Tamed Estate: Budget Week

Oct 11, 2020

This week has been dominated by the budget. And that means the traditional pre-budget leaks dutifully reported by the media. These were followed by post-budget revelations that the budget announcement was full of already announced measures. 

Tamed Estate

In a round of ‘pre-budget announcements,’ Scott Morrison signalled that he had allocated an additional $60 million to domestic violence prevention, by funding 700 new places for women and children fleeing domestic violence. The announcement was picked up by News.com.au by as Crikey pointed out this was in face a re-announcement of a re-announcement with applications for the 700 places having already closed in February.

Moving onto the budget leaks.

Despite it now being old news, on Monday Frydenberg tried to sow the ground for positive coverage on the upcoming Budget by dropping leaks to the mainstream at large. The  SMH and the Australian dropping together, with Simon Benson even getting himself an exclusive. Which went against our theory of feeding all chooks equally.

Feeding the Chooks: Scott Morrison’s marketing triumph over mainstream media

The Guardian and the AFR also were given drops early on Monday morning, indicating what the Treasurer planned Tuesday’s big reveal.

The fun didn’t just stop with the budget. Albanese’s post-budget speech was also heralded by the faithful in the mainstream with the Conversation, The Guardian, The Australian and the AFR all reporting uncritically on Labor’s planned $20b for renewable infrastructure and the $6 billion for childcare.

Unfortunately, that’s all for this week. A slow week dominated by the budget. Next week we will focus on corporate interference in the mainstream and the lack of coverage of Asian region events by the Australian press.

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