Keep on keeping the Democrats honest

I disagree with Rachel (Yoursay, 30 July). I quite enjoy reading about Ah Satan and how she’s growing into her name ‘Despot whatever’.
I seem to remember that Don Chipp founded the Dems because he didn’t like being pushed around by Malcolm Fraser.

Malcolm has since found his feminine side, and the Dems are growing balls. I beg your pardon, going to balls. The socialist fervour which they used to pursue their policies of balance and honesty, has honestly been replaced with a fervent, unbalanced socialite who misses party meetings due to hangovers.

Sometimes when I feel a bit down, I pull out an old video called ‘Women in Parliament’. I like to see Ah Satan as the idealistic yet frumpy Senate candidate carrying extra weight and dressing like a maths teacher in Docs.

Then I get the movie out ‘The Candidate’ with Robert Redford and think, my God! Life really does imitate art, doesn’t it?

The Natasha Look Alike

CRIKEY: (no – its our heroin) Hillary Thank you, thank you, thank you. Hillary lives in fear of appearing obsessive about Natasha and the Dems – but they deserve some serious scrutiny. You can promise the world when you’re never going to be in government – and avoid dotting the Is and crossing the Ts. If the Gallery hacks aren’t prepared to do it, someone has to.

The Hindenburg hits the spot

I was thrilled to read Joe Hockey’s opinions on migration and the future of Australia. At last, I thought, a politician with a vision of this country beyond being a roomy South Pacific nursing home in 20 years or so. Since then the debate has fizzled, again. The two party dictatorship seems to have decreed that Australia will dwindle into ever more insignificance. I suggest we can do better by inviting useful people to stay in this country if they’ve already made the effort to come here as students as working holidaymakers. Let me give two examples.

A couple of days ago I had dinner with four Bangladeshi students. They live in a crappy little house in inner Footscray, as bare as the simple homes they grew up in (I’d met one, Nurul, in his home town of Sylhet). They sleep three to a room, they share one old computer, and when they’re not studying they work the nightshift at service stations and 7/11s. From the way they live you’d be forgiven for thinking they were illiterate illegal immigrants, but they’re all legit students studying their guts out for graduate diplomas in IT, and they’re all aiming to continue on to MBAs.

Why don’t we offer guys like these a working visa if they graduate, maybe with the carrot of citizenship after a few years? I can imagine people saying they’ll
all want to stay, but two out of four of them insisted they would return to their country, and the other two weren’t so sure. How could we lose? Some might go home, some might stay, some might alternate between the two before they decide. Either way we win their experience and their absolute determination to improve their lives.

The problem has been, of course, that migrants end up in Sydney and Melbourne. But that’s not the same as saying Australia risks becoming overpopulated through immigration, it just points up the failure of regional development. Any where else in the world the vast Queensland coast would support 20-40 million people without it being unusually crowded. Tasmania, which doesn’t have any water shortages after they dammed everything, actually has a falling population which might bottom out at 350,000.

That’s similar to the population of Iceland, which has a strikingly different climate and landscape. Tasmania more closely resembles Ireland, with 4.5 million people. I believe Tasmania could easily support ten times as many people, and perhaps at last cast off the married-cousin jokes. It seems pretty obvious that Australia could support twice our current population, if migrants could be encouraged to look beyond the two main cities.

Which brings me to another idea, and another person I met. Lisa was a Yorkshire abattoir worker who came to Australia on a working holiday, whom I met travelling in India. She had stayed in Sydney for a few months, and met some bloke who ran a meatworks in Culcairn, a hayseed town about 100km from Albury-Wodonga. He offered her a job, and she lived and worked in Culcairn for six months. She said she loved it, and would have happily stayed if she could. She’d tried, and failed. She’s obviously not the sort of university-graduate, middle-class multilingual politically acceptable wanker our current immigration policy demands (sorry, no disrespect to the traumatised refugees and detention-centre victims we let through after a few months or years of bureaucratic grilling). She’s a down-to-earth woman, fond of a beer, a smoke and a rude joke or two, the kind of person who can adapt to small-town life.

So how about letting people like Lisa stay her in Australia if they’re willing to work and live in regional Australia. She’d already got a job and settled in with the locals, so what other assistance could she need. Obviously not everyone on a working-holiday visa from Europe or Nth America or Japan is going to want to live in a place like Culcairn, but some fit in just fine. If regional shires and state governments could have a quota for a certain number of immigrants they think they can absorb, why not let these become available to people who are already settling in. They could be offered a deal whereby they get citizenship in four years or so, as long as they’re registered to vote in regional Australia and if they need to resort to unemployment benefits, they have to draw them from the local office (probably miles away anyway). And as I said before, if these people have already chosen to come to Australia rather than the US or wherever, they obviously demonstrated a liking for the place.

The kind of people who are happy to live in rural Australia are probably going to be of similar cultural/ethnic origins to the majority of the local population, ie European. But that’s no different to the way it is now under our scrupulously PC immigration policy. A Bangladeshi IT professional would tend to gravitate to Melbourne or Sydney, while a Yorkshire abattoir worker might live in the country., where the work is. If we can boost population growth in regional cities like Cairns and Darwin and Hobart can grow to become mid-sized cities, non-European migrants would have more options than Sydney, Melbourne and a couple of other state capitals.

Personally I’m suspicious of middle-aged greenies talking about an environmentally sustainable zero-population growth country. Yes, we have our environmental constraints, but let’s have some faith in environmentally sound technologies and a seriously big, relatively wealthy country. Scratch the surface of a few Stevie Nicks dressalikes and see how many of them actually fear the ethnic kids in rap clothes and all the other rude people who don’t speak like them or take vegetarianism so seriously.

There is a nexus between One Nation’s open xenophobia and the Greens attitude to immigration which has pushed the two real political parties to decide a pro-immigration policy is far too courageous, in the sense that Sir Humphrey Appleby of Yes Minister calls ideas ‘courageous’. One Nation just don’t want no more of them chinks and spics round their place. The Greens would rather lock the gates and only let in the nobly pitiful (eg post-Tiananmen Chinese students, and refugees who’ve suffered more than most) and some wealthy, well-educated migrants who might be nice to have round for dinner.

I don’t think I want to live in an ageing backwater known mostly for staging sporting events. I’d rather live in a young, growing, progressive country, one which can influence the world with a bit of clout rather than timidly fretting over giant Asian neighbours and sucking up to the US. Yes it would be fab to live in a gigantic national park but let’s face it, in 30 years 24 million Australians won’t count for much in a region where India has 1.4 billion people, Indonesia (whatever shape it’s in) has 300 million and even Bangladesh has 250 million. I’ve gone on long enough, but Australia’s current vision of a lingering decline is at least one factor why five of my most motivated friends have left to work in the US, Asia and Europe. I’ve done that too, but I’d actually rather live here though it means less opportunities.

Joe Hockey might have bungled HIH, but at least he’s got some sort of a vision for the country, more than you can say for John, Kim or (god forbid) Natasha.

Love your work by the way, keep it up,

Richard Plunkett

CRIKEY: (no – it’s our heroine again)Hillary: We love your work too, Richard. It was a pity Joe’s intervention was so cack-handed – he was really attacking Bob Carr for the exactly the same reasons that Hillary calls him The Malthus of Maroubra. Immigration is good for economic growth and the apocalyptic greenies are just recycling the completely discredited Club of Rome crap from 30 years ago that we’d run out of everything and be starving by, oh, around 2001.

Tony O’Leary is a great spinner

I read with interest your thoughts on Coalition ‘spinners’ and in
particular comments that Tony O’Leary had been a ‘third rate hack’ before joining
the staff of the Prime Minister. You didn’t mention that he was also a senior
producer for the Ten Network before that. I have not always agreed with Tony O’Leary
but I think he has done a first rate job under difficult circumstances in the
Prime Minister’s office. Personally, I ran a country television news network
in the Press Gallery before joining the Coalition to work (for the past seven
years) in politics. Does that make me a regional television journalist even though I have also held several senior positions at every television network in the country as well as the United States and New Zealand over a thirty year period? I
have worked (mainly as a Chief of Staff) for five Minister’s in this
Government and it is, at times, a tough ask, egos and abilities aside. Tony O’Leary has
the toughest media job in Government, he has earnt his stripes by any
measure!

Russ Street.

CRIKEY: Can’t say I agree with you Russ. People on the Herald Sun who worked with O’Leary didn’t rate him. People say he has
rat cunning but he has failed to build many bridges with the media and even with Tony Nutt and Petro Georgio spending billions
in government advertising, the government remains unpopluar. The government salesman have not done a good job
and O’Leary leads the charge.

Keating’s brain resource company dreams

Re “the brain resource company”:

No. I know nothing about the company. I do know things about the potential
technology, and the potential market as I’m a medical specialist with experience in bioengineering and that gets you the right to an opinion).

I think it is one of the more fanciful Ideas I have seen lately. The science
isnt there, the market isn’t there. I havent seen mention of anybody that
any medical specialist would trust anywhere. I cannot work out who would buy
the service. They are not pitching it as an investment to us, so they cannot
think that we would be buyers. (This is in stark contrast to some biotech
floats. It is not rare to get unsolicited fliers). I dont think they have
worked out how they will believeably measure anything. The last time I
thought about an idea this dumb was ‘north shore limited’ (NSL) which has
essentially no protectable intellectual property I can identify.

Mind you, I told a stockbroker 8 years ago that biota was full of hot air,
and I was right, for the right reasons, but they probably still made money
out of it in the meantime, so who am I to say that some people won’t get
rich on this.

Not many medical or science people invest in biotech because most of it
seems like hot air, and the comanies that are genuinely good have such
masive PE that it still is a huge lottery (eg CSL resmed cochlear). I can
unequivically say that there never was a time in the comercial life of any
of those companies, when they seemed as flakey as this.

I don’t want to see my name in print on this, so if you choose to ignore
these comments I would understand

Anon Doctor

CRIKEY: I’m still to look at the prospectus so will offer up an opinion after that. Keating was about to take a couple of public
directorships just before the whole Timor blow up last year but it looks like he’s coming back out of his shell again now.

Raunchy Rachel’s Big Mac Attack

Dear Crikey,

Congrats on not taking donations from Maccas, or anyone else naughty.

And congratulations on continuing to be a largely insignificant and obscure
‘whistle blowing’ site with an obsession for tabloid issues (such as Natasha
Stott Despoja’s hairdos), that has little relevance to the lives of ordinary
people.

It’s always good to hear from the ex-Liberal/Democrats searching for
prominence in the lives of the over-educated, middle-class, detached
political junkies who like to watch young Democrat lads at sexpo.

So, keep it up. I’m sure the six people who actually read the content of
your site will never be voting for Ah Satan again.

Good luck in your search for the ultimate in irrelevance.

rachael xx

p.s. go on – nasty reply coming my way – really put the boot in – it’ll make
you feel better…..you know you want to.

CRIKEY: Nice one Rachel. For the record, Neal Woolrich’s piece on Sexpo, which mentioned those naughty Dems and their stall,
had 507 downloads on Monday which is a very good day for one story. Only the Mike Munro story with 555 and Hillary’s new column
with 685 were deemed more relevant by the Crikey readers.

Col Allan a lightweight bully

Just picked up your excellent piece on Col Allan. As someone who worked with him in Murdoch’s london bureau for three years, let me just say that the guy is regarded here as a lightweight bully who couldn’t hack it in Fleet Street. Kelvin Mackenzie was over the road at the time and allan was both terrified of him and awestruck. Of course, Kelvin probably is the best tabloid editor Brit journalism (which means the world) has ever had. Even Rupert treated him with respect. We didn’t take Col seriously in the bureau; he was always trying to steal other people’s stories, for one thing. We regarded him as totally untrustworthy and a chancer. We were certainly not overawed by him. As for being a brilliant journo … forget it. A boozer
and a tosspot, yes. But not much else.

Anon

CRIKEY: I reckon this is a bit rough on Col. He is a good tabloid editor when not too drunk or in one of his abuse the power moods.
Then again, he can’t hold a candle to Kelvin MacKenzie.

It’s tough being an inhouse lawyer

The public flap over the postponement of Monday’s intriguing and depressing
4 Corners episode may or may not have been justified. What I found
interesting however was the revelation that Shier was “gunning” for Judith
Walker, the head of the ABC’s Legal Branch.

Speaking as a former govt lawyer I have some sympathy for Judith. There’s
been a real tendency among the new breed of red meat-eating baby boomer
managerialist agency head to denigrate their legal branch. You see,
in-house lawyers have a terrible habit of telling the CEO that the slight of
hand, or cover up, or piece of duplicity they want to inflict on their
staff, Parliament or the public, is, well, illegal. As in against the law.
“That’s not practical” or “the law [ie the lawyer]is an ass” is the usual
retort to such unwelcome advice, followed by “brief it out to [name your top
5 firm, preferably one that makes donations to the Coalition] and see what
they think”.

What’s amazing is the unerring ability of the external firm to give the
advice your CEO wants. But try not to look too hard at the reasoning.

I’m not suggesting this happened in the instance of the recent 4 Corners
episode. On the contrary, it sounds like the external lawyers acted with
some probity (maybe they had not choice, given the public attention), and
the show went to air virtually untouched I believe. But every day,
somewhere in a Commonwealth agency, your managerialist CEO will be putting
the acid on a government lawyer who hasn’t given him the required answer,
and although it keeps the lawyers on their toes, which is a good thing, the
hidden corrosion of accountability should worry everyone.

Cheers

CRIKEY: Very well said. Anyone on the payroll – lawyers, accountants, auditors, consultants – will try to frame their advice in a way
that pleases the person handing over the cash. It’s just human nature. You need advisers who are not scared of losing their
job and inhouse lawyers with tenure can sometimes do this much better than the external lawyers. Then again, this can work in reverse
if the inhouse lawyer is scared of losing their job. When Today Tonight tried to broadcasting the Kennett share dealing yarn it was
inhouse lawyer who finally pulled it after a host of external lawyers gave it the all clear.

Dems take the cash and then sledge McDonalds

Hi! I’m an active Democrat, and have read your recent articles on the party with interest. There is a point I want to clarify, namely…
Yes, the Democrats did receive $10,000 from McDonalds. What isn’t being reported is that soon afterwards the Democrats issued a press release criticising McDonalds. Democrats policy is made by members – our policy is not there to be bought.

Many members, myself included, disapprove of the current methods of party fundraising, and are working to improve them. Unfortunately, the way the political system in Australia currently works, a party like the Democrats needs money in order to compete with the Liberals and the ALP, and that money has to come from somewhere.

The solution is either to take donations only from companies with ethical business practices, or, better still, to radically reform the system so that the ability of political parties’ to run winning campaigns is not dependent upon corporate donations.

Yours sincerely, Anna Garrett

CRIKEY: Crikey would never accept money from McDonalds in any circumstances and the Dems should also draw the line. Any publisher has the
same ethical dilemma as a political party. Whose products will they promote for money? We’ll be judged by the quality of people
advertising on our site just as the Dems should be judged and criticised for taking money from the likes of big banks, Packer
and McDonalds.

Why is Crikey so blokey?

Stephen, I’m not sure why women don’t subscribe to crikey. Perhaps it’s because women don’t usually have much of an interest
in current affairs and politics. Perhaps it’s because the left are more adept and giving women the impression that their views are
taken more seriously. And perhaps you need to rethink your own tone occasionally ie. the first paragraph of this email.

The inappropriately jokey tone aside (someone has, after all, been murdered), I need to pick you up on your logic. I don’t know
how you can simultaneously argue that WTO protesters and their ilk have no right to prevent democratically elected people
attending a legal meeting, but that harassing people seeking a legal medical procedure is “pretty harmless”. Harmless to who? Oh,
you of course.

I also thought the protesters at East Melbourne were pretty harmless when I lived around the corner from the clinic. They were
merely a source of amusement. Then I found myself having to go inside the clinic to support a friend and let me assure you, it’s
pretty bloody menacing when you take into account the graphic posters and the fact that patients are emotional anyway.

I even had the pleasure of watching them decend onto a woman arriving alone who could not have been much more than 16 and
looked terrified.

Just the occasional expression of charity and concern from the conservative side would do wonders for their appeal.

Otherwise, thanks for producing such quality stuff.

Anon

CRIKEY: Point taken re the East Melbourne comments. I guess that business and politics are
still largely blokey areas and that’s why only 22 per cent of our subscribers are
women. Maybe we need some special features to attract more women readers. Anyone got
any ideas?

Packer promos for digital TV

Did you see the ad on 48 Mins for digital TVs and
their astounding, amazing capabilities? Desperately
trying to run away from the TV on Sunday night, (due
to the trash Ten was chucking at us), I was riveted by
the blatant advertising, scripted incredulity and
basic conflict of interest. But what can we expect
from Packer and his cohorts?

keep up the good work, alan

PS. perhaps Rehame could get you a copy of the tape?

CRIKEY: And isn’t it a shame that hardly anyone is bothering to take it up because of the
complete digital stuff up by Alston on the urging of the free-to-air networks.

Kimberley Kitching is straight

Dear Editor

Congratulations on your generally excellent coverage of the Melbourne City
Council elections. I’ve followed Crikey from the days of jeffed.com and
think it’s getting better all the time.

“S.Gilbert” (understandably reluctant to identify him or herself further)
falsely claims in Yoursay that one of my endorsers – Georgina Weir -endorsed
me because she had or has a planning application before the Council.

What nonsense! The last thing someone wanting to win friends and influence
people on the Council would do is endorse ONE candidate of the one hundred
and thirty five hopefuls.

“S.Gilbert” also falsely states that there will be “shabby deal-making” in
relation to Georgina’s application if I’m elected. Again, nonsense. I’ll
decide each and every issue on its merits, as I do on the boards I’m on.
I’ll never vote on any issue in which I have an interest.

“S.Gilbert’s” suggestion otherwise is the kind of shabby, gutter politics
that led the previous Council into so much trouble. It’s why Melbourne needs
a Fresh Start.

“S.Gilbert,” you feel free to question Georgina’s motivation so let me
question yours, what’s your full name for a start ? Are you involved in any
campaign or do you just enjoy throwing muck from the sidelines? Are you a
voter in the election ?

You don’t question the motivation of the dozens of other endorsees or
endorsers, so I’m puzzled to know why you single out mine.

Crikey believes rightly in full disclosure so let’s hear your story if
you’re courageous enough to tell it. I hope you put up or actively pursue
the alternative.

As for it being little known that the people who’ve endorsed me are friends,
that really is an absurdity too. Of course, they are friends. Are friends
disqualified from giving endorsements ? I’d rather have the endorsements of
people who know me well than someone who didn’t. In all three cases, they
are friends who have enough faith in my ability to do the job to publicly
endorse me. I’m honoured they’ve done this and will continue to work hard to
get the chance to prove them right.

Continued success Crikey,

Kimberley Kitching

CRIKEY: Well said Kimberley. It is hard to give too much credibility to someone calling themselves
Gilbert Sullivan but thanks for clearing that up.

Does journos union donate to ALP?

Dear Crikey,

Should it be found that the MEAA has donated to the ALP it is time that
political reporters who are members of this alliance have a disclaimer at
the end of their article, similar to that of those business reporters who
own shares.

Joe Bloggs

CRIKEY: A very good point and we’d be keen to hear from the MEAA on this. I suspect the journalists division does not donate
but the Actors Equity and other wings would have over the years.

Turnbull for NSW Premier

Quite fascinating don’t you think? Turnbull was today appointed deputy treasurer of the NSW Liberal Party. No
doubt his next move will be to gain pre-selection for Vaucluse. The only
question that remains unanswered is, does he achieve election through a
by-election or the next State Election?
Not without it’s irony.
Premier Wran becomes Turnbulls partner.
Citizen Wran’s partner becomes Premier.
The full circle.

Prediction 1: Turnbull will become one of the best Premiers NSW has ever
had.

Prediction 2: Year 2005
Malcolm Turnbull Premier.
Lucy Turnbull Lord Mayoress.
Australia a Republic.

nq…Liberals 4 Ever.

CRIKEY: Plucked this one of a bulletin board. It forgets to mention that Peter Reith will be Premier of NSW by then. The grand plan goes
that the state Libs in NSW and Vic have no potential premiers in their ranks so it will be Malcolm “I’m worth $120 million” Turnbull
for NSW and Peter “ding aling” Reith for Victoria.

Defo battles: Bowles vs Rule

Dear Crikey

Defamation issues aside, Andrew Rule should not bandy around the term hack
too much. His own recent documentary take (ABC? about 2 months ago?) on the
Jennifer Tanner case was replete with lame personal asides. Nor have his
efforts for The Age over the years been without gratuitous atmospherics or
over-hammed prose. I think he was justified in taking Robyn Bowles to task
for faking sources etc. On the other hand nobody scores any palpable hits
trotting out the typo count or twitting the author for sloppy editorial
practice. The whole thing reeks of personal grudges. No doubt Rule is
almighty shat off Bowles wrote the best-sellers after he’d done so much of
the original journalistic follow-through. On pain of giving the impression
his main motivation was personal maybe he should have considered passing on
the review to someone else. All the same Bowles is being a ridiculous drama
queen. (Surely she might have come up with a strongly-worded reply defending
her methods.) The whole spectacle of these two warriors for justice
soldiering even more doggedly for the sake of wounded vanity is, well,
hardly very edifying, is it?

Well-satisfied subscriber, Cameron S

CRIKEY: Jounos suing journos (or authors in this case) is never a very edifying spectacle. Clearly Andrew Rule was best placed to
review the book but the viciousness of the attack would suggest he was also personally motivated. Maybe we’ll find out in court
if a reviewer can be motivated by malice. Remember when Leo Schofield went down for a restaurant review.

Akerman to the right what Halfpenny was to left

Hi Stephen, totally agree with your sentiments on Akerman.

People who were in the ABC in the early ’90s say that their experiences with John Halfpenny are instructive. In various panel
discussions on where-is-Labor-going, and on every area of government policy related (or not) to industrial relations, some bright
spark in the ABC decided to use Halfpenny; indeed he was very available and always ready to sink the boot in to someone or
other. After a while Keating’s office got sick of Halfpenny being the self-appointed conscience of the ALP. Wrists were slapped
within the ABC until even the lowliest producer understood that calling Halfpenny wasn’t worth the grief, even in stories related
directly to Victorian Trades Hall.

In the early ’90s Channel 9 used to use Bruce Ruxton as the face of Australian conservatism, until his profile mysteriously
nose-dived in about ’94.

Who would you substitute Akerman with? Miranda Devine? Greg Sheridan? Paul Sheehan? Surely there is some disaffected but
still committed staffer who wants to set up as the next Gerard Henderson or Grahame Morris. Your mate Greg Barns is trying to
depoliticise the republic; he’d look pretty silly if he got all partisan himself. Jeff Kennett should have less and less to occupy his
time these days. Michael Kroger is less accessible than he used to be, and we’ll have to wait until after the election to get Peter
Reith. Maybe it should be that elusive creature, “the right-wing Phillip Adams”.

CRIKEY: And isn’t it ironic that Akerman and Halfpenny went head to head in Victoria for a couple of
years when Piers was running the Herald Sun into the ground and the Halfpenny-Kirner
duo were running Victoria into the ground.

Token lefty claims leftist hegemony

Stephen,

As the “token lefty” on Crikey I beg the chance to remind your readers of a
few facts, seeing as I am sorta marginalised by such a tagline.

By the end of the year Labor will be in power Federally and in every state
in Australia. I hear they are a chance in the MCC too.

Canada has been ruled by the left-of-centre Chretien Liberal Government
since 1993 and they won the 1999 election by a huge margin.

Your man Tony Blair has a massive majority in the UK and doesn’t seem to be
going anywhere soon. While British Labour may not be the red flag waving
outfit it once was, it is hardly Thatcherite, despite what the jealous Right
may allege.

Gerhard Schroeder and his red/green coalition in Germany are finally
managing to get some steam up after years of corruption, mismanagement and
economic decay under Helmut Kohl’s right wing Christian Democrats.

And were it not for some truly questionable antics down Florida way, the US
would have had as left a President as possible in the arsenal of democracy,
Al Gore.

Not only that, the Right seems to be losing its raison d’etre across the
world, especially as every WTO/World Bank/IMF meeting is being met by more
and more protestors determined to take back the power right wing politicians
have sold to business.

The Australian Right is splitting at the seams, the Canadian Right is doing
similar and lets not even mention the UK Tories.

The list goes on and on. In fact, the only places I know of with functioning
right-wing governments are Russia, Afganistan and Zimbabwe.

One more thing, for all the right promotes its economic management skills,
or more, spreads lies that the Left cannot run an economy, who was in power
during the Long Boom of the mid-late ’90’s?

It was left-of-centre (in varying degrees and circumstances) leaders like
Clinton, Blair, Schroeder and so on who managed to create the biggest global
economic expansion in human history.

So perhaps I’m not so much a “token lefty” as the “voice of reason”?

Cheers and remember — LA LOTTA CONTINUA!

Rory Cahill

CRIKEY: Yeah, yeah, yeah Rory. When presented with arguments like this you’ve just got to
remind yourself what Gough did Australia and what Kirner did to Victoria.

Courier, Four Corners and due credit

stephen,

re: Courier-Mail, Four Corners and due credit.

Memories … I worked at Queensland Newspapers for The Courier-Mail & The
Sunday Mail from 1979 to 1987.

(I remember getting severely told off, when I was a cadet circa 1980-81, by
the CM’s editor for being disrespectful for having the audacity of asking
that nice police commissioner Terry Lewis a blunt question about police
corruption. Lewis – much later jailed for corruption – was giving a guest
speech to Queensland Newspaper cadets about police/journalist relations.)

The Moonlight State was a follow-up on a series of investigative articles
written by Phil Dickie for The Courier-Mail. I can’t see why there should be
any tension about that – publication and broadcast dates could be checked,
showing The Courier-Mail published damning allegations relating to
corruption and organised crime in Queensland well before the Four Corners
report went to air. It was the first and only show of guts I can recall from
during my time at The Courier-Mail, which was appallingly sycophantic
towards the police, state government and the establishment generally.

However, serious allegations of Queensland Government and police corruption
were published much earlier – in 1984 – by election candidate and
shit-stirrer Fast Buck$ (aka Byron Bay local Jon Anderson), in a series of
“Pink pamphlets” (he called “Pinkies”) which I helped distribute. (Fast
Buck$’ running mate, “Sir Peter Livecy”, or some absurd name like that,
stayed at my place in Highgate Hill during that election campaign.)
And informed attacks on the Bjelke-Petersen Government and Queensland
police were aired on Brisbane community radio station 4ZZZ-FM (where I was a
volunteer announcer in the mid-80s) since it began broadcasting in the
mid-70s, in satirical magazine The Cane Toad Times since the early 80s and
throughout the Joh era in student papers such as Semper at Queensland
University and Planet at what was then QIT (now QUT).

regards, anon

CRIKEY: The question of the Courier Mail and Four Corners in relation to the Fitzgerald inquiry is something we are exploring presently.
Chris Masters is still bitter towards the Courier for some reason but a lot of independent observers give Phil Dickie much of the
credit. Strangely, Dickie, who is one of Australia’s most sued journalists with 29 writs and his head held high, appears to have fallen
out with the Courier Mail as well these days whereas Masters is still senior reporter on Four Corners.

Give us more spin doctor lists

Stephen

Your list of current Labor media spinners is commendable. It’s high
time some of those rocks were over-turned to see what lurks beneath.

However, please don’t stop there. Let’s have similar lists covering
all parties.

However, it’s clear from the heavily biased bullshit spouted on the
ABC, in particular, that a list of former ALP media types would be
just as germane. (Am I the only one who believes that loaded terms
like ‘government backflip’ should not have any place in the main news
bulletins of the day on a publicly funded, allegedly ‘independent’
broadcaster? The blatant partisanship of so many ABC news reports and
news commentary is downright disgraceful.)

I don’t think that the leopards change their spots either, and you
only have to watch the body language of the likes of Cassidy, O’Brien,
Negus and other former high-placed ALP staffers to know that their
Labor links are still well-greased and fully functional.

Love the new format, btw.

Mike Burke

CRIKEY: We are working on other lists and would love the complete rundown from someone of the current Howard Government
spinning list. You shouldn’t condemn journalists for political jobs 25 years ago but I agree the ABC has too many of these former
Labor staffers in the big positions.

Leave Paul Keating alone

Where’s the story on the piggery? Not the rather overheated and
flimsy effort by the Packers to ‘do’ PJK. The real story is that
Heffernan (and Baume?) have been exposed.

Rather than do your usually excellent effort in exposing the real
motives of the media (in this case the Packers – who wins, who
loses?), you focus on what remains a dog of a story about
Keating’s supposed misdeeds.

Surely Crikey’s usually excellent Lib/Nat intelligence can ‘decipher’
this one. Get to it, Hillary. Can do better.

CRIKEY: Crikey reckons Paul Keating has been up to a few questionable things and his wealth should be explained. You use the Col Allan
defence of his mate by demanding that the story is Packer’s motivations and not what Al Constantinidis revealed. The fact of the
matter is that Packer did not even know about the story until a few days before it went to air. We should be encouraging more
dirt digging in politics, not less.

Why politics is so blokey

Hi guys,

Was very interested in the letter in yoursay titled “Why is Crikey so
blokey?”.

I am not a subscriber, but I am a frequent reader. I actually find crikey
really useful. As a woman in a political party, it is one of my better
sources of political insider info. This is because whilst I may go down to
the pub with the blokes, they change what they talk about because I am
there. It is not a deliberate thing, it is just force of habit on their
part. They don’t talk to women in the same way that they talk to men.

The informal networks that men have are really hard to break in on. I often
find myself in meetings listening to people and thinking “how the hell did
you all know that?”. The answer is, they talk to each other in a way they
don’t talk to me. (Oh, the meetings I go to are usually about 75-80% male,
with the exception of my local branch which has a record current level of
60% male.)

On first read I am sure that this will get a lot of backs up. The men I
work with are NOT sexist, biased or misogynistic. In fact they are some of
the best I have worked with, and are, in the main, great friends of mine as
well. My point is that because of the way we are socialised to relate to
each other as “men” & “women”, women lose out on a hell of a lot of key
information about how to behave & what is going on. It is like playing a
game & finding out the rules one rule at a time. It is really exhausting.
There is a point where you seriously consider giving up, and I think a lot
of women do.

SO, advice for Crikey? Keep doing what you are doing. The problem is that
women don’t know you are here, and don’t know how useful it can be for them.
If you can think of a way of remedying that, you may be on to a winner.

Regards, Rosalyn Pursey

PS The only thing may be that you should stop emphasising the sport
thing, or maybe just include which netball team your candidates support!!

CRIKEY: I reckon membership of political parties would run 80-20 in favour of blokes – about the same ratio as Crikey’s subscribers.
If anyone from the parties has some stats on this I’d love to see them. And if you know any sheilas out there, tell ’em we exist
and the three people who really pull the strings at Crikey are Hillary, Paula and Rose – three luvly lasses.