Here’s why the media went berserk over Albo’s house:
1) Envy, jealousy, greed, loathing all sell newspapers, get clicks, ears and eyeballs. Whip up the punters: “He’s got something you haven’t.” For most media it’s a big part of the business model. @TurnbullMalcolm calls it ‘angertainment’, and he’s right.
2/ With a few honourable exceptions, the Canberra Press Gallery is either unwilling or unable to write informatively and entertainingly about real policy. Things that REALLY affect Australians. They’re transactional. Who’s up, who’s down, who’s in, who’s out. It’s the incestuous Canberra game. They like to think they’re players.
May 21, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Still downcast today at the death of Caroline Jones. 50 years ago - so far, far away - I had the good fortune to work with her on This Day Tonight. As she wrote later: "I joined a team of extremely competitive young men, most of whom went on to make their mark in the industry...
"...I did not find that a difficulty, and I found that I was treated with respect and friendship by the male members of the team." This is true. Not because she held her own, but because she led us. Her integrity, her honesty, her courage and skill as a reporter shone forth.
Jun 16, 2020 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
The more I observe this Somyurek affair, the more I’m convinced that there are wheels within wheels that both the political establishment and @theage are concealing from Victorian voters. Somyurek is trash and good riddance, but how did it happen ?
My guess is a sting - set up by elements of the Victorian ALP to record Somyurek’s crookedness. The recordings were professionally done, in the office of a federal Labor MP. But who organised them ? And why ? Presumably his factional enemies in the party. And good on ‘em. But...
May 30, 2020 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
The truly disgusting, disgraceful thing about the Robodebt theft is the Liberals' arrogant, 'de haut en bas' assumption that it was ordinary, everyday Australians who were ripping off the system. But who's really been doing it ?
How about Stuart Robert with his $35,000 internet bill ? Or Dutton, Abetz and Andrews charging the taxpayer >$6000 to fly to a private Liberal Party Tony Abbott tribute dinner in Sydney ? Bronwyn Bishop's famous $6000 helicopter junket from Melbourne to Geelong, among others ?
Apr 2, 2020 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Really,I'm bored to sobs by the infantile criticism of Scott Morrison here on Twitter. Not because I like him or his politics. I don't, as you well know. I'd lose a testicle rather than vote Liberal. But Morrison is shouldering a burden unmatched by any other Prime Minister.
More than John Curtin in 1942, or Scullin in 1929. The strain upon him must be near crushing. He will know that every decision he takes can be measured in jobs gone, in families hurt, in lives lost. Get it wrong and thousands more could die. Tens of thousands, perhaps.
Mar 21, 2020 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
When we get through these horrors - as most of us will - I hope for a new society. One which values the people who truly bore the load: the fireys, ambos, nurses, doctors, teachers, truckies, cops, cleaners - and yes, the shelf-stackers and checkout people at Woolies and Coles.
Neoliberal capitalism , an empire of castles in the air, has failed us utterly. The exaltation of the executive suite, with its $25m a year CEOs and its relentless greed in pursuit of “shareholder value, ” has helped propel us to the calamity that engulfs us.
Jan 31, 2020 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Over the years I have met, reported on and /or interviewed every Prime Minister, from Menzies to Turnbull. Some I knew well. Others barely at all. None was as shallow, as hollow, so utterly devoid of the qualities of leadership as #ScottyfromMarketing.
Menzies was a silver-tongued liar who took us into the disaster of Vietnam. McMahon, often labelled our worst Prime Minister, was a treacherous backstabber despised by most of his cabinet. Howard also lied us into a futile war and aroused our worst instincts of greed and racism.
Nov 10, 2019 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Really tired of hearing the blatant Right Wing lie that "environmentalists" and "greenies" are to blame for the bushfires. They trot it out every summer. The Greens are said to have banned hazard reduction. How they could do that I cannot imagine.
I took the trouble to read the Greens policy on bushfires. It strikes me as eminently sensible, and much of it is already followed or observed by rural fire services. There is NO demand for a ban on hazard reduction. Here's what they state:
