Media
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John Menadue. A graph on boat arrivals for lazy journalists.
I have reposted below an article I wrote on 8 December last year pointing out that Tony Abbott did not stop the boats. But the debate proceeds, assisted by journalists who still claim that Tony Abbott stopped the boats. He didn’t. So that my argument can be better understood, see the graph below which reveals Continue reading »
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Tony Smith. Wasting money on domestic violence?
The implementation of most Government policies requires some kind of expenditure. One of the laziest approaches an Opposition can adopt is to cite slogans about cost. This sloganeering is at its most shallow when arguing that the Government is just ‘throwing money at the problem’. Needless to say, there are occasions when this criticism is Continue reading »
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John Menadue. What a dreadful week.
Last week an important public debate on key issues facing Australia was sabotaged by Tony Abbott, Joe Hockey and News Corp. The old scare campaigns were back again. Bill Shorten’s timidity did not help. Paul Keating commented ‘We have a political culture that has the ambition of a gnat’. He is right. Instead of a Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Q&A – Why bother with Ministers?
The ABC has tied itself into a knot in trying to appease the government and get ministers back on Q&A. But why bother? If ministers aren’t allowed or don’t want to go on the program, so be it. They would not be missed and neither would most members of the shadow ministry. I must confess Continue reading »
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Kerry Breen. The Australian Medical Association vs. The Medical Journal of Australia.
Troubles at the Medical Journal of Australia and the birth of ‘Friends of the MJA’ The Medical Journal of Australia (MJA) has been in existence for over 100 years and has become the most important national publication for every aspect of the health and health care of Australians. It is owned by the Australian Medical Continue reading »
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Peter Day. Warning: role models may shrink
Role models: We love them. We look up to them. We say we need them. We want to know them. We want to live through them. But who are they, and what purpose do they serve? In Australia they tend to be sportsmen and celebrities of note: young people who can kick a footy, smash Continue reading »
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Warwick Elsche. Heads must roll at ABC, but not at ASIO
“Heads must roll;” words from the Prime Minister Tony Abbott. And in case you missed them he said them twice – on national TV. He was talking of the ABC and presumably some executives who failed to detect the “threatening” presence of a convicted Islamist sympathizer Zaky Mallah in the audience of popular current affairs Continue reading »
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Ian McAuley. The ABC and a second chance.
Current Affairs Most reasonable people would be fully behind Mark Scott’s spirited defence of the ABC “as a public broadcaster, not a state broadcaster”, reminding us that “at times, free speech principles mean giving platforms to those with whom we fundamentally disagree.” Tony Abbott’s reaction to Zaky Mallah’s remarks on Q&A is comparable to the Continue reading »
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Walter Hamilton. Why I am an Australian citizen
Current Affairs. Amid all the howling about terror, treason and the ABC, Australians seemingly have lost the ability to stop, listen and think. Everyone is in such a hurry to outdo the next person in vilifying and repudiating the ‘other’, whether it is a Muslim Australian, a political opponent or a commercial rival. I can’t Continue reading »
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Mark Scott. The ABC belongs to all of us.
Current Affairs. Address by Mark Scott Centre for Corporate Public Affairs’ Annual Corporate Public Affairs Oration Thursday 25 June 2015 From time to time, I’m asked to speak to journalism students about what it’s like working in a news room. I often reflect that for all the planning you can do around big news events—an election, Continue reading »
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Rod Tiffen. Murdoch’s declining influence.
Current Affairs Labor might not have noticed it yet, but Rupert Murdoch’s capacity to influence the outcome declines with each passing election. Over the past eight months, Victoria and Queensland have voted out first-term Liberal governments despite the best efforts of the Murdoch press in those states. Their slanted front pages, unfair coverage and combative Continue reading »
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Robert Manne. Papal Encyclical and Cardinal Pell
Current Affairs In The Monthly on 31 October 2011, Robert Manne recalled the efforts of Cardinal George Pell to discredit the case of those who were concerned about climate change. Cardinal Pell said that Robert Manne was following fashionable opinion on the subject. Extracts from Robert Manne’s article follow below. John Menadue. In the Sydney Morning Continue reading »
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Wiryono Sastrohandoyo. Getting the Australia-Indonesia relationship back on track.
John Menadue asked me to discuss how best to get Australian-Indonesian relations back on track, although I agree that this is a politically sensitive issue and weighing it up may not be the prudent thing to do while there is still a lot of anger in the heart of many Australians and Indonesians. The anger on Continue reading »
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Walter Hamilton. Constitution Day in Japan
Last Sunday was Constitution Day in Japan. The national holiday memorializes the historic fact that, in 1947, for the first time Japanese embraced the principle that sovereignty resides with the people––not an emperor or a shogun, but the people. This is no ordinary year for thinking about Japan’s post-war Constitution, given that Prime Minister Shinzo Continue reading »
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Judith Crispin. Anzac day, the Armenian Genocide and destruction of cultural heritage in the Caucasus.
“Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating Continue reading »
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John Tulloh. An inconvenient centenary Turkey prefers to ignore.
The Gallipoli battle aside, you can be sure that Turkey will not be commemorating the centenary of another major event in its history this month. A few hours before Australian, New Zealand and other allied forces landed at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915, what has become widely known as the Armenian genocide got Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Murdoch is about ideology not tax dodging.
There was an interesting exchange between Julian Clarke, News Corp’s local boss, and Senator Christine Milne in the Senate Economic References Committee into Tax Avoidance. Julian Clarke spelt it out very clearly that Rupert Murdoch was running The Australian for ideological purposes. The exchange was as follows: “With due respect, I don’t expect you to Continue reading »
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David Stephens. The magic Anzackery pudding
Norman Lindsay was busy during World War I. When he wasn’t doing propaganda posters of slavering Huns or sketching buxom young women he was writing a children’s book called The Magic Pudding: being the Adventures of Bunyip Bluegum and his friends Bill Barnacle and Sam Sawnoff. The magic pudding was remarkable for its ability to keep Continue reading »
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Ian Webster. Alcohol-drenched cricket.
Michael Thorn is right; the ICC Cricket World Cup was an alcohol-drenched event (SMH Tuesday, 31st March 2015). Cricketers were once models of sportsmanship. There was even altruism and some became statesmen. Recall, “That’s simply not cricket.” No longer, as the game is subverted by money and alcohol. As I write, the ABC is broadcasting Continue reading »
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ICC Cricket World Cup: Alcohol-drenched culture needs to change.
Many media outlets today have drawn attention to the alcohol influenced behaviour of Australian cricketers as they celebrated winning the International World Cup. At the celebration in Federation Square in Melbourne yesterday morning, the Australian captain Michael Clarke seemed to be proud of the fact that all the team members had hangovers. In the link Continue reading »
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Andrew Wilson. More hospitals, more hospitals, more hospitals.
As Andrew Wilson points out, all major parties are obsessed with hospitals as the answer to our health problems. The three major shortcomings in health in Australia are mental health, indigenous health and rural health. These problems are best addressed outside hospitals. But ministers, the media and the community seldom think beyond hospitals. For ministers Continue reading »
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Andrea Carson. Heed Fraser’s warning on Australian media concentration – it’s getting worse.
The passing of former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser last Friday prompted me to recall his warning about the state of Australian media ownership in an interview I did with him during the last federal election. He said: “In my term, there were seven print proprietors. Now there is one and a bit. We have the Continue reading »
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Laurie Patton. The ‘metadata’ Bill.
The House of Representatives has passed, with amendments, the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014. The Bill requires telcos and Internet Service Providers to store certain information (called “metadata”) for a period of two years. Metadata is essentially the information that reveals the parties to phone and email communications and other things Continue reading »
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Spencer Zifcak. The Martin Place Siege
I first came across Man Haron Monis, the Sydney siege gunman, in early 2013. The High Court of Australia had just handed down an important new decision on the breadth of the protection the Australian Constitution provides for freedom of expression. The facts of the case centred upon offensive letters sent to the parents of Continue reading »
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Graham Freudenberg. Gough Whitlam Commemorative Oration.
You will see below what I think is a remarkable speech by Graham Freudenberg about Gough Whitlam’s contemporary relevance. This oration is much longer than I normally post on this blog, but it is an outstanding oration which I am sure you will enjoy. The Whitlam Institute will also be publicising this oration. John Menadue Continue reading »
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We should expect more.
In this article in The Guardian, Richard Flanagan, the Booker Prize winner, refers to the increasing ugliness in Australian public life. He says ‘Writing my novel “The Narrow Road to the Deep North” I came to conclude that great crimes like the Death Railway did not begin with the first beating or murder on that Continue reading »
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Denis Muller. The stitch-up by The Australian.
It is an ugly spectacle when a newspaper aligns itself with the executive government in an attempt to hound from office someone who can otherwise be removed only by the Governor-General. This is what The Australian is doing, in concert with Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Attorney-General George Brandis, to Australian Human Rights Commission President Continue reading »
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Quentin Dempster. Attacks on the ABC’s international broadcasting service.
Australian insularity and the strident xenophobia it generates is, I reckon, a significant drawback to our development as a responsive and engaged country in the Asia Pacific region. In this context it was immensely distressing to see the recent vandalising of this country’s international broadcasting services through Foreign Minister Julie Bishop’s unilateral decision to terminate Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Cover-up in the health system.
There is an unacceptable refusal by many in the health sector to publish data and information about how services are delivered. There is a cover-up by powerful providers who don’t want transparency and exposure about the way they work. At the Bundaberg Hospital some years ago it was clear that surgeons had little confidence in Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Climate change and the rise and demise of Tony Abbott.
Opposition to climate change was the vehicle for Tony Abbott to rise to the leadership of the Liberal Party. It is now making a major factor in his demise as Prime Minister. Tony Abbott regarded climate change as ‘absolute crap’ and in December 2009 he rallied the support of the right wing of the Liberal Continue reading »
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