Mood:
lazyTopic: aust govt
The big summit is coming mid April. Now we notice the vain silver bodgie in golf mode pictured in this story by Paul Kelly in The Australian:
Nation tired of confrontation, says Hawke | NEWS.com.au 6 March 2008
Onya Yellowcake Bob, and loquacious Paul! Youse surely must get an invite for that one.
But what about the devout Jewish folks double booked on Passover? Not to worry - Michael Danby has found another reason for Yiddish participation in the national Parliament precincts in mitigation - he's got married, which is surely above and beyond the call of ALP duty:
Jewish wedding in parliament | The Australian 25 Feb 2008 MICHAEL Danby, federal parliament's most active member of the Jewish community, brought the Jewish community to parliament yesterday.
Everyone loves a wedding. And many blessings on the happy couple too.
And for those others who can't make it (ie rejected applicants, or too dumb or smart to even apply) please don't behave like smelly dead fish in this 'nice' metaphor from Dennis the Menace:
Hard to reject what the best have to say | Dennis Shanahan Blog ... 29 Feb 2008.
There's a bit of a chummy theme getting worked up here in Mr Hartigan's newspaper of record The Australian now Tom Switzer has shuffled off as the opinion editor. Or is is proverbial naughty boy Lachlan Harris just back to his industrious self?
Activist cum flack becomes story | The Australian 14 Feb 2008
Lachlan Harris, one of Labor's top media advisers, with boss Kevin Rudd. Picture: Ray Strange
Harris who worked for the so called 'non aligned Get Up' .
Fortunately apart from the 5th estate blogocracy there still seem to be a few 'revolting journalists' (meant in a good way) in the Big Media left to speak truth to summit power, none too comfortable with any trusty script:
- Media Diary in the Oz 6th March refer to fiesty Fairfaxers who wouldn't take tidy up orders for the bosses tour of the workplace
- same column refers to page 1 of The Australian cropping out Walt Seccord's boss Minister for the Ageing.
- The Ch31 tv stations appear to have mostly bailed from the existing CBAA community radio representative body to amplify their particular advocacy for a digital future from 2013 or so: Always plenty of fiest in the community media sector as a rule and long may it be so: Community TV faces blackout | The Australian 6 March 08
- big man in heart and otherwise Harold Mitchell is also wanting some action from Govt on digital tv commercial sector let alone community: Troubled offspring needs more than soap and water | The Australian
Where indeed are they getting the calcium in their backbone lately? The fifth estate exemplar?
And why is this important?
Because PM Rudd showed in a spontaneous and quite human moment recently that, although he undoubtedly perfectly understand the constitutional theory of separation of powers (unlike disgraced fellow Queenslander Joh Bjelke Peterson), yet Big Kev still has the ALP hallmark sleazy approach to conflict of interest by inviting/attempting to subborn on air live the ABC's pre eminent Kerry OBrien, a former Labor staffer, to attend the grand summit:
KERRY O'BRIEN: Your ideas summit, 1,000 people engaged in 10 simultaneous mini-summits over a weekend in a couple of months' time. Can you really expect that a weekend spread so broadly to lead to a whole new burst of policy vision, a 20 year vision or a 10 year vision?
KEVIN RUDD: Are you suggesting to me, Kerry, that it's not worth rolling the arm over and having a go? What I've discovered you know, in the last six weeks or so that we've been in government is that right across the country and certainly within the bureaucracy, there's been a bit of a lid on things.
A whole lot of people have got some real ideas about the future direction of the country. The bureaucracy in my experience seems to have suffered from a culture whereby they feared there was a right answer and a wrong answer and if they gave the wrong answer they had get into strife. I think it's time to turn the page on that.
Secondly we've been, I think, plagued as a nation by too much short-termism, short electoral cycles. It's time to look out to a 10 year vision to the country.
Secondly, harness the energies, enthusiasm and ideas of the nation, and guess what? Everything that gets put forward in this summit is not going to be flash. It's not going to be completely useable the next day. But if you get a dozen good ideas out of 1,000 people gathering together in Canberra at their own expense over a weekend, frankly it's an effort worth going to. Guess what? We're going to debate the future of the ABC as well.
KERRY O'BRIEN: I look forward to that Kevin Rudd.
KEVIN RUDD: Do you want to come along?
KERRY O'BRIEN: We'll see. In one form or another
KEVIN RUDD: You can participate it and cover it, whatever you like.
KERRY O'BRIEN: We're out of time for tonight, thanks for talking to us.
KEVIN RUDD: Thank you very much.
KERRY O'BRIEN: Might be a little bit of conflict of interest - covering and contributing.
Rudd did add as an after thought either as objective reporter or subjective participant. That's the attitude of a machine man bolting on good governance who must be tested by the 4th and 5th estate to keep him up to the job description proper as our public servant, not vice versa. That's real democracy.
