We are witnessing the most disgraceful campaign of poisonous politics this country has ever experienced. It is perniciously eroding the confidence of the people in its elected Federal Government. The campaign is aided and abetted by much of the mainstream media, which faithfully echoes the disingenuousness and downright lies of the Opposition.

This world has seen how lies perpetrated by malevolent people can cause damage to people and ultimately unspeakable destructiveness. The treatment of Jews by Nazis in Germany in the first half of the last Century is a grotesque example. They used Joseph Goebbels' ‘Big Lie Theory’ that states: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” Goebbles went onto say: “The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie…”.

Before Coalition supporters bristle at the drawing of the parallel between what the Federal Coalition is doing and what the Nazis did during the last Century, read on for a while, and then use the comments option to point out whatever error you believe I have made. I am not in any way suggesting that the Coalition and the Nazi Party have anything in common ideologically or politically. What I am proposing is that the Coalition is using Goebbels' ‘Big Lie Theory’ to advance its political objectives. Let me elaborate.

We know that the Nazis used a purposeful strategy to demean and dehumanize the Jewish race. As recorded in Jews in Nazi Germany, in a speech in Munich in 1922, referring to the Jews, Hitler said: "His is no master people; he is an exploiter: the Jews are a people of robbers. He has never founded any civilisation, though he has destroyed civilisations by the hundred...everything he has stolen…” It goes on:“Once in power, Hitler used his position to launch a campaign against the Jews that culminated in the Holocaust. Hitler blamed the Jews for all the misfortunes that had befallen Germany: the loss of the First World War was the result of a Jewish conspiracy; the Treaty of Versailles was also a Jewish conspiracy designed to bring Germany to her knees; the hyperinflation of 1923 was the result of an international Jewish attempt to destroy Germany.”

Having promoted hatred, the Nazis forced Jews to identify their businesses with the Star of David, which they also had to wear around their necks with the label ‘Juden’. Hatred for the Jews based on their race was deliberately escalated. They were labelled as exploiters and robbers, to be despised and rejected. In 1938, in Germany and Austria, 10,000 Jewish stores, homes and synagogues were burned, looted and destroyed in what became known as ‘The Night of the Broken Glass’. The police did not intervene; the fire brigade did not arrive; and afterwards the Jews were forced to clean up the glass from the streets and pay for the damage.

I relate all this simply to demonstrate the terrible outcomes that result from fostering hatred, from demeaning people, from debasing people or groups by telling downright lies about them.

This is what we have seen in this country politically for a long while. But it has never been as gross as it has been since the ascent of Tony Abbott to leadership of the Federal Coalition. And it is having its predictably awful effects on our political life, and particularly on the people’s image of the nation’s Prime Minister. Let me illustrate with some now familiar examples of how Abbott and his strategists and minders have used these devices to damage the Prime Minister and her Government.

Demeaning the Prime Minister – Ju-liar
It was shock jock Alan Jones who created the now-infamous tag: ‘Ju-liar’ at the beginning of that appalling interview on Sydney 2GB in February 2011, which he began by publically castigating her in the way of a schoolmaster chastising a schoolgirl for being ten minutes late for the interview. His attitude from the beginning was belligerent and rude. Writer Mick Molloy had this to say after hearing the audio: "There is not another nation in the world that would tolerate that kind of cross examination, that petulant cross examination from a radio announcer." Indeed!

The Ju-liar label stuck and has been repeated endlessly by the PM’s adversaries, the media and by members of the public. Every time it is used it puts her down, diminishes her in the eyes of the electorate. Tony Abbott has promoted the ‘liar’ meme over and again, adding variations such dishonest, devious, evasive, tricky, untrustworthy, not to be trusted with anything. Is it any wonder that opinion polls about attributes rate her poorly on ‘trustworthiness’? Coalition members will argue that she broke a promise on the carbon tax. I won’t go over the fallacy underlying this accusation, but to label the PM as an inveterate liar as if all other politicians are as pure as the driven snow when we know they are all prone to lying, is disingenuous. Abbott’s lies abound as pointed out on The Political Sword in Tony Abbott, we are sick of your lies, yet has he been burdened by the ‘liar’ tag? No, it’s only Julia Gillard, and that is not because she has told more lies than Tony Abbott – he leaves her well behind – but simply because the Coalition strategy is to make the ‘Ju-liar’ tag stick indelibly, as it virtually has. She will have great difficulty shaking it off.

Even during Abbott’s Budget Reply speech last night, during which the electorate was hoping to hear about his vision and plans for our nation, what we inappropriately got was another vitriolic attack on PM Gillard, calling her ‘fatally compromised’ and urging her removal, and yet another load of lies, misrepresentation and deception.

Demeaning her has been very successful. It has given ‘permission’ for others to follow the lead. So we saw ‘Ju-liar’ again at the Alan Jones sponsored anti-carbon tax rallies in Canberra where Tony Abbott stood with Sophie Mirabella and Bronwyn Bishop in front of ‘’Ditch the Witch’ and Bob Brown’s Bitch’ placards. Once the demeaning process begins, it escalates.

It has given the OK to interviewers, even on our ABC, to be rude and aggressive to our PM. Only this week we had Chris Uhlmann interviewing her on 7.30 in a demeaning way, disrespectful of her as a person, and as our Prime Minister. If you missed it, view it here. His opening question was: “Do you think that people believe you when you say that you're going to reach a small surplus by this time next year?” Later Uhlmann asked: “If you have to break a series of old promises on aid, on Defence, on company tax, in order to make new ones, why should people believe any promise? And later: “And all of them were promises that you broke.” And: “But to some of those three things, on company tax, on aid and on Defence, you're happy that people will look at all those things and take you at your word, that you are not breaking any of those promises?” Note the repetition, and the emphasis on ‘broken promises’, which is another way of calling her a habitual liar.

Just as in Nazi Germany ‘permission’ was given to the German people to demean the Jews, so in Australia ‘permission’ has been given to anyone to demean our PM by calling her a liar, to question her ability to keep a promise, to be disrespectful and rude. It seems there are all too many willing to join the throng ready to demean her whenever they can. It is dangerous for our democracy that our elected leader is so treated.

Labelling the Government incompetent
This is another tactic that the Coalition has used to good effect. Again it was Alan Jones who said: “…in the best country in the world we have the worst possible government.” How many times have you heard Tony Abbott say “This is a bad government getting worse”; “This government can’t manage money”; “This government is addicted to spending and debt”; “This is an illegitimate government that has lost its way”; “This government cannot be trusted”; and just this week in reference to the return of the budget to surplus: “This is a desperate government in diabolical trouble that has cooked the books and the people are not buying it’. How does he know what the people are ‘buying’ the day after the Budget? He doesn’t – it’s just another Abbott lie, which we can be sure no one in the media will challenge.

More recently, it has become fair game to accuse PM Gillard of lack of judgement. Abbott does it all the time, and just this week on 7.30 Chris Uhlmann asked the PM in reference to the fact that her support for Craig Thomson went on for a long time: “Was your judgment wrong on that?” And later: “Was it an error of judgment to put Peter Slipper in the Speaker's chair?” Uhlmann was deliberately provocative and rude.

In Nazi Germany the Jews were labelled as exploiters, robbers and conspirators, despoiling and destroying the countries in which they lived, and responsible for all their economic ills. These labels invited retaliation from non-Jewish citizens. In a similar way, PM Gillard and her Government have been labelled as illegitimate, incompetent, one that can’t manage the economy, lead by a PM who has poor judgement, and which needs to be removed immediately. Judging by the mood of the people derived from the additional questions asked by pollsters, the people have bought this rhetoric. They blithely discount the buoyant state of our economy, the fact that the Labor Government steered the country through the GFC with flying colours, sustaining it as the most admired economy in the developed world, and instead believe the rhetoric of the Coalition, echoed in the media, that this is an appalling government that should be chucked out now. In polls that ask which party is the best economic manager, the Coalition wins comfortably, the respondents apparently ignoring the Government’s outstanding recent record as economic managers and the Coalition’s almost complete absence of economic credibility or knowledge. Coalition propaganda, redolent with big lies, Goebbels-style, has so far won the day.

Dishonesty about Government achievements
A vast array of lies has been perpetrated about the achievements of the Gillard Government. Although it has now passed over 300 pieces of legislation, and only yesterday the ‘Schoolkids Bonus’ legislation, the Coalition represents it is a do-nothing, incompetent government. Among the bills passed have been vitally important and far-reaching reforms in education, health, infrastructure, climate change and taxation. None of these achievements are acknowledged by the Coalition or by much of the media. Moreover, the reality of the GFC and the ongoing uncertainty in global markets, against which Labor’s economic achievements have been wrought, seems also to be denied by the Coalition and the media.

Successful programs have been pilloried. The HIP, demeaned by the derogatory term ‘pink batts’, insulated a million roofs; the BER, characterized by the slogan ‘waste and mismanagement’, was highly successful, attracting over 97% approval. JohnL has debunked the criticism of these initiatives in a series of four articles on The Political Sword: Absurdities abound as Abbott wages a crass war, Abbott’s amazing amnesia on insulation inquiry, Nonsense of $8bn BER ‘waste’ claims exposed, More falsehoods of the $8bn BER ‘waste’ claims.

Yet the pollsters tell us that much of the public still regards these programs as failures, debacles and disasters. The only exceptions are the parents who have children at the schools that benefitted from the BER; they give it a tick.

Spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt
The ‘toxic’ carbon tax is an example of how slogans and cleverly designed Coalition propaganda have influenced the electorate through fear mongering. From a majority wanting action on climate change a couple of years ago, a minority now accept that an ETS, preceded by a price on carbon, is necessary. Abbott’s ‘toxic tax’ has taken hold in people’s minds. His propaganda has effectively negated the generous compensation that will accompany its introduction. Climate deniers too have been given much publicity and have added to the rising opposition to the ‘toxic tax’. Lies and disingenuousness have triumphed over the truth. Only when the people experience the tax will the fear and the doubts be removed, and that will take time.

Another area where Abbott has transmitted doubt and uncertainty is the state of the economy. For his own selfish political purposes he has constantly talked down the economy, even in the face of low unemployment, low inflation, low interest rates, growth at trend, return to surplus, and a vast pipeline of investment. The result is diminished consumer and business confidence, which is harming our economy. Abbott does not care about the damage he is doing so long as he gains some political advantage. He is an economically irresponsible liar.

Media complicity
How is it that this mountain of lies, misrepresentation, and disingenuousness has been promulgated so successfully. There is a simple answer – the media.

In Nazi Germany the police and the state-controlled media were complicit in transmitting hatred and lies that so poisoned the minds of the people against the Jews that indescribable obscenities were committed against those people, beginning in the towns and cities, but inexorably leading to the extermination camps of the Holocaust.

In the same way, much of our media, particularly the Murdoch media, is complicit in promulgating the hatred of our PM and the lies about her Government, so much so that her position in the eyes of much of the electorate is significantly diminished. Indeed, her chance of reelection is deemed impossible by the very same media that has spread the hatred and the lies, relying as they do on their own unreliable polls of voting intention, polls that result from the lies and misrepresentations that are fed daily to the public by their media outlets. Is it any wonder her status in the polls is low?

I trust that this comparison of the outcome of Goebbels' ‘Big Lie Theory’ in Nazi Germany last Century, and the contemporary outcome of its use by Tony Abbott, the Coalition and the media here in our own country, will convince you of the pernicious effect of this malevolent strategy, and that you will join me in condemning it vehemently.

Poisonous politics pollutes powerfully. It was lethally dangerous in Nazi Germany – it is dangerous here.

What do you think?

The ‘secret’ is out. We have known for ages that Rupert Murdoch has wanted PM Gillard out. Robert Manne wrote about Murdoch’s aspiration in The Monthly in Bad News: Robert Manne on Murdoch’s Australian and the Shaping on the Nation and many, many in the Fifth Estate have testified to his intention to oust our PM and install Tony Abbott - after all it’s his turn! But last week Murdoch’s twitter finger got the better of him and he tweeted: @rupertmurdoch 
Dramatic, slimy events in Australian politics. Country desperately needs election to get fresh start. 
28 Apr 12. There’s no room for doubt now – Murdoch wants an election and expects that it will be the end of Julia Gillard and her Government.

While PM Gillard needs to defeat Tony Abbott and the Coalition at the next election, that is not her most forbidding task. Her most powerful enemy is Rupert Murdoch. It is he who must be countered for electoral success. Our PM has two virulent enemies, and an unequal battle with them.

For Murdoch to tweet this message so soon after his most recent appearance at the Levinson Inquiry where his influence over the political process and politicians in the UK was placed under the public microscope so forensically, and where he denied having such influence despite overwhelming evidence that this was so, is a sign of the man’s arrogance and self confidence.

He has been subtler in the past, but seems to see no need for subtlety now. When all but one of his 175 papers worldwide editorialized in favour of US involvement in the Iraq War, he claimed that he had not instructed them to do so, or even influenced them. But they all knew what Uncle Rupert thought and wanted, and followed sycophantically. Just as kids know what their parents think, so do Rupert’s children, and knowing on what side their bread is buttered, readily, even enthusiastically, comply.

At the Levenson Inquiry, Murdoch put the lie to his earlier contention that: ‘I don’t instruct my editors’ when he said: ‘If you want to know what I think, just read the editorials in my papers’. The counsel assisting the Levinson inquiry, Robert Jay QC, used a telling description of the relationship between Rupert Murdoch and those he wishes to influence, and in turn, who want to influence him. He described it as a 'pirouette', where each circles the other subtly indicating wants and desires, without a telling word being spoken to convey the message – the ‘pirouette’ was all that was necessary.

On the Australian scene though, Murdoch’s pirouette seems unnecessary. Everyone knows his power, his capacity to make and break political leaders. After his first personal meeting with Murdoch over lunch, Tony Abbott said: ‘I hope he liked me’. We understand why.

Murdoch’s tweet was no subtle pirouette – it was bare-knuckle advocacy, Abbott style.

Most recently, a majority of the UK parliamentary committee set up to investigate phone hacking by News Corporation described Rupert Murdoch as “not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company”. This ‘unfit’ person is the one who tweeted that Australia needs an election and a ‘fresh start’.

But let’s go back to ‘Julia Gillard can defeat Tony Abbott in 2013’. Attribute by attribute, Julia Gillard is superior. As two political leaders in a face-to-face contest without the pernicious influence of the mainstream media malevolently distorting the truth, without the influence of Murdoch’s outlets gunning incessantly for PM Gillard, how would they measure up?

Negotiating skills
The old adage, coined by Prussian politician Otto Von Bismark in 1867: ‘Politics is the art of the possible’, is as true now as it was then. Negotiating what is possible is therefore a crucial skill. Julia Gillard has this in spades; Tony Abbott does not.

From her days as a legal advocate, through her time in parliament in ministerial positions in industrial relations and education, to her period as Deputy Prime Minister and then Prime Minister, Julia Gillard has exhibited outstanding negotiating skills. After seventeen long days following the 2010 election, she, and Tony Abbott negotiated with the Independents, seeking their support to form a minority government. The PM won hands down. Stories gradually emerged about Abbott’s approach – ‘I’ll do anything, offer anything to become PM’. As Tony Windsor reported, and repeated this week on Lateline, the only thing he said he wouldn’t offer was the nether part of his anatomy, and he’d even consider that. His desperation to do whatever it took to gain power was starkly exhibited when, sitting with his shoes parked on his coffee table, he offered Andrew Wilkie $1 billion to rebuild the Royal Hobart Hospital, an offer that Wilkie described as ‘almost reckless’, one he rejected as irresponsible, preferring instead Julia Gillard’s $100 million offer. Because Abbott failed to indicate from where the money would come, Wilkie moved toward Gillard on the grounds that Labor's proposal was "a much more ethical way to go than simply just grabbing $1bn for Tasmania". Despite the obvious appeal of a massive grant for his electorate, Abbott’s dubious ethics repulsed Wilkie.

Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott too gave PM Gillard high marks for her negotiating skills and Abbott very low marks. We know the outcome, so painstakingly spelt out on that fateful day in October 2010 when they held their press conference to announce their support for PM Gillard.

She also negotiated a compromise with the three big miners over the MRRT, which although some think is inadequate, is nevertheless now part of our laws.

And if anyone is entertaining the idea that Tony Abbott’s negotiating skills might be on the improve, just listen to his latest advice to Windsor and Oakeshott. He advised them “to wake up to themselves” and vote for a no-confidence motion in the Government; an admonition hardly likely to draw them to him.

Negotiating skills: Julia Gillard 9, Tony Abbott 0.

Policy creation
Even conceding that the party in Government is the one charged with the responsibility of formulating policy in order to pass legislation, the score of over three hundred pieces already passed is impressive. And many of those have been momentous. The much maligned carbon tax as a prelude to an ETS, the MRRT, the repeal of WorkChoices, the heath care and education reforms, changes to the private health insurance rebate, plain packaging of cigarettes, massive infrastructure projects, notably the largest ever, the NBN, and more recently the aged care reform package and the National Disability Insurance Scheme, are but some of the important measures that the Gillard Government has put in place. This is a vigorously legislating and courageous Government, which has achieved what it has against almost continual opposition and obstruction from the Opposition and its leader. Next week it will return the Budget to surplus after going into deficit to shield this nation from the ravages of the global financial crisis that devastated so many other developed nations.

What policy has Tony Abbott created? He excuses himself from announcing policies on the grounds that he will do so ‘in good time before the election’, which of course he insists should be held right away. What we have seen is an extravagant PPL scheme that favours the wealthy, a thought bubble about a nanny scheme for working mothers, an immigration policy that is simply a re-run of the Howard Government scheme, with the added hairy-chested effrontery towards Indonesia, Abbott style, which has already evoked anger in that nation. He has his expensive ‘Clayton’s’ Direct Action Plan to combat climate change that will pay the polluters to stop polluting and send the $1300 bill to householders. Economists won’t endorse it. Environmentalists doubt if it will work. Abbott also says he would set up a mechanism for monitoring government expenditure, which he insists he would prune radically; he would remove 12,000 public servants and abolish the climate change department as part of this pruning.

Is there anything else? Yes, he will piggy-back on the NDIS, for which he announced he is indeed ‘Dr Yes’.

His attempt to cost his shadow budget last year was beset with shonky figures and an $11 billion black hole; his efforts to find $70 billion of savings in his budget this year will be watched with great interest and suspicion.

Oh, I almost forgot, Abbott will repeal the carbon tax, the MRRT, stop the NBN, reverse the health insurance rebate, all if he can, and yet retain many of the goodies that flow from these Government policies, using his magic pudding approach.

If any Coalition supporters have read this far, please let me know if I’ve forgotten any innovative Abbott policies.

Policy creation: Julia Gillard 8, Tony Abbott 1.

Vision for the nation
Here the comparison is stark. While Julia Gillard has spelt out her vision for the nation repeatedly, one the tune deaf media cannot or will not hear, and has developed a policy agenda that embraces many far-reaching and courageous reforms that her Government is steadily having passed through the parliament, Tony Abbott has opposed most of them and has offered almost nothing.

Has anyone ever heard him make a comprehensive vision statement? If so, please post it in the comments.

Vision: Julia Gillard 8, Tony Abbott 2.

Understanding of global economics
Few words are needed here to describe the contrast. Julia Gillard was part of the team of four that fashioned the Government’s successful response to the GFC, and she is involved day after day with her economics team, Wayne Swan, Penny Wong, Bill Shorten and David Bradbury in attending to the nation’s economy, currently the envy of the world. Tony Abbott is bored with economics, should not be let anywhere near money according to Peter Costello, has made almost no statements on how Australia’s economy should be run, and what he has said has shown his ignorance. His team of Joe Hockey, Andrew Robb and Mathias Cormann add very little.

Economics: Julia Gillard 8, Tony Abbott 1.

Communication skills
The media would give Tony Abbott high marks for ability to communicate with the public, and mark Julia Gillard down.

When virtually all communications are endlessly repeated slogans and virulent attacks on the PM and her Government, communication is straightforward and seemingly effective. But what about Abbott’s current affairs appearances? He rarely appears on programs that probe, preferring to interact with sycophantic shock jocks like Alan Jones. His only appearance on 7.30 this year was with the flaccid Chris Uhlmann in the chair, a prerecorded event that allowed editing of the bloopers. His press conferences are tightly controlled, and when the going gets tough, he walks away. He did it again this week when asked probing questions about Christopher Pyne’s prior contacts with James Ashby, Peter Slipper’s accuser.

Skill in communication is needed when complex matters need to be explained and when the questioning is tough and insistent. Tony Abbott avoids these situations; Julia Gillard encounters them almost every day and takes multiple questions.

The problem Julia Gillard has is that whatever she tries to communicate is masked or overshadowed by the media, misreported or not reported at all. Journalists mark her down for her voice, her delivery, her demeanour, and her content, which it claims does not cut through, but never accept any responsibility for this lack of ‘cut through’.

Springboard diving includes a weighting for difficulty. Tony Abbott usually launches into a ‘bomb’ that any kid can do; Julia Gillard faces a substantial degree of difficulty almost every time she launches. That ought to be acknowledged when rating their respective skills in communication.

Communication: The media would rate Julia Gillard as around 2, and Tony Abbott as 9. I would rate her as 7 and him at 5.

Fairness and egalitarianism
Julia Gillard’s mantra from day one has been one of equality of opportunity for a good education, a rewarding job, fairness in the workplace, and equal opportunities for the disabled. What has Tony Abbott offered? A Rolls Royce PPL and the possibility of a nanny scheme that would favour the wealthy, and, despite his colourful denials, a veiled threat to bring back some of the features of WorkChoices. Is there anything else he has offered in the name of fairness?

Fairness: Julia Gillard 10, Tony Abbott 1.

Behavior
Julia Gillard has exhibited dignity and restraint in her public appearances, even in the hurly-burly life of parliament. In stark contrast, Tony Abbott has exhibited snarling attack-dog behaviour ever since he became leader. Always demeaning PM Gillard herself, and virtually everything she says and does, he has spread such vitriol that deep-seated hatred of her has been generated in some of the electorate. He has appeared against a backdrop of placards displaying ‘Ditch the Witch’ and Bob Brown’s Bitch’. His venom seems to have no bounds; his charity is invisible. He is the most destructive politician in living memory. Should you have forgotten his malignant words or those of his colleagues, take a look at the video on Archies Archive on 2 May, The Right and Polite Discourse and the ‘list of ten insults and threats to our current Australian Prime Minister’.

Despite this verbal abuse, despite the media’s rudeness, despite much of the media insisting the electorate has stopped listening to her, she continues to exhibit equanimity, resilience, courage, strength, determination, and a sense of purpose. Few could have withstood these personal attacks as calmly as she has.

Abbott’s words have debased not only the PM and the Government and every action it takes, but the economy as well, the best in the developed world. He is a major contributor to the diminished confidence that the people and businessmen exhibit. We live in a wonderful country, the envy of the world, yet Abbott talks it down incessantly, frightens people with his talk of doom and gloom, scares voters with dire talk about the carbon tax and almost every other move the Government makes. As David Marr observed on last Sunday’s Insiders in the context of the poor popularity ratings of both leaders, “Abbott has managed to pull her down to him”. His incessant negative talk is dangerous and harmful to our nation.

Behaviour: Julia Gillard 7, Tony Abbott 0.

Let’s give them equal scores for intelligence, persistence, endeavour, and connection with the people. Julia Gillard does not rate well for trustworthiness in opinion polls, but neither does Tony Abbott.

So on a face-to-face contest with a neutral media free of unfair interference (what a bonus that would be), Julia Gillard would beat Tony Abbott hands down on vision, policy formulation, and negotiating policies through a parliament that has a minority government, thereby getting done an imposing set of reforms that will set this country up for the decades ahead. She would overwhelm him in the area of economics, fairness, and behaviour. It would be a ‘no contest’ event.

Tony Abbott is not a fit and proper person to be the leader of this nation. He lacks the necessary competencies, but more telling, since becoming leader his behaviour has been destructive in the extreme. He is incapable of building, incapable of leading this nation.

Yet we all know that the next election will be a mammoth contest, not because the skills of the leaders and their vision and their plans are well-matched, because they are not, but because the sinister spectre of Rupert Murdoch casts a dark shadow over the contest, so threatening, so menacing that unless it can be countered, victory will be impossible.

Every move that PM Gillard makes is blunted by the Murdoch media, aided and abetted by Fairfax and the ABC that now seems slavishly to follow the News Limited lead, echoing the headlines, often repeating the lines word by word. It seems that the majority of journalists, but thankfully not all, are captive to the Murdoch domination of news and current affairs, perhaps afraid that should they step out of line in this world of shrinking opportunities for political journalists, they find themselves on the outer.

Think how many announcements of splendid Government initiatives have been deliberately overshadowed by other events adverse to the Government. It is no accident that the Slipper affair entered the public arena just as Julia Gillard announced her important aged care reforms and the NDIS. As soon as she announces something that might bring credit to the Government, the media trumpets on its front pages a negative counter story. When did you see a positive Government story dominate the headlines of the Murdoch tabloids or its flagship, The Australian? Good news for the Government always gives way to bad news. Is it any wonder that Julia Gillard despairs that she will ever get fair and balanced coverage from the Murdoch press, or for that matter any other part of the media.

And when Coalition members and supporters step out of line with inflammatory comments, such as Graeme Morris’ ‘kick her to death’ remark, there is scarcely a murmur anywhere in the MSM. Christopher Pyne’s involvement in the ‘get-Slipper’ campaign is glossed over and quickly buried, even when more evidence of his complicity is uncovered.

The simple fact is that most, but providentially not all of the mainstream media, is engaged in a concerted and unremitting campaign to demean PM Gillard, to diminish her Government, to paint a dishonest picture of the state of our economy, to give scant credit to the Government for its achievements, to highlight perceived shortcomings, and to exaggerate so-called ‘scandals’. At the same time, it fails dismally to hold the alternative government to account for its lack of vision, policies and plans, its shonky economics, its incompetence and its appalling behavior. All the Coalition’s manifest deficiencies are glossed over, seldom challenged or simply not acknowledged. This is done via the well-tried editorial devices of burying the Government’s good news in the back pages or well down the news bulletin, overshadowing the good news with the bad, or simply not reporting it at all, and endlessly repeating the bad but not the good. Even the ABC exhibits this phenomenon, and in many of its interviews uses ‘wet-lettuce’ questioning of Coalition members, and acerbic, interrupting, harassing, rude questioning to intimidate and diminish Government interviewees.

How has this disgraceful and unfair state of affairs come about? In my view, the prime perpetrator of this malfeasance is Rupert Murdoch.

We have all known about the influence he exerts via his 70% ownership of metropolitan newspapers, and through his TV outlets here in Australia, and in recent months we have seen his pernicious influence on politics in the UK and the depths to which he will stoop for a salacious story. I expect we might see something similar in the US.

Rupert Murdoch has always sought to influence politics in every country where his vast empire has its tentacles. He has now stated overtly what we all knew, that he wants PM Gillard and her Government out and Tony Abbott and the Coalition in, and will use all his massive media power to achieve that end. He will not ease back, he will not take the pressure off, he will, through his media, one overseen by sycophantic hirelings, wage relentless war on our PM and her Government. It is to the mainstream media’s eternal shame that so many of the others have followed the Murdoch lead.

Julia Gillard would trounce Tony Abbott were the election to be based on competence, performance and behaviour, and an accurately informed electorate. But we know that the Murdoch factor will ensure that not only is the electorate not informed about the Government’s achievements and its plans, but that it will be deliberately misinformed through distortions, omissions, and at times downright lies.

Julia Gillard can defeat Tony Abbott, but can she counter the Murdoch menace? How possible is that? Can the Fifth Estate reduce the effect of the Murdoch hazard? How?

What do you think?

 

In the last, few tumultuous weeks we have seen emerge an irresistible metaphor for all that is wrong in Australian politics.

In perfect harmony with the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the original RMS Titanic, events in modern Australia have taken on an uncanny resemblance to the disaster of so many years ago.

The unsinkable Labor government, once sitting so proudly high in an ocean of polls, has been holed and appears to be going down.

Maker and un-maker of Prime Ministers and governments, Rupert Murdoch, has seen his credibility mortally breached. Disaster awaits him, not immediately, just as the Titanic did not sink immediately, but surely, as his spin and lies to the Leveson inquiry attract rebuttal by an army of critics, ex-employees and eye witnesses who are queuing up to testify to his wicked lies and evasions. The legendary omertà of Murdoch's organization, the "watertight holds" of his own personal Titanic, have been breached. Is it now only a matter of time until the freezing waves start gushing over the Murdoch bow?

The ever-shrinking Australian press industry, beset by falling stock prices and dwindling sales, has compensated by turning a once robust tradition of objective reportage into a farce of cheap opinionation, amateur forensic analysis and wilful omission.

A bellowing rump of political commentators, the prima donna, preening elite of journalism write, without the slightest sense of the absurdity of their outpourings, increasingly bizarre, self-referential and nonsensical analysis. The pampered prognosticators, their feet still dry, waving their first class tickets, claim a right to seats in whatever lifeboats are left, even as they repel survivors still in the water, seeking rescue. In a tighter than ever market for their shallow skills, even the non-News Ltd journalists, those from the nearly bankrupt Fairfax and the cowering ABC, work effectively for Murdoch as when their own lifeboats go under, they believe there will always be a welcoming News Ltd there, ready to take them on-board.

And as if to cap off the farce with sheer, head-shaking insanity, Clive Palmer has declared he will build a new RMS Titanic, promising, as did the builders of the original ship - now at the bottom of the Atlantic - that it will be unsinkable, even with his bloated, morbidly obese frame aboard.

Murdoch's grand vision of profitable chaos is coming to fruition in front of our eyes. It is a race to see who will disappear first: yet another Labor government, the corrupt, criminal News Corporation empire, the incestuous group thinking press, or the entire nation of Australia, once a "lucky country", now one of the last remaining laboratories where the Murdoch family is still permitted to conduct its vain, stomach-churning political experiments.

A hundred or so years ago Murdoch's father, Sir Keith, fell victim to the then elite of British Imperial class system. Sir Keith was set upon by generals and politicians alike for his reporting from the front at Gallipoli and later on The Western Front. In one of the most revealing pieces of evidence given by his son, Rupert, at the House of Commons Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport, Sir Keith's ghost was resurrected as the now white-haired and wizened son told the Committee of his lifelong quest to vindicate his father, by taking on the elites of whatever country in which he chose to do business, either as a citizen or (mostly) as an alien, and pulling them down to suit his business interests and victimhood simultaneously.

Murdoch has been on this self-imposed mission ever since, or at least that is what he would have us believe. Maybe he half-believes it himself. But in place of the old elites, he has positioned himself, his family, his companies, and those to whom he gives his political patronage, as the new elite. Murdoch works for no person. People work for Murdoch, whether those people be individual staffers, editors or entire political parties and governments. Shareholders and voters in those companies and countries respectively are the pawns in his game of megalomania and iron-fisted control. Godfather-like, he runs News as a private dynasty.

On Sunday Murdoch tweeted that it was time for an election in Australia "to make a fresh start", away from the sleaze and corruption of the Labor government. That the "sleaze" had been mostly promulgated through his own newspaper outlets Murdoch omitted to mention. Perhaps it was Twitter's 140-character limit that prevented him from doing so.

Dutifully, on Monday we saw bootstrapped calls for the resignation of the Prime Minister, even from the Fairfax papers.

Michelle Grattan, the doyen of the Canberra Press Gallery, made her now infamous call for Julia Gillard to "fall on her sword". By that afternoon a commentator on ABC TV's The Drum had told viewers that such a call, by someone no less than the "respected" Michelle Grattan, was a serious development indeed. Grattan's obvious hatred for Gillard (who is known to dismiss convoluted Grattan questions with the word "Next!") was not even mentioned.

Katharine Murphy, Grattan's groveling clone, and acolyte, acknowledged that her readers want policy discussion, not dissertations on political belly-fluff. She responded, exasperated, by telling them there is no other story than belly-fluff, and then proceeded straight onto leadership challenges that might be mounted against Gillard in the coming months.

Dennis Shanahan wrote in Murdoch's sentimentally favourite, but wholly unprofitable flagship, The Australian (po-faced, presumably, could Dennis be anything else?) that Gillard's reluctance to abandon her Prime Ministership was causing tangible damage to the Australian economy, as if the Opposition had not been callously talking down the economy - one of the most prosperous in the world - for the past 36 months.

Graeme Morris, a panel member with Sky news on that same day, suggested Gillard should be "kicked to death." This added to a suite of calls for her physical demise, made over the last year or so: being "drowned in a chaff bag" from Alan Jones; "burnt at the stake" as a witch by members of the astroturfed Consumers And Taxpayers Association (CATA), so beloved of the shock jocks on 2GB that they give it hours of free time every week; and for a target to be placed on her forehead (all the better for the people of Queensland to take aim), an assassination concept put out by Tony Abbott in the House of Representatives itself. This is a man who, without irony, constantly tells us that the dignity of the Parliament is being destroyed by the government.

The utterers of these close-to-seditious homicidal suggestions have mostly apologized for them afterwards - the Sydney Morning Herald called Morris' comment a "quip" - claiming to have temporarily taken leave of their judgement, in the heat of debate. But of course the damage is already done in the uttering, not the apologizing, and their corrections of the record were buried by a media obsessed with their own assigned mission: the demise of the Gillard government before any of its key legislation can kick in. In their wild enthusiasm to see the government fall they seem to believe that an election, or handover of power from Labor to the Coalition, on the eve of the Budget session, would be good for the country.

Ladies and gentlemen: I give you our responsible, professional media, "fair and balanced", non-judgemental and reporting only objective fact.

Speaking of facts, what is this "sleaze" everyone is talking about?

It seems that a Labor MP, Craig Thomson, allegedly had his hand in the till of the Health Services Union, abusing its credit cards on prostitutes and lavish expense account expenditure. But for this supposedly "criminal" activity, Thomson has not even been charged. Police investigations in two states and a series of inquiries have found he has no case to answer, and that is when his name has been mentioned at all. He is presumed innocent by the law, but clearly the media thinks the law is an ass and have convicted Thomson anyway. the Opposition calls for his standing down, but when he does finally resign from Caucus and the Labor Party, they say it's not enough. They say Gillard should "refuse his vote", whatever that means. The Opposition does not tells us, either.

Peter Slipper, in main composition a creature of the Queensland Liberal and National Parties, a "colorful character" by all accounts who has cut quite a swathe with his razor's edge use of parliamentary entitlements in the past, is up before the Federal Court on charges - actually at this moment mere assertions - of homosexual-based discrimination against a staff member James Ashby. Ashby alleges that homosexual advances were made to him by Slipper, and that when they were rebuffed Slipper said he was too fat and refused him access to a Harbour cruise he might normally have attended. It is claimed that these "spiteful" discriminations, made only because Ashby is homosexual have caused Ashby psychological harm and real career damage.

Ashby also asserts that Slipper "forced" him to witness a crime: the handing over of signed but otherwise blank Cabcharge dockets to a mysterious limousine driver on three occasions. This, alleges the apparently fragile Ashby, breached the Commonwealth's duty to him to provide a pleasant workplace, free of such shocking occurrences as the filling out of blank chits. The sensitive Ashby wants a lot of money to be paid as compensation for both affronts to his delicate mental constitution.

If this leaves you scratching your head, you are likely not alone.

Slipper has been charged with no crime. He has not been charged with "sexual harassment", (as many in the media have suggested), either. Sexual harassment charges involve compulsory mediation and conciliation, not something that Ashby's expensive "gun" lawyers, Harmers, are famous for. Ashby has set his case around establishing his undoubted homosexuality and then alleging Slipper treated him discriminately because of it. When you think about it, the charge involves closer to the opposite of sexual harassment. Ashby appears to be going for the main chance: a lucrative Federal Court damages award which could, if everything goes well, set him up for life, as similar awards have set up others.

Indeed there may be a perfectly reasonable explanation for at least the Cabcharge incidents: they were and remain within Slipper's entitlement, plus the practice of using Cabcharge dockets for limo rental is ubiquitous among parliamentarians. The rest is administrative detail.

Slipper is reserving his case on the discrimination matter. Much has been made, by some who should know better and by some who are proud they couldn't care less, of a supposed "reversal of the onus of proof" in these matters by "Julia Gillard's Fair Work Act", but this does not detract from Ashby's duty to prove the asserted actions by Slipper occurred in the first place. Guilt must still be proved at law, and moral innocence should always be assumed. The concept of "innocent until proven guilty" forms the basis of our legal and jurisprudential system, another convention sought to be trashed by the media and the Coalition.

As to Ashby's state of mind, we know very little. Perhaps after today's revelations (referred to in Ashby's court documents, although without the "Pyne" context) that Christopher Pyne met with Ashby for drinks a month before Ashby dropped his bombshell, Pyne knows more. No wonder Ashby did not seem to want Pyne's name brought into his case - preferring to leave the identity of the person he met with as an "enemy" of Slipper's.

How Ashby turned from a dutiful employee, reportedly fiercely defending his boss's reputation against enemies everywhere (indeed right up to a couple of days before lodging his complaint to the Court), into a psychological wreck in hiding, too scared to front the media he has sent off looking for a moral "nigger" to lynch is a mystery.

James Ashby has disappeared from the face of the Earth, and no one is trying very hard to find him, at least not anyone from the ranks of the media. They are too busy vying with each other for the loudest, most clamoring negative connotation of Slipper's behaviour, thus, indirectly, condemning the Gillard government, to worry about checking out James Ashby's bona fides, much less his motivations, by interviewing him directly. They let his publicity manager act as a firewall between them and him. Maybe the commentators believe this satisfies their professional obligations. After all, they seem to adjudicate everything else among themselves, right down to handwriting analysis. Why not evaluate their own performance "in-house", as it were?

In the panicked rush to the lifeboats the last vestiges of decency, fairness, and justice in Australian political life have been swept aside. The presumption of innocence has been thrown overboard as so much unnecessary baggage.

The media lifeboat, full to the scuppers with by-lined opinion writers, tries to distance itself from the suction that will be generated by the sinking of the traditional medium of the printed page. In the meantime, any poor wretch who tries to climb aboard to have their side of the argument heard is mercilessly shoved off with the sharp end of an oar for their trouble.

In the Murdoch lifeboat the scene is similar. As his empire distils down from a world wide enterprise, a floating palace full of promise and profit to a grubby, fetid bilge in the bottom of a sinking rowboat, anyone not "family" is unceremoniously thrown overboard: staff members, managers, ministers and, in Australia, entire governments and political parties have become expendable. Australia was Murdoch's first and, now it seems, has become his last redoubt, a lifeboat of last resort where his final desperate battle against the marshalling forces of ethics and objective truth will be fought.

What of the government? Despite the challenges to its integrity and the vicissitudes of its existence, the government lifeboat continues to stay afloat. It went into the water launched in haste, upside down (film buffs will note that this has been a scene in most "Titanic" genre movies, but ominously not in Murdoch's recent version), and has had to be kept afloat by deft maneuvering of its crew, striving to keep a delicate balance between basic survival against political and policy achievement. There have been dissenters and challengers to the newly promoted Second Officer's authority (as the Captain has already drowned), and there may well be more challenges to come, perhaps even from the same source as the previous ones. Will the political body of Captain Kevin Rudd rise to the surface still breathing, as the opinionistas speculate? Or will it sink like a stone, as common sense dictates? Whatever, for the moment there is no option for the government lifeboat but to stay as shipshape as possible, ignore the weather and try to be above water in the morning and the one after that, if necessary.

So much is changing, so much is at risk. There are icebergs everywhere, for everyone. Any mistake means certain death. A poor choice of rowing companion can mean temporary dry feet, but no ultimate rescue. A failure to grasp an oar of opportunity can mean being left to drown. If you're already in the water, what do you choose to be under: the funnel as it topples from its gantry, or Clive Palmer jumping for his life? Decisions, decisions...

If you've read this far, then thank you for your perseverance, but you really do belong in a submersible.

I think I've done this metaphor to death, except to ask: when the unsinkable Titanic does finally hit the iceberg, who will end up on a life boat, who will be adrift in the water, and who will go down with the ship, never to be seen again?