A bit of common decency for religion would be nice

Peter Jolly writes: Re. “The sisterhood? Jesus. How about common decency?” (today’s Campaign Crikey morning email, item 1). You make very fair points about the unfair treatment of Gillard from this perspective, but unfortunately this line of enquiry cannot be read in isolation. I haven’t read the articles you refer to but they do seem to be more of a dig into who the person is, what they believe in, what makes them tick rather than a simple sexist attack.

I see them in the same vein as comments around Abbots character due to his Catholic/Christian faith, belief system, and incessant exercising. Labor and the likes of yourself have played that card fairly fulsomely on Abbott. Fair enough perhaps as it gives us a sense about who the person is who wants to be prime minister. And given that policy debate is shallow and narrow there is not much else for the electorate to decide with. Plus I might add that Gillard appearing in a Women’s Weekly fashion photo spread seems to validate this shallow line of enquiry into the person.

Paid parental leave

Marie Coleman, the chair of the Social Policy Committee, National Foundation for Australian Women writes: The campaign for a national paid maternity leave scheme (later paid parental leave) which involved both women’s groups and the union movement, involved commissioning several opinion polls by the National Foundation for Australian Women with others.

The first was from Newspoll, the final one from Auspoll. Across the time frame or around two years the findings were consistently that:

  1. support for a paid parental maternity leave system was around 70% plus
  2. support was across both males and females
  3. support was lower among older people

So any comments attributed to Julia Gillard about who supported paid parental leave were based on matters of fact, publicly documented.

Anyone with a knowledge of political history knows that the approach by the Howard Government to the recommendations from Pru Goward as S-x Discrimination Commissioner for a system of paid maternity leave eventuated in the expanded universal Baby Bonus, in large part due to a well organised campaign on behalf of stay at home mothers. PM Howard made it clear at the time that the Baby Bonus was his approach to a national paid maternity leave scheme.

And indeed, at the final stages of the debates in parliament just a few weeks ago on the Government’s recently enacted Paid Parental Leave Bill, a similar vigorous campaign was run by some of the same people who had led the charge against the Goward scheme.

So, any comments attributed toGillard about demands for equal treatment by stay-at-home mothers are again based on matters of fact, well publicly documented.

I find it hard to see why it is in any way remarkable that a senior Minister in Cabinet discussion would make these obvious points — it would be more remarkable if Cabinet discussion did not have these facts introduced to assist in decision making.

Military and the media

Neil James, executive director of the Australia Defence Association, writes: Re. “Should politicians attend military funerals” (July 23, item 4) Even for the editor of a leftish literary magazine such as Overland, it was surprising to see Jeff Sparrow (“”, 23 July, Item 4) recommend the flawed book edited by Kevin Foster on the troubled relationship between our military and our media.

Among journalists and the military the best recent Australian book on military-media relations is instead widely judged to be The Military, the Media and Information Warfare (the proceedings of the two-day September 2008 Army History Conference), independently edited by UNSW professors Peter Dennis and Jeffrey Grey. This appropriately inclusive book features proper scholarly debate by a diverse range of Australian, British, American and German academics and journalists — the latter including famous US war correspondent, Joseph Galloway, and an excellent chapter by SBS TV’s Karen Middleton.

The Foster effort, in sharp contrast, is meant to be the full proceedings of a sparsely attended one-day November 2008 Monash University symposium but ended up including only those contributions Foster agrees with. Even its review in the Sydney Morning Herald (hardly a bastion of conservative views) emphasised that the book was biased and unbalanced.

In disclosure, the chapter Foster commissioned from me based on my symposium presentation was one of those censored out in a most unprofessional and un-academic manner.

Maloney’s Marginalia

Ros Envall writes: Re. “Maloney’s Marginalia: Herbert, a place “kicked up the arse by a rainbow”” (yesterday, item 1). Oh yes Shane Maloney — this is what I want to read about this election and the marginal seats –wonderful word pictures

Bob Smith writes: Congratulations on getting Shane Maloney to write about the marginal seats — designer mockery masquerading as ignorance. A blast!

Martin Copelin writes: This was a good story which needs to be corrected. Townsville is not Far North Queensland, it is in North Queensland. The far north starts at a few kilometres south of Tully. North Queensland goes south from there to around Sarina Queensland. After that it becomes Central Queensland.

ABC News 24

Gerard Henderson writes: Re.”Sky’s the limit in The Oz’s war on ABC News 24” (yesterday, item 5). The authors declare that I am one of “the critics of the ABC” who were “lined up” to criticise the public broadcaster for the story in The Weekend Australian of 25-26 July.  In fact, I have not spoken to The Australian about News 24.  Andrew Crook and Jason Whittaker would have been aware of this had they bothered to check with me or had they carefully read the original story in The Weekend Austalian.

Dave Lennon, who worked for the predecessor of the Australia Network , Australia Television and was part of a consortium that bid for the licence when it was first put up for tender in 2000, writes: Re. “Around the clock, and the world, glitch-free ABC 24 races to air” (July 23, item 5) Crikey lightly and wrongly dismissed the Australia Network as a waste of money. Why does News Ltd want it so bad, it’s $100 million over five years and that is chicken feed in TV terms?

The answer ais a powerful foreign policy tool that is watched by, i.e. has access to, the leaders and movers and shakers in the region and News Ltd has years of form in using its outlets to gain political favour for News Ltd.

If they get the Australia Network it will cease to be Australia’s voice in Asia and the Pacific and become Rupert’s voice for the greater profit of  Rupert, the well known American citizen.

Now tell me how that’s an appropriate use of Australian taxpayers money.

Election tidbits

Allan White writes: Tony Abbott has the (Dubya) swagger and the tough guy image, so when do we get to see him in battledress, helmet in hand? It’s a pity we don’t have an aircraft carrier.

Cyril Ashman writes: I love to be pedantic, but I don’t think this is being particularly so. Regarding yesterday’s Campaign Crikey editorial about Kate Legge’s article, you would think she could at least be bothered to Google the difference between Dr. Spock (real person- paediatrician) and Mr. Spock (fictional TV/film character).

Adios to Naughton’s

Terry Towelling, former Melbourne University Law student, writes:

What a shame to see the demise of Naughton’s. Having lost brain cells, teeth and, I suspect, any lingering chance of a degree with any sort of Honours on its sticky carpet, I suggest its alcoholumni would include some of Australia’s leading barristers, solicitors, surgeons, professors and a fair smattering of white collar criminals, not to mention the other professions so abundantly populated by graduates of the Royal Parade institution, whose infamy was underscored by the questionable vocal skills of a former Carlton captain.

Lift a glass this week, and perhaps Crikey could call for any last Naughto memories to be dredged from the faltering memories of the creaking Crikey Army.

Crikey Army fights back

Tim Mackay writes: Has Carolyn Whybird (comments, yesterday) lost her way on the internet? Carolyn, you can find the reassuring view of Piers Ackerman and the myriad of convoluted, press conspiracy theories of his ardent blog followers on the Tele’s website, not Crikey’s.

Brett Gaskin writes: Thanks for publishing Carolyn’s comments — it’s nice to have a little bit of Bolt now and then. Carolyn, would you consider Fox News the type of fair and balanced reporting you are looking for from the ABC?