, the expected outcome of action and the time frame, and the cost of action in dollars, living expenses, changes to industry and commerce and to our way of life. Formats would include letters, pamphlets, posters, newspaper and online articles, videos and TV pieces, audio clips for radio, and the usual T-shirts and other attention-grabbing devices.

This stage might require further time for completion of the material by educationalists and designers. When ready, the material would be sent to the Citizens Assembly members for final comment and approval. Another meeting might be needed if further work was needed.

When all is ready, a large-scale promotional campaign would be needed to saturate the media.

After this, polling companies would need to be commissioned to determine if public opinion had moved. The polling would need to be extensive so that the margin of error in the results was low. Only then would it be apparent if a strong consensus had been accomplished.

One more thing

Let’s be clear about one more thing. The Citizens' Assembly is NOT to determine Government policy, despite the insistence of some that Julia had abdicated decision making about climate to the citizenry. She has no intention of doing so and has said so clearly. But some journalists just don’t listen, or want to hear anything other than their own preconceived notion of what they want to hear. The aim of the Assembly is to assist in the development of understandable and memorable information about climate change and what needs to be done, such that would bring about a solid consensus in the community.

So there is an outline of how a Citizens’ Assembly might be fashioned and how it might work. Skeptics might dismiss it as ‘unrealistic’ or ‘unworkable’ or just plain ‘’stupid’. So be it.

Could it work?

Of course it could. Will it work? If given a fair chance and community approval, it probably will. But if the adverse forces that have been pitted against timely and effective action on climate change have their way it may not. If the likes of Tony Abbott, Barnaby Joyce and Nick Minchin are let loose, they may have the same destructive effect as they have had on climate change debate to date. We should never dismiss or minimize the destruction that skeptics and obstructionists can wreak.

So all you skeptics and knockers out there, comment here and tell us what you think. But please don’t insult our intelligence by knocking it without cogent reasons for doing so. Any idiot can do that. Tell us why it won’t or may not work, and if you have any inclination to have it work, tell us how to do it better.

Please tell us what you think.


Destructive politics - Abbott style

Long past memories do fade, but can anyone remember a period in federal politics when there was more destructive behaviour from an opposition than we are suffering today? Last week Tony Abbott averred that his Opposition was the most effective in Australian political history. He said that was so because he had stopped the Great Big New Tax of the ETS/CPRS, had forced Julia Gillard to change her asylum seeker policy, had forced a change to the mining tax – another GBNT, and had played a part in getting rid of a Prime Minister – all destructive actions.

It seems to me that everything the Government says and does is countered by a destructive comment. This not only damages the Government, which is its intent, it also damages our democracy and the governance of our nation. Its only purpose is to destroy the Government and seize power.

Even before Julia Gillard had announced her climate change policy Greg Hunt was out on the ABC’s AM on 23 July with: ”Julia Gillard has failed her own test of action. Instead she has produced a 2020 summit meets the Copenhagen conference.” – a slick piece of meaningless but destructive sloganeering. He went on: “All that Julia Gillard has done is provide an excuse not to take any action before the 2013 election. She has talked the talk but she has not walked the walk. This is classic Labor chaos. She believes nothing. They have achieved nothing. They are about to do nothing. But they are talking as if Kevin Rudd were in office and all of a sudden a summit becomes an excuse not to take action.”

Negative, destructive, dismissive, schoolmasterly, arrogant – Coalition style, Abbott style, Hunt style. Hunt finds this sort of talk easy – he’s always instructing the Government what to do – because he knows best.

Talking with Eleanor Hall on The World Today on 23 July about Labor’s climate change plan, Abbott said: “Look I think it's a camouflage for Julia Gillard's plan to bring in a carbon tax. I think that she wants a price on carbon; Bob Brown wants a carbon tax. Thanks to the secret preference deal with the Greens there will be a Green balance of power in the Senate. So we will get a carbon tax if this government is re-elected.”

He’s onto the Great Big New Tax theme again, a theme that played such a large part in destroying the ETS that the Government, Malcolm Turnbull and Ian MacFarlane had negotiated, and would have passed had Abbott not destroyed it.

Negative, destructive, dismissive of community opinion, and once more on the GBNT scare bandwagon.

Later that day Tony Abbott had this to say in Western Australia in I will be next PM: Abbott: “I can sense there will be a change of government come August 21” and "Yes, I think that there will be a change of government and yes, I think that I will be the next prime minister of Australia" Hubris – he fancies his destructive actions will be rewarded by victory.

Reflect on Joe Hockey’s approach. Asked by Lyndal Curtis last Wednesday on AM about the Coalition’s Budget ‘savings’ Hockey said: “Well you will see that during the course of the campaign, but what I can tell you absolutely is that at the end of the election it will be perfectly clear to the Australian people that under the Coalition we will spend less than Labor, we will tax less than Labor, we will pay off their debt again and we will go down the path of easing part of the pressure. You can't ease all the pressure but easing part of the pressure on those family budgets and taking upward pressure off interest rates.”

And later: “Well the bottom line here is controlling inflation and at the moment the government has its foot on the accelerator. It is borrowing $100 million a day, every day, just to fund its expenditure today and then it's got the debt on top of that. So this government by, with its reckless spending is putting upward pressure on inflation and so the Reserve Bank is trying to put its foot on the brake. It's trying to slow things. It's increasing interest rates and the electorate is hit both ways. We've got higher electricity prices, higher water prices, higher public transport prices, higher house prices and Labor's spending more and more money with its foot on the accelerator. The Reserve Bank is slamming its foot on the brake with higher interest rates and if it doesn't happen this month it will happen in the next few months unless we get inflation under control.”

A destructive rant not based on verifiable fact. Reserve Bank Governor Glenn Stevens said last week that Australia does not have a serious debt, but that is discarded by Hockey with the wave of his hand. According to Hockey the Government is wrong, on everything - incompetent, hopeless.

Hockey goes on to say: “We are the only party that has a climate change policy. Labor has just done a deal with the Greens, Labor has no climate change policy, but I bet you, I bet you that deal, which we'll never hear about until after the election is about introducing higher electricity prices, which is what the Greens want. Higher electricity prices and making life even less affordable for everyday households.”

Can you believe that he really thinks the Greens, or any party for that matter, wants higher electricity prices with the object of making living LESS affordable? Yet another destructive rant.

Later he says: "Tony Abbott is I think the best person to lead the country. You know he is a conviction politician, he believes in things. When he talks, he talks in real terms. At the moment we have someone who is not disclosing what she really believes in, I don't know what Julia Gillard believes in Lyndal. I really don't. I ask myself every day - what does Julia Gillard end up sleepless at night about? What really burns in her heart for our country? I don't know what it is and Julia Gillard...

Even allowing for Joe being slow on the uptake, how can he say such destructive things, how can he be so keen to assassinate her character, how can he be so negative when every day Julia is telling the people what she believes in. Some may not like it or agree with her, but we can all hear what she’s saying. Joe is deliberately seeking to destroy Julia Gillard in the eyes of the Australian people.

On PM on 20 July Hockey said: “This Labor Government never has delivered a surplus. In fact the last time Labor delivered a surplus was 1989 - 1989 when the Bangles led the charts."

Many times he has repeated that Labor has never delivered a surplus since 1989 and this Government will never deliver a surplus. On the 7.30 Report Hockey said: “Julia Gillard will never deliver a surplus. I said before that Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan would never deliver a surplus. I was right and here we go again. They'll never deliver it, Kerry.” He asserts he will deliver one: “Well, you know, we were running surpluses. We were running surpluses, the country was in good shape, we had four per cent unemployment. That's all gone. Surpluses are gone. We now have $90 billion of net debt, we're facing $40 billion of deficit this year, we're borrowing $100 million a day under Labor. Everyone has to pick up the pieces and ultimately it's the taxpayers and we've got to do the hard yards on that.”

Again destructive politics, and disingenuous to boot – Labor will NEVER deliver a surplus, WE WILL.

Defending Abbott’s ‘WorkChoices is dead buried and cremated’ mantra, Hockey tell O’Brien: “We're saying the Australian people want stability and certainty in industrial relations. They've had changes for the last three years - sorry, longer than the last three years - for the last seven years. There have been three major changes to industrial relations. We now accept the Australian people want certainty and stability out of Canberra. They've been on a wild ride. They've been on a ride with a new prime minister only a few weeks old, they've had pink batt programs that are reversed, school hall programs that have been a mess, they've got a boat policy that is in flummox. Give us back a proper government.”

Again, even while defending his own leader’s position, he destructively damns Gillard and the entire Government programme for the last two and a half years. Nothing it has done is of any value.

On The World Today Hockey said “The fact is the Labor Party is not committed to surpluses. It never will deliver a surplus. You can never repay the debt if you never have a surplus and for so long as the Commonwealth Government, as the 800 pound gorilla in the marketplace, is borrowing at least $100 million everyday in competition with the private sector, it's going to be harder for small business to borrow money. It's going to be more expensive for small business to borrow money.”

Here he is again destructively condemning the Government as ‘not committed to surpluses’, of being the 800 pound gorilla borrowing and thereby pushing up interest rates, although the effect of government borrowing has been shown repeatedly by economists to contribute just a tiny fraction of one percent to interest rates. More lying and deception.

Andrew Robb had this to say to Lyndal Curtis on The World Today on 20 July on the Coalition’s ‘savings’ in answer to a query about $400 million of savings claimed by the Coalition by not paying for infrastructure: “Well it's still something the Government has committed to so it is a directly a saving. But look the trouble with this government is that we as a government they're living beyond their means, they're making Australia live beyond its means. We haven't got the money. We've got to get our economy back into the sort of resilience that the Rudd and Gillard inherited three years ago.” Lyndal then asked: “Just a quick question of accounting. If you are not going to raise the money from the mining tax, can you really count the $400 million you're not going to spend from money you're not going to raise as a saving?" 
His response was: “Absolutely because if the Government is still committed to that $400 million, which will just mean they will borrow that money as they have done with most of their spending, it's borrowed money. A hundred million dollars a day they are borrowing to pay for their reckless programs - that's for the next two years. So that means that will be an extra four days of borrowing by this government to pay for that $400 million infrastructure fund.”

And so on goes the Coalition rant – destructive, disingenuous, intended to obfuscate and deceive.

On Thursday’s AM on 22 July, talking to Lyndal Curtis about the costings for the Coalition’s education initiatives and Labor’s challenge to them that showed a large black hole, the cost being double that stated, Christopher Pyne said: “This is a party with absolutely no credibility when it comes to figures, in the last election they claimed that to have computers in schools, that would cost a billion dollars, it turned out it would cost $2.2 billion. So this is the standard Hawker Britton mantra for the Labor party, as soon as the Coalition releases a policy, Hawker Britton says to Labor, go out and say the figures are wrong."

In other words, Pyne decided he wouldn’t address the question and explain how the costings were derived, just destructively condemn the Government’s financial management, and hope the question will go away. But it didn’t. Lyndal suggested the Coalition submit the costings to Treasury, to which Pyne replied: “Well look Joe Hockey and Andrew Robb are the spokespeople for finance and treasury, we'll go through exactly the normal procedures that every opposition and government goes through during election campaigns.”

In other words, don’t press me for justification; just let me rave on for a while about how incompetent financially the other side is. Destructive politics.

It still goes on. Today on Channel Nine’s Laurie Oakes interview with Joe Hockey, Hockey said “We don’t know what beats in the heart of Julia Gillard. Nor do the Australian people... Interrupted by Oakes with “But people say that about both leaders.” Hockey replied: “Well, no, no, no. But I say to you Laurie - everything Julia Gillard has touched in a policy sense has been a disaster. From Medicare gold, to computers in schools, to the school halls program, to the asylum seeker policy, to the mining fix, to the new 20-20 summit for climate change because she doesn’t want to be honest with the Australian people. Julia Gillard doesn’t stand for anything and is not being fair dinkum with the Australian people.”

So there you have it. More destructive politics, more character assassination, more negativity, more ‘nothing the Government has done is any good at all’.

Does the Opposition think the electorate is stupid and dumb, Does it think that its incessant negativity, its carping criticism of EVERYTHING the Government has done, its insistence that it has done NO good, that it will NEVER deliver a surplus, that it can’t get ANYTHING right at all, will impress. Does it believe that its destructive behavior over the ETS, the mining tax, asylum seekers and population and the BER will impress swinging voters to rush from what the Coalition insists is a wholly incompetent Government with hopeless leaders, with no policies or plans, with absolutely no achievements in Government, into the arms of the Coalition begging to be rescued from the disaster this Government has brought about?

Worse than that, does the Coalition and its mouthpieces, Abbott, Hockey, Robb, Pyne and Hunt, as well as Joyce, Bishop and Morrison, believe that the destructive behavior of the Coalition is contributing positively to good governance in this country? How could they believe that by obstructing important Government legislation over and again, by destroying some completely, is good for the nation? How can they believe that continually distracting the Government from its work with spurious claims, outrageously deceptive statements, and downright lies is good for the people? When will they ever realize that we want our elected representatives from all sides of politics to contribute to good governance, not destroy it?

This is adversarial destructive politics gone mad and we’re sick of it.

What do you think?

Who do you prefer - Laurie Oakes or Hugh Riminton?

I was astonished when I viewed a video titled Oakes hasn't lost his touch, with the byline: Laurie Oakes remains on top of his game after he dropped a bomb on PM Julia Gillard. It was a discussion between by Geoff Elliott, Media Editor and Caroline Overington, 'Media Diary' for The Australian.

Do play it through its full six and a half minutes - to do so click here.

Overington begins by describing the Oakes question to Julia Gillard at her National Press Club appearance last week as a 'bomb' and “a classical example of how journalism should work”. She goes on to describe how journalists should approach their 'target' with a question the target is not expecting and to which they won't have prepared an answer, and 'drop' it into a telecast arena so there is no way the question can be dodged. After replaying the actual question and Gillard's response, Overington goes onto advocate the use of this 'classic example' in the training of journalists. She asserts that the Oakes 'bomb' shows how on top of his game he is.

Although it may horrify you as you view this short video, it will repay your time, as it will give profound insight into how at least one journalist from The Australian believes journalism should work, how the game should be played.

I was incredulous and horrified that any journalist in this country could believe that deliberately ambushing a recently-appointed Prime Minister at a National Press Club appearance with a question not related to the prime purpose of the event - to unfold to the Australian people the vision and plans she had for the nation - was 'classic' journalism, to be copied by novitiates. As we saw, it detracted substantially from subsequent coverage of Gillard's actual address, sucking up a lot of the media exposure, thereby depriving the electorate hearing much of what Gillard proposed for the next term of Government. Calculatingly, Oakes did us great disservice by distracting us from what the media itself is screaming for from Gillard - substantial statements of policy. Why fume about lack of policy and then, when it's being delivered, in Oakes' own words, 'put a spanner in the works' and wreck the process?

Does it have to be like this? Do we the viewers have to put up with journalists like Laurie Oakes, Kerry O'Brien and Tony Jones savaging politicians from all sides of politics with aggressive, rude questions, impertinently put by people whose only claim to fame is the powerful position the media affords them? They ask questions as if they already know the answers, as if they already know what ought to have been done or said, as if their subjects are schoolchildren who have messed up, lied or have shown themselves to be incompetent or ignorant, who have not done their homework and who are unable to do what is expected of them. Tony Jones' interview of Julia Gillard about the East Timor regional asylum-seeker processing concept was disgraceful. If you want to confirm that, read the transcript here.

After some very schoolmasterly questions, Jones said, “I just can't understand why you didn't pick up the phone and speak to Xanana Gusmao, who after all is the prime minister of the government of East Timor who would be responsible, his government at least, for approving this, not the president.” Note this is not a question - it is a statement of Jones' opinion, which incidentally showed his ignorance. Gillard replied: “Well, Tony, you seem to have taken some umbrage at this….”. Exactly - the schoolmaster had taken umbrage at this schoolgirl's actions. Now what right has Jones to take umbrage? Who is he to not just question his subject, but gratuitously to tell her what she should have done?

No, it doesn't have to be like this. There are journalists, just a few, out there who conduct themselves with propriety, who are able to ask searching questions without rudeness, with respect and consideration for the interviewee's position. One who springs to mind is Channel Ten's Hugh Riminton, who, after an illustrious overseas career, is now a political journalist. His CV includes: “Riminton has won Australia's top journalism awards, the Walkley and the Logie, as well as prestigious honours from New York's Columbia University and the Asian TV Awards. In all, he has been honoured for international reportage from Iraq, Sri Lanka, PNG, French Polynesia, Fiji, Kosovo and Sudan. He holds a Masters degree from Macquarie University.”

He sometimes substitutes for Paul Bonjiorno (who is himself a sound and courteous journalist) as host of Channel Ten's Meet the Press. In case you've not witnessed Riminton's approach, you can hear his conduct of Meet the Press on 18 July when he interviewed Nicola Roxon and Galaxy's David Briggs. To hear as much as you wish of Riminton's interview, click here.  You will have to endure the ad and watch the preliminaries of Meet the Press.

You can also see the transcript by clicking here and then clicking: 18 JULY 2010 - NICOLA ROXON AND DAVID BRIGGS, which you can download and open.

Let's take a couple of Riminton's questions to Nicola Roxon: “Now,can you tell us, in very simple, clear ways, how is my health, how is the health of all Australians, going to be better under Labor than it would be under the other lot?”, and later: “Okay, well, you've set out to get national health and hospital reform and, of course, WA is not part of that at the moment. Will you be able to, by election day, say that WA has moved back in with the rest of Australia?”, and further on: “Okay, now you are Minister not only of Health but also of Ageing. Of course, we know that health gets ever more expensive, and as we age, it gets ever more expensive.The Prime Minister has made it plain that we are moving forward, as she says, not to a big population but a sustainable population, but as the Minister of Health and Ageing, isn't it your job to make the case to the people that if we are going to pay for our health costs as we get older, we're going to need more children, more migrants, essentially a bigger population, to broaden the tax base?” These are all well phrased but penetrating questions, questions that require a thoughtful answer, yet courteously put with respect and consideration, without the use of abrasive words.

You may have seen him recently sensitively interviewing Blanche d'Alpuget and Bob Hawke after the telemovie Hawke. Although some of the questions were 'hard' ones, Riminton's approach was always courteous and polite, and the entire interview congenial.

Belligerence is not necessary. Rudeness should be a no, no. Discourteousness should be taboo, after all these are our elected representatives. Journalists should remember that in the 'trustworthy profession' stakes they are 35th on a list of 40 professions, just a couple of notches above politicians with real estate agents and sex workers in between. Is it any wonder that politicians rate only above car salesmen and telemarketers, treated the way they are by the media and in copycat fashion reviled by the public. Whilst acknowledging that politicians certainly contribute to their lowly position on the 'trustworthy totem pole', I believe that the media contribute profoundly to that state of affairs. Imagine how the public's opinion of its elected representatives might improve if journalists showed them respect and courtesy and approached them with intelligent but evenhanded questions. We might be surprised and delighted with their response, and the quality of political discourse might rise from the slough of despond in which it is mired most of the time.

I for one do not want Laurie Oakes 'classic' journalism - I find it repugnant. Give me Hugh Riminton any day.

What do you want?


So many questions, so few answers

Does anyone else get frustrated when they hear and see the members of the Federal Labor government being given the Third Degree by the media over the tiniest tidbit of unsourced gossip or misstep, and with respect to their policies, yet the Opposition are only given the once-over-lightly?

I know I do.

I am also heartily sick of their glib dismissal of valid questions, on the odd occasion that they are asked them by journalists, with the pat line,“We are merely an Opposition, and as such we cannot be expected to make (difficult) decisions about our policies, and inform the electorate with answers, until after we get back into power.” Or some such similar codswallop.

Where's the journalist who has the gumption to make the perfectly valid point back to the Opposition mouthpiece, whoever they may be, that, no, you are the alternate government going into an election campaign and the electorate has the right to know the detail of your proposals so that they can judge both teams competing for their vote on a level playing field?

If you, like I am, are sick to death of the ABC, News Ltd., and to a lesser degree, Fairfax, being used as Coalition Talking points platforms, then I suppose it will again be the job of the citizen journalists of the Fifth Estate to ask those tough questions.

I know that we will never be able to ask the Coalition MPs to their faces the questions that need more than those glib Talking Points mouthed back to us as answers, but maybe, just maybe, there's a journalist out there reading this who will take our concerns and questions on board and put them to the Coalition.

Thus, in the interests of truly 'Fair and Balanced' inquiry I have begun to wade through the mire of the Liberal Party website and their statements to the press, and composed some questions, based on their stated words which have been written down there, so we have to believe them, which are begging for answers.

This is by no means an exhaustive examination of the composed output of the Libs, so I'm sure I'll find fertile ground for further questioning in the future as we make our way through the election campaign.

OK, let's start with Coalition 'Economic Principles' and Industrial Relations policy, shall we?

The Coalition say they are for 'Building Sustainable Prosperity' and that, 'Individuals, rather than governments, are usually best placed to make decisions that maximise community well-being.'

What I would like to ask is, how will an Abbott government be able to rein in the well-documented exploitative practices of 'individuals' in the form of employers, who made decisions which demonstrably minimised 'community well-being', as a result of WorkChoices, which Tony Abbott has pledged to bring back in a modified form? He may say that he will not bring back WorkChoices and that the community has no appetite for further workplace change, but doesn't that contradict other statements which he has made this year wherein he stated he did want to make changes to the new Unfair Dismissal provisions of the 'FairWork Act', and to abolish Weekend Penalty Rates? See here for a reminder:

I would especially like to highlight this quote from Julie Bishop: "Signalling the Coalition's intent, deputy Liberal leader Julie Bishop yesterday attacked the government's overhaul of workplace awards and said the return of 'inflexible working conditions' such as weekend penalty rates was costing employers and workers."

I would thus like to encourage an enterprising journalist to ask Ms Bishop, or Mr Abbott, to come up with definitive evidence to explain that assertion. I mean, whenever I have been into my local pharmacy of a weekend recently, post the introduction of the 'Fair Work' legislation, they have seemed to be doing pretty well, have sufficient staff to meet everyone's needs, a goodly number of customers, and the pharmacist has seemed happy enough. I also have not seen any pharmacies, or any other small businesses, having to close down of a weekend as a result of the new workplace laws or having to pay weekend Penalty Rates. Sure, that is not to say that some small businesses have not had to close their doors. However, I would make a guess that that would more likely have been due to the credit squeeze the banks imposed during the worst of the GFC.

Now, could someone ask a Coalition spokesperson whether, as Joe Hockey said on Lateline this week, whether the Coalition will tamper with the Workplace Laws, or not? Will they leave Penalty Rates alone, as Hockey suggested, or will they seek to abolish them, as their Leader and Deputy Leader suggested in their February, 2010 statements?

Could an enterprising and conscientious journalist ask Ms Bishop to detail with hard facts where jobs have been lost in the Aged Care sector, in the Retail sector, in Pharmacies, or in Agriculture, as a result of the Labor government's new 'inflexible working conditions'? I thought we had 5.1% unemployment and a looming skills and worker shortage again? Which tends to suggest otherwise, Ms Bishop, don't you think? Please explain, Coalition.

Also, as stated in Tony Abbott's February speech to a Business luncheon, does he still subscribe to the statement he made back then, that the Coalition “had a mandate to take the Unfair Dismissal monkey off the back of Small Business, and we will once more seek that mandate”?

Also, whether, he continues to believe that, “We had a mandate to introduce Statutory Non-Union Contracts and we will seek to renew that mandate”?

Does this also mean, as that statement seems to suggest, that he is specifically anti-Union? If not, why make a virtue of the fact that Statutory Contracts should be 'non-union'?

Tony Abbott also stated that, “Labor had interim transitional employment agreements”, and “We will make them less interim. ”What exactly does he mean by that statement? Does it mean that he would like to abolish them on coming to government? Sure sounds that way to me.

Also, “Labor has individual flexibility agreements. We will make them more flexible because we understand that you can't run a successful business without being able to deploy your workforce to their best advantage and to your best advantage”. Somehow I think the bit about 'to their best advantage' was put in there as camouflage for his real intent, to craft laws that will work to the employers' best advantage.

He then goes on to say, “We want to make it possible for businesses to be more profitable and for workers to earn more. That's what we had under the Howard government. That's what we need to have again.”

Now, those statements suggest a number of questions to me.

Firstly, could Tony Abbott suggest how the ALP's flexible workplace arrangements do not now deploy employees to their employer's best advantage, beyond going into the realms of worker exploitation?

Also, how increasing the 'flexibility' of employee work arrangements does not equate to the Howard government, under WorkChoices, allowing for employers to order their employees to work whenever the employer wanted them to? And being forced to come into work at short notice, under threat of being sacked if they didn't, taking absolutely no account of the employees home situation with respect to their families?

Is that not the extreme sort of 'flexibility' that Tony Abbott's words conjure up in your mind?

It sure does in mine.

I'd like someone to ask him if that will be the case if Eric Abetz, member of the H.R. Nicholls Society of extreme I.R. advocates, becomes Industrial Relations Minister in an Abbott government.

Enough of the tightly controlled message being the only thing that gets out each day from the Coalition during the election campaign. We need real answers to real questions!

Finally, could some enterprising journalist, during the election campaign, challenge Tony Abbott, when he comes out with the statement again, which he no doubt will, that workers earnt more under the Howard government as a result of the changes brought about by WorkChoices? As far as I can remember it, that 'fact' was as a result of the figures being inflated by the salaries of upper and middle managers on Individual Contracts, who benefited the most from WorkChoices, and not the wages of employees on the bottom rungs of the employment ladder who were forced into Individual Statutory Contracts.

I will be endeavouring to scour the Liberal Party's written words (because they are the ones we are told to believe) to formulate more questions which they should be asked in the days and weeks ahead during the election campaign. Hopefully, as I said, there will be some journos out there still with a conscience and not an agenda, who will take those questions on board and try to ask Tony Abbott for some straight answers to them, and not be fobbed off when he gives non-answers.

I would appreciate it if we could all be on the lookout now for the statements, made by members of the Coalition, which suggest pertinent questions and thus demand straight answers. Maybe we could compile them into a file which could be sent out to all the journalists on the campaign trail, so that they may in turn ask those questions of the Coalition on our behalf.

Especially so considering the fact that Tony Abbott has today said that he not only wishes to bury WorkChoices but to cremate it. Which is all well and good as a soundbite intended to disarm the electorate from Day 1 of the campaign. However, it is my hope that the journalists with Tony Abbott scrutinise closely what he has written down as commitments with regard to this contentious policy area. An article from The Courier Mail today outlines the bare bones of his Industrial Relations pledges.

However, the last couple of sentences give me pause for thought: "Mr Abbott will pledge that if the Coalition wins the election it will not seek to change Labor's new Fair Work Act for at least three years." He will say he wants to make individual agreements more flexible and reduce small business burdens, but "do so within Labor's existing legislation".

What that says to me is that he is engaging in an electoral fix to get the issue off the agenda by saying that he won't touch the Fair Work legislation in the first term of an Abbott government. No doubt he would spend the entire first term of his government massaging the electorate and softening them up for the changes that he has promised to bring in in his second term. Therefore an eneterprising journalist on the campaign trail should pointedly ask him what exactly are the changes that he intends to bring into the workplace in his second term? And, if he fobs off the questioner with a glib line about just let him get a first term before he discusses a second, then I would not let him get away with that. The electorate needs to know now!

Also, what exactly does he mean when he says he wants to make 'individual agreements more flexible'? Does that mean he wants to abolish Enterprise Bargaining in favour of Individual Agreements for all employees? Does it also mean, as I noted above, that he wants to bring back the employers' ability to demand an employee work at the employer's whim, with no say in the matter of when they are rostered on to work, and no allowance made for family duties and Work/Life balance?

Lastly, what does he mean when he says he wants to 'reduce small business burdens...within Labor's existing legislation'? Does this mean that he will be wanting to severely modify Labor's Unfair Dismissal provisions within the Fair Work legislation? Well, isn't that just returning to WorkChoices principles under the cloak of the Fair Work legislation?

We need answers to these questions, and we need our best and brightest journalists to ask these questions of Mr Abbott now, and not just let him skate on by with his glib daily soundbites that say everything and nothing as he is never pinned down for long enough to get a straight response and a truthful, explicit answer from him.

What do you think? Will you join us here at The Political Sword and work with us to provide the scrutiny of the campaigns of both parties, which the Press Gallery appears to have not the time or the inclination to apply to the welter of material that will be released over the life of the election campaign?


How to beat up a story - ABC style

In her address to the Lowy Institute last week, when addressing the issue of asylum seekers, Julia Gillard talked about: “...building a regional approach to the processing of asylum seekers, with the involvement of the UNHCR, which effectively eliminates the on shore processing of unauthorised arrivals and ensures that anyone seeking asylum is subject to a consistent process of assessment in the same place.”  Later in that address she referred to how much effort had been put into regional cooperation in recent years via the Bali Process and then went on to say: “Building on the work already underway through the Bali Process, today I announce that we will begin a new initiative. In recent days I have discussed with President Ramos Horta of East Timor the possibility of establishing a regional processing centre for the purpose of receiving and processing of the irregular entrants to the region.”  Note the words ‘begin a new initiative’ and ‘the possibility of establishing’. 

The media jumped to the conclusion that the centre WOULD be in East Timor and immediately began talking about ‘The East Timor Solution’, likening it to John Howard’s ‘Pacific Solution’; the Greens said ‘same Pacific Solution, new postcode’.  This was slipshod thinking, sloppy talk.  Every sceptic and knocker soon had their criticisms aired in all forms of the media with typical journalistic relish.  

An additional object of criticism was Gillard’s approach to the East Timorese President rather than the PM.  Just about every journalist leapt on what they saw as the inappropriateness of that move, likening President Ramos Horta to our Governor General, apparently not knowing that the comparison is invalid.  On Lateline Tony Jones was at his arrogant schoolmasterly worst, dressing down schoolgirl Julia for making such an elementary error.  As Stephen Smith has since twice explained, this criticism was not justified; Gillard’s actions were entirely appropriate.  Smith’s assertion is backed up by the fact that the East Timorese PM has assigned the President the task of carrying this matter forward, something our GG would never be asked to do.  Despite the media’s mistake, has anyone heard any retraction?  And we know we never will.

After a couple of days, with the media going feral over the ‘East Timor Solution’, sending journalists to that country to solicit reaction and seek out contrary views, always there if you look for them, Gillard sought to correct the media’s assumption that East Timor WOULD BE the place for the processing centre, by pointing out that this proposition was only at an exploratory stage, that much discussion was needed, and that East Timor was not the only possible venue.  The media leapt on this as a Gillard ‘retreat’, a headline used in both The Age and The Australian.  But when journalists were confronted with Gillard’s actual words and presumably recognized that they had got their stories wrong, to a person they resorted to: ‘she gave the impression the centre would be in East Timor, and over the next couple of days neither she nor her office sought to correct that impression.’  In other words, don’t blame us for getting it wrong or for jumping to conclusions – presumably they expected Gillard to put them straight sooner.

More recently some journalists, and certainly Tony Abbott, have declared the East Timor initiative dead as the East Timor parliament had voted unanimously against the idea.  But as only about a half of the 65 parliamentarians were present and none of the government ministers, and since, unlike Australia, the government is different from the parliament in that country, this unanimous vote has little significance and has not affected the ongoing discussions between Australian Government officials and the East Timor Government, which continue satisfactorily despite Julie Bishop declaring today that Gillard’s plan was an example of incompetence.  Today the media is focussed on Nauru since it has offered its facilities and a newfound willingness to sign the UN Refugee Convention.  Journalists, such as the ABC’s Fran Kelly, are hammering Government ministers with ‘why not Nauru?’  It seems to have escaped them that the Government is already in discussions with East Timor, and that an entrepreneur there spoke today of benefits for East Timor in the plan. 

Another furphy is the media line that rich Australia should not expect poor East Timor to carry Australia’s asylum-seeker burden.  It isn’t and it won’t.  Do journalists really believe Australia would not cover the financial burden?

Yet again we see poor journalism obscuring reality and commonsense.

This episode shows how incompetent and arrogant our MSM has become.  It decides what the real story is, never mind the facts, pursues it relentlessly even if it has got the story wrong, and even when that becomes apparent, set out, in chorus, to lay the blame elsewhere, anywhere but where it belongs.  And since the pen is mightier than the sword they can say what they like, make it up if necessary, and use language that slants the story towards their point of view or their preferred position. 

Blog site after blog site records comments about the perpetual bias exhibited by the ABC, nowhere more flagrantly illustrated than by the ABC’s coverage of the asylum seeker issue. Some recent news items on ABC radio illustrate this. Let’s take just a couple of stories to argue this point.  To demonstrate how different the story might have been, I have suggested alternatives to some of the words used.  In the original transcript, the pejorative words that I believe portray bias are in bold italics in brackets; the alternative more neutral wording is in bold.  What follows is rather lengthy, but is easy reading.  It is reproduced in full to illustrate my point.

First, let’s examine Emily Bourke’s report on Saturday, July 10 on the ABC’s AM, headed Gillard's approach to asylum seekers (attacked) questioned. 

ELIZABETH JACKSON: After (much confusion) the uncertainty over Prime Minister Julia Gillard's (on again/off again) plan for an East Timor processing centre for asylum seekers the chief executive of the Australian Industry Group Heather Ridout has (warned) advised Julia Gillard to slow down her plans to roll out her new climate change policy.

Ms Ridout has told The Australian newspaper it would be "over-reaching" for the Government to roll out a replacement for the emissions trading scheme ahead of the election.

The Prime Minister (has come under sustained attack) has been criticized in some quarters this week over her handling of the asylum seeker issue and her plans for a regional processing centre.

Julia Gillard's consultations with East Timor have been (fiercely) criticised with the Opposition claiming that amateurs are running the Australian government.

While the Prime Minister and her ministers have denied they've (bungled) mismanaged the deal, the policy has also attracted (scorn) criticism from the union movement. 

Emily Bourke reports. 

EMILY BOURKE: While Kevin Rudd was expert in international diplomacy, Julia Gillard's foray into foreign affairs hasn't been a smooth one. 

The Opposition has accused the Government of incompetence and deception over plans for a regional processing centre for asylum seekers. 

But the Government has also drawn criticism from an unlikely source - Paul Howes from the Australian Workers Union on Sky News. (No mention that Howes also criticized the Opposition’s approach)

PAUL HOWES: I am not happy with the Government's response to this. I'm not happy with what the Coalition's doing on this. I accept that you know, we have largely lost the debate.

EMILY BOURKE: Michael Wesley is an expert in international affairs and the executive director of the Lowy Institute. 

MICHAEL WESLEY: The concentration on East Timor has really overshadowed other parts of the Prime Minister's speech and I think probably in retrospect it may not have been such a good idea to name specific countries' leaders that she had talked to.

EMILY BOURKE: In that sense has she (faulted) made an error? Has she (bungled) slipped up in making this announcement?

MICHAEL WESLEY: I don't think she's bungled it but in some ways it would have been more useful to have been closer to agreement than she was if she was to name the country itself. 

I have no doubt that there has been more than a conversation between the Prime Minister and Jose Ramos-Horta. I am sure there have been all sorts of back channel conversations between Australia and East Timor.

EMILY BOURKE: While the Government has stressed that it is in dialogue with East Timor, (Dr Wesley says it's clear the Government hasn't done crucial groundwork) Dr Wesley says that the Prime Minister didn’t have the time needed for the careful negotiations required for this diplomacy.

MICHAEL WESLEY: Diplomacy of this sort works when it’s preceded by months and months and months of careful negotiation. Now obviously the Prime Minister didn't have that sort of time. She wanted to come out and make a statement on this issue that seems to be showing up in the polls as fairly damaging to the Government. 

So she wanted to come out and say something strong on this. She'd only been in the job a few weeks and obviously there hadn't been the chance to do that sort of careful preparation. 

EMILY BOURKE: Dr Wesley says this week's events are unlikely to be a sign of things to come. 

MICHAEL WESLEY: I don't think we can judge Prime Minister Gillard on this particular episode. I think Julia Gillard is in kind with a very long line of Prime Ministers. People like Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke, Paul Keating and John Howard really had no experience of foreign affairs when they became Prime Minister. 

I think in a lot of ways Kevin Rudd was a rarity. He will stand out as a rarity in Australian political history, in a Prime Minister with significant diplomatic experience and background on coming to office. 

I think Julia Gillard is much more in the mould of Prime Ministers who haven't really focused on foreign affairs before they've reached office but then become quite adept at it once they get a feel for it in office. 

EMILY BOURKE: With the emissions trading scheme on ice, next week the Prime Minister is expected to announce more detail on the government's climate change policy. Renewable energy schemes on the domestic front (might prove safer and familiar turf) will be familiar territory for the new Prime Minister.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: Emily Bourke with that report.

To access the story click here.  

Now Lyndal Curtis

Here’s another example of ABC hype: Mark Colvin introduced a Lyndal Curtis’ segment on PM on Friday 9 July that was headed:  Asylum seeker policy (confusion leaves egg on PM's face) continues to cause concern.  (Of course Mark was trying to be clever with the egg reference) 

MARK COLVIN: It appears you can’t become Prime Minister without breaking eggs. Something about Julia Gillard had annoyed one middle aged man in Perth today enough to provoke him into throwing an egg at her.

The egg missed but it was another indication that the new Prime Minister wasn’t getting the continuing dream run that her backers had hoped for.  (What a gratuitous backhander.)

Her plan for a regional processing centre for asylum seekers is struggling for traction and (credibility) acceptability.

And while East Timorese politicians have had at best a lukewarm response to the idea of hosting the centre, the Prime Minister’s real trouble has come from her own words.

Chief political correspondent Lyndal Curtis reports. 

LYNDAL CURTIS: On Tuesday Julia Gillard announced she’d be pursuing a regional processing centre, leaving the clear impression she wanted it to be in East Timor.   (Here we go again ‘leaving the clear impression’)

JULIA GILLARD: In recent days I have discussed with president Ramos-Horta of East Timor the possibility of establishing a regional processing centre for the purpose of receiving and processing irregular entrants to the region.

LYNDAL CURTIS: It was an impression the Immigration Minister Chris Evans got as well that night he spoke to the 7:30 Report. 

HEATHER EWART: How are you going to be divert boats to East Timor? 

CHRIS EVANS: Well it’s not about diverting boats. People, if they arrive in Australia, as unauthorised boat arrivals will be returned to East Timor, will be taken to the centre.  (What else did she expect him to say?)

LYNDAL CURTIS: Although by the next morning he was canvassing the possibility of other locations.

CHRIS EVANS: It’s certainly the starting point for a discussion, East Timor. But obviously it’s about a regional solution and there may well be other alternatives. 

LYNDAL CURTIS: The Government did nothing in the days between the announcement and yesterday to dissuade people from thinking that East Timor was the Government’s preferred location for the regional processing centre. Although by yesterday, with the reception in East Timor to her idea looking less than overwhelmingly supportive, Julia Gillard seemed to be backtracking.  (Here’s the same media theme ‘…did nothing…to dissuade…’, ‘backtracking’)

JULIA GILLARD: I’m not, I’m not going to leave undisturbed the impression that I made an announcement about a specific location… 

MICHAEL SMITH: Where will it be then? 

JULIA GILLARD: … which is how you’ve phrased your question. 

MICHAEL SMITH: Where will it be? 

JULIA GILLARD: Well, we will have the discussions I’ve just outlined and they have started already. In addition in that …

MICHAEL SMITH: Yeah, yeah but where will it be? 

JULIA GILLARD: Well this will have to emerge from the work with our regional neighbours.

MICHAEL SMITH: Do you know where your regional processing centre will be?   (How many times does Julia have to put up with this persistent rudeness?)

JULIA GILLARD: What I’ve said, no, what I’ve said is this, a consensus about a regional processing centre, where it would be, how it would work, all of those things would need to come out of the regional dialogue. 

LYNDAL CURTIS: She didn’t mention the possibility of East Timor being the location for the centre during that exchange. 

This morning the Home Affairs Minister Brendan O’Connor was on board.

BRENDAN O’CONNER: It was on Tuesday the Prime Minister made clear she would be discussing this matter and had discussed the matter with the president of East Timor about the possibility of a regional processing centre. There’d been no reference to where and indeed there was certainly no, there was no point made about exactly how this was to be done.

LYNDAL CURTIS: And Chris Evans was again canvassing alternatives.

CHRIS EVANS: There seems to be some surprise that alternatives were possible and as I say both Stephen Smith and I have in numerous interviews made it clear that there are alternatives but that discussions had started with East Timor. 

LYNDAL CURTIS: But by morning in Perth today, Julia Gillard was addressing a business breakfast where she was back to talking about East Timor.

JULIA GILLARD: Earlier this week I made the case that regional processing needs to be part of our long term solution to unauthorised arrivals. I said in my speech that one possibility was a centre in East Timor.

LYNDAL CURTIS: And at a later doorstop she wasn’t willing to canvas any other alternatives.

JOURNALIST: And Manus Island and PNG (Papua New Guinea) are they in the offshore mix? 

JULIA GILLARD: Well our focus here is on the dialogue with East Timor. I couldn’t be clearer about that.

LYNDAL CURTIS: The Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says Julia Gillard has bungled.

TONY ABBOTT: What we’re seeing from this Prime Minister, as from her predecessor, is incompetence, deception and ideology. It’s just not good enough.

LYNDAL CURTIS: The Prime Minister’s office is explaining the confusion by saying that nothing has changed. And when her wording is looked at closely it’s all been consistent. A spokesman says all Ms Gillard was pointing out yesterday was that there had been no announcement, that she can’t make a decision on behalf of another country.

A point Senator Evans was making this morning.

CHRIS EVANS: Well, what the Prime Minister did is she indicated who she’d spoken to but she also made it clear it was a decision for their national government. You can’t go around speaking on behalf of other national governments.

LYNDAL CURTIS: The need for diplomatic niceties does seem to have driven Ms Gillard yesterday pointing out that she hadn’t announced a centre would be in East Timor. And while her offer says her language has been consistent, the problem is that she looked like she was backing away from the idea of having the processing centre in East Timor at a time when the East Timorese were sending lukewarm signals and she was under fire for having bungled the diplomacy. 

And it looks like Ms Gillard, who narrowly missed being hit with an egg thrown at her in Perth today, had scrambled the message and has been rapidly trying to unscramble it today. The perception that’s left is one of confusion from a Prime Minister and a ministry rapidly trying to keep up with a changing situation - all in a policy Labor was trying to neutralise and get off the agenda as a potential electoral disadvantage.   (That might be the media’s impression Lyndal, but that doesn’t mean the media is correct.)

Australia’s seventh prime minister, Billy Hughes, established the Commonwealth police after being struck with an egg in 1917. If he was around he might have some advice for Australia’s 27th PM.  (That, I suppose, is meant to be funny!)

MARK COLVIN: Lyndal Curtis.

To access the segment click here.  

Lyndal Curtis again, this time with Stephen Smith

On PM Friday 9 July Mark Colvin introduced: Australia's Government defends asking Horta about asylum centre 

MARK COLVIN: So first the Prime Minister mentioned East Timor as a possible site and said she’d begun talking to the Government in Dili. Then she rowed back on that and said she’d never said it would be in East Timor.

So is anything about the Government’s regional processing centre plan getting any clearer? The Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Stephen Smith, is speaking to Lyndal Curtis. 

LYNDAL CURTIS: Stephen Smith if we could just clear up any remaining confusion, is it the Government’s preferred position or starting point to have the regional processing centre in East Timor if East Timor says yes? 

STEPHEN SMITH: Well we started a dialogue with East Timor. I think people should frankly, you know, just take a cold shower and calmly go through where we’re at. The Prime Minister, the first leader in our region to do so, has indicated that we should have, for very good policy reasons, a regional processing centre.

She approached president Ramos-Horta and despite some commentary to the contrary that was an entirely appropriate response as has been indicated by the prime minister of East Timor saying that he wants the president, president Horta to be responsible for discussions from East Timor’s point of view. 

We’ve made it clear we’re in dialogue and discussion with East Timor. But at the same time we are taking our suggestion to the region because we need this suggestion, if is to go anywhere, to have regional support and also to have United Nations High Commissioner for Refugee support. 

So, we’re pursuing this with East Timor and we’re pursuing it seriously. Now other countries in the region may indicate an interest, may indicate that they want to be considered for a possible regional processing centre as part of a regional framework, you know, as Chris Evans has made clear, as I’ve made clear. That would be entirely a matter for them.

But so far as we’re concerned, we are in a dialogue with East Timor and we’re proposing to pursue that.

LYNDAL CURTIS: Did you advise the Prime Minister that it was okay to speak to the president? 

STEPHEN SMITH: Look, I see Tony Abbott is out there making, you know, a range of outrageous comments about, you know, a quiet invasion of Australia by asylum seekers. Also asserting, without any evidence whatsoever or any basis whatsoever that the Prime Minster and I hadn’t had a conversation about this matter.

There was a full Cabinet discussion about all of the aspects of this matter that are now out there in the public arena. There was also a conversation amongst national security committee reasons. So I’ve previously made the point that in national security and national interest areas you have to be very careful about how you proceed and Tony Abbott making outrageous comments with no basis, no evidence, no foundation, doesn’t do anything other than add to the risk which he poses to these sorts of issues. 

LYNDAL CURTIS: But aren’t the usual protocols when a matter’s being raised with a foreign government to speak to the head of that government? Did you advise the Prime Minister it was okay to speak to president Ramos-Horta? 

STEPHEN SMITH: Anyone in Australia who has taken a passing interest in East Timorese matters; in its independence, in its close relationship with Australia, knows that president Ramos Horta is more than just a head of state.

That’s reflected by the fact that the Prime Minister has asked him to be responsible for the discussions with Australia on this matter. He’s not just a titular head of state. He is a person who is integral to East Timorese life, East Timorese society and anyone with a passing interest in Australia’s relationship with East Timor knows that. 

It was entirely appropriate for Prime Minister Gillard to start a conversation with East Timor by having a conversation with the president. 

LYNDAL CURTIS: Why not start with the prime minister?   (Lyndal is not going to be satisfied because she didn’t get the answer she wanted.)

STEPHEN SMITH: Also crystal clear from president Horta’s remark that the starting point of president Horta’s deliberations would be a conversation with prime minister Gusmao which they both regarded as entirely appropriate.

It is a complete furphy. Where have we ended up? We’ve ended up with Australia and East Timor in a serious dialogue for the first occasion about trying to find a long-term sustainable regional solution to a significant problem of people movement, people smuggling and human trafficking.

The interview is too long for this piece, but if you want to read the full transcript or listen to it, click here. 

A beat-up ABC style

This has been one of the more flagrant examples of journalistic ignorance and incompetence, and it’s OUR ABC that is as guilty as the rest of the MSM for this beat-up.  If only journalists, especially very experienced ones like Tony Jones, had taken the trouble to research the subject even superficially, they would have read Gillard’ speech more carefully and avoided jumping to unwarranted conclusions; would have known that East Timor has different arrangements for governance from Australia and thereby avoid making fundamental mistakes about who should have been contacted first; would have understood better the past negotiations that have taken place under the Bali Process; would have seen clearly the difference between the proposed regional processing centre and John Howard’s Pacific Solution which Australia alone controlled and which used countries not signatory to the UNHCR Convention on Refugees.  But no, sloppy journalism dictated that such investigative probing was too difficult and what’s more might get in the way of the ‘good story’ they already had in the can.  Finally having stuffed up badly they sought to lay the blame for their incompetence and laziness at Julia Gillard’s and the Government’s door.  And to this day they continue the beat-up with Fran Kelly jumping on the Nauru option and pushing the line ‘why not?’

We are entitled to have better than this from OUR ABC.

What do you think?



Phudget 2010

In their clubhouse on Canberra Avenue, the shadowy Kanberra Kricket Klub is convening a special meeting to discuss this year’s budget proposals. All elected officials are present at the head table and a sizable contingent of Ordinary Members fill the plastic chairs lining the rear of the room.

Tony (Chair)

Welcome all. I see we have a uh quorum so I’ll declare this meeting open. Tonight we are here to discuss proposals put forward in Joe’s budget but, but, time allowing, we will deal with any ah General Business that arises.

Could I be the first to say ah Joe that I am ah I am greatly impressed and ah heartened to see that you have brought the Klub’s finances back into the, the, the black after such a shocking shortfall last season.

Joe

Thank-you Mr Chair. The Kanberra Kricket Klub can move forward this year with confidence and certainty now that the budget is showing a surplus.

Andrew

Tell ‘em how you did it, Joe?

Joe

How WE did it, Andrew. (chuckle) Well, it wasn’t too hard really. We just sat down with a couple of bottles and a piece of paper and moved the numbers around, added them up, moved them around some more, had a drink, cut a whole heap of projects, moved the numbers around a bit more, added them up again and Hey Presto! - a surplus! I don’t know why those guys over at the ALP are always making such a fuss.

Malcolm

How much did you manage to save?

Joe

Forty-seven THOUSAND dollars!

Malcolm (smiling)

That’s a big number.

Joe  (frowning)

Hey! You KNEW I wanted to say that!

Malcolm

I'm not saying that you’re cooking the books but there is something fishy here. I’d like to see your modelling.

Joe

You mean like - casual evening wear? Formal? Swimwear?

Malcolm

Ee-ooh no! I meant economic modelling. Doesn’t matter. How did you swing such big savings? Cut a deal with the minors, did you? Higher membership fees.

Unknown (from the back of the room)

No! New! Taxes!

Tony

There will be NO NEW TAXES! How many times do I have to say it?

Joe (waving a single sheet of A4) (double spaced)

Have you bothered to read my briefing notes?

Tony

Malcolm, I think you are uh you are being uh obstructionist. I’m still not sure how it is that you are allowed to speak at these meetings.

Malcolm

Because when you shafted me, Tony, forty-nine percent of the Klub thought I should be given a position at the table.

Tony

Yeah but it’s not really a position, is it? Member in Charge of the Trophy Cabinet. The bloody thing’s ....... uh ....... the thing’s .... ah ......... the bloody thing’s bloodywell empty!

Malcolm

That’s not the point though is it? We wouldn’t want to be taken by surprise by a win this year and find we were unprepared to accommodate our shining achievement.

Win or lose, always be prepared, Mr Chair. Be very prepared.

A furtive movement in the doorway attracts the room’s attention. All eyes turn to a forlorn bespectacled figure slinking into a front row seat.

Tony

John! John? What are you doing here?

John

I was just passing and I thought perhaps you could use my help.

Barnaby

Having a bit of trouble filling your days, eh John? I’d have thought something on the world stage would be more in your league.

John

Yes. Ahem. As you very well know Barnaby, I put in for a job but they said I didn’t have enough experience. It seems running a country for eleven years wasn’t good enough for them. I thought some old friends (who owe me one or two favours) might be able to help with some on-the-job training. Deputy Chair perhaps, that sort of thing.

I’ve got over fifty-five years experience in watching cricket, you know.

Tony

That’s ah very kind of you John but as you can see we ah already have a Deputy Chair.

John

Yes but she’s a female. What does she know about googlies and doosras and yorkers and switch-hitting?

There is a loud crackling of electricity, the distinct smell of ozone in the air and a sickening crunching of bones and tendons as Julie turns her head through 360 degrees.

David

Oh knock it off Julie! We all know they’re just contact lenses.

John

That’s a neat trick with the ozone though. I could’ve used that back in the day.

Tony

John, we really ah must press on. You’re ah welcome to stay and observe if you like. Joe, the Treasurer’s Report.

Joe

Thank-you Mr Chair. Since you’re being so picky Malcolm, we’ll go through my COMPREHENSIVE briefing notes. First we rethought our border protection plans.

David

Oh no. We are still building the three metre fence around the oval, aren’t we?

Joe

Ah, no. Sorry David. It’s a bit complicated but what has happened is that Julie - thanks Jules, beaut job girlie - went round the neighbouring houses and collected pledges for money to help build the fence.

Barnaby

Why would they do that? Why pledge money for a fence which is of no bloody use to them

Julie

The erection of the fence would stop cricket balls smashing windows and damaging cars in nearby houses.

Sophie

You are joking, aren’t you? The pitch is five hundred metres from the nearest house.

Julie (glaring myopically)

Never-the-less SOPHIE, there were several instances of cricket balls going through windows at all hours of the day and night. They all thought it prudent to make a pledge towards the project. Co-incidentally, most pledges were roughly equivalent to the cost of a new window. Funny really.

Joe

Right, so. Julie has pledges for three thousand dollars. Bruce, our small businessman, has got a mate who was gonna put the fence up for half price, so that would have saved us another four grand and the local hardware shop was gonna knock 25% off the cost of materials - about five thousand dollars there.

(muttering) So that’s three plus four plus five, carry the one, multiply by ten, strike off two zeros, move the decimal point one place to the left, divide by ten and multiply by a thousand. Wow.

Since we’re not gonna build the fence now, we’ve saved TWELVE THOUSAND DOLLARS just on that one project alone.

(applause)

Malcolm

I don’t want to nitpick but how can you regard as savings, money which you haven’t collected

Joe

You surprise me Mal. This is Grade Eight Home Economics. If you don’t spend money then it’s a saving. Simple as that.

We were going to have to borrow twenty-eight thousand dollars to get the project started and now that we’re not building it, I wanted to put that money in the budget but Tony and Andrew thought we should save it for a rainy day.

Andrew

We may have to revise that bottom line figure, Joe. Some of the locals are paid-up members and reckon they would be coughing up twice. Some were threatening to boycott the club.

Unknown (from the back of the room)

Too bloody right!! No! New! Taxes!

Julie

It wasn’t a tax! It was an extortion!       No. Wait.    A donation.

Joe (scribbling frantically with a pencil)

Ah no - now I’m gonna have to print all these pages again. Bugger.

Tony

That was pretty sloppy, Joe.

Joe

Listen Monk-breath ........

Bronwyn

Boys. Boys. Play nice.

Tony & Joe

Sorry Bronnie.

Scott

I thought this was going to be a more consultative committee? It seems like you and Joe and Andrew and Julie are making all the decisions. Sounds like a gang of .......

Tony

Don’t you dare! Don’t you bloody dare! We are ..... we are uh ............ collegiate. We’re consulting with you now aren’t we? So. Scott. What do you think about ah shelving our new perimeter fence until such time as we are better able to afford it?

Scott

I don’t like it. I think we need a fence and we need it as soon as possible!

Tony

Good. Thank-you Scott. See. A free and uh fair exchange of views and I’m sure we’re a better committee for it. There WON'T be a fence. But you ah you were consulted. Next item.

Joe

Training. Unfortunately, we have had to scale back our weekend workshops from three this season to one.

Christopher

That’s a pretty big “scale back”. So who’s still coming? Greg Chappell, Glen McGrath or Shane Warne?

Joe

We’ve all got to tighten our belts, Chris. Luckily, John has pulled a few strings and we’ve got John Senden - rated number ninety-nine in the world - at a very reasonable price.

Christopher

But he’s a golfer!

John

Ricky Ponting is a keen golfer AND he’s a former number one batsman in the world. Third highest run scorer of all time, record-breaking captain, superb in the field - surely if it’s good enough for Ricky, it’s good enough for you.

Christopher

Look maybe we could pass the hat around and ......

Unknown (from the back of the room)

No! New! Taxes!

Joe

For goodness sake, will you be quiet! I’m sorry Chris, it was either the training budget or the wine list that got trimmed and this year you lose out.

Sophie, you can tell us more about the changes we’ve made to the BNS.

Tony Smith

No! Not my beautiful new scoreboard!

Sophie (terse)

We will not be going ahead with the proposed hi-tech hi-speed BNS (which we don’t need) and will instead be trialling different coloured fluoro chalk to make the numbers JUMP off the blackboard. This will also contribute to our LCE target - Low Carbon Emissions, Barnaby. By taking this decision we no longer need to borrow eighteen thousand dollars from the bank and we can count this as a saving.

Tony Smith

But it was going to pay for itself, renting it out as an advertising hoarding during the week. Five years! Five years and we would have had our money back and be turning a profit. Now we’ll be the laughing stock of the ACT. All of NSW probably. Not to mention Sweden. A blackboard! This is taking us back to the dark ages.

Ah! What’re you going to do when it rains?

Tony (snide)

When it rains you ah (chuckle) you ah ...... you can’t play Smithy.

(general laughter)

Malcolm

What’s this at Item Four? A PPL? What’s that?

Joe

This is Tony’s idea so I’ll let him explain.

Tony

I’m ah particularly proud of this. It’s a Pay Parents to Leave scheme. The idea is that once they’ve dropped their kids off we want them to ....... ah .... to ......... to ..... leave. Instead of hanging around here all afternoon (rather than in the kitchen where they belong) shouting ah encouragement to their kids and clapping for every flaming run made, we will pay them to ah ..... go home. I think we can all agree that they are uh they are spoiling the uh ambience of the facilities. Some afternoons, I can hardly hear the ......... uh .......... the television in the bar.

Malcolm

How can we afford this?

Tony

We have devised an ah ..... an ah .... an ELEGANT solution. Every time one of our uh batsmen scores more than twenty-five runs, he puts twenty-five dollars in the kitty. Then he pays a uh a uh levy of one dollar seventy for every ten runs after that.

Unknown (from the back of the room)

No! New! Taxes!

Tony

It’s a levy! It’s a bloody LEVY awright?

Malcolm

That doesn’t sound particularly fair. Isn’t that a financial disincentive to succeeding? I mean, the players aren’t going to like it very much.

Tony

I think you’ve been knocking around with your commie mates over at the ah the ah Association of Lawnbowls Players too long, Mal. The players understand that the decisions we make are for the uh ..... the uh .... greater good. WE are the only ones who can see the big picture and WE are the only ones tough enough to make the hard choices.

Joe

Okay. Item Five. Lowering our carbon footprint. Barnaby, Sophie and Greg have been working together on this. Barnaby?

Barnaby

Cheers Joe. I’m a bit peeved you decided to call your PPL an “elegant” idea Tony, ‘cause I was gonna call this an "elegant" idea. Sort of stole my thunder there. "Elegant" ideas don’t grow on trees you know.

(pause for effect) (none)

Anyway, we did some research and Sophie found that the Chinese are working with an innovative new product called (shuffling papers) called “con-crete”. So what we’re gonna do is rip up that bloody awful grass pitch and put down a maintenance-free con-crete one. Doesn’t need watering, doesn’t need mowing, doesn’t need rolling - I don’t know why no-one’s thought of this before. It’ll pay for itself inside the first year.

Greg

Not only that, we can charge visiting teams a Pitch Maintenance Levy - SHUT UP - it’s a LEVY, so that we can give it a fresh coat of green paint every season.

Barnaby

But wait there’s more!

(pause for effect) (none)

No? Too old? Sorry.

We’ve calculated that if we don’t use the sprinkler system we’ll use less water.

(pause for approval) (not forthcoming)

Gee. Tough house tonight.

If the grass dies, we save on mowing, tractor maintenance, fuel, fertilizer and groundsman’s fees. We just put the sprinklers on the night before a match so the clubhouse doesn’t get covered in dust. Don’t want to spoil the food, do we ladies?

Ladies

(titters)

Sophie

So we will have reduced our carbon output AND saved money.

Malcolm

Bob’s not going to like this.

Barnaby

Bob?

Malcolm

Brown. The groundsman.

Tony

Is he under contract? No? Then sack him. We’re not going to ruin the entire planet just to keep one groundsman happy.

Malcolm

What do the players think about playing in the mud?

Joe

Yeah yeah okay Lefty! Here we go again. Jesus!

Tony

Joe! You know how uh strongly I feel about blasphemy.

Joe

Yeah. About as strongly as you feel about lying, sex outside marriage and throwing children to the sharks!

Tony

Why you fat overblown ..........

Joe

What’s the matter Wingnut? Don’t like it when ..........

Bronwyn

Boys! Don’t make me speak to you again.

Helen

Don’t be too harsh, Bron. You know what WARRIORS are like, they’re just SO strong they can’t help themselves sometimes. I think it’s dreamy.

Malcolm

I see there’s fifteen hundred dollars put aside for mental health. That’s a lot isn’t it?

Joe

I have no doubt that you would know that Andrew has been plagued by the black dog of late and so it was decided on compassionate grounds that the club would put fifteen hundred dollars on to a bar tab for him.

Malcolm

But surely alcohol’s not the solution if he’s suffering from depression?

Tony

No, but we reckon with a bar tab that size, he’s going to have lots more friends! (chuckle)

Joe

While we are talking health, Peter has put in a request for increased funding for the First Aid box. Perhaps you could explain further, Peter.

Peter

Thanks. As the committee is no doubt aware, our general membership is rapidly aging and there has been a concomitant demand for band-aids, ice-packs, pain killers and the like to help alleviate injuries sustained from falls - particularly in the bar. To help fund this expansion of our health care system without raising - SHUT UP - without raising taxes, Warren and I have decided to liquidate some of the new equipment provided to us last year by the state government. To this end we will be selling all new shin-guards, chest protectors, elbow-guards, glove inners and boxes. Barnaby suggested we sell the bats too but we found this harder to justify.

Malcolm

Peter, do you mind if I ask, do you ever have people, you know, complete strangers, come up to you and say they’d like to punch you in the face?

Peter (surprised)

No! Why?

Malcolm

Oh, no reason really, it’s just a bit of a hobby of mine. People’s faces. My Mum used to say when women saw Dean Martin’s face, they had an overwhelming urge to kiss him on the cheek. When men see Clint Eastwood’s face, they want to stand beside him and glare at whoever he’s glaring at - “You feeling lucky punk?” When people see Kevin Rudd’s face they want to spray his glasses with whipped cream. When I look at your face ..............

Peter (eminently punchable)

We. Will. Be. Using. The. Derived. Income. For. The. Benefit. Of. All. Members.

Malcolm

The players are REALLY not going to like this. And aren’t you going to risk higher outlays through players getting injured?

Tony

Let us ah worry about the players. You obviously have no expertise in this field. Once they see the budget is returned to surplus, they’ll come flocking back.

David

Sorry to revisit old ground but if we’re not building the fence, what are we going to do about strange kids using the field?

John

TURN THE BIKES BACK!!

Joe

Thanks John.

Tony

TURN THE BIKES BACK!!

Joe

Bloody hell.

Malcolm

All well and good but some mothers don’t want their kids under their feet all afternoon. And what if they just won’t go?

George (from the back of the room)

What harm are they doing? Surely we’re not afraid of a few kids?

David

It’s not just the fact that they come here. It’s a moral and cultural point of principle. They bring all sorts of baggage with them. Strange clothes. Strange food. Strange music. Ich. Strange perfumes. Strange languages - have you heard the way they talk?

They don’t hold the same values as us and we have a duty to uphold and maintain our culture. They threaten the very foundations on which this club was built by bringing in foreign ideas and heathen practices. Not to mention the footballs, basketballs, soccer balls, sorry, “football” balls, Frisbees, kites and baseballs. We’ve even had GIRLS on the park with SOFTBALLS.

George (from the back of the room)

I still don’t see the problem.

John

WE will decide WHO comes to this oval and the circumstances in which .................

Tony

Yeh thanks John. We ah we like to think we’ve ah we’ve moved on from that sort of talk.

Scott

The Rottweiler Solution!!

Various


Ooh yes.

Of course.

The rottweilers!

Yes, yes.

I like dogs.

Sic ‘em boys!

You’re right Scott.

I prefer cats meself.

Go the Dogs!!

Scott (frothing)

Rend! Tear! Bite! Batter! Maim!

Damage! Disembowel! Devastate! Mutilate!

Mangle! Wreck! Wound!

Crack! Crunch! Cripple!

(pauses for breath)

The ensuing silence is only interrupted by sounds of heavy breathing, subtle rearranging of clothes and foreheads being dabbed dry with lace-edged handkerchiefs.
Scott (spraying foam)

Slash! Gash! Gouge! Split! Spurt!

Ravage! Rupture! Disable! Debilitate! Dissever!

Incapacitate! Eviscerate! Emasculate!

Lacerate! Perforate! Pierce! Puncture! Pulverise!

(sits back, flushed and elated)

Heavy breathing and nervous coughs continue for several minutes.

Bronwyn

Ooh Scott, that was pure poetry. I feel as giddy as a schoolgirl.

Helen

That was just SO naughty! You get an extra scone later for that.

Tony

Scott, that was ah that was most enjoyable. You know I like the Rottweiler Solution but now that I’m ah ..... I’m the Chair of the Klub, I don’t think ah that I can be seen ah running around the oval chasing children.

Scott (still over-excited)

No, no, no! Not you! REAL dogs! Rending and crunching and .......

Sophie

Now now. Don’t get me started again.

Malcolm (smug)

But we don’t have a fence. Remember?

Tony

Oh. True, true. George, any ideas.

George

I think we would be on pretty safe ground if we detained them and held them in the toilet block for a couple of days in order to verify their claims about being children.

As I understand the LPA - the UN’s Little Person’s Act of 2001 - if we find that they have no papers and are therefore, by default, dwarfs pretending to be children, we would be well within our rights to barbeque and eat them.

A stunned silence fills the room.

More than one Member is quietly contemplating the tenderising effect of dog bites. To season or not to season? What would Matt Preston do?

Tony

I’m ah .... I’m ah ..... I’m a bit skeptical about your ah interpretation there ah George. Perhaps you could do a bit more ah research and get back to us.

Let’s leave that for now.

Christopher, how is our ah recruitment drive going?

Christopher

Well it’s good and bad really.

We could do with some more bowlers ..........

John

I bowl a pretty mean right arm orthodox!

Tony

John? John? Where are you? Come out from under the table.

Scott

Orthodox?

Barnaby

I thought you were going to keep a low profile once you left politics?

John

I’m under the table at some second-rate suburban cricket club listening to a bunch of morons rabbiting on about eating small children. How much lower do you want me?

Christopher

I think you may be a bit old for what we’re looking for, Mr Howard.

John

Look. I just want to say that I’m prepared to serve the Klub in any way you see fit.

Joe

Gees. What is it with ex-Prime Ministers?

Christopher

Anyway, as I was saying, we’ve found a couple of good prospects. A quick bowler and a wicketkeeper/batsman who’re showing promise. But ............. but ...

Tony

Out with it boy.

Christopher

Well the only problem is that they are ................... um ......................... they’re Ghanian refugees.

Tony

Oh.

Christopher

Which presents us with a number of philosophical and moral dilemmas. For a start, they are very, um ............. very ............. ah ............. tall.

Ladies

Mmmmm.

Christopher

And incredibly fit and strong.

Ladies

Mmmmmmmmmm.

Christopher

And they are ..................... uh .................... they are uh ............................................ they’re very ........ um .......... black.

Ladies

Oh.

Christopher

Not just, sort of, “every day” black you know? They’re very um ...... very ................. they’re very dark black.

George (from the back of the room)

What’s your point?

Christopher

Well I wouldn’t want them to feel ...... uncomfortable here, that’s all. Everyone else here is of a “normal” height  and  ............ and “ordinary” physique and ...... and ........ “average” skin colour. They might feel .......... inferior in some way.

Tony

That’s very uh considerate of you Christopher, after all they’ve been through, we wouldn’t want to ah add to their uh burden. Perhaps next season when they’ve had more of a chance to assimilate, they might feel a bit more liberal and tolerant.

Joe

So to summarise, Mr Chair, through the savings accrued from not building the perimeter fence, not borrowing to finance the BNS, cutting our workforce by 20%, scaling back our training and education  programmes, opting for "greener" alternatives on the field, liquidating superfluous assets and levying high achievers to fund our PPL scheme, I can safely forecast a budget surplus this year of eleven dollars and fifty cents. Minimum.

(applause)

From the front of an unruly crowd gathered in the doorway, a flame-haired Welsh witch shows off for her mates.

Julia

Hoy! What are you bludgers doing here? We’ve got a meeting tonight, so piss off!

Bronwyn & Helen

Ooh the language.

Tony

Ooh the breasts.

Julia

Go on - on ya bikes! Bloody wannabes.

Tony (shaking his fist)

One of these days, Julia, one of these days.

Julia

In your dreams Phoney.

Tony

Just you wait ‘til the next AGM. We’ve got plans that are gonna cream you.

Julia

Yeah awright Tony. Just don’t slam the door on your way ut.

Julie (hand on Tony’s biceps)

C’mon Iron Man. We’ve got miles to go before we sleep.

Tony

Mm.

Lindsay (examining Joe’s briefing notes)

This bunch couldn’t organise a ***k in a brothel.

Wayne (from the back of the room)(giggling)

No! New! Taxes!


What is the best way to decide who gets room at our Inn?

By now we have had a couple of days to let both major political parties' Asylum Seeker policies soak into our consciousness and consciences.  I believe that I can safely say that the new policy as enunciated by PM Julia Gillard in her speech on Tuesday morning to 'The Lowy Institute' showed Labor's still more compassionate attitude with respect to this issue as compared with the Coalition's policy, released on the same day.

 

Now, what is open to discussion is whether you believe, with this new policy, Labor has 'lurched to the Right', as Kevin Rudd said they would, in order to harness the 'Redneck vote', as Julian Burnside termed it, in the outer suburban marginal electorates, or whether a fine line has been successfully walked between the, as I see it, unrealistic, bleeding-heart approach of The Greens, who would accept anyone who turns up on our doorstep claiming to be a refugee, ignoring the People Smuggling industry that has been established in Indonesia to feed people in boats to our shores; and the hard-hearted approach of the Coalition, who do not want anyone turning up to ask for shelter and a room at our Inn, 'Hotel Australia', with ways prescribed to make that happen and to make them go away... Just as well Jesus, Mary and Joseph aren't floating across the water on their donkeys to Australia nowadays, isn't it?


In other words, do you think this new Gillard government policy has found the Rosetta Stone to unlock the secrets to a successful Asylum Seeker process for this country or not?


I have my own opinion, but I am not going to foist that upon you now.  Instead I thought that we should examine the two approaches side by side, compare and contrast them, and see what others directly involved in the process and more expert and relevant in their opinions have to say.  Then we might be able to come to a conclusion.  


Firstly, the essence of the Labor policy is as follows:

  • Set up a regional processing centre in East Timor.
  • Send all unauthorised arrivals to the centre for processing under UNHCR guidelines.
  • Increase penalties for People Smugglers.
  • Fund eight new Patrol Boats.

The Coalition policy is:

  • Restore Temporary Protection Visas and the 'Pacific Solution'
  • Turn back boats “when circumstances permit”.
  • Refuse entry to people who destroy identification papers.
  • Give Minister greater oversight in refugee decisions.
  • Priority to offshore camp applicants.
  • Buy three aerial patrol drones.
  • Introduce pilot scheme for sponsoring refugees.

Let me start out by saying that the East Timor Regional Processing Centre will be no 'Pacific Solution Mark II'.  It may well be, as Abbott snidely put it, “A way-lay for refugees on the way to Australia.”  But even if that's so it will be one which is more humane than the Coalition alternative on Nauru or Manus Island.  This is the fact that Abbott refuses to admit to, that is, that the Pacific Solution simply served as an expensive and draconian 'way-lay' for refugees in the Howard era, on their way, ultimately, to Australia too.


Also, as Lenore Taylor so succinctly put it, in the Sydney Morning Herald:

 

"Abbott rushed out an even 'tougher' policy to gazump Gillard.  Under a Coalition government there would be a 'presumption against' people turning up to claim asylum without identification papers.  


"But he didn't have answers either - he couldn't say how he would distinguish between genuine refugees (who often have to travel without papers because they are fleeing, or because they fear persecution) and those who discard them. Nor could he say how he would 'turn back' a boat that had been deliberately disabled and was sinking, nor where he would return it to.

   

"And the Coalition hasn't yet said to which country it would try to send the asylum seekers, only that it wouldn't happen in Australia. And Abbott was tapping into voters' fears, too. The Coalition, he said, would do 'whatever it takes to keep our borders secure and our country safe'.  He didn't explain how asylum seekers pose a threat to our safety."


Thus we can see that at least Julia Gillard is proposing to do the right thing by the Asylum Seekers, even if she has had to adopt an element of the Coalition policy, offshore processing, in order to assuage the fears that the community has had inculcated into them over many years by the Coalition. However, I think that she has had similar thoughts to the outgoing Secretary-General for Amnesty International, Irene Khan, who said:


“A fair response to refugees is not to punish them for using people-smuggling channels or burning their documents...The emphasis should be on why these people have left their countries,...and do they need protection?”  “


"Any arrangement to put people in a transit centre should take into account how to process people quickly, identify genuine refugees, find a solution for them and then arrange for safe return of all those found not to be refugees. It should be seen as a fast, effective process and not just a deterrent or a dumping ground.”


Is that not in essence what we should be aiming for if we in Australia are to maintain our tradition for compassion? Every latter-day evangelical Christian speaks about compassion and emulating the example of Jesus Christ. So isn't it funny how it is our avowedly atheistic Prime Minister who seems to have found the compassionate solution to finding room at the Inn for the itinerant homeless who wash up on our shores, without seeking to feed the exploitative people-smuggling trade; as opposed to the cruel solution of 'Captain Catholic', who wants to put up the 'No Vacancy' sign when he sees them approaching?


What do you think?



Contemplate soberly the alternative – an Abbott Government!

Have you noticed how little scrutiny the MSM has given to the prospect of an Abbott Government?  Why is this so?  With an election soon to occur, and the possibility of a Coalition win, how is it that we have had almost no analysis of what it has to offer and what an Abbott Government would mean for this nation?

We could be excused for attributing this to the preoccupation of the media with the current Government and its recent upheaval, but it seems to go well beyond that.  Anyone with eyes to see must have noticed the intent of some sections of the media, specifically News Limited and especially The Australian, to denigrate Kevin Rudd and his Government, and eventually bring them down.  That has been an around-the-clock commitment for a long while.  Reflect on the countless stories about the Home Insulation Programme and the BER, for which The Australian has an ongoing Schools Watch; consider the publicity given to every boat arrival, to the ETS/CPRS, the RSPT now the MRRT, practically all of it negative; think about all the derogatory articles about Kevin Rudd as PM and as a person, and any doubt you may have had about the intent of this onslaught will dissipate.  The logical extension of attempting to bring down a government is that the alternative is acceptable.  Presumably then, any criticism of it would be counterproductive.  I believe this is why the flaws in the Abbott-led Coalition, obvious to anyone who looks, are seldom exposed by a largely sycophantic Canberra Press Gallery.

Now that the primary mission of removing Rudd has been accomplished, attention is bound to turn to his replacement.  She will be afforded a modest honeymoon – it would be regarded as unseemly to immediately attack her as viciously as they attacked Rudd.  Instead, they have started to niggle with stories such as the cost of running The Lodge while Julia Gillard declines to occupy it, stories seldom heard when John Howard did the same and lived at Kirribilli; a tale about her use of the PM jet to attend a fund-raiser in Brisbane; and ever-so-subtle references to her marital status and beliefs.  She should watch her back once the honeymoon is deemed by the media to be ‘over’.

In the absence of any searching appraisal by the MSM of what an Abbott Government might look like and do, let’s have a go here.

First Tony Abbott

Abbott the pugilist
Long before he became Opposition leader, he showed us his pugilistic nature, an attribute that harks back to his days at Oxford when his prowess at boxing was legend.  I wrote about this in The pugilistic politician in December of last year.  Recognizing this, John Howard used him as his attack dog, again and again.  WorkChoices was an area where he excelled.  That pugilistic approach has exacerbated from the very day he defeated Malcolm Turnbull by one vote in a party leadership ballot.  He has incessantly attacked virtually everything the Government has said, done, or attempted to do.  He has been consistently negative and obstructive.  This seems to be partly born of his extreme conservatism, but more significantly of his antagonistic nature.

As an extension of his aggression, he tries to portray himself as ‘Action Man’ with his sporting achievements that he hopes will translate into ‘Political Action Man’ – the man who gets things done!

How can someone so fundamentally aggressive assume the mantle of Prime Minister where conciliation is so essential, where listening is so critical, where a calm approach is crucial?  Can Abbott transform himself into that sort of person?

Abbott the extreme conservative
His position on the political spectrum seems more radical, more extreme than was John Howard’s.  On the IR front he is strongly anti-union, anti-worker and pro-business, when a balanced approach is needed.  Although he says WorkChoices is dead, it is more accurate to say only the term is dead, as he is intent on restoring individual worker-employer contracts and restoring unfair dismissal laws.  He says the Howard Government went too far, but everything he says points to him dragging back many elements of WorkChoices, which in his inner heart he believes was not all that bad and was unfairly maligned.

His extreme conservatism was exposed in the global warming debate with his now infamous ‘absolute crap’ utterance, and his blocking of the ETS.

His conservatism has been exposed again recently with the RSPT (now MRRT) initiative which he vowed, and still vows to oppose and rescind in Government.  By so doing he is refusing to embrace tax reform, is happy to let the miners pay an inappropriately small tax on the nation’s non-renewable minerals, miners he stated already pay too much!  In so doing he is rejecting over $10 billion in revenue over the forward estimates that is targeted towards social benefits – better superannuation; benefits to business – lower company tax; and infrastructure improvements that benefit all.  Can you imagine more extreme conservatism than that?

How can a man who is so extremely conservative that he rejects such large additions to revenue, additions the miners are ready to pay, additions that will bring about such benefits, properly govern this country?

Abbott the untruthful
Perhaps the most damning words to come from Abbott’s mouth were spoken in an interview with Kerry O’Brien where he conceded that words he uttered might not necessarily be his real position, only what he committed to writing was. This will come back to haunt him during the election campaign.  There are many instances of this, the most recent being his declaration in a party room meeting that ‘...the Coalition was within reach of a famous victory’, faithfully reported to the media by always-pedantic George Brandis, subsequently denied by Abbott, but finally admitted to on another O’Brien interview.

Of course the media seems to think that Tony is entitled to have thought bubbles and to change his mind if they unexpectedly burst in his face.  He doesn’t do back-flips, only Kevin Rudd and his ministers did that, and were pilloried every time the media deemed they had.

Despite these conceptual contortions, his advocates, many of whom live in the Canberra Press Gallery where he’s considered a ‘good guy’, insist he is ‘the real deal’, that he’s ‘authentic’ Tony, ‘what-you-see-is-what-you-get’ Tony.  That is nonsense.  What you see is not what you get.  What you get is a man who is shameless about lying when it suits him.

When can you believe this man?  If it’s only when it’s in writing, how can he expect the people to entrust to him the leadership of the country?

Abbott the economics ignoramus
When did you last hear a rational statement about economics come from Abbott’s mouth.  He has a longstanding reputation for being ‘bored’ by economics.  Peter Costello has stated that he would never let Abbott get near an economics portfolio.  Yet he is putting himself forward to run a trillion dollar economy.  I suppose he expects he will delegate that to his finance team, Joe Hockey and Andrew Robb, but that is not good enough.  For all the faults that were laid on him, Kevin Rudd clearly had a deep understanding of economics.  Yet even this weekend Abbott exposes his incompetence by saying he can’t understand how in reducing the MRRT tax rate by 25% the loss to revenue is only about 10%, while overlooking the savings that result from deleting other aspects of the scheme where the Government was to subsidize exploration, and ignoring very recent estimates of windfall minerals prices.  He is either being disingenuous and opportunistic in casting doubts in people’s minds, or he just doesn’t understand – possibly both.

How can someone so ignorant and apparently disinterested in economics put himself up as a potential PM?

Abbott the social enigma
On the one hand Abbott opposed the introduction of abortion drug RU486; feels ‘threatened’ by homosexuals, but has lots of friends who are; but on the other is promoting a generous PPL scheme after saying such a scheme would come in over the then ‘government’s dead body’, and wants a ‘stay-at-home-mothers’ scheme, one his shadow cabinet has so far rejected as fiscally irresponsible.

Abbott’s period in a seminary studying for the priesthood has left a lasting impression on him, both good and not-so-good.  He behaves as if asking forgiveness is the remedy to making mistakes, rather than getting it right first time.  He consults with Cardinal Pell.  There is nothing wrong with this, although sometimes he is reluctant to admit that he has consulted his mentor.  Despite his Christian upbringing he takes a hard-nosed approach to asylum seekers, infamously threatening to turn around boats laden with those escaping persecution, hardly a ‘Good Samaritan’ approach.

Who can predict where he will stand on any social issue?  How can this man expect the people of Australia to endorse him when he has not set out his social ‘narrative’?  Rudd was harassed incessantly for his narrative – let’s see what Tony Abbott stands for, let’s hear where he stands on the wide range of social issues this nation faces.

Abbott the dog-whistler (added after a comment by Mobius Ecko)
Like John Howard, Tony Abbott has discovered the political value of dog-whistling.  Howard did it with the Tampa; Abbott is doing it right now with the updating this last weekend of his asylum seeker boat arrival count, displayed on the converted ‘$315 billion debt’ truck Malcolm Turnbull launched so proudly a year ago.  Like Pauline Hanson, he knows there are votes in a hard-nosed approach to refugees arriving by boat. He knows he can, and indeed has heightened fears among some of the population about ‘the influx of boats’ under Labor, and is promising a return of TPVs and other Howard measures.  He insists Howard stopped the boats and so will he, despite the fact that the refugee situation is quite different now with push factors being so much more powerful.  The potency of this latest piece of dog-whistling is evidenced by Julia Gillard’s keenness to address the asylum seeker issue, which it is reported is a negative factor in some Labor electorates.  It will be interesting to see whether Abbott’s loud dog-whistling will push Labor to take a harder line, and match Abbott’s pledge to ‘save’ Australia from this ‘threat’.

Abbott the policy vacuum man
Think for a moment what policy announcements Abbott has made.  There have been a few; we are told we must wait patiently until election time for the others.

A recent one was the mental health initiative.  Seeing an opportunity to wedge the Government, and picking up on discontent in the mental health field, he announced an increase in the number of ‘Head Start’ clinics for youth mental health at a cost of $1.5 billion, but will fund this important initiative by stopping the building of GP super clinics, the idea of which is to provide round-the-clock comprehensive primary care to take the load from hospital emergency departments, which have been chronically overloaded for as long as anyone can remember.  He’s robbing Peter to pay Paul because he thinks that will garner more votes.  He says he will further fund this initiative by carving out chunks of ‘unnecessary bureaucracy’, which would be in sharp contrast to the way it burgeoned under Howard.  Is this believable?  Is this fiscally responsible policy?

This weekend he stated that type 1 diabetes sufferers would be better off under a Coalition government as he will fund a $35 million clinical trials research network.  Sounds like another thought bubble – wait for the details, and how he will fund it.

His so-called health reform consists of creating local boards in Queensland and NSW to replace regional networks, a scheme that sounds similar to the Government’s plan, but of course would be so much lighter on bureaucracy.  There are no more details, no indication of how he will get the states to play ball, no mention of primary care – wait for it.  For a man who reduced health funding by $1 billion when Health Minister, who reduced funds for training doctors and nurses so now they are in very short supply, can you believe anything he says about ‘fixing’ the health and hospitals system?

He floated the idea of a lavish PPL, arguably to trump the Government’s more modest but fiscally responsible scheme that had been worked out after long consultation with stake holders.  His was an opportunistic thought bubble launched without party consultation, with funding coming from a new tax – sorry, temporary levy – on the very sector, big business, he says he’s looking after, and after his ‘no new taxes’ pronouncement.

Another thought bubble was the stay-at-home-mothers’ plan, killed off quickly because it couldn’t be funded.

Then there is the Direct Action Plan for carbon mitigation, a feeble attempt to con people into thinking it would achieve what it said it would.  It’s not without merit, but it’s really a cop-out for a proper plan and having to take hard decisions that affect businesses and householders alike – but after all, global warming is ‘crap’.

Remember the Budget reply speech and the $47 billion ‘savings’ that would fund Coalition initiatives.  Abbott gave us no detail – that was shadow treasurer Joe Hockey’s job, but, anxious to display his economics credentials, Hockey read a ‘learned’ paper to the National Press Club and waited until the end to hand out the list, which in turn was left to Andrew Robb to explain.  That all three included as ‘savings’ the funds that the Government planned to use for infrastructure, reducing company tax and facilitating superannuation funding from 9 to 12% ONLY if and when the RSPT was passed, a measure the Opposition vowed to stop in its tracks, shows their level of illiteracy in economics or simple accounting, or their willingness to deliberately attempt to deceive the public.

Recently Abbott declared the Coalition was ready to govern, and to prove it he presented a 12 point plan.  It’s not worth the space to reproduce here his platitudes – if you want to read them, Andrew Bolt has them listed in Abbott’s 12 points a bit blunt; even he didn’t think much of them.

Can anyone recall policies on tax reform, social services and transfer payments reform, reform of indigenous affairs?  Has he ever said what he would do with the rest of the Henry Tax reforms?  Has he a population policy apart from criticizing every move the Government is making to address the population issue? In fact can anyone recall hearing any coherent statement of his vision for this nation, his narrative for achieving that vision, his determination to tackle the hard reforms that are needed for continuing prosperity?

Yet this man has the hide to present himself to us as potentially the next PM.  But what has the media to say about this, about him, about his policies or lack of them.  Almost nothing, after all, Tony’s a ‘good bloke’.  That’s all that’s needed to escape scrutiny.

What of the rest of the team?

Julie Bishop
What has she done that warrants her position?  She has retained Deputy Leadership across three leaders, mainly because she is a Western Australian.  As shadow treasurer she was incompetent and was replaced.  Then as shadow foreign minister she said all the wrong things over the Stern Hu affair and messed with our national security over the Israeli faked passports episode.  With that record, how could we entrust her to conduct delicate diplomatic discussions?  As chair of a Coalition policy group she seemed to have achieved nothing that can be seen, so it was handed on.

She is a very weak performer.  What could she usefully do in government? 

Warren Truss
As leader of The Nationals, Warren is a nice guy, the antithesis of Abbott’s aggressive approach, but is overshadowed by Barnaby Joyce to the point of being ineffectual.

Joe Hockey
I’ve mentioned his fabricated ‘Budget savings’ already.  It’s been estimated that the Coalition’s real savings are less than a quarter of that claimed, because of the non-existent savings in the MRRT and the fictitious savings by scrapping the NBN.  As Lindsay Tanner put it: “Either Mr Abbott and his colleagues have reached a new level of deceit or . . . the Liberal Party's economic team is even more inept than previously thought."

During the GFC he castigated the Government for ‘reckless spending’ in denial that a recession was coming or had been averted.  He attributed Australia’s avoidance of recession to everything except the Government’s stimulus. This was ridiculous, literally.  He showed no sign of competence regarding financial matters and global economics.

And yet he says repeatedly he wants Wayne Swan’s job!

Andrew Robb
Andrew is to be admired for coming out over his depression and for the way he is coping with it.  But his credentials as shadow finance minister are suspect; he has shared in making the ludicrous statements about the nation’s finances with Abbott and Hockey.  And just this weekend he labelled the Government’s MRRT ‘all smoke and mirrors’, a meaningless mantra that would not escape the lips of one competent in economics and finance.

The Coalition economics/finance team is a motley crew.  How could they be entrusted to run a trillion dollar economy in troubled economic times?

Christopher Pyne
As education spokesman he has done nothing but carp about ‘waste and mismanagement’ in the BER.  Nothing positive about education has escaped his lips.  And as Opposition Manager of Business he has been a serial pest with multiple, spurious time-wasting points of order during parliamentary debates.  He is largely a mouth with no sign of his brain being in gear.

Peter Dutton
This man is almost totally ineffective as shadow health minister and no match for Nicola Roxon.  He may not return after the election.

Scott Morrison
Scott shows some promise but is burdened with Abbott’s intention to return to the ‘successful’ Howard asylum seeker policies that kept the boats from coming – through ineffective TPVs and the inhumane Pacific Solution.

Ian MacFarlane
Ian has had experience and did a commendable job negotiating a revised ETS with Penny Wong; he is one of the better prospects.

Then there are the lesser lights who raise countless points of order in QT such as Bronwyn Bishop, Wilson Tuckey and Kevin Andrews, those who ask occasional questions such as Greg Hunt, Susan Ley, Sophie Mirabella and Steve Ciobo, and those who make up the numbers like Philip Ruddock and Sharman Stone.

Yet sitting on the back bench is Malcolm Turnbull, arguably the most intelligent and talented of all, hoping to return to the front bench, and if Abbott loses comprehensively, maybe to leadership.

In the Senate probably the most gifted Coalition member is Deputy Opposition Leader George Brandis, but surrounded by Eric Abetz of Grech affair fame, Barnaby Joyce who seems more suited to vaudeville with his smart but meaningless quips, Cory ‘Ban the Burqa’ Bernardi, arch-conservatives Mathias Cormann and Concetta Fierravanti-Wells and old-timers such as Bill Heffernan and Helen Coonan, there isn’t much talent around to support him.

What has the Coalition to offer the people of Australia?

Looking critically at the leader, his paper thin front bench, his aging back bench and his limited Senate team, there seems to be little that the Coalition has to offer this nation.  Indeed it is outrageous that it has the temerity to offer such a paltry team to the Australian electorate to replace a competent Government that despite some failings has achieved so much and needs more time to complete its reforms.

Even more outrageous is the fact that the MSM has made so little effort to appraise the Coalition, has made almost no critique of its plans, and has allowed Tony Abbott and his key ministers to get away with hyperbole, spin, factual errors and disingenuous behaviour almost without correction.  It has been left to the Fifth Estate and specialist outlets such as Crikey to set the record straight. 

Is the MSM waiting for the election campaign to do that work, or will its desire for a fierce contest and a close result inhibit it doing its proper job – soberly informing the electorate of the stark choice it has at the 2010 Federal Election?

What do you think?


Turncoats and Political Judas Sheep

  • Posted by HillbillySkeleton on July 1, 2010
  • 90 comments

Well, over the last week and a bit, after the boil was lanced by the Labor Party and Kevin Rudd was squeezed out of the top job in the country, it seems to me that every entrail has been pored over, from the smallest blog in the land and by every Tweeter, to the analysis of the 'coup' generated by the heaviest hitters at the largest national dailies in Australia, before they paused for breath and turned their attentions to Julia Gillard.  Every word spoken has been recorded, to whom and by whom, every raised eyebrow catalogued and interpreted as to its meaning.  The modus operandi of the Rudd government has been explicated in detail.  Not so much the modus operandi of the media and the part they played in the downfall of Kevin, sadly. 

 

Which is exactly where I'd like to come into the conversation.


Today, I'd like to look at the way the media has used Labor turncoats, and former social progressives, against the ALP, as Judas Sheep to lead the electorate astray on behalf of the conservative side of politics.


Let me begin by explaining, conceptually, what I mean.


I began to notice a new phenomenon appearing in the media before the 2004 election between Mark Latham and John Howard.  The Murdoch media had incorporated a new weapon into their armoury and deployed it effectively to attempt to destroy the Labor leader and the Labor election campaign.  Chances are they are casting around for one to use against Julia Gillard right now.


The disaffected former partner, member of the ALP, or former ALP Member of Parliament.


When we cast our minds back to the 2004 Latham election, who was it that wounded Mark Latham repeatedly in front of the eyes of the voters, as they scanned their daily papers, over and above the daily grinding down contributed by the usual media suspects?  


Mark Latham's former wife.


She was given a national platform whose prominence was inversely proportional to the value of her contribution to the debate when assessed by objective eyes.  The Australian allowed her to regale the reader with lurid tales about the man, plus provide a running commentary and analysis of his behaviour throughout the campaign.  No wonder Latham had a nervous collapse by the end of it!


I'm sure many electors came to form a large part of their opinion of him based upon her negative characterisations.  For the life of me, I don't know why the bitter recriminations of a spurned spouse should have been given such prominence.  Except to say that they served their purpose well.


Now, fast forward to before the elections of Kevin Rudd and Barack Obama.  It was the appearance of the turncoat as critic that was again used as a tool to bludgeon them and to assail their characters. Both here in News Ltd. Publications and on Sky TV, and in America on the Fox News Network.


In America, Dick Morris, former close adviser to Bill Clinton, has become a strident critic of the Obama Administration on Fox News.  Rabidly so.


In Australia, we have a few also.  Firstly, let me say, before I mention any individuals specifically, what I think it is that their role has become, on behalf of the conservative cause which they are now advancing, whether they admit that that is what they are doing or not. Benignly branding it as 'analysis' cloaks its true purpose.


They are political Judas Sheep, who are being used to lead the electorate astray and the ALP to electoral slaughter, hopefully, if they do their job well for their new masters.


You will notice that the conservative media, whenever these people appear in their pages or on their screens, are punctilious about mentioning their former political incarnation with the ALP.  This serves two purposes as far as I can see.


Firstly, it lends an air of legitimacy to whatever criticism they have to make about the ALP.  Well, were not these people once of the ALP and do they not have the ALP in their political DNA?  So there must be an element of truth to what they say???  This is the expectation that is encouraged in the minds of the unthinking as I see it anyway.  But at the same time it is precisely that link to the past which has been expunged from their present political persona.  Nevertheless, this commentary has a most corrosive effect on the public's perceptions of the ALP, a fact which the conservative media thus knowingly exploits mercilessly.


So, let me just run through the roll call of those who were used, and I'm not saying that they don't do it voluntarily, up until last week, when the Prime Minister of the country was deposed by his own party in a bloodless fashion which was aimed at fending off the attacks to his credibility which had mortally wounded him, like the henpecked chicken and media punching bag that he had become during the last days of the terminal decline of his Prime Ministership, and, as a consequence, his government.


Now, to specifics.


Exhibit #1:  Mark Latham


With the reliable regularity of the terminally-embittered, ever since his own fall from grace at the head of the Labor Party into ignominious defeat was complete, Mark Latham has provided the generally conservative readers of the Australian Financial Review on a fortnightly basis since Kevin Rudd became leader of the ALP, the dubious benefit of his 'wisdom', gleaned from his many years on the inside of the ALP.  Without question his prognostications are now taken as gospel and holy writ.  No longer is he the electorally-humiliated 'Maddie' who broke a taxi driver's arm.  He has been reborn.


As a conservative tool.  No longer are damning assessments written about what he has to say by the likes of Janet Albrechtsen, Matthew Franklin or Dennis Shanahan in the Murdoch press.  Every nugget is now gold.  Pure, unalloyed soothsaying, to be absorbed as the gospel truth, magnified and echoed instead by that same conservative bootstrap machine that once used to flay him alive publicly on a daily basis.  Incongruous, to say the least.  Need I add that he was the first port of call for Murdoch's Sky TV when 'analysis' was needed of the machinations of the ALP's people post Julia Gillard's ascension to the role of Prime Minister.  Suffice to say that once his purpose has been served, and he has no further relevant 'insight' to give, he will be cast aside brutally once again by them, like a used tissue.  Just like his former wife has been.


Exhibit #2: Greg Rudd


As I mentioned before with respect to Mark Latham when he was leading the federal ALP, no one serves the purpose of the conservative media machine better when it comes to the capability of inflicting damaging blows to the credibility of a popular ALP figure than the close family member.


The pretext is, of course, that surely a family member would not speak out of school about their own flesh and blood, or relative by marriage?  Families are harmonious entities where everyone is on the same team, aren't they?  Except in exceptional circumstances, surely?  Hence, if someone from your own family feels the need to criticise you then, ipso facto, it must be a valid criticism.


Yeah right.  And the Easter Bunny is real too.


No converse criticism is ever mounted, no argument made, that I have come across anyway in the mainstream media, that maybe, just maybe, this person just might have an axe to grind with their famous family member.  Instead, what they have to say is given the imprimatur of legitimacy by being given a national platform in the national daily paper, from which all other media outlets appear to source their daily lines and talking points these days.


And so it goes, drip, drip, drip, as their message seeps out into the broader community consciousness, from the loss-leading spigot that is The Australian, whose influence these days is not gauged by the number of papers sold, but by the number of other media outlets influenced.


Exhibit #3: Gary Johns   


This guy is 'the former Minister in the Hawke/Keating government' who now writes regular opinion pieces critiquing the policies of the current Labor government...from his perch atop the conservative Think Tank, the Institute of Public Affairs.  His value to the conservative media appears to lie in the fact that as he was a Minister in the belatedly acknowledged 'reforming' Hawke/Keating government, therefore his standpoint is one of economic rationality, reinforced by the conservative kudos accorded to the Austrian School of Economics fan club that is the IPA, and thus any criticism that he makes, therefore, exposes the economic irrationality of the Labor government.


As he appears to have drunk the conservative Kool Aid, his services probably won't be disposed of anytime soon by the powers that be.  Just expect him to fade from view if the Abbott Conservatives are elected to hold power in the federal government.  Or maybe he'll continue to be trotted out to write glowingly about the economic duds that the Abbott Party obviously are to those who look at them objectively, have more than two brain cells to rub together and eyes to see which are connected to them.


Exhibit #4: The Culture Warriors


Not ones to leave any flank exposed to attack and advancement by the progressive forces, the relentless prosecution of the Culture Wars is maintained in order to diminish the progressive iconography that social democrats hold dear and which form the basis for their faith.  You know, such things as the right NOT to get married, abortion rights for women, the right to be an atheist, or not to have children.  The sort of thing Julia Gillard has been vapidly criticised for already this week, by the feminist turncoat Bettina Arndt.


I mean, who better to have a seemingly similar perspective to the progressives than a former editor of Forum, the 70s equivalent of a ladies lad's Mag?  Couldn't she be relied upon to have the Sisterhood's best interests at heart?  Like hell she does.  I think Bettina Arndt is worse than Keith Windschuttle, who went from 70s Marxist to ultra conservative Editor of Right Wing Thinking Lad's Mag, Quadrant, and ABC Board Member-keeper of the conservative flame at the National Broadcaster for John Howard, as at least Keith is upfront and honest about his transformation.  Bettina, on the other hand, would still like her audience to believe that she still has her finger on the pulse of Australian women.  Hence her opinion is our opinion.  


Don't believe a word of it.  She is as traditionally conservative as they come these days, and I'd no more believe her pronouncements about contemporary female mores, than I would Sarah Palin's, who, coincidentally, is attempting the same conservative wolf in feminist sheep's clothing schtick in the US.


So, in conclusion, let me just ring the warning bells one last time.  Beware the political Judas Sheep who will be used as ALP or progressive proxies, by the powerful forces of darkness that lurk in the shadows, to lure 'the mob' (as Howard loved to derisively refer to the electorate) away from the party who seeks to do the right thing by them, to their doom, like lambs to the slaughter on the altar of global capital and free markets, and against their best interests.


Be alert to their ways and alarmed about why they seek to do it.



The Rudd phenomenon

I have always liked Kevin Rudd.  I still do.  When he first came to prominence as shadow foreign minister I remember being impressed with his grasp of his subject matter and his articulateness.  I enjoyed listening to him on TV and radio, and occasionally in parliament when he hammered the Howard Government.  Back then I found I understood every word he uttered.  I still do.  Yet it is his ‘poor communication’ that is cited as being a major reason for his downfall.  What am I missing?  More of that later.

How might we assess Kevin Rudd’s legacy?  What is the Rudd phenomenon?

Already there have been many thousands of words written about the events of the last six months and this last week.  I do not wish to bore readers with a repetition of what others have written, but instead to explore some other aspects of how it all came to this.

But first let’s accentuate the positive and give great credit to Kevin Rudd where it’s due.  Many here have developed a deep affection for him, which made his sudden and unseemly exit painful.  We felt his hurt and humiliation.  This feeling was so strong that some felt angry at not just what had happened but the way it happened.  Conflicting emotions made it hard to separate the stark reality of the situation facing members of the parliamentary Labor Party and what seemed to many the brutal remedy they applied.

After a few days of reflection it is easier to see where things went wrong, and at the same time what has been achieved since Kevin Rudd came onto the Federal scene.  

He earned his stripes with his exemplary performance in his shadow ministry.  He was forensic in his dissection of the AWB affair and pursued the Government relentlessly.  That he did not succeed in getting some scalps is a tribute to John Howard’s clever terms of reference of the Cole inquiry.

Historical accounts of Rudd’s rise to power insist that he has always had his eye on the prime ministership, so when the factional heavyweights arranged a merging of interests of right and left factions, a Kevin Rudd-Julia Gillard ticket was organized and Kim Beasley was toppled, even at a time when the polls were not too bad for Labor.   This event foreshadowed what would transpire over three years later.  Beasley was considered to be unable to beat Howard at the 2007 election, so he was replaced, just as Rudd has now been, with polls much worse than in 2006.

So what has Kevin Rudd done for which he deserves our eternal gratitude?

First, after over eleven years of Labor in opposition, he challenged and defeated John Howard and his Government.  Whatever the legacy of the Howard era, there was in 2007 a strong desire in the electorate for change and Rudd enabled that to occur.  Thank you Kevin.

Next, he led Labor to do some of the things the Coalition ought to have done – apologize to the Stolen Generations and sign the Kyoto Protocol.  The latter was part of Rudd’s push to tackle global warming, something Howard came to so reluctantly.  His commissioning of the Garnaut Report, the Green and White papers and the subsequent ETS/CPRS legislation were landmark events, all of which came to nothing because of Coalition and Greens’ Senate obstruction, and eventually lead to the removal of Malcolm Turnbull and the rise of Tony Abbott.  Copenhagen, into which Rudd put so much effort, was disappointing, leaving him with almost nothing.  Whatever we feel about the deferment of the CPRS, we thank you Kevin for getting us as far as you did.

All except the most hard-hearted and biased give you and your inner cabinet team great credit and thanks for shielding this nation from the GFC, high unemployment and business failures.  Increasing job opportunities, economic prosperity and consumer confidence resulted.  Thank you.

There are many other things you did for which we are grateful – you insulated a million homes while lessening the chances of fire and injury in the process.  We all know the problems there – the media made sure of that, but thank you for getting so much done.   You have built countless school buildings, but all we heard from the media were the ‘cost-blowouts’, the ‘rip-offs’, the ‘fraud’ that occurred in a few instances, mainly in NSW.  But schools, teachers, parents and their children will be grateful for many years to come.  Thank you.

There are many other things: abolishing WorkChoices, the computers-in-schools programme, the national curriculum, the MySchool website, the increase in funding for education, the health system changes, the tax review, the review of pensions that made life easier for recipients, the PPL scheme, the NBN, the Murray-Darling plan, gaining Australia a place at the G20, and so on it goes in a very, very long list – it would take too much space to record here.  But we are grateful.  Thank you. 

But for many your compassion for the less fortunate, your dedication to making this nation a better place, your passion for getting the job done, your ceaseless devotion to your work, your work ethic sometimes to the detriment of your health and well being, your determination against overwhelming odds, your willingness to stand up against powerful vested interests for the sake of the people, and your decency and fairness will be remembered by a grateful nation, sad that you left us so precipitously after all you had done.  Thank you Kevin – you are a good man.

So how has it all come to this?

Commentators point to communication problems, centralization of decision-making, inadequate consultation, poor political judgement, and lack of anticipation as the prime causes.

Communication

There are several elements in communication: the message, the messenger, the recipient and the media.

The message 

Too often the message was seen to be confusing.  Personally, as mentioned earlier, I have had no difficulty in understanding Rudd’s messages, but journalists became irritated by the repetitive phrases – ‘working families’, ‘in the national interest’ and so on; annoyed by his use of old-fashioned words such as ‘balderdash’, ‘bunkum’, and worst of all, ‘fair shake of the sauce bottle’, which it labeled as ‘fake’ ockerism.  Having lived in Queensland including a stint in Nambour, I know these expressions were used there and at Eumundi where Rudd grew up.  But the media didn’t like them so it revolted, made them the issue and wrote about them endlessly.  There’s no accounting for the mindless infantilism of some journalists.  

Of course the central message was at times unclear to some.   On this blog site some of us have expressed the view that a specialized media unit was needed to craft easily understandable messages the public could and would assimilate, as the Government’s messages were not ‘cutting-through’.  Rudd’s inexperienced staff was not up to the job. On this blog site we suggested how the CPRS might be ‘sold’.  Yet not one journalist who wrote about lack of ‘cut-through’ suggested what messages would ‘cut-through’ – they just kept harping that they weren’t. I’m still wondering what these cut-through messages would look like, and asking if we’re talking about some fictional notion of ‘cut-through’ that nobody has much idea about.  The media is well and truly capable of talking about a non-existent entity as if it was as plain as a pikestaff.  It also had the temerity to say that the messages about the good things the government was doing were being ‘starved of oxygen’ by the Government’s ongoing travails, most recently the RSPT, when IT was deliberately doing the starving.  Talk about media hypocrisy! 

Early on, the media criticized Rudd endlessly for the lack of narrative in his message, but then turned round and criticized him for hyperbole, over promising, setting expectations too high – presumably that was too much narrative.  As argued in another piece on The Political Sword: The folly of putting a politician on a pedestal, we the public placed unrealistically high expectations on Rudd and became disappointed when the sheer weight of partisan politics and self-interested opposition crushed some of them.  It is generally accepted that a turning point for Rudd’s decline in popularity was when he deferred the CPRS until the end of the current Kyoto agreement in late 2012.  This was branded as a serious betrayal of trust after his ‘greatest moral and economic challenge of our time’ rhetoric, a theme the media pounded relentlessly until everyone had been indoctrinated with ‘Rudd’s broken promise’.  There was little mention of Opposition obstruction or that he had been let down at Copenhagen – only trenchant condemnation – it was clearly Rudd’s fault he had not delivered.

The messenger
The media labeled Rudd as robotic, endlessly spouting focus group-generated phrases.  By the time they had indoctrinated the public into thinking likewise, any substantive messages were easily overshadowed by the language Rudd used, language that the public had been programmed to despise and eventually ridicule.  It was a classic instance of media scapegoating which worked brilliantly for them. Every time Rudd spoke, the listener homed in on the language the messenger used, not the message.  Intimidated by shock jocks and the likes of Kerry O’Brien, in the manner of a self-fulfilling prophesy, Rudd became even more ‘robotic’, and when he showed some spirit in standing up for himself was accused of a ‘meltdown’.

The recipient

Although much of the repetition was designed to impact the busy homemaker and the tired worker who might catch only a fragment on TV at the end of a long day, because the media made such a noise about it, the repetition became the focus of the recipient, a classic example of media brainwashing and manipulation at work. 

The media

This blog site has as one of its prime aims the exposure of the pernicious influence on public thinking of much of the media, particularly the Murdoch outlets.  The media went out of its way to condition the mind of the electorate that Rudd did nothing but waffle, that he spoke gobbledygook, that he talked spin instead of substance, and that he had become a laughing stock.  That accomplished, is it any wonder that the people stopped listening, the ultimate death-knell for a politician.  And if they hadn’t done so already, the media’s repetition of ‘the voters have stopped listening’ ensured that those still doing so wondered why they were.  

Scapegoating is powerful.  We see it in families.  Once started, it is very hard to stop it escalating, let alone reverse it.  The media’s scapegoating of Rudd has been deplorable.  It would argue that all it did was expose Rudd’s weaknesses and foibles.  That is a cop-out.  No matter what defects Rudd had and still has, the media’s role in Rudd’s downfall cannot be underestimated.  It has been as shameful as it has been successful.  When will it start on Julia Gillard?

Of course the media would counter that Rudd did not show them due deference, but exploited them to his own advantage.  That has an element of truth but Rudd has found out the hard way that the media is powerful and punishing, and has contributed substantially to his political demise.

The media message was so persuasive that Labor members found that people in their electorates had stopping listening to Rudd, and had turned away from him so profoundly that they were no longer prepared to vote Labor.  They fled to the Greens, the Labor primary vote in the marginals as well as federally fell to levels incompatible with re-election.  A rout was looming, and no sign of it reversing was to be seen.  The only solution these members could see was to replace the one identified with this desperate situation – the Prime Minister.  This is what they did with clinical precision.

It is seen by many as ruthless and unfair – those responsible were convinced that to do nothing would have given Australia an Abbott-led Government, an alternative too horrifying to contemplate.

Centralization of decision-making

It is now established that Rudd’s modus operandi was control of all aspects of Government.  Although ministers did their work individually and have acknowledged that they were allowed to do so, the requirement was that every move had to be signed off in Rudd’s office even if it was going to Cabinet, and often that process was inadequate.  There was not enough sharing of responsibility, enough delegation, enough sharing of information and decision-making.

How did this occur?  Studies of Rudd’s past show that he has formidable intelligence and an uncommon capacity to assimilate vast amounts of information and come to a reasoned conclusion and a plan of action.  He has unbridled faith in his ability and brainpower.  So he sees no need to consult with others, as he believes he has the answers.  The matters which a Prime Minister has to deal with are so profoundly complex that no one person can possibly encompass all the facts, figures, wisdom, experience and foresight needed to fashion a rational plan and achieve a successful outcome.  This defect in Rudd seems to be longstanding, going back to his days as chief of staff for Wayne Goss.  It may not be remediable.  Rudd’s reaction to failure in any policy area was simply to ‘work harder’.

The upshot of this approach was alienation from colleagues who felt their work was not valued.  They felt anger at being overlooked, ignored or exploited.  The end result was the slowing of the process of governance.  There have been many media reports of the torpid process in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, something aptly described recently as chronic constipation of governance.

The same self-belief, coupled with disdain for Labor’s factional system, led Rudd to insist on selecting his own Cabinet ministers, and subsequently paying little attention to his backbench who found it difficult to engage with him.  It was those backbenchers, even more than factional heavyweights, who toppled Rudd, although the latter were involved in organizing the coup.  He found himself friendless among the wider parliamentary party.  The Abbott attempt to raise the spectre of ‘faceless’ men in Sussex Street running the show – who will forget the ‘36 faceless men’ mantra of forty years ago – will not succeed.  It is not the case; only we oldies remember that era.

Another outcome of centralization of decision-making, especially if the staff involved is inexperienced, is that anticipatory actions are stultified.  There are many who assert that many of the problems Rudd encountered in selling his policies resulted from lack of anticipation of the reaction of those affected.  The CPRS is quoted as a classic example. In his piece Thank you, Kevin, Bushfire Bill makes the telling analogy of ‘Rudd as engineer’ – if you make your product well enough, it will sell itself – but that is a delusion.  He also suggests that Kevin Rudd is an example of The Peter Principle: namely that: “in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence."  There seems to be much evidence to support that.

In his Quarterly Essay: Power Trip, David Marr asserts that anger is Rudd’s most powerful motivating force.  This psychoanalysis is suspect, based partly as it seems to be on Rudd’s explosive reaction to what Marr had written about him.  If he had written that about me, I think my reaction might have been the same!  Therese Rein corrected Marr when she said, with tears in her eyes on that awful 60 Minutes interview by Tara Brown, that the one thing that motivated her husband was compassion.

So there is my assessment.  Many thousand words more could be written, but enough is enough.

So what do we say now?

What is the Rudd phenomenon?  

Although difficulty in communicating messages the Government wanted the people to hear was a major problem, and the centralization of power and control in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet was debilitating, the role of the media in bringing about the downfall of our Prime Minister was as ugly as it was overpowering.  We shall never forget the disgraceful role of the Murdoch media and particularly The Australian, the paper that nominated Kevin Rudd as its Australian of the Year in January and then proceeded to relentlessly and shamelessly tear him down thereafter.  

While acknowledging his shortcomings, those of us who admire his many attributes and achievements, his passion and his compassion, pay tribute to him for all he has done for the people of Australia.  

To me, that encapsulates the real Rudd phenomenon.  Thank you, Kevin.

What do you think?


Thank you, Kevin

Well, after a good night's sleep and a bit of a think, count me in on the Julia side.

It seems Rudd isolated himself, and treated the caucus and the cabinet with seeming indifference.

Why this is so, I don't know. 

Could this have been his personal nature? 

Maybe he thought the parliamentary party needed training wheels until the government matured enough to look after itself? (He did have a very good record of not shedding ministers, after all). 

Maybe he knew what the factions would - and still might - get up to once in power and, in a reversal of the usual secularizing process, tried to put God-Rudd in place of the Party in MP's hearts. 

Or maybe he just never learnt anything from his time with Goss, or perhaps learnt too much from studying Whitlam (who in Rudd's mind might have been not frantic enough).

Perhaps he worked too hard and lost his judgement, losing sight of the forest for the trees.

Perhaps he was an engineer who wanted to make his product so perfect it'd sell itself (like a Cham-Wow! wunda-wipe). Then he, not a great spruiker with ability to talk in sound grabs, wouldn't have to.

Perhaps he's shy, or arrogant, or too modest to speak up (why wasn't he giving yesterday's speech every Thursday afternoon at 4 o'clock for the last 2 years?).

Or perhaps he just wasn't a politician, in the 'fully-rounded' sense of the word.

There are a thousand cliches that come to mind.

When he took over from Beazley I was about as disappointed then in losing Beazley as I have been over the past few days, losing Rudd. I'd personally gone into bat for Kim - as would have many here - for over three years. I worried that Beazley had been dealt a raw deal, that Rudd didn't have the oratorical skills to be a perfect attack dog, or the experience to get a drifting Labor Party behind him. In the most positive way possible, in turn I worried that Rudd was a nerd, more for his sake than testosterone's. I thought the macho Press Gallery (and that's just the women!) and cruel Labor hacks would tear him apart. Come to think of it, it all came true, of course, but with a famous victory to make it seem alright.

Rudd put iron discipline back into the Party, but the passion went AWOL. He used to tell us of the things he was passionate about, and he was, but it didn't come across as passion. It came across as bureaucracy, structure and politics by the numbers. Everything Rudd said - well, almost everything - sounded like someone had coached him, provided him with talking points. I know he was decent, hard-working, and yes, passionate. But towards the end we saw more of the former, and not enough of the latter. When David Marr wrote his piece I grabbed at it like a starving man. I thought to myself that at last someone else has seen what I wanted to see and had seen in Kevin Rudd: the anger, the fire in the belly. Maybe I wasn't fooling myself after all about Kevin, I thought.

But ultimately Rudd was someone whose passion was kept - had to be kept - always in check, almost as if he was scared to let it go off the leash. I'm the same with one of my dogs. If I let him go he'll get run over by a car for sure, in some mad terminal frenzy of street-crossing, trigged by seeing a cat (or thinking he does). He's his own worst enemy... as was Rudd.

Loyalty to the King is no bad thing. Loyalty, blind, excuse-making loyalty, where you argue until you're blue in the face for your man and his character... that's what politics should be about, or partly so. If we dumped our leaders as easily as we disposed of yesterday's newspapers, there'd be no continuity and no decency in politics, or in life. Perhaps Rudd was well-past his usefulness to the Party, but the Party owed him some momentum, some chance to get it right. I [i]do[/i] think they gave it to him. But it didn't do any good. As Kevin retreated into the PM&C [i]bunker[/i], access to him, advising him, imploring him to see what was happening, became next to impossible.

I agree with Marr that the most signal part of his now famous essay was where Rudd declared he would just "have to work harder" to achieve a victory in the election. I groaned when I read that sentence. I thought to myself that Kevin really didn't get it. No-one was questioning his work ethic. It was his direction (or rather lack of it) that worried them. He was leading Labor in grand circles, and when they arrived back where they started, they were more exhausted than when they started out. Labor MPs and ministers, unable to get to the boss to find out what was happening, had to finally get rid of him.

Rudd would have had a favourite anecdote, one where he illustrated the benefits of determination, grit and punishing attention to detail as helping him out of a seemingly hopeless situation. Perhaps it was in the 'off the record' section of Marr's piece, in that last conversation where Rudd let go at the essayist and told him what he really thought. We may never find out what it was. Whatever Rudd's favourite story about himself, one set of circumstances doesn't necessarily apply to all others as the ex-PM has just found out. Hard work when you've lost your direction doesn't always help. Sometimes it just means you've gone a little bit crazy. Over-work can do that.

Kevin should go home for a month and get a lot of sleep, reconnect with his family and with life and only then come back ready for whatever action Julia wants to give him. She shouldn't give him a task that will allow him to indulge himself too much. He'll only work himself to death, and in the process fail in the task. I don't know what the task will be but it should be simple and possess clear targets. That would be best for everyone, but most of all for Kevin.

In the end Kevin Rudd was the living embodiment of The Peter Principle: a person promoted beyond his level of competency. This doesn't mean I think he was an 'incompetent' person. It just means his skill set was no longer appropriate to the task. Whatever me might say today, of one thing I am sure... there was nobody else at the time - 2006 - suitable for the job (what would they have done to Julia if she had been elected leader in 2006... the thought is almost too awful to contemplate). 

Kevin had all the bullet-point attributes in spades - intelligence, charm, popularity, a good policy head, but came to lack a sense of perspective and a tolerance for other ideas. The more success he had the more he, and those in the immediate circle of staff around him, came to believe he was infallible. Still, despite the events of this week, there was no-one else more suitable in 2006 than Kevin Rudd. He got Labor over the line, despatched the hated Howard and all but one or two of his most egregious subordinates, and set down his Party's roots for the future.

In many ways, tremendously important ways, Rudd has been a successful Prime Minister. He won the election. He has preserved his ministry and seen it mature. He saw off a gaggle of Opposition Leaders and hangers on. He initiated ground-breaking policies, heading the country towards the 21st century and away from the backwards-looking Howard fantasies of Queen and Cricket. Indeed, many of these policies have succeeded and are now in place, functioning well. I won't list them. Anyone reading this will know what they are, the GFC triumph right at their head.

But there is someone suitable to take over now. Most importantly Rudd has prepared the ground for Julia Gillard. We have seen her blossom into a formidable politician. The rough edges are off her and she is a hard, tough, steely machine more than a match for any of her opponents... and more than a match for the Labor hacks who might think they have sway over her. 

Kevin Rudd held the line until the party caught up with him, morphing it from a loose rabble into a government. His mistake was to hold on too tightly and too long. I for one can forgive him easily and say to him, with love, "Kevin, job well done". It is up to him now to forgive us. 

I believe he's man enough to do it. There's an important bonus to it too. In doing so he will of needs be completing the most important task any person can possibly undertake: forgiving himself as well. 


Gotcha!

Greetings fellow Swordians.  Today I'd like to report on a worrying trend which I have noticed creeping into political reportage of late in this country.  I am not quite sure how extensive it is yet across the country, only that I have noticed it increasingly here in Sydney on Channel Nine.  So I'd also like to know if anyone else has perceived it in their neck of the woods, and I'd also appreciate it if fellow Swordians could keep a Watching Brief to look for more examples of it, because there's one thing I do know, and that is the manifest nature of the Australian Press to behave as a herd, and once one outlet debuts a new idea for them all to follow it and push it to further extremes.

So let me just start by outlining one particular incident in this new trend, which I have christened: 'Gotcha! Politics'

On Thursday night on Channel Nine 6 pm News the newsreader, Peter Overton, in his initial summary of the night's top stories, referred to an upcoming 'Channel Nine Exclusive', “that exposes another one of Kevin Rudd's 'Broken Promises'”.  That teaser led me to expect that the Nine media organisation had done the hard yards of investigative journalism and had a scoop that exposed a heretofore unknown broken campaign promise.

With trepidation I sat and waited for the story to unfold.  I thought to myself, if it's such a big deal as to be bringing to light another broken election promise which Channel Nine have uncovered, they'll come out all guns blazing with it as their top story.  So with bated breath I waited.  It wasn't the top story.  Or the 2nd, or the 3rd.  It was the 4th story, and after an ad break!

Well, I thought, they must be going to prop Laurie Oakes up in his chair from Canberra to make the announcement of this momentous 'Exclusive'.

Thus it was to my ultimate bewilderment when, after the ad break, I, the viewer, was informed that this new 'Broken Promise' of the PM referred to the fact that Kevin Rudd had said to Dr Richard Phillips of Hornsby Hospital in NSW, in January this year, that he would visit the Public Hospital which Dr Phillips administers, and check out its dilapidated state of repair. Well, now for the scandalous part. By gum, it's June already and the Prime Minister has failed to keep his 'promise' to visit the run-down hospital, which we were shown in graphic detail, down to the last dust bunny in the corner of the wards.  We were then breathlessly informed, with a disapproving and disappointed tone in the voiceover from Peter Overton, that Dr Phillips had tried to contact the Prime Minister seven times already and had, as yet, not had the courtesy of one reply!

Now, this is where this story gets really interesting, and shows to me the extent to which media organisations in Australia are now attempting to manufacture the news and the political narrative, rather than simply reporting it.

As I said earlier, I was fully expecting this story to have been broken by Chief Political Reporter for Channel Nine News, Laurie Oakes.  He was nowhere to be seen.  Instead, this story was 'broken' by Ben Fordham, who, until as recently as last fortnight, had been a foot-in-the-door and ambulance-chasing 'journalist' (and I use the term advisedly), and fill-in compère of 'A Current Affair'!  Which is not to say that he doesn't have what it takes to be a serious political journalist, just that, looking at this specific example, that is not how his role is being developed by Channel Nine with respect to his political reporting.  Instead, what his presence on the federal political scene has heralded is the era of ‘Gotcha! Politics’, and the appearance on the scene of the ‘Gotcha!’ political journalist.

To see exactly what I mean I'll take you through the rest of the timeline of how this story unfolded.  So we started with the groundwork being laid by the newsreader, Peter Overton, creating, to me, a false impression that probably in parliament that day Kevin Rudd had been exposed by the Opposition, through forensic questioning in Question Time (well, you never know), as having broken another campaign promise.

Then, left to sit through the ad break we were left  on tenterhooks to reflect upon and reinforce to ourselves the meme of 'Rudd Government broken promises', which, to my mind, serves to build on the sense of resentment the electorate feels towards the PM and his government because of this.  At which point, after the ad break was over and the suspense had been built up sufficiently, the political ground tilled and fertilised, we were finally made privy to the story.  However, instead of a story from Canberra, we were dished up one which had been totally confected by Channel Nine News, their 'Exclusive', as they would have it styled, in cahoots with a doctor from Hornsby Public Hospital, and, I would not be surprised one bit to find out, with the federal Member for Berowra in the House of Representatives which covers the area in which Hornsby Hospital is located, one Phillip 'The Cadaver' Ruddock, and the Liberal Party of NSW.  For, as it turned out, this 'Exclusive' was a total tabloid current affairs-style beat-up, and Ben Fordham (son of media industry veteran and heavyweight, John Fordham), was just the man for the job, as the story mirrored exactly the confected outrage that 'A Current Affair' and 'Today Tonight' specialise in.  Except this time they weren't just attempting to scandalise over a dodgy Used Car Salesman, they were attempting to ensnare the Prime Minister of Australia in a totally contrived controversy of their-own mischievous making.

But Wait. There's more!

Following the Tabloid TV-esque wonky and gloomy and shaky hand-held camera shots of the dust bunnies and Band Aids holding together light switches above walls with crumbling painted surfaces, we had the extended interview with Dr Phillips himself, which, we were told, Channel Nine was 'privileged' to have been given (!?!) by the good doctor. Cough.

In exasperated tones, with appropriately stern and concerned expressions on the face of Master Fordham, we were informed by Dr Phillips that he had contacted the PM seven times since January about keeping his 'promise' to visit the hospital, and he had not yet received one reply from the PM or his office!

So, now we had not only the magnification of the 'Broken Promise' meme, but also the 'Imperious PM and Non-Responsive Office' characterisation tacked on for extra effect.

Guess what happened next?

Ben Fordham popped up in the Canberra press pack at the PM's Presser to announce that Paid Parental Leave had finally been passed by Parliament.

Guess what Ben Fordham asked about?

You got it.  Nothing to do with PPL, and everything to do with the PM's 'Broken Promise' with respect to Dr Phillips!  Groan. 

However, and thank goodness for the PM and his very smart 'Junior Woodchucks', they had come forearmed with the facts to this particular fight.  When Master Fordham, who seemed to have a camera team all to himself in tow, asked why the PM hadn't responded to the seven!!! requests from Dr Phillips to keep his promise, made back in January, to visit Hornsby Hospital, the PM calmly explained back to 'Master of the Universe' Fordham, that six of those seven communications had been via Twitter(!!!), and one by E-mail, which was the most recent, and which had been responded to promptly, with a visit having now been tee'd up to go and take a look at Hornsby Hospital.

Well, you'd think that that would've been enough to put Master Fordham and Channel Nine back in their boxes, the shallowness of their case having been exposed for the sham it was.  Well, you would be wrong.  This is the foot-in-the-door brand of political journalism that is being worked up here.  No backward steps are ever to be taken.  Instead, you take the response you have been given by the PM and develop a new line of condemnation and censure out of it.  'If at first you don't succeed...', and all of that.

I tell you, I sat there gobsmacked in front of my TV, as all this played out in front of me, on what is supposed to be the 6 pm NEWS Bulletin.  Because, as I said, Channel Nine weren't going to be satisfied here for one minute with their 'get' of the PM 'failing' to keep his 'promise' to visit Hornsby Hospital, and the implication that he had been dodging it because he would rather be seen only in neat and clean hospitals, as opposed to being filmed in a run-down hospital. No, it was onwards and upwards with the next condemnation to be heaped upon the 'beleaguered Prime Minister'. 

Wait for it.  This one is a doozy.

Channel Nine heaped outrage on top of scorn, due as a result of the PM's 'Broken Promise', because Kevin Rudd does not personally reply to every Tweet he gets on Twitter from twits like Dr Phillips!

Well I never!  The Prime Minister should be sacked forthwith!  I mean, the Premier of NSW, Kristina Kenneally had just the other day participated in a Twitter Debate, doncha know?  Ergo, communication by Tweet has now thus been legitimised, and the Prime Minister of this country ought to therefore be held to account for not responding to each and every one of his importuning constituents Tweets in real time.

How patently absurd and contrived!  But instructive, as it should, and probably has, put up in neon lights in the PM's office, just what lengths media organisations in this country are prepared to go to to trip up Kevin Rudd, using the tools of the new Web 2.0 media, and also the depths to which they are prepared to sink, in order to lay a trap for our good and kind-hearted, reformist PM, and to give the Press Gallery's pro forma anti-Rudd memes and mischaracterisations credence.

We therefore need to be alert and alarmed (ha, ha) about the new 'Gotcha Politics'.  Thus I put out a 'Call to Arms' to fellow Swordians to monitor this new development in their own media backyards and join with me in documenting each and every instance of this new type of political journalism, as I fear we haven't seen the last of it, and I doubly fear that the Liberals are behind it as well, as they seem to have vacated the floor of parliament in order to take their battle for the hearts and minds of the electorate four square into the media, with the media's help and complicity.

I don't like it!

And this woman knows all about the skullduggery, with the aid of the media, that the Liberal Party is capable of: I don't like it!  

 


Who cares about the next Newspoll?

Certainly those at The Australian newspaper do.  After all, they own Newspoll, and say they understand it better than anyone.  But there’s more – they value it as a heavy political weapon with which they flail this nation’s Prime Minister even when the poll shows only a modest decline in his popularity or his party’s polling, or even if his opponent has gained some ground, or even if the poll figures haven’t changed – then he is not making headway.

Does anyone else care?  Yes, political journalists, and not just those at News Limited, find excitement at any hint of an adverse movement.  It gives them an eagerly seized opportunity to critically analyse the meaning of the movements and the reasons behind them.  For this it seems they require little knowledge of statistics as evidenced by some of their innumerate and illogical conclusions.  Fortunately we have competent statisticians such as Possum on Pollytics who can put us straight.  Apart from their statistical analysis though, it’s their notion of what the stats mean that gives them free rein to put whatever interpretation on them they wish – in Alice in Wonderland style, ‘stats can mean whatever they want them to mean’.  Dennis Shanahan, The Australian’s commentator-in-chief on Newspoll, has a well earned a reputation for that.

Of course, as far as News Limited is concerned, no other poll can hold a candle to Newspoll.  Although their outlets will publish Nielsen poll results and its other favoured pollsters – Galaxy and Westpoll – so long as the results are adverse to the Government, it is rare for any News Limited outlet to mention Morgan polls, which have been around for much longer than the others, and the newer poll, Essential Media.  They get a guernsey only when their results are bad for Kevin Rudd and the Government.

But Newspoll is now being used in another way – as an anti-Rudd warhead to prospectively strike at him.  Take a look at what Peter van Onselen had to say in The Australian on June 14 in Rudd has a week to shape up: “Next week opens with another Newspoll and its findings - Labor's primary vote as well as the Prime Minister's personal ratings - will determine whether passive concern about Rudd's performance turns into active lobbying for Gillard to take over. So far, the powerbrokers are unmoved, but they will closely watch Newspoll before re-evaluating their positions.”  He concludes confidently: “Although Rudd does have options to remain master of his own destiny, he must face up to the disempowering reality that his survival until the next election is largely out of his hands.  Rudd's future is beholden to the decision his deputy makes, and the way the polls fall. That is a far cry from the all-conquering hero who beat Australia's second-longest-serving prime minister less than three years ago.”  Note the phrase ‘the way the polls fall’.  Don’t be taken in though, Vex News puts paid to van Onselen’s predictive brilliance in Peter van Onselen: political scientist or quack.  Read it for a sobering laugh.

Dennis Shanahan makes this comment on June 12 in The Australian in Change in the air as Labor thinks defeat:  “Rudd is not the only Labor MP contemplating a first-term loss. The polling universally has Labor's primary vote in the 30s and desperately relying on an unrealistically high Greens vote of 16 per cent to deliver enough second preferences to ward off defeat. There is ample polling to suggest Labor could lose enough marginal seats in Queensland alone to lose the election.” and “Another Labor MP summed up the Newspoll surveys in nine Labor-held marginal seats in the resources states of Western Australia, Queensland and South Australia, showing a 26 per cent shift in the way people were likely to vote at the next election: ‘Those numbers give Rudd about a month as leader…before he's replaced’." 

In both these instances Newspoll is quite extravagantly being given stature it cannot deserve.

The problem Labor has is that News Limited, and indeed journalists generally, have elevated opinion polls, and particularly Newspoll, to the status of reliable predictors of political outcomes, despite the fact that their predictive consistency is questionable.  So they dwell breathlessly on each new Newspoll and immediately make judgements about what it means for the Government.  All other factors, such as past accomplishments, current policy initiatives and plans for the nation, have been relegated to insignificance against the power of Newspoll.

So what should we, who have no vested interest in Newspoll, react when it arrives?  How much credence should we give it?  How much predictive power should we attribute to it?  In my opinion, we should ignore it.  It's just another opinion poll.  That is easier said than done, as we know those who have a vested interest in it will ascribe great significance to it. 

What should we expect it to say?  Given the Nielsen poll of last week where Labor was well behind, and the modest leads Labor has in the latest Morgan and Essential Media polls, can we expect the next Newspoll to be significantly different?  No.  So let’s not get exercised if it looks much like the current run of polls.  Don’t be put off by the van Onselen assertion that the next Newspoll will have profound implications for Rudd’s future.  Knowing that there is unlikely to be any great improvement in Rudd’s or Labor’s ratings by next week, he is setting the scene for another article – ‘Rudd makes no headway’ ‘Labor bogged down with record low primary vote’, or ‘Rudd continues to slide’; certainly not ‘Rudd rebounds’.  We can see it coming Peter and know you will use it to polish your guru status.  Remember though that you’ll have plenty of competition for top guru position from Dennis Shanahan, Glenn Milne, Andrew Bolt and a bevy of like-minded writers.

It is plain as a pikestaff that there is in progress a slow but unremitting political assassination of this nation’s leader by large sections of the media – the Murdoch media, the Murdoch influenced ABC, by some independent journalists, and by a horde of venomous anti-Rudd bloggers who inhabit sites such as those run by Andrew Bolt, Piers Akerman, Glenn Milne and the like.  Even moderate journalists attract the same vitriol to their own sites.  The level of antagonism, hatred and malevolence is frightening.  They are determined that Rudd must be defeated, and Labor defeated with him and exiled to the opposition benches for a decade.  One has only to look at the daily media to see this in abundance. On Gutter Trash, reb asks: Is The Australian running The Country? and cites some evidence that it thinks it is or believes it ought to be.

For a man who has enjoyed record levels of popularity ever since he became Opposition Leader, why has there been this dramatic turn around?  Most observers attribute this largely to Rudd’s deferral of the ETS until the end of the current Kyoto agreement that expires at the end of 2012.  Others believe his suspension of processing of Afghan and Sri Lankan refugees has been a factor.  Those are plausible explanations for the loss of support of a group of Labor voters who hold those actions as reprehensible and who have fled to the Greens.  In a May 10 piece: The folly of putting a politician on a pedestal I suggested that high, sometimes unrealistic expectations have been placed on our leader and that when circumstances result in these expectations not being fulfilled, understandably there is bitter disappointment.  But this doesn’t explain the extreme venom, hatred and ridicule that is being heaped on Rudd’s head.  Disappointment, even disillusionment is understandable, not hatred and loathing.  I believe there is an entirely different reason for this.

Those who exhibit these unpleasant attributes will quote as justification for their position what they see as Labor’s many failings – insulation and BER problems plus a long list of misdemeanours that they have collected as boilerplate to trot out on every occasion.  But there’s more to it than that.  Misdemeanours, even incompetence, do not warrant hatred and loathing.  These wholly unworthy attitudes do not result from mistakes no matter how grievous they are painted to be. 

I believe they result from Kevin Rudd’s refusal to comply with the media’s narrative that a leader, while entitled to a brief honeymoon, is definitely not entitled to a prolonged one, one that goes on at near stratospheric levels for almost three years.  Repeated predictions from the likes of Dennis Shanahan, Glenn Milne, Piers Akerman and Andrew Bolt that the Rudd honeymoon was over, or almost over, or about soon to be over came to nothing for three long years.   Rudd orbited high above them, defying their predictions and showing scant respect for their judgements, for them as journalists, and for their media outlets.  He incurred their intense wrath for showing them to be repeatedly wrong, and for showing well-earned disdain for them, their editors and their papers.  There are few situations that evoke as much anger, even loathing, as being shown to be wrong again and again, and being treated with contempt in the process.  Now that the honeymoon has at long last come to an end, revenge is what they want.  They want to rub the nose of this loathsome Rudd in the dirt and keep doing so until they smother him politically or until their desire for retribution is satiated, whichever is sooner.  They show no sign of relenting.  They are going in for the kill – they must, for should Rudd rise phoenix-like once more, should he defy their predictions of and desire for his political annihilation, that would be a supreme affront to them.  It would heighten their anger and frustration and intensify their loathing.  Life would be intolerable.  So it is a fight to the death.  Someone has to lose.  Fearful it may be them, they are determined it will be Rudd and Labor.

To return to “Who cares about the next Newspoll?”, we know who does, who desperately want it to be poor for Rudd and Labor, who want it to confirm the narrative they are creating of a decaying, incompetent, useless, do nothing Government with a hopeless leader that must be removed for the sake of the country; but most of all they want at long last to enjoy the retaliation and the vengeance they have for so long waited.  

Let’s not be sucked into the vortex they are creating.  Let’s not expect much from the next Newspoll, and let’s anticipate a continuation of trenchant criticism and prophesies of doom and gloom for Rudd and Labor from the usual suspects. 

But let’s rise above the clamour and look to the future when the RSPT is settled, the election campaign is under way, the Government’s achievements and plans are there for all to see, Tony Abbott’s policies are on display and his extreme views exposed, and well prepared ads are appearing to inform the electorate.  To use expressions journalists so enjoy, let’s wait for that ‘circuit breaker’ which will change the ambience, give some ‘clear air’, provide some ‘oxygen’ and set a path for the re-election of the Rudd Government that has still much to accomplish in reforming and rejuvenating our nation that was let down during the Howard years when the reforms in health, education, industrial relations, infrastructure and tax that were needed for the growth and prosperity of our country, were ignored.

What do you think?


The media’s specifications for an Australian PM

First, it must be understood that it is the media who will shape the Prime Minister of this nation.  It is to the media that he or she must answer.  It will decide which of the contenders should be elected, and how the one so crowned should govern.  If the public can understand that, everything else makes sense.

So it is appropriate that those who might aspire to that highest of high offices understand what attributes they must exhibit, what the media requires of them, and how they must behave – in other words their job specification.  Go along compliantly and success is assured.

The media’s news’ specifications

As the controlling influence in matters of political discourse and action, the media’s news and current affairs requirements head the list of specifications. 

The media insist on the following:

The Prime Minister must be available to the media whenever it demands.  News and current affairs programmes need constant feeding.  So doorstops, calls for interviews, and requests for press statements must be complied with immediately – the media has no time to waste.

Although the media has created the feeding frenzy of the daily media cycle and requires it to be satiated hour by hour, it reserves the right to lampoon the PM for complying with that cycle and will indict him for ‘obsession with the media cycle’, and if the PM actually seeks out the media, it will assume he is in ‘panic mode’.

The PM must be ready to answer any question, no matter how obstruce, no matter how rudely put, no matter how irrelevant to the matter in hand.

The PM must never ‘lose his cool’, refuse to answer a question, challenge the interviewer, answer back the interrogator or suggest that a question is stupid, even if it is.  Otherwise the media will retaliate by accusing the PM of ‘a meltdown’, ‘losing it’, or ‘unable to take the heat’.

Questions that require a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer must receive them without delay, without preamble, and without obfuscation. 

‘Will you guarantee’ questions must be answered ‘yes’ or ‘no’ without equivocation.  The media needs these on record so they can be quoted back at the PM at any time.

No questions will be permitted to be ‘taken on notice’.  The PM must be fully familiar with all matters at all times, no matter how trivial, no matter how complex, no matter how recent, and be able to deliver cogent answers immediately.

The answer to questions must be brief yet detailed enough for even the most ignorant to understand.  On no account must the PM bore the audience with prolixity; repetitive phrases such as ‘working families’, ‘in the national interest’ and ‘for the future’ must be avoided no matter how relevant to the subject, and replies must fit into the media’s need for short grabs.  However, snappy phrases such as ‘great big new tax’ are permissible provided they come from the Opposition.

Colloquialisms or phrases such as ‘you know something’, or ‘the overwhelming majority of mainstream voters’ or ‘I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t’, and obscure, antediluvian phrases such as ‘fair shake of the sauce bottle’, are such anathema to journalists they must be avoided.  If repeated often enough they will result in extreme distress and annoyance to them, and for the obsessive among them, a counting frenzy. Journalists are under enough stress; they must not be subjected to such gross and unnecessary mental trauma.

If questions are not being answered to the satisfaction of the journalist, the answer will be interrupted, rudely if necessary, to get the answer the interviewer wants and needs for his media outlet.  The interviewer’s ego has to be protected and his need for a scoop respected.

Should the PM refuse to answer as required by the media, the most uncomplimentary photos or video clips of him will be used to accompany any reportage of the event.  With rapid-fire or video cameras it is easy to produce appalling images, which can be stored in perpetuity for later use, even if not actually taken at the event being reported.

Interviews should be held in conditions congenial to the media at a time suitable to journalists, be of a correct duration for the journalists, and concluding in good time for the media’s deadlines.  Announcements after the close of play, such as on Friday evenings or at weekends are taboo and will be interpreted by the media as a cynical attempt to 'cover up' unpleasant news.

Interviews in front of churches or religious places must be avoided, but those in sporting precincts, on beaches or in cycling contests are permissible as they are in tune with this country’s sporting orientation, provided of course that the media does not categorize them as ‘flagrant photo opportunities’ seized by the PM for political purposes.

The PM must not repeat the same ‘message of the day’ on different outlets or for different audiences, as the media has the capacity to juxtapose these utterances into a collage that will be used to mock the PM for repetitiveness.  Nor must ministers do likewise, or the media will castigate the Government for being in the thrall of its media advisers, otherwise known as ‘junior woodchucks’.

The PM has no right to challenge the accuracy of journalists’ reporting of media events – they are professionals who know how to get the story right. Such challenges will be ignored, and in the unlikely event they are valid, any apology, if considered appropriate at all, will be placed where few will see or hear it.

The media’s image building of the PM

The media require a certain type of person as PM.

He/she must comply with the following:

The PM must be acceptable in appearance: preferably a George Clooney or 007 clone, with the bearing of Clint Eastwood, or of Julie Andrews solidity or Angelina Jolie beauty.  Resemblance to a dentist, wearing square glasses, a nerdy look, a cartoon character look-alike, bushy eyebrows or a protruding lower lip, a bald scalp or too much hair, while the delight of cartoonists, are not what is required of the leader of a rugged nation.

The PM must avoid any language that any citizen might find unpleasant, yet still portray the ‘where the bloody hell are you’ image.  Any instance of bad language will be archived for repetitive use.

The PM must have an impeccable past history with no trace of misdemeanor, especially visiting undesirable places or associating with undesirable individuals. Any such instances will be raised as often as necessary to demean the PM, as is the media’s right.

The PM must paint a stunning vision of the nation’s future, express that in a compelling policy narrative, announce it with soaring oratory, and carry out all moves towards that vision with assurance, determination, meticulous planning and with careful use of scarce resources, and deliver it in full, on time and on budget, and with no administrative stuff-ups on the way, no matter what exigencies complicate the process.  The PM must stick to policy; to do otherwise will properly evoke the accusation that it is another instance of him putting ‘politics ahead of policy’, although the media’s interest is really in the former.  The media will always decide which is which.

The PM must express unequivocally ‘what he stands for’, but the media reserves the right to discount that, lambaste him should he abandon any of what he says he stands for, yet criticize him as stubborn or ill advised if he sticks determinedly to it.  Any deviation from what he stands for will be attributed to defects in his ‘character’.

The PM must never make promises that cannot with utmost certainty be honoured. Even if stated only as intentions they will be interpreted by the media as promises since the media needs as many ‘broken promises’ as it can muster to flesh out its stories.

The PM must never change his mind about anything, no matter how much circumstances have changed.   The media will label any change of mind or direction, no matter how justified by the prevailing situation, as a ‘back flip’ with or without double pike, a ‘turn-about’, an ‘about-face’, a ‘U-turn’, and of course a ‘broken promise’. Whatever the PM says will happen, must happen, and even in the event a change of mind or direction is the sensible thing to do, the media reserves the right to lambast the PM for not changing, for being stubborn, not listening to the public clamor, or being blind to reality.

The PM must tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth at all times – truth being defined as what the media deems to be true.  No matter how important it may be to keep confidences of national importance or those arising from cabinet discussions or confidential documents, the PM must not avoid answers or deflect questions or tell a porkie.  Be sure, the media keeps very careful records of every word uttered or written by a PM, and will quote them back at him when it suits its purpose.  However, the media is under no obligation to verify the truth of anything it reports that emanates from third parties.

The PM must accept any and all criticism of his intentions, actions and achievements with equanimity, recognizing it is the media’s right, indeed responsibility to hold the PM to account at all times over all matters, and that any citizen, no matter how ill-informed, is entitled to criticize the one elected to hold the highest office in the nation and be quoted in the media.

The PM must accept that criticisms are warranted for any defect in policy implementation no matter how outstanding and worthy the accomplishments of the policy are.  The media reserves the right to repeatedly apply to such defects descriptors such as ‘flawed’, ‘bungled’, ‘debacle’, and the like.

The PM must not overwork or sacrifice sleep– it should be possible to govern a country of 22 million people during regular working hours, with plenty of time for sport, relaxation and a cold beer.

A PM must never do his block at staff even when they stuff up.  Anger and bad language is taboo, but copious quantities of political passion are essential.

He must never overwork his staff, who are entitled to a decent night’s sleep and seeing their kids occasionally, yet not employ too many and willfully waste the country’s money.  The business of government should be achievable at a leisurely pace with minimal staff – what can’t be done today can wait until tomorrow.  Nonetheless the PM must fulfill the expectations of all interest groups in the community, even if they are in conflict, and all citizens generally. 

In meeting the diverse needs of the community, the PM must not show signs of populism or indulge in pork barreling; every move must be justifiable in the court of public opinion and of course to the media, which governs public opinion.

The PM, no matter how well endowed intellectually, must not exhibit this, as it will be seen as conceit.  A ‘too-smart-by-far’ aura or ‘the smartest person in the room who can solve any problem’ air is particularly taboo.  A knock-about sporting image is to be preferred.

As the media has journalists of great experience, unlimited wisdom and penetrating insight into all matters political, even among its junior contingent, it reserves the right to criticize any government initiative, point out its obvious flaws, suggest more appropriate alternatives and recommend to the PM how he should proceed on any matter.  These opinions will be expressed with the assurance of always being right.

The PM must be careful when writing in the media not to express beliefs, attitudes, conclusions and intentions, as this is pretentious.  It is particularly ostentatious to cite a role model, especially if that person comes from a religious background.  Such writings will be subject to scrutiny, criticism and ridicule by the experts who write in the media, whose understandings surpass any understanding a PM might have.  With a few notable exceptions, the media’s economics correspondents, despite their consistent inability to agree on almost anything, will make their assessments in condemnatory terms should the PM trespass onto their sacred turf.

The PM must be able to explain even the most complex matters with crystal clarity and searing simplicity that will inform and convince even the most ignorant, disinterested and biased members of the community.

The PM must be able to negotiate brilliantly and swiftly with any group in the community, no matter how self interested they are, no matter how well-heeled and able to throw vast resources into the negotiation, no matter how complicated the issue, and come up with solutions acceptable to all, so there are winners all round.

The PM must use existing media outlets to promulgate Government messages.  The use of new-fangled social networks is to be deplored.  Ads are the lifeblood of the print and electronic media and should be used liberally, no matter what spurious arguments are advanced by do-gooders to restrict Government advertising.  Without ads, print media will die, all the editorial wisdom it offers will be lost, and media empires that gainfully employ so many will collapse – to use a common expression, ‘thousands of jobs will be lost’.  Notwithstanding this, the media reserves the right to severely criticize Government attempts to inform the public about its policies at taxpayers’ expense, and will condemn such attempts as ‘flagrant advertising’.

The media’s right to determine the next Government

Since it is the media, so much better informed than the electorate, that determines who will be the next PM and the next Government, what it says must be addressed.  The media, in its role of kingmaker, must be listened to carefully and followed without question.

It is the right of the media to dredge up any matter repeatedly, no matter how remote, no matter how inconsequential, to put down the person is does not want as PM and the right to foster the media-preferred candidate no matter how politically unsuitable or how poorly supported by political colleagues.

The media is entitled to mount any campaign, no matter how disingenuous, it deems necessary to denigrate, diminish and eventually dismiss the current PM in favour of a preferred successor.  No limits will be imposed on the rhetoric, the evidence used, the past history raked up, to achieve this aim.  Persistent leadership speculation, which is a tried and true media method for destabilizing a leader the media wishes to replace, will be used unremittingly.

The media will use polling data that its outlets generate to prosecute its case for dismissing a PM and installing another.  Such data are powerful if used as a heavy weapon to diminish an incumbent, and will be used relentlessly until the desired outcome is achieved.

The media is entitled, indeed has the responsibility, to kill off politically any PM it deems no longer suitable for its purpose.  By doing so the media knows it will have served the community well, while of course carefully looking after its own vested interests.

The media’s rights and responsibilities

All of the above is premised on the media’s unalienable right to determine who is best qualified to lead this nation, who is most likely to fulfill the media’s agenda, who is most likely to comply with the media’s requirements.  It is based on the concept of the media and its journalists being the story rather than the events that the media report. Its purpose is to maintain its influence over the hearts and minds of the people.

The pen is mightier than the sword.  The media reigns supreme!


Kevin, Kevin, Kevin.

My heart is breaking. With the release of the latest Nielsen Poll a dagger has truly been inserted into my heart, not of the RSPT, politically-opportunistic kind which Tony Abbott squawks about, a sentiment of his that actually runs counter to the national interest when you think about it closely enough, but instead the dagger which has also plunged through the heart of the Rudd government this week as a result of those dreadful poll numbers, and which appears to be causing it to bleed to political death before our very eyes. The knives are out and they are being waved around and thrust at the Rudd government with gay abandon, causing them untold damage.The polls are indicating an electoral bloodbath is on the cards if the Rudd government, and Kevin Rudd in particular, don't figure out how to staunch the flow of political blood, and we'll be going to their political funeral if they don't move quickly and decisively to figure out what to do to save themselves from this poll-based attack, and standing in the electorate's estimation that it represents.  They must take pre-emptive action to inoculate themselves from further daggers aimed their way in the future.

So, for what it's worth I'd like to offer them my diagnosis of the problem and my 2c-worth of advice on what the cure should be.

Firstly, the problems as I see them from out here in ConcernedVoterLand.

The nation wants a Prime Minister.

Well, you might say, we've got one, and his name is Kevin Rudd. However, that's not what I mean.

Let me explain it this way. The other afternoon I was listening to the analysis of Mark Shields and David Brooks, on the PBS Newshour, about the issues of the week in American politics. They were discussing the leadership style of President Obama with respect to the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill crisis. David Brooks said he thought the President was doing OK because his quality of being cool in a crisis was coming to the fore. Mark Shields, who is the Democrat-leaning commentator, begged to differ. He said that not only do the people want a Commander-in-Chief at times like this, but they also want a 'Comforter-in-Chief'.  That is, they want their leader to emote their fears and frustrations, and articulate their impotent rage in this situation, and their hopes and desires in general.  I guess what he was getting at was they want their leader to be the lead actor in the ongoing political play, and to give an Oscar-winning performance.

Which is where Kevin Rudd appears to be falling down. It seems to me that the PM is singularly unable to appropriately emote and empathise convincingly. According to the gist of David Marr's Quarterly Essay, which I heard being discussed on the radio, the emotional trauma that our Prime Minister suffered in his very early life has had the effect of cauterising his ability to display emotion openly and lay himself bare to the public, in public. Hence the bland, a-motional, diplo-babble speaking PM we see before us on a daily basis.  It's a sight that doesn't warm the cockles of people's hearts, to be sure, as the polls are suggesting. It may also help to explain that, even though many people recognise that Tony Abbott has a screw loose, they are still warming to him more than Kevin Rudd. He is able to push a cut-through message in a way that the PM cannot. He has the 'Ordinary Joe' shtick down pat, and he knows how to leverage other anti-Rudd government animus to his advantage. Although, to be fair, I don't think that the PM has developed a black heart of darkness, no matter what David Marr says about his 'inner anger', which I perceive in Tony Abbott.  On the contrary, I think the PM's demeanour is a function of his essential shyness and the carapace that he has had to build up like an exoskeleton to protect him from the slings and arrows of his life's outrageous misfortunes, with which we are all familiar.

Which is by no means to say that the electorate is going to give him a Leave Pass on that basis and allow him to go to the election unreconstructed.  It won't.  And they are letting him know in no uncertain terms, via the polls, that they want change from him, and they want it yesterday.

Luckily, the view is out there still that Tony Abbott is a positively 'creepy' alternative to a lot of people (thanks goes to one of the ABC 'Knit In' attendees for that descriptor). Thus the PM and the party have to tip the balance of public opinion more that way and away from a growing accommodation of a politically punch drunk, politically-opportunistic, political pugilist prepared to grasp at any straw in the wind affecting his political antenna, as his running, jumping, standing still political persona careens like a whirling dervish across the Australian political landscape, all colour and movement, but no substance.

However, all is not yet lost for the PM and his government.  Though, I must add that from what I heard of the interview that Lyndal Curtis did with the PM on AM on Monday morning, Kevin Rudd may find it hard to pivot and change his verbal style. As he was continuing along his merry prolix way (who would have thought that replacing the similarly loquacious Kim Beazley with Mr Rudd would have seen us where we are today as far as the verbal styling of his successor goes?), he was unable to deviate from his message, recited parrot-fashion into the microphone, with no mental flexibility apparent due to an acknowledgement of external realities manifest to him contemporaneously, as a result of how the interview panned out.

Maybe he was unable to acknowledge the external reality of the polls and what they meant for him, personally, because he would have woken up to them after his standard 3-5 hours of sleep that night, and it was taking him a while to get up to speed strategically.  Which is Problem #1 as I see it.  He's not getting enough sleep and it shows with respect to how quickly he is able to react to events and think strategically about them and make plans to remedy problems, not just go on in an automatic fashion, which is the way you behave when you are sleep-deprived.

It is a cardinal rule in our house, you have to get your correct amount of sleep at night, or your performance will suffer the next day. There's no two ways about it. It has been scientifically proven, again and again.  Or, if he can't get more sleep and break the habit of a lifetime, then he must switch off from doing all that his job entails sooner at night than he does at present.  He'll be amazed at the difference it will make to his performance, and his ability to think more clearly and more quickly on his feet, because it's as plain as the nose on his face that he's not doing that at the moment, unlike the nimble weathervane, the 'If You See A Chance, Take It' Man, Tony Abbott.

I know the PM is a thoughtful and considered man, with a heart of gold, who wants the best for each and every Australian. That is a given, and the electorate knows that. That's not the problem.  No, what he needs to do is stop, and smell the coffee (not keep drinking it!), and thoughtfully, and in a considered fashion, take stock of his personal inventory and resolve to change those parts of him that aren't selling well.  For his own good, for the good of the Labor Party, and for the good of the nation.  The polls are saying that the electorate doesn't yet think 'It's Time' for Tony Abbott the cynical populist, and his Conservative Christian Coalition to run the country. They are instead willing the ALP and Kevin Rudd to change tack and lift their game in order to win their affections back.

Maybe this might involve a change of leader, as Michael Pascoe postulated in the SMH think piece he wrote after the Budget: Julia for PM.

However, it's my considered opinion that, while that idea might have its merits, to do such a thing now would be akin to throwing the election baby out with the bathwater when it comes to solving the polling slump that the government are in right now.  Maybe it's an option for further down the track, after the election, and I think it would be contingent on the fact of the PM suffering a huge swing against him in his own electorate of Griffith.  So, let us put that idea to one side for the moment and concentrate instead on other options that might help plug the leaks in the Rudd Ship of State.

Throw open the doors of the Prime Minister's Office to all comers from the government, at least one day per week, or have an 'Open Mic' session whenever Caucus meets, from now until the election.  Be all ears and let your guard down and be open to substantial suggestions about ways to do things better, which can be achieved simply and quickly. (If you've had enough sleep you'll be able to sort the wheat from the chaff easily and quickly...OK, OK, that's the last time I'll mention it)

It's also obvious to me, and others, that the political neophytes, such as Lachlan Harris and Karl Bitar that are running the show now for the PM, just aren't cutting it against the political veterans such as Brian Loughnane, Tony Abbott, Phillip Ruddock and Andrew Robb from the Coalition; worthy as the ALP's aims are, and as unworthy as the Coalition's manufactured persona is. Old political warhorses from a bygone era they may be, but successful campaigners they also are, and their tactics must be dissected, countered, and neutralised more forcefully by the government.  So, swallow your pride Kevin, get on the phone to Labor's Elder Statesmen for advice, pronto! As Andrew Forrest has suggested, maybe you need to get Bob Hawke into the room with you and the Miners to hammer out an 'Accord' over the RSPT. However, most pointedly, get Paul Keating into the bunker with you. He could, I firmly believe, in the same way that John Howard appears to be doing with Tony Abbott, give you sage political advice, and a few memorable one-liners that would take the wind out of the Coalition's sails. What's more, he could teach you how to look like you were demolishing the Opposition with one hand tied behind your back, a look that is always productive electorally, you just have to cast your mind back to the political success that Peter Costello also had with this tactic to see that.

Which leads me to my second to last morsel of advice: Delegate! Delegate! Delegate!

It's not too late to let slip all of  the ALP's dogs of political war, and we all know who they are beyond the 'Kitchen Cabinet', which I pleasantly note has been sidelined in favour of more fulsome consultation with the greater Cabinet.  The ALP has some great campaigners, who are able to rally the electorate, if only given more than half a chance by the PM.  Rabble-rousers like Craig Emerson.  Cut-through communicators like Chris Bowen. Let Peter Garrett and Maxine McKew loose in the media more, they are both consummate media professionals. Simon Crean possesses the warmth that the PM and even the Deputy PM, don't, in a casual, fireside-chatty way.

It's worth a try anyway, as there is one thing I know for certain about John Howard, when the chips were down and he was down in the polls, there was no change to his political personality that was too out of character for him to make, in order to get back on the front foot politically and to the other side of the election successfully. No political horse that he wouldn't change midstream, without seeming to even get his feet wet, in order to freshen his appeal going into an election campaign.  He even adopted the mantle of a politician prepared to do something about Climate Change in order to try to get himself over the line again, even as his political death was nigh and obvious to all and sundry.  The electorate was always prepared to accept it, what's more, because the people believed he was 'a conviction politician', who once he had decided to do something would move political heaven and earth to make it happen, whether he believed in it or not, as his political antenna had picked up that that's what the electorate wanted.

So, at the very least, let's just say that, except for a few well-considered changes at the extremities, Kevin Rudd should stick with the RSPT and see it through to the end of the line, come hell or high political water. Engage better salesmen than him to sell it, which I am also pleased to see happening with the release this week of the RSPT ads, and use the issue to give him and his government some much-needed political momentum, and the courage to call the election and fight for the people's votes, with passion!  He has to remember he is no longer a diplomat, but a politician, so he better start acting like one.  Shrug off the carapace that is shielding shy Kevin from empathetically connecting to the electorate, and give the people some sugar!  As it was 'Sunrise' Kevin that won the 2007 election, not the First Secretary at Australia's Embassy in China.

I mean, that's all Tony Abbott has got.  He 'flicked the switch to vaudeville' the day he was elected Opposition Leader, and look how far it's got him in a very short space of time, paucity of policies and lack of compassion for his fellow human beings that aren't electorally advantageous to his cause.

So, my final word to the PM and Julia can been encapsulated in the song How to dance. 

'Dance!'   Ask the electorate to come dancing with you again.  I'm sure they'll say yes if you ask them the right way! 


Who’s winning the RSPT debate?

It’s now a month since the Henry Review was made public along with the Government’s decision to endorse an RSPT, although there were rumours that this was to be the case for weeks beforehand.  Where is the debate now? Who is winning?

It seems that although the Government was out of the blocks first with its messages, the miners have had more impact as far as one can judge from the MSM and the polls.  The critical question for the Government is how can it regain momentum and counter the mining industry’s strident opposition to the details of the RSPT?

The last piece Is it that hard to sell the RSPT? suggested that the Government was doing a poor job in selling its RSPT.  Today’s Nielsen poll, as dissected by Possum on Pollytics, confirms this, as does a Newspoll in marginal seats.  Today’s Essential Report too shows that the miners’ campaign is having more impact than the Government’s. 

Now the Government has begun TV promotion, which is bound to have greater impact. It badly needs something better than it’s had.  You can see two of the TV promotional pieces on Peter Martin’s blog site under At last - some good communication fromthe government about the RSPT.

The Government produced a specific paper on the RSPT – The Resource Super Profits Tax- a fair return to the nation that arose from the Henry Tax Review. I couldn’t find a publication date.  It is a typical Government paper couched in the precise and somewhat archaic language that bureaucrats use.  It is informative for those who seek the detail it contains, but not educational for the general public, as almost none would bother to read it through even if they were interested in the RSPT.  It is not until page 26 that the threshold at which the super profits kicks in is mentioned - the long-term bond rate.  Yet this is a crucial point in the debate.  Perhaps the most telling graph, one that makes the case for the tax, does not appear until page 10 and even then it is complicated by captions (LHS and RHS) for which no explanation is given.  While one cannot expect such a document to be a ‘sales pitch’, one specifically designedfor this purpose should have been prepared at the same time as selling the tax is as least as important as getting the details into the public domain.

I discovered today that the Government has a website A tax plan for our future Simpler. Fairer. Stronger. It says its commencement date for radio was May 29 and TV June 6.   This is the first time I’ve seen this website and I’ve been looking!  On a page headed Public Information Campaign there are videos (the same as those on Peter Martin’s blog site), and several audio pieces for use on radio. 

In contrast, let’s look at what the Minerals Council of Australia has on its website Keep Mining Strong, which has been around for a while – it doesn’t have a publication date either, so I don’t know when they put it up.  It is attractively set out and easy to navigate.  While few would bother, it is educational as well as informative, and has had a head start over the Government site.  The MCA’s press release sets out what it wants on the table for the RSPT discussions – everything.  It denies the oft-heard assertion from Treasury, Government and economists that there is a two-speed economy.

On a website addressing the RSPT directly, The Daily Bludge, J J Fiasson has an informative Mining Tax Facts Site.  It is well worth a visit.

That’s what the proponents and opponents say – what do the commentators say? There are many pieces – here is a selection.

Mark Bahnisch on Larvatus Prodeo on June 5 in What if the mining industry backsdown? concludes: “If, say, the government agrees to exempt existing projects and fiddle a bit with the tax’s design, under the guise of the promised “generous transitional arrangements”, where will that leave Tony Abbott and the Coalition?”

In Shallow discourse in The Age on June 5, Shaun Carney opens: “Australia's political debate is more and more about slogans and marketing, and less and less about ideas.”  He sums up the RSPT debate with “What we have with the resource rent tax battle is pretty simple: the elected government wants to change the tax system and an important, powerful, cashed-up section of industry wants to frustrate it.”  He laments “Australian voters do not seem happy and they do not seem particularly attached to the government. The nation escaped the recession that hit every comparable country and, according to the budget, the insurance bills will be paid within three years, but it's seemingly not enough.” He concludes: “This is why the mining companies' assault on the government's legitimacy - its right to set taxation - is so important.  If the companies prevail, it will be a powerful sign that our political systemis fragmenting, getting weaker, and governments in the future will be reform-free zones.”  We all ought to be concerned.  

Over at Larvatus Prodeo, picking up on Carney’s piece, on June 5 Mark asks Who governs Australia?  He begins: “Much more is at stake in the noise around the RSPT than whether the mining industry ends up paying more tax. A whole host of serious public issues entwined with the proposal –including but not limited to the adequacy of our corporate tax architecture, the desirability of a two speed boom bust economy, an increase in workers’ superannuation, the need to invest in infrastructure, and the fly-in, fly-out regional economy – have been thoroughly obscured by the so-called ‘debate’. Each one of these inter-related questions needs serious consideration on its own, but none is receiving anything beyond an occasional distorted mention to serve the partisan needs of the almighty narrative.”  He refers also to an article by Tim Dunlop on The Drum on June 3 No-one is blameless in the current malaise, that concludes by sheeting home responsibility to the media: “It lies with the media. To all intents and purposes they are the public sphere and until they do their job better, we won't get anywhere. What's more, they are the only ones with at least a theoretical commitment to disinterested discussion and objective assessment of the facts… 
A political media that reported honestly, eschewed excessive opinion and trivia, and openly apologized when they made errors of fact or interpretation, would start to buy back the trust they have lost and public discussion might move beyond he said/she said faux-journalism toward informed debate. They might even save themselves.  The media need to stop pretending they are separate from the issues they report on. More than any other institution, they set the terms and the tone for public debate. That's an enormous responsibility.”

Back at LarvatusProdeo in CFMEU on the anti-RSPTcampaign: “It’s going to ruin us!” Mark has an entertaining video that lampoons the ‘disaster’ the RSPT has been painted to be.

Turning to the miners’ campaign, Tony Maher in The Punch writes on June 4 Xstrata is just playing chicken with the Government. He debunks the Xstrata’s claims and concludes “To blame yesterday’s job cuts at Ernest Henry on the RSPT– 24 months out from the reform’s scheduled introduction – is plain cruel to these workers, their families and communities.  Passing strange? Actually not that strange. Yesterday’s announcement is entirely consistent with Xstrata’s corporate modus operandi: cynical and money-grubbing. It’s what we expect, but disgraceful none-the-less.

We are told that tonight on Four Corners Clive Palmer admits that he’s not closing a mine in WA as he said a few days ago, but is just ‘slowing it down’ whatever that means!  This is the story in ABC North West WA. 

Writing on May 31 in The Age in Fear campaign on resources tax is a furphy John Perkins begins: “The miners' raucous opposition willfully ignores the facts.” and concludes: “By imposing a resource rent tax, Australia is right to show leadership as the major resource exporter. If they are governed rationally, other jurisdictions will follow suit. The miners should quell their raucous opposition. Australia should now join together with other resource-exporting countries to ensure that supernormal resource revenues are invested wisely for the future of the planet.”

At An Onymous Leftie on 4 June Jeremy asks Why’s the business lobby letting the mining companies try to kill their tax cut? He begins: “This is what I don’t get about the RSPT and the accompanying 2% cut in the company tax rate proposed by the ALP: why aren’t the lobby groups for other businesses in Australia out there countering the mining companies’ shamelessly dishonest fear campaign?”

In The Age on June 5 in an article: Rudd has more to worry about than miners’ bluster, Peter Hartcher talks about Paul Howes’ entry into the RSPT debate and says: “Why does he think the Rudd government is in electoral danger? ‘I think the government has difficulty selling its achievements.’  For what it’s worth there is an accompanying online poll that indicates that of those polled 77% say the mining industry is winning the ‘public stouch’ over the proposed mining tax.  Hartcher, talking about the reforms Andrew Fisher achieved all those years ago concludes:“This sort of real change will take years, and Rudd has only a few months. The Rudd government has not succeeded in explaining its accomplishments, and Rudd has destroyed the political identity which carried him into office. That's why being attacked by overblown miners is his best hope for a new, quick-drying political persona."

In Rudd needs to prove his mettle in tax fight Laurie Oakes in the June 5 issue of the Daily Telegraph agrees: “The mining row is Rudd's chance to show some steel. And he is going flat-out to exploit it.”

In his 29 May piece in the Daily Telegraph: Mining new depths of political bastardry Oakes quotes Rory Robertson, a Macquarie Bank interest rate strategist. “In a recent report, Robertson wrote that miners were not paying their share because ‘flat-footed state governments were slow to adjust their royalties to take account of the surge in global prices’.  He spoke of ‘the basic logic’ of the Federal Government's approach, then proceeded to demolish one of the resources sector's key arguments - that the proposed tax is 'retrospective’.  After all, every city-based household knows that its rate payments will trend higher over time, even if the home was bought many years earlier. Owners of rural property know that the government rates and rents are linked directly to the latest assessed value of the property, and that if that value doubles, then payments to government will tend to rise.  Finally, those of us working over decades to build 'human capital' would struggle to argue with a straight face that any increase in income-tax rates is unfair because it is 'retrospective'."  Oakes concluded:“But the mining companies will not be concerned. Their campaign, after all, is primarily about their hip-pocket nerves.”

That’s enough to give you some flavor of the comments.  I trust you have found them informative.

Let me end by painting a picture of how I see the fight.  Imagine Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Wayne Swan and Lindsay Tanner standing on a street corner on their way to deliver what they regard as a beneficial package to the nation.  They are approached by a group of heavy well-heeled men armed with expensive but not lethal weapons who demand they drop the package or at least modify it to suit them.  They threaten to undertake a costly campaign to destroy the package.  The four resist and press on.  The large men become very angry – one of them almost explodes. 

On the sidelines there are some academic looking men who declare that the package is well thought out, fair and necessary.  The four quote them.  On the other side there are some well-dressed men who express doubts about the package in varying terms –some say it is deeply flawed and must be scrapped, that geese laying golden eggs will be destroyed, thousands of jobs will be lost, their endeavors will go overseas, the nation will be threatened by ‘sovereign risk’, and that if it is implemented life as we know it will change irrevocably and nationalization and even ‘communism’ might follow.  Others are more conservative, only saying that the implementation of the package has ‘left a lot to be desired’.  Most, but not all have mining connections.  The large men quote them.

Standing well back but urging them on is an angular man in a wet suit on his way to the surf who assures them he will stop the delivery of the package or will destroy it if they do get it through.  The miners see him as a useful accomplice to achieve their aims; they even hint they might throw him some funding if he continues his opposition to the package.  The angular man looks pleased and claps his hands.  He’s on a winner he thinks.  He hopes the confrontation will continue for a long while.  He enjoys a scrap.

But has he considered what he will do if the four reach an agreement with the big men and put down their weapons?

 


Is it that hard to sell the RSPT?

In the piece Why is a good Government down in the polls, several reasons for this state of affairs were proposed that included media malevolence, media manipulation, promises sometimes construed as being broken, less-than-perfect management of expectations, inadequate communication of policies, plans, actions and achievements, and less than clear definition of the principles on which the Government will stand firm.  This is the first of several pieces that suggest some remedies.

The last piece on the Resource Super Profits Tax, Getting some balance into the RSPT debate brought together a number of articles and documents that exposed different aspects of the RSPT.  This might have been helpful to the few who were sufficiently interested to plough through the detail, but of no interest to the bulk of the electorate who, if they want to know anything about the RSPT at all, certainly don’t want to delve into the complexities.  At the most they want a simple-to-understand explanation condensed into a few memorable dot points.

As mentioned in the piece Why is a good Government down in the polls, this Government has not done well in explaining its policies, plans and actions.  The ETS was not well explained and neither has been the RSPT.  Confidence in the merit of both has been eroded by the four-word negative Opposition slogan: ‘Great Big New Tax’.  That’s all many voters will have heard and they have naturally reacted to these policies negatively as is evidenced by the steadily falling support for an ETS, and only about 50/50 support for the RSPT, despite the latter being of such benefit to the majority of working Australians and small businesses.

The Government has embarked upon what the media and even some Government ministers have chosen to call an ‘advertising campaign’ to promote its RSPT.  In fact ‘advertising’ is a misnomer for what is for the Government, and indeed the mining industry, simply an information programme to educate people about what the RSPT proposes to achieve and its advantages according to the Government, and for the mining industry, the disadvantages of the tax from its point of view.  

Because the term ‘advertising’ has been used, a strident campaign has been launched by the Opposition and the media criticizing the Government for ‘breaking its own rules on advertising’ by having evoked ‘special circumstances’ as the reason for beginning it now, thereby circumventing the Independent Communications Committee.  Senior ministers have not evoked either of the two other reasons: ‘a national emergency’ or ‘a matter of extreme urgency’, as the Opposition and media maintain, although Special Minister for State Joe Ludwig is reported to have used the ‘matter of extreme urgency’ reason.  If that is so, and there are doubts about that, he should have been more careful and stuck to ‘other compelling reasons’, which is an accurate descriptor, as indeed there are compelling reasons for an immediate information campaign to counter the contemporary well-funded onslaught of the mining industry.  It’s another instance of the Government’s media unit mishandling what was bound to be a contentious campaign.  As a result Kevin Rudd has been lambasted up hill and down dale by the Opposition and the media for, in their opinion, breaking yet another promise, insisting that in the process he has further shredded his credibility.  

The whole episode could have been handled differently.  As the $38 million funding for the Government public information programme was already in the Budget, where incidentally it evoked no comment from the Opposition, and was therefore planned well in advance as a necessary component of the RSPT strategy, all that was necessary was to state that because of the heavily funded and pervasive campaign by the miners that was stridently spreading misinformation right now, it was necessary for the Government to bring forward the public information programme it had planned and for which it was already prepared, and that this pressing need constituted the ‘special circumstances’ that were sufficient reason for bypassing the usual Independent Communications Committee mechanism.  Talk about the Government making a rod for its own back.

So the Government public information programme began.  I haven’t seen TV or heard any radio promotion, but the newspaper campaign is less than impressive.  Although visitors to The Political Sword would likely read the full text, I expect most would glance only at the bold headings on the one page spread I read in the AFR:

A fairer tax on resources for a stronger economy

A fairer share, a stronger mining industry

Strengthening all sectors of the economy

Ongoing consultation with the mining industry, and

Get the facts.

Without the explanatory text in small print, these headings give only the most general idea of what the RSPT is all about, and certainly do not explain what the average citizen stands to gain.  Spreads in other papers have even less bold headings.  There must be a better way to inform the public. 

Why there is detail in the small print, probably far too much for most, and so little in the bold headings, may be a reflection of the mindset of senior ministers who favour detail over simplicity, probably to the chagrin of those who have been assigned the task of preparing the material.  It is a well known phenomenon in education that those who understand all the intricate details are often the least able to communicate them simply.  Moreover, a pedantic obsession with accuracy too often blunts the message.  There is a need to take a liberal approach that results in simple clear communication rather than detail that confuses.

Journalists have been singing in unison about how poorly the Government has sold its RSPT, repeating quips like ‘they couldn’t sell heaters to eskimos’, yet none, not one that I have seen, has made any suggestion about how the Government might improve the selling of its RSPT.  Frankly, they probably don’t know, and anyway its easier to criticize than give positive advice.

What follows is an attempt to capture, maybe in an amateurish way, the essential elements  of the RSPT that might ‘sell’ it to the average voter.  Your comments and suggestions for improving these points will be welcome.  Together, we might be able to assemble something that could be of value to the Government.  The dot points below are arranged in succinct lists under bold headings that could be used singly or in groups.

The central messages 

All Aussies own Australia’s minerals.

The miners are not paying enough for them in taxes.

A decade ago they paid 1 dollar in 3 of mining profits.

Now they pay only 1 dollar in 7.

We deserve a fairer share for our minerals.

The Government’s new Resource Super Profits Tax corrects this unfairness.

What’s happening now?

Miners pay royalties to the state government for what they dig up even before they make a profit.

This means they are paying during their set-up phase.

Then when they make a profit they also pay tax on that.

They pay company tax too.

The system is so complex that it is unclear what they are really paying.

They claim they are paying a lot - the Government says they aren’t.

The Government has shown they are not paying Australians a fair share.

Remember that once all the minerals are dug up and sold, there are no more.

So we need to get value for them NOW.

Some essential details about the RSPT

The RSPT is a fairer system for all.

First, it gives back to miners what they now pay the states in royalties.

Next, it allows them to deduct ALL expenses and special allowances before a profit is declared.

They pay NO tax on the first 6% of profits.

They pay 40% tax ONLY on profits above that 6% – ‘super profits’.

If they made $100 million profit, they pay no tax on the first $6 million.

They pay 40% tax on the remaining $94 million, that is, $37.6 million.

Therefore they keep $62.4 million out of $100 million profit – not bad!

All businesses have to pay taxes on their profits.

The miners should pay a fairer share.

How does the RSPT benefit ordinary Australians?

The income from the RSPT will be used to fund:

Better superannuation for all workers - from 9% to 12% of wages.  This will mean a 30 year old will have over $100,000 more super on retirement.

Easier tax returns for ordinary Australians.

For most individuals, no need to send in a tax return at all.

Automatic $1000 deductions for all.

Lower company tax - for small businesses this will occur soon.

Additional capital deductions for small businesses.

Infrastructure for business - road, rail and ports to transport its products.

The RSPT will make Australia’s economy stronger - that will benefit all Australians.

If the RSPT is blocked by the miners and the Opposition, all these benefits will be lost.

Who is running this country - the elected Government or the miners?

The RSPT helps the miners too 

The RSPT encourages miners by:
- underwriting their set-up costs by giving them a 40% rebate on their expenses,
- refunding ALL up-front royalty payments they make to the state.

Then they pay tax ONLY on their ‘super’ profits - those over 6%.

This is a fair scheme that supports miners before they become profitable.

And it taxes them ONLY when they do.

Myth-busting the many myths about the RSPT

Myth - The miners claim they saved Australia from recession.  Did they?  NO.

During the downturn they sacked over 15% of their workers - if the rest of Australia’s employers had done the same, unemployment would have reached 19%.

Myth - The  RSPT will impose 58% tax on miners.  NO it won’t.

Profits tax is paid ONLY on profits.  If no profit is made, no profits tax is payable.  That 58% figure is way too high.  It will likely be less than half of that.

Myth - The RSPT is a ‘dagger at the heart of the mining industry’.  NO it isn’t. 

It assists miners to establish new projects and taxes them only when a profit is made.  Leading economists have backed the RSPT.

Myth - Miners have said they will defer projects or take them offshore.   THEY HAVEN’T.

This threat is just part of the scare campaign.  Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton, Fortescue and other miners have made no changes to development schedules that collectively will add 200 million tonnes more for export by the middle of the decade.  

Myth - The RSPT constitutes a ‘sovereign risk’ to investment in Australia.  NO it doesn’t.

The mining sector is seeking to redefine the concept of ‘sovereign risk’ to something very different from the way it is generally understood. Typically, it is understood to relate to issues of conflict, corruption and expropriation in a country that would scare off investors, but now sections of the mining sector want us to believe that sovereign risk arises whenever there are tax changes the industry doesn't like.  It doesn’t. 

Myth -Tax on mining profits will drive up prices on everything.  NO it won’t.  

Tax on profits never do - this is basic economics.  All businesses pay tax on profits.  Economists insist the RSPT will not harm the economy.

Myth - The Government should have consulted with the miners before it announced the tax.  IT DID.

Miners made submissions to the Henry Tax Review.  THEY ASKED FOR A PROFITS TAX to replace the royalties system.

Myth - The miners are not being given a fair chance to express their views.  WRONG.

The Government is consulting with them RIGHT NOW and offering generous transitional arrangements to phase in the RSPT, WHICH DOES NOT KICK IN UNTIL 2011.

Modifications are possible, but the Government is sticking to its 40% tax rate on super profits.  That is fair to all Australians.

Myth - The tax is retrospective and that’s unfair.  NO IT ISN’T.

The miners want to pay the RSPT ONLY on NEW projects.  That is untenable - all tax changes apply to existing endeavours.  An established business pays tax on profits no matter what changes to tax rates are made - they would pay less if tax rates went down, so they pay more when they go up.  The new tax will NOT apply to past tax years.

Myth - The RSPT will reduce the value of mining shares and super funds.  NO it won’t.

The stock market goes up and down.  Recently the market went down because of uncertainties about economies in Europe.  All of the market went down, and mining shares with it.

Mining companies have unsettled the markets with their scare campaign; this has driven their own share prices down.

Despite some losses on mining shares many miners have bought millions more of their shares themselves, a sign of their confidence.

Mining shares will recover when the market does - this is happening already.

Why is the Government introducing an RSPT?

It is designed to benefit mining, especially exploration, to give Australians a fairer share of the bounty of the mining sector while our minerals last, to give benefits to working Australians, companies  and small businesses, to strengthen the economy, and to consolidate it for its long-term future.

Support it for Australia’s sake.

For those interested in further information on the RSPT, The Daily Bludge has a Mining Facts Sheet.  

So what do you think?  Clearly, to use all of the above at once would be overkill.  How would you use them?  How would you group them?  Do you think they convey the essential messages? Would they have more, or less impact than the Government’s information pieces?  Is there anything you would like added or deleted?

Finally, after we’ve all had a chance to mull over them and improve them, would it be worthwhile forwarding them to the Government’s media unit?


The Canberra Press Gallery will decide who governs this country...

And the manner by which they come to power.

Initially, this blog was going to be a bit of a rant about the Australian Federal Press Gallery, and press galleries in general, hot on the heels of the scathing article in the May 15 edition of The Weekend Australian, Canberra gallery turns on an ADHD prime minister who has lost his way by Christine Wallace, attacking the Prime Minister for his personal style, especially as it relates to his personality and his interpersonal relationships with members of the Canberra Press Gallery, and the Adam Walters' Channel 7 exposé of the private life of David Campbell, the former NSW Transport Minister. How these people have the temerity to arrogate unto themselves the power to decide what the political narrative will be for the country, and who should be leading us, is a situation which regularly leaves me dumbstruck. However, when I started doing a bit of research into the theory which would underpin this piece, I came to the conclusion that, whilst I would encourage you all to contribute your thoughts about how our Press Gallery members themselves show the adverse signs of any one of a number of  human frailties which manifests in their work, just like any other group of Alphas, just like any Prime Minister, really; I thought no, instead of that I would like to lead an initial, rational discussion about what drives political journalists to behave the way they do and write the things they do for our consumption.

So I propose to outline the techniques that they use such that we may become better informed consumers of their contributions to the political debate in this country, especially in the run-up to the federal election. Forewarned is forearmed, in my book.

Also, as Mr Denmore over at Larvatus Prodeo has this week done a sterling job of deconstructing our political journalists' motivations and 'shifts in the media and journo-sphere', I thus searched for a different perspective. So, I have chosen to present a hopefully balanced and informative look at the broad nature of political journalism, as I am sure there will be plenty of opportunities in the near future as the temperature rises, in the Press Gallery, in the electorate, and in the blogosphere, to have a more emotively-based dig at the self-important 'oracles' that sit in Australia's Federal Press Gallery, thinking they know what is best for all of us to believe about the Australian political scene and our politicians. Their argument, of course, for this 'right' would revolve around their proximity to the 'action', and their deep engagement in the scene over many long years in Canberra, or wherever. However, I would put it to you that maybe that's the problem. Which goes to the title of this piece. Nevertheless, I will be explanatory first, and establish the framework by which we might be able to go forward and judge them objectively and effectively into the future.

So here goes...

Media Political Bias
There is no such thing as an objective point of view.

No matter how much we may try to ignore it, human communication always takes place in a context, through a medium, and among individuals and groups who are situated historically, politically, economically, and socially adjacent to each other. This state of affairs is neither bad nor good. It simply is. Bias is a small word that identifies the collective influences of the entire context of a message.

Politicians are certainly biased and overtly so. They belong to parties and espouse policies and ideologies. And while they may think their individual ideologies are simply common sense, they understand that they speak from political positions.

Journalists, too, speak from political positions but usually not overtly so. The journalistic ethics of objectivity and fairness are strong influences on the profession. But journalistic objectivity is not the pristine objectivity of philosophy. Instead, a journalist attempts to be objective by two methods: 1) fairness to those concerned with the news and 2) a professional process of information gathering that seeks fairness, completeness and accuracy. As we all know, the ethical heights journalists set for themselves are not always reached. Especially these days when, as others such as Mr Denmore have observed, the modern political journalist is virtually shackled to their desk as they struggle to meet their deadlines, and need to factor in input from new media such as Twitter and TV and parliamentary proceedings. Is it any wonder, they say, that wearing out shoe leather in the hard slog of investigative journalism falls by the wayside, and Press Releases prepared by ever-ready media advisers from one party or another, come to be relied upon as grist for their daily mill? But, all in all, like politics, it is an honourable profession, practised, for the most part, by people trying to do the right thing.

In other words, journalists often do what they do without reflecting upon the meaning of the premises and assumptions that support their practice.

I think we may begin to reflect upon journalistic practice by noticing that the press applies a narrative structure to ambiguous events in order to create a coherent and causal sense of events.

For citizens and information consumers (which are one and the same today), it is important to develop the skill of detecting bias. Remember: Bias does not suggest that a message is false or unfair.

Critical questions for detecting bias
1. What is the author's socio-political position? With what social, political, or professional groups is the speaker identified?

2. Does the speaker have anything to gain personally from delivering the message?

3. Who is paying for the message? Where does the message appear? What is the bias of the medium? Who stands to gain?

4. What sources does the speaker use, and how credible are they? Does the speaker cite statistics? If so, how were the data gathered, who gathered the data, and are the data being presented fully?

5. How does the speaker present arguments? Is the message one-sided, or does it include alternative points of view? Does the speaker fairly present alternative arguments? Does the speaker ignore obviously conflicting arguments?

6. If the message includes alternative points of view, how are those views characterised? Does the speaker use positive words and images to describe his/her point of view and negative words and images to describe other points of view? Does the speaker ascribe positive motivations to his/her point of view and negative motivations to alternative points of view?

Bias in the news media
Is the news media biased toward progressives? Yes. Is the news media biased toward conservatives? Yes. These questions and answers are uninteresting because it is possible to find evidence – anecdotal and otherwise – to ‘prove’ media bias of one stripe or another. Far more interesting and instructive is studying the inherent, or structural biases of journalism as a professional practice.  A more accepted, and perhaps more accurate term, instead of 'bias', would be ‘frame’. These are some of the professional frames that structure what journalists can see and how they can present what they see.

Commercial bias: The news media are money-making businesses. As such, they must deliver a good product to their customers to make a profit. The customers of the news media are advertisers. The most important product the news media delivers to its customers is readers or viewers. Good is defined in numbers and quality of readers or viewers. The news media are biased toward conflict (cf. bad news and narrative biases below) because conflict draws readers and viewers. Harmony is boring.

Temporal bias: The news media are biased toward the immediate. News is what's new and fresh. To be immediate and fresh, the news must be ever-changing even when there is little news to cover.

Visual bias: Television (and, increasingly, newspapers) are biased toward visual depictions of news. Television is nothing without pictures. Legitimate news that has no visual angle is likely to get little attention. Much of what is important in politics – policy – cannot be photographed.

Bad news bias: Good news is boring (and probably does not photograph well, either). This bias makes the world look like a more dangerous place than it really is. Plus, this bias makes politicians look far more negative than they really are.

Narrative bias: The news media cover the news in terms of ‘stories’ that must have a beginning, middle, and end – in other words, a plot with antagonists and protagonists. Much of what happens in our world, however, is ambiguous. The news media apply a narrative structure to ambiguous events suggesting that these events are easily understood and have clear cause-and-effect relationships. Good storytelling requires drama, and so this bias often leads journalists to add, or seek out, drama for the sake of drama. Controversy creates drama. Journalists often seek out the opinions of competing experts or officials in order to present conflict between two sides of an issue (sometimes referred to as the authority-disorder bias). Lastly, narrative bias leads many journalists to create, and then hang on to, master narratives – set story lines with set characters who act in set ways. Once a master narrative has been set, it is very difficult to get journalists to see that their narrative is simply one way, and not necessarily the correct or best way, of viewing people and events.

Status quo bias: The news media believe ‘the system works’.  This bias ensures that alternate points of view about how government might run and what government might do are effectively ignored. They go with the flow and analyse that.

Fairness bias: No, this is not an oxymoron. Ethical journalistic practice demands that reporters and editors be fair. In the news product this bias manifests as a contention between/among political actors (cf. narrative bias above). Whenever one faction or politician does something or says something newsworthy, the press is compelled by this bias to get a reaction from an opposing camp. This creates the illusion that the game of politics is always contentious and never cooperative. This bias can also create situations in which one faction appears to be attacked by the press. For example, politician A announces some positive accomplishment followed by the press seeking a negative comment from politician B. The point is not to disparage politician A, but to be fair to politician B. When politician A is a conservative, this practice by the press thus appears to be liberal bias, that is, the press manifesting their liberal tendencies by seeking out comment from politician B that disparages politician A's conservative achievement; and vice versa, of course. I would add though that the motivation for doing this in some instances is questionable when you read how it has then been used by the journalist.

Expediency bias: Journalism is a competitive, deadline-driven profession. Reporters compete among themselves for prime space or air time. News organisations compete for market share and reader/viewer attention. And the 24-hour news cycle – driven by the immediacy of television and the internet – creates a situation in which the job of competing never comes to a rest. Add financial pressures to this mix – the general desire of media groups for profit margins that exceed what's ‘normal’ in many other industries – and you create a bias toward information that can be obtained quickly, easily and inexpensively. Need an expert/official quote (status quo bias) to balance (fairness bias) a story (narrative bias)? Who can you get on the phone fast? Who is always ready with a quote and always willing to speak (i.e. say what you need them to say to balance the story)? Who sent a press release recently? Much of deadline decision making comes down to gathering information that is readily available from sources that are well known.

Glory bias: Journalists, especially television reporters, often insert themselves into the stories they cover. This happens most often in terms of proximity, i.e. to the locus of unfolding events or within the orbit of powerful political and civic actors. This bias helps journalists establish and maintain a cultural identity as knowledgeable insiders (although many journalists reject the notion that follows from this – that they are players in the game and not merely observers).  News promos with stirring music and heroic pictures of individual reporters create the aura of omnipresence and omnipotence.

Blatant political bias: This is the most contentious framework 'bias' of all. It is one that I wrestled with defining specifically because I could not decide, as I have never spoken to any of the protagonists about it, how fully invested politically are some journalists in defining the stories they write based upon their own political prejudices? It is probably fair to say that some are guilty of this bias. Yet others may only be playing to the audience that the proprietor instructs them to write for.

Simply communicating by written or spoken words introduces bias to the message. Rhetoric scholar James A. Berlin once said that language is "never innocent." By this he meant that language cannot be neutral; it reflects and structures our ideologies and world views. To speak at all is to speak politically.

False assumptions by journalists, rather than overt politicking, help create the political bias news consumers often detect in news reporting. A conservative will quite naturally assert a conservative world view by using concepts in ways comfortable to conservatives. The same goes for progressive journalists communicating with their 'consumers'.

So, whilst it might seem like I have morphed into an apologist for some of the most egregious violators of the public's trust that exist in Australian political journalism, I would rather see what I have put before you today as my considered analysis of the possible motivations behind why they do what they do, good and bad. We all know who 'they' are, and, I guess, they all have mortgages and school fees to pay, like you and me. Thus, while I may not agree with what they say, I will defend to the death their right to say it. And, it doesn't make what they sometimes do correct, but I can now understand better why they might do it.

So is the Canberra Press Gallery really attempting to determine who will govern this country and the manner by which they come to power?

What do you think?

 


Getting some balance into the RSPT debate

There has been much heat emanating from the RSPT debate, but little light to illuminate the details in a way that enables neutral people to be informed in a balanced way.

This piece brings together a number of articles and opinions that paint a somewhat different picture from that portrayed by the mining companies, the Abbott Party, and the media where the commentary has be largely antipathetic.  The articles are generally in chronological order with the most recent at the top.

In the interests of balance, the link to the Henry Tax Review: Australia’s future tax system released on 2 May is here.  The most recent Treasurer’s Economic Note of 24 May, which addresses ‘RSPT myths’ is here,  and the Minerals Council’s 25 May document: The truth about the super tax – the myths and the facts is here. 

The following is a collection articles relevant to the RSPT.  Most are accompanied by a short excerpt that summarizes the main points.  To read the full article, click the title.

The contribution of Peter Martin’s blog–site is acknowledged.  Because he has taken a special interest in the RSPT, there are more articles and links there than on any other site.

UPDATE 28 May from Peter Martin’s blog-site: Henry: Frankly there is more than enough investment in train in the mining sector...  There you will also find the link to the complete transcript of yesterday’s Senate Estimates hearings where Ken Henry was interviewed. 

Martin’s piece begins “The mining industry did not save Australia from recession as is widely believed, according to the head of the Treasury. And any investor who thinks the proposed new tax is causing stock market jitters deserves to do their dough.

“In two hours of calm, defiant and at times barbed evidence to a Senate committee just ahead of leaving on an overseas holiday Treasury boss Ken Henry rubbished claims the mining industry was Australia's Saviour, poured scorn on suggestions that it was highly taxed and inferred that what its executives say in private they don't repeat in public.  Asked whether the government was planning to water down the proposed new tax in response to industry concerns he said he was aware of no such proposal.  Asked whether he still expected mining investment to boom as forecast in the budget he said he had seen nothing to make him change his mind.”

To read his full piece, and use the link to the transcript, click here.  

Written as long ago as 28 April by Peter Martin, We'll still be mining begins: “Don't believe everything you read in the paper. Particularly not headlines like this in Monday's Australian: ‘Mining tax will kill industry’. It is not only wrong, it's also incredibly familiar.”  and ends “Minerals are about the most bolted down thing we have. Companies that want to extract our resources have no choice but to pay our taxes, even if they delay doing so until other mines become expensive. They are even digging up our gold, two decades after an impost that was going to stifle mining growth, destroy jobs and slash export earnings.”  

Martin’s 19 May piece Henry to miners - no compromise on where the tax kicks in begins “Treasury boss Ken Henry has flatly rejected talk of a compromise over the mining super profit tax saying to give in on the threshold would overcompensate miners to the point where they might not actually mine.”  Later: “When told mining companies didn't see things that way Dr Henry said he did "not want to debate the relative merits of intuition over analysis," adding "obviously I have a marked sympathy with the later."  I don't know how many times in 25 years I've been told... well that's all very well in theory but it's not actually how the real world works, only to observe years down the track that the people we call call financial engineers who can translate theory into practice at the speed of light have moved so quickly and done so much that governments have had to respond and at last recognise the power of the theory over perceptions of what the real world is like."

On 24 May Treasury released its paper Disparities in average rates of company tax across industries that can be accessed in Martin’s Treasury strikes back – Disparities in Average Tax Rates.  Martin’s quotes one paragraph: "With the exception of the finance & insurance industry, all industries pay a less than proportionate amount of tax, relative to their contributions towards gross operating surplus. The standout industries are mining and electricity, gas and water - the latter is of particular note with a contribution of less than 1 per cent to corporate tax collections for the 2004-05 financial year, but 7 per cent of corporate gross operating surplus." 

If you want to know what Rio Tinto had to say, read Martin’s 24 May: Believable statement? Rio says Australia number one sovereign risk worldwide  Rio’s Tom Albanese concluded: "If the tax had been in place 10 years ago, we would not have made the investment ... in the Pilbara..."

Those interested in the tenor of Fortescue’s letter to shareholders published on 25 May can read it in full.  Martin’s concluding comment is “Fortunately one of the questions in the letter can be cleared up straight away:  To make the point, imagine for a moment that your home loan was based on you failing to make your mortgage repayments and the house being sold in a mortgagee-in-possession auction. Do you think your banker would be happy that someone would make good 40 per cent of the loss as a reason to lend you the money - in return for taking 40 per cent of your income? The same income they were relying on to allow you to repay the loan? Clearly the banker would have stopped you buying the house because they rely on believable repayment schedules, not bankruptcy events.

“The answer is 'yes'.”

On 22 May Martin begins his piece: It's not a tax, it applies to more than super profits, so how did so many people get it so wrong? “Books will be written. By the way, the government will win this one.

“Someone somewhere in the Treasurer's office must be deeply regretting ever calling it a Super Profits Tax. For one thing it applies to profits that are pretty ordinary. For another, it's not a tax...” and concludes: “A previous Labor government lost office in 1975 when it tried to borrow $4 billion to buy back mines from mining companies. This government is planning to use legislative muscle to buy in. Neither has proved popular.” 

On 24 May, Ross Gittins, writing in his typically acerbic way in Gittins today - How Rudd got into the mess concludes: “And the precedent of weakness he set with all his cave-ins to miners and other rent-seekers over the emissions trading scheme means giving the miners something this time would be more likely to further incite their greed than calm them.  Rudd is a weak man fallen among thieves. He may be from Queensland, but his moral compass now comes courtesy of Sussex Street. I'm sure he remains convinced of his own uprightness, but clinging to office comes first.  Actually, for a bunch that puts political expediency above all, Rudd's cynical advisers have made a succession of bad calls...”

To highlight how deceptive the mining industry has been with at least some of its representations, read Martin’s 25 May piece: Mistrust anyone who produces a graph like this.  The miners have used the oldest dirty trick in the book in representing statistics by truncating the bars in a bar graph.  Take a look at the first graph that gives the impression that the miners paid around three times as much tax as other industries, but note that the scale on the vertical axis starts at 22% and goes to 29%.  Then look at the second graph and note how the bars look when the vertical axis starts at zero.  To use such a trick shows the level of deceit to which the miners have stooped.  Note that what is being featured here is the deceptive way the data is being presented, not the actual figures, which themselves are debatable. 

Martin’s piece of 22 May: Resources tax: Australia may be the first, we won't be the last begins: “The Paris-based Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development has swung its weight behind Australia's proposed resource tax saying it represents a ‘sharing of the bonanza’ and will not frighten away foreign investors.  The extraordinary intervention in support of the tax, in an ABC radio interview to be broadcast tomorrow suggests the so-called "rich nations club" regards the 40 per cent tax as a model to be followed by other members trying to regain control of their budgets.  Angel Gurría the Mexican-born OECD Secretary-General told the Sunday Profile program the tax was one of ‘a number of preferred ways in which we like to see tax structutres work’.”

To see the Henry Review paper that details the effective tax rates different industries pay in different countries read Martin’s 23 May piece: So what effective tax rates do mining companies actually pay?  You will see this is where the 17% figure for mining has been derived.

Martin’s 24 May piece: “Okay so no-one likes to part with profit, but the mining fight is becoming a spectator sport” concludes with: “Economist Ross Garnaut appealed for peace labeling the industry campaign "dangerous from a number of points of view". Simply to roll the Treasury on an issue that's been subject of very careful analysis without a lot of very careful analysis being the basis of variation of policy, I think would be very dangerous," he told the ABC.

"We need a strong Australian policy making process, we need a strong independent centre of Australian policy making, that's what gave us 20 years of reform and what is the main reason why we're in better shape than most of the world right now.  To simply have pressure from industry roll this, rather than have a good discussion in the public interest leading to legislation would, I think, be dangerous."

You will enjoy reading Martin’s 25 May piece Five easy pieces - the Mining Super Profits Tax.  All are succinct.

For a wry smile read Peter Martin's piece of yesterday What the experts think about the outlook for BHP and Rio? which points to what the market thinks of BHP and Rio’s prospects for investors.

If you want to read something positive about the RSPT, read Martin’s Three of the best things written about the Resource Super Profits Tax of yesterday where he gives the opinions of “Ben Smith, consultant to the 1986 Gutman inquiry into the taxation of gold mining that recommended the exemption be removed, subsequently making Australia making billions, John Freebairn of the economics faculty at Melbourne University who has the most lateral tax mind in the business as well as the most human understanding, and Alan Mitchell, economics editor of the Australian Financial Review who sees clearly where others see fog.”

Martin insists: “These pieces shows each at the top of their game.”

In his 26 May piece How much tax? Martin publishes an critical article “Ian McIlwraith has dug where the Treasury appears not to: If the Treasury analysis of corporate tax, released by Treasurer Wayne Swan and recommended by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, is an example of the quality of that department's work generally - we're in deep trouble. After a heated 48-hour exchange of statistical fire, in which two US academics became collateral damage because their research was used as a weapon it was never designed to be, Rudd and Swan's army retreated to what it thought was higher ground, firing off a soon-to-be-published piece of Treasury research.” that concludes: “That says that the current tax regime is very inefficient in converting company income into tax receipts - something Henry's review was supposed to fix, and it is difficult to see why dropping the corporate tax rate to 28 per cent will fix it.”

Then yesterday we had Martin’s Resource Tax: 22 leading economists speak out that begins: "Although it is appropriate to debate modifications to the design of the proposed Resource Super Profits Tax, the current public criticism of the proposed tax has been dominated by misinformation."  The statement is reproduced.

John Quiqqin was one of the authors.  On his website there was Resource rent tax statement with links to the statement and press release. 

Crikey has good some articles: Yesterday Don’t look at what the miners say, look at what they do by Glen Dyer and Bernard Keane, concludes: “The ‘debate’ over the RSPT is increasingly boiling down to a simple contest between the Government and a number of huge, mainly foreign companies that are systematically lying about the impact of the tax — as demonstrated by their own actions — and who have in effect hired the Opposition in order to run a political campaign of obstruction.  These are very large, very wealthy companies used to getting their way with most of the governments they deal with. In an hitherto unseen demonstration of backbone, the Rudd Government has dared to take them on. And as Ross Gittins has pointed out, they’re deeply concerned that other governments will follow our lead. This is not just about the extra tax the biggest miners will be paying here, but about the extra tax they’ll find themselves paying overseas as well.  But as always, don’t look at what they say, look at what they do. And they’re spending up big here.”

Today in Crikey Adam Schwab’s: How the RSPT may end up costing taxpayers begins: “The biggest problem with the resources super tax is not, as the big miners had earlier tried to argue that it involves too much tax being paid - rather, that the so-called tax may end up being a cost to Australians. That is because under the proposal, the “government will effectively make a contribution of 40% to the costs of the project outlaid by the entity. [With those entities] able to access the contribution by deducting the costs outlaid on a project from: the project’s RSPT income; from income of another project owned by the entity or owned by another entity of the same wholly owned company group”.

If you’re not yet satiated there is more:

Resource debate needs less heat more light and Garnaut’s got the goods on mining taxes, both by Tim Colebatch, on his blogsite, Double bind of the minerals bonanza and Mining the figures uncovers deception by George Megalogenis on his Meganomics blogsite, Canberra doesn't mind if a few miners get shafted by Michael Stutchbury in The Australian, Our oldest enemy by Nicholas Gruen on Club Troppo, Risk and RSPT  and Attacking messengers by Joshua Gans on Core Economics, and Big update: Unravelling the RSPT and The RSPT as we know it will be dead before long by Christopher Joye on his blogsite.

Of course there are many other articles in the MSM on the RSPT, many written by non-economists, some by political commentators who focus more on the politics than the economics.  The above articles focus mainly on the economics and the factual aspects of this complicated debate.  I trust they will shine some light onto the facts that have been so overshadowed by the furious hyperbole emanating from both contestants in this emotive debate, and perpetrated by the media, much of which chooses to represent the RSPT negatively, often in doom and gloom terms.  I trust this collection of articles will provide better balance to this debate, so convoluted as it has been by misinformation and too often, outright lies.

Tell us what you think.

 

Why is a good Government down in the polls?

This is the first of a series that will examine what the Rudd Government has done during its two and a half years in office.  It will be argued that it has been a good government that has achieved much more that might be expected in a first term and has a host of ongoing initiatives in train or planned for a second term.  It will counter the erroneous impression, perpetuated by the Opposition and much of the MSM, that it has been a ‘do-nothing’ government that has made a mess of everything it has touched.  The facts simply do not match the anti-government rhetoric.

 

The series begins though by asking why a good government is now so down in the polls after a record-breaking run for the first two years.  Many pundits are writing about what has happened to Kevin Rudd and his Government these past months during which the polls have descended from stratospheric heights of popularity to ordinary levels and below.  Before a remedy for the Government’s electoral condition can be formulated, an accurate and comprehensive diagnosis is necessary. 

 

Bernard Keane has written a thoughtful piece Crikey Essay: Why is Rudd failing that suggests a diagnosis.  Like most diagnoses it is not simple.  There are several elements.

 

Taking his ideas as a guide, here is my diagnostic formulation:

 

Media malevolence

The Political Sword has repeatedly asserted that there has been and still is a concerted media onslaught on Rudd and his Government by many in the media, especially News Limited.  There have been countless pieces on this blog site going back many months but News Limited’s undeclared war on the Rudd Government in March summarized the situation as we saw it.

 

This month Wake in fright and Their ABC amplified this view.  In a piece on Crikey: How Rudd blew it: finding ways to upset everyone at the same time, Keane agrees: “There’s no doubt the tone of media coverage of the government has changed dramatically, and not in its favour, since the start of the year, with a determined air of get-square for the high-handedness with which Rudd’s office treated and manipulated the media for two years.

 

“There are also the permanent anti-Labor elements of the media. News Limited, primarily via The Australian, has been conducting a war on the government. Considerable resources have been deployed by that newspaper in an entirely confected campaign against the BER stimulus component, even after an ANAO report discredited the entire effort. News also employs several commentators whose entire job is to smear and attack Labor, unrestrained by any adherence to facts or reason, so that even when Labor adopts pro-business policies it is criticised. The Coalition faces no such permanent media opposition.

 

“While declining newspaper readerships and the dominance of free-to-air news bulletins mean News’ attacks are not directly harmful, they influence other media coverage. In particular, the ABC now frequently marches in lockstep, repeating its polling spin verbatim, deploying resources to follow up attacks and giving a regular platform to anti-Labor commentators.”

 

Media manipulation

The pace and style of media reporting has changed dramatically, not suddenly, but it is very different from what it was in the earlier Howard years.  It was John Howard who accelerated the process of using talkback radio and frequent TV appearances to promulgate his messages.  He became expert at this and used favourites such as Alan Jones to reach a demographic that Howard identified as his ‘battlers’.  That use, or manipulation, of the media has reached new heights since Kevin Rudd became PM.  Just about every journalist has commented, usually adversely, on Rudd’s ‘obsession with the 24 hour media cycle’.  While this may be so, the media itself has created a set of expectations of politicians that politicians seem to feel obliged to follow, at times slavishly.   

 

While there are some occasions where in-depth exposition of policies and positions is possible such as on the 7.30 Report, Lateline and the Sunday morning TV political programmes, which inform a unique demographic of politically-oriented thinkers, they reach but a tiny fraction of the electorate.  The busy homemaker, the tired-at-the-end-of-the day tradesman, a demographic with which all politicians need to connect, have neither the time or the inclination to sit through a long and complicated dissertation on political issues. Today’s commercial media demands short ‘bites’ of just a few seconds to convey politicians’ messages.  This requires sophisticated communication techniques, which in my view the Government media advisors have not yet mastered. 

 

In the same way as we all know that ‘No’ is easier to say louder than ‘Yes’, it is much easier to convey a negative message in a seven second sound-bite than a positive one. Tony Abbott’s favourite - ‘Great Big New Tax’ – which he applied to the ETS and now to the RSPT, is a classic example.  As Bushfire Bill has pointed out, the years of hard work and planning that went into the creation of Rudd’s ETS were destroyed with four words ‘Great Big New Tax’.  How can you counter that scare-laden negative with a similarly succinct positive – you can’t, not easily anyway.

 

So Kevin Rudd and his Government are hoisted, willingly or otherwise, by the media’s own petard of seven-second visuals and sound bites.  Sadly for the Government, ministers do not universally cope well with this.  Julia Gillard is the best.  Lindsay Tanner, and more recently Wayne Swan have become adept at longer expositions, but Julia is well ahead on what the media like to label ‘cut through’.  Tony Abbott does well in this regard, but has a head start because his messages are largely negative.

 

There are other demographics to which Rudd tries to connect – the Rove Live and Good News Week and Twitter and Facebook audiences.  And of course that attracts criticism from some in the media which is miffed about being bypassed.  Rudd has done this well, not that the media cares to acknowledge that.

 

The other assertion that journalists make is that Kevin Rudd has made enemies in the media by his refusal to kow-tow, by what seems to the media to be manipulation of it for his own purposes, and of course by advertising less than Howard.  Used to calling the shots and making governments and institutions jump, the media is now in pay-back mode, and it is going at it hard.

 

In summary, the ever-demanding need to comply with the media cycle, or media manipulation as we have called it here, exercises a profound influence on Government and, depending on how it manages it, its electoral fortunes.  The Government needs to remedy its shortcomings in this regard.

 

Promises

Much is made of ‘broken promises’ and some less-than-clear-thinking journalists link this to lying.  So let’s first clear the air by defining these terms.  A ‘promise’ is ‘an assurance given that one will do or not do something or will give or procure something’, or ‘a ground of expectation of future achievements or good results’.  Notice the verb ‘will’.  No ifs or buts, just ‘will’.  To lie is ‘to speak falsely’, ‘to be deceptive’.  The purpose of a lie is to deceive from the outset.  ‘Promises’ are different from ‘intentions’, which are aims.  When a politician expresses an intention to do or achieve something, it is just that, not a promise that come hell or high water, it will be done.  Here is where politicians get into hot water.  By giving the impression that they will or will not do something, an intention is interpreted as a promise, and if it is not achieved it becomes a broken promise.  The intent to ‘stop the blame game’ in the health system has morphed into a ‘promise’, and if not achieved to the media’s or the Opposition’s satisfaction will become a ‘broken promise’.  It is much more damaging to level accusations of broken promises at politicians than to simply say that they have not realized their intention of doing something.  Accusations of ‘broken promises’ are potent weapons of attack.

 

So where does the blame lie?  First, politicians have themselves to blame for creating the impression that certain things will be done, which stick in the public and the media’s mind as ‘promises’.  If they were to qualify their intentions with caveats, such as ‘We will try to do this or that but realize there will be obstacles, people who will oppose, or adverse circumstances that will frustrate or perhaps defeat our efforts, but it is our intention to try our hardest’, they would be seen as vacillating, uncertain, and backing the horse both ways.  The media would simply not let them get way with such a statement.  So the politicians come out with what seem like promises and suffer the ‘broken promise’ barb if they don’t succeed.

 

Kevin Rudd has been perceived by the media and many in the electorate as ‘promising’ to do something about global warming and despite all he has done, by deferring further action until the Kyoto agreement expires at the end of 2012, is seen as breaking a solemn promise.  Likewise, he gave the impression his Government would take a more humane approach to asylum seekers, which it has, but his deferral of processing of Afghan and Sri Lankan asylum applications has evoked another ‘broken promise’ accusation.  Because the particular groups concerned with these two issues are passionate about them, the effect on polling has been profound.  The Government has not managed the change of direction on these matters well.  Its promotion of the policy adjustments have not been well articulated, and the voice of the media and opponents of these changes have been so dominant they have drowned out the voice of the Government. 

 

In summary, media message management has been found wanting by allowing intentions to be morphed into promises, and changes of direction into broken promises.

 

Managing expectations

As expressed in another piece on The Political Sword, The folly of putting a politician on a pedestal we, the ordinary people, have our own expectations of politicians: “A natural human trait is to seek to elevate some of our number to positions of authority and trust.  We seek leaders who will guide us to the promised-land.  So we place them on a pedestal and hope they will fulfil our dreams and their promise of vision, leadership, courage and strength.  But unless they are mythical god-like creatures from a parallel universe, they can never live up to our dreams and their promises – life is too complicated, variables so numerous, fate so unpredictable, circumstances so changeable.” 

 

It is so easy and so ego-building for a politician to raise expectations beyond what is reasonable, to encourage the electorate to believe that they are able to do more than they really can.  Kevin Rudd and his Government have been accused of that by the media and there is some truth to it.  They have not managed expectations as well as they might have.

 

Another way in which the Government managed expectations pre-election was in portraying Rudd as not a risk to sound economic management for which the Howard Government earned a reputation.  Rudd was seen as ‘Howard-lite’.  With his memorable phrase ‘this reckless spending must stop’ (now turned on Rudd by Abbott), Rudd gave the impression of one that would be careful with taxpayers’ money.  That expectation stood Rudd in good stead, but when the GFC tsunami appeared on the horizon, although spending to keep the nation out of recession became necessary and in the event highly successful, the image of a fiscally cautious Government was assaulted by the Opposition who saw mileage in the ‘debt and deficit’ mantra.  Again, the management of the impression that Government ministers were careful fiscal managers despite the actions they took to counter the GFC, has not been as well done as it might have been.

 

Pre-politics background

Kevin Rudd came to leadership without factional baggage.  His bureaucratic background endowed him with a process-oriented approach to political issues rather than an ideological one born of factional allegiances.  This is why we have seen the careful, cautious, enquiry-driven approach to policy formation, which inevitably takes time, and with it the ‘hitting the ground reviewing’ and ‘do nothing’ barbs.  While the impatient might applaud ‘back-of-the-envelope’ planning such as we saw with Howard’s water plan, would not most prefer a thorough get-it-right-first-time approach?   Rudd fostered an image of himself as a careful reformer, and the public has been ready to project that image upon him.

 

Bernard Keane has another interpretation of Rudd’s pre-election image building, namely that “... Rudd captured a national mood for change. In this interpretation, Rudd was anything but Howard-lite — he was more a pre-Obama change agent who answered a growing mood for a swing back to the Left amongst Australians, particularly young people. That Rudd was a personally conservative, centrist technocrat with no real labour movement roots was carefully glossed over.”

 

That interpretation rings true.  Keane puts it this way: “Essentially, conservative voters wanted Rudd to be similar to his predecessor but without the manifest problems that Howard accumulated – his age, most particularly, and his cynicism, manifested both in his increasingly transparent attempts to buy elections, and his casuistry.  More progressive voters wanted Rudd to substantially abandon key elements of the Howard approach on climate change, indigenous affairs and asylum seekers.”  Because the expectation that many people projected on Rudd was that he was a change-agent, when the changes Rudd was able to accomplish fell short in their eyes, they were disappointed and even disillusioned.  Keane also feels that Rudd has not yet crafted “...his own political persona, offering his own story to Australians rather than relying on them to see what they wanted to.” 

 

Managing those expectations, aligning them with the stark reality of politics, and creating a compelling Rudd-image, a Rudd persona, have not been done well enough.

 

Communication

A failing that many in the media have levelled at Rudd particularly, is in communicating ideas, policies and actions to the public.  It is a demanding task to condense into a few short meaningful sentences the complexities of such policy issues as the ETS, the RSPT, the Henry Tax Review, or for that matter the Health Reforms.  The task is made so much harder by a media that insists on short grabs that fit into the perceived short attention span of its audiences.  Solving this problem is at the same time essential but difficult.

 

Rudd seems to have been persuaded by his advisers that he must repeat phrases such as ‘working families’, ‘in the national interest’ and ‘decisive action’ endlessly, and to be sure that is not inappropriate advice in as far as some of those targeted with these phrases will not hear them unless repeated often.  But the rest yearn for a lucid explanation of policies and plans that describe the Government’s intentions and the logical reasons behind them.

 

This is a good Government that has made great progress in its first term and has much in the pipeline for its second term, but it has not communicated its successes as well as it could have.  It must do this, by any means, even if substantial money needs to be spent hitting the papers and airwaves with a barrage of positive messages.

 

In my opinion the Government needs a specialist media unit staffed with experienced communicators to craft messages for the public on its successes, its policies and its plans that will strike a respondent chord among those who really want to know what is going on and why.  The messages then need to be rehearsed by the PM and relevant ministers to the point of being word perfect and promulgated by every available means  - print, online, radio, TV, and social networks.  The message must be consistent, but variation in its presentation would be necessary to avoid mindless repetition and boredom.

 

In summary, inadequate communication is a fault that is impeding the Government’s ability to ‘cut through’ with its essential messages.

 

Standing firm on sacred principles

Kevin Rudd is perceived by some, and much of the media, as unwilling to stand by his sacred principles.  Of course they have created an impression of what is sacred as much as has Rudd, and they don’t always correspond.  One thing the public dislike is not standing by one’s principles.  Moreover, whether one is standing by principles is a value judgement made by the public, aided and abetted by the media, and may be incorrect.   

For example, Rudd seems to me to be as committed as he ever was to the need for an ETS, but frustrated by an obstructive opposition and an uncooperative international community, and unconvinced that a DD will resolve the impasse, has deferred action rather than die in a ditch pushing an agenda that has no hope of success.  Yet the media, particularly Paul Kelly who long ago declared that the ETS would define Rudd’s prime ministership, condemned him in strident terms.

 

Nonetheless it is essential that Rudd carefully define the matters of high principle on which he will not be moved, and stick to his guns.  The RSPT is a contemporary issue many hope Rudd will stand by ‘in the national interest’ so we can all share equitably in the sale of our resources rather than being bullied by the big miners, urged on by an opportunistic Opposition.

 

In summary, we yearn for sacred principles to be protected and fought for tooth and nail by our leaders.  And if circumstance make that impossible we need to know why this is so in clear, unambiguous terms.

 

The comprehensive diagnosis

The Rudd Government is currently confronted by a complex set of problems:
Media malevolence
Media manipulation
'Promises’, sometimes construed as being broken

Management of expectations

Communication of policies, plans, actions and achievements

Defining the principles on which it will stand firm.

 

These problems are postulated to collectively be the cause of the Government’s and Kevin Rudd’s polling slump. Individuals will give more emphasis to some than others, but all are significant.

 

They are all reversible.  The Rudd Government is a good Government that deserves a second term.  Apart from shielding the nation from the ravages of the GFC that have afflicted other nations, it is a reforming Government that is carefully planning to make good the deficiencies it inherited – an unfair IR system, a run-down education system, skill shortages, infrastructure bottlenecks and an ailing health care system. 

 

This is just one person’s opinion.

 

What do you think?


About this blog

The Political Sword puts to the sword politicians and the media in Australia.

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