Media
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Sandra Jones. Don’t worry about the kids: Let’s just protect the alcohol industry
A recent study from Monash University found that a quarter of all alcohol advertising on Australian TV was during televised sports. Importantly, 86% of alcohol advertising between 6.00am and 8.30pm (that is, when kids are most likely to be watching TV) was during sports programming. The broadcast of alcohol advertisements on commercial television in Australia Continue reading »
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Quentin Dempster. Rupert Murdoch destroys freedom of the press.
In a recent address to the Medico-Legal Society of NSW, Quentin Dempster has referred to the parlous state of journalism and the media and particularly the damage being caused by Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. It is a no-holds barred speech about the damage that Rupert Murdoch is doing. See link to the speech below. Continue reading »
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Clive Hamilton. Damned Lies, Minister Hunt and Climate Models.
If you believe what you read in the Daily Telegraph saving the planet must mean trashing the economy. That’s their story and they’re sticking to it, no matter what the evidence shows. If the numbers show the opposite, well, they have ways. And so last week the Murdoch tabloid took a bunch of numbers concocted Continue reading »
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Michael Keating. Is there a trade-off between equality and efficiency?
A critical policy issue has always been whether greater equality inevitably comes at a cost to the economic growth. For example, historically economists have typically believed that there is a trade-off between increased equality and efficiency. Even those economists who favour policies to improve equality have generally acknowledged that the transfers involved could reduce incentives Continue reading »
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David Holmes. Australia’s climate politics on a high wire.
(or – Murdoch and Abbott in climate dial duet) While the politicisation of climate change has transformed climate reporting into something of a circus, the Coalition’s announcement of a 26% emissions reduction target on 2005 levels for Australia by 2030 has surely placed its climate policy on a dangerous high wire. The high wire is Continue reading »
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John Menadue. The Senate saves the day on the Trans Pacific Partnership.
The Senate saves the day on the Trans Pacific Partnership. Often the Senate is seen as obstructive or worse. But it has performed a very useful purpose in helping to derail the Trans Pacific Partnership. Hopefully the TPP will not be put back on track. According to the New York Times, our Trade Minister Andrew Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Parliamentary reform and the new Speaker.
In my post of 12 May this year ‘Democratic renewal and our loss of trust in institutions’, I wrote about our loss of trust in so many institutions including our parliament and political parties. If Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten want to improve public debate and restore some faith in our public institutions the election Continue reading »
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David Holmes. Tony Abbott, Rupert Murdoch and coal.
As the latest State of the Climate report reaffirms 2014 to be “the hottest on record”, the NSW Liberal Party is pressing ahead with plans for a “Carnival of Coal” in August. The party’s upper house whip, Peter Phelps, has appealed to members to download a sticker for MP office doors in support of the Continue reading »
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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 »
