Mood:  silly

The MW thesis last night: Overington in alliance with Albrechtsen on the ABC Board (and both with The Australian newspaper) are biased pro Coalition political creatures, or at least pro Malcolm Turnbull in the seat of Wentworth contest.

When combining the MW show with John Laws on Denton's Enough Rope following, where Laws virtually admitted

1. The real power in Australia is The Big Media (we sort of knew that here at our humble "alternative" news blog - previously thinking it was The Law until we realised it was just shifting deck chairs);

2. Laws evidently still doesn't get how he was corrupted by his own "power" leading to depression and Cash for Comment by pandering to his once target, the predatory banks (who still are)

...  it looks as if Overington (perhaps full of pride after her AWB expose Walkley accolades confronting Coalition Govt denials), has let similar power go to her head? To our eye she is caught red handed trying to make the news by urging a voter preference in Wentworth by candidate Ecuyer, echoing the 'player' style of colleague Glenn Milne also at The Oz. It's not enough to be a "reporter" it seems.

By the way we tend to agree its valid news judgement that if candidate Ecuyer did decide to preference Turnbull it would be a front page story given the neck and neck polling, and good for Overington's career status. Preferencing Newhouse would also be newsworthy. The question is whether there was an inducement to so preference?

The entertaining and indeed valid information in the MW episode was the email evidence of Overington's "please preference Malcolm" to justify that front page treatment. And also notable was Ecuyer's response that she was now very "wary" of such reporters. That's wise.

This triggered a couple of memories about the record of The Oz. Firstly we recall the admission in print post Olympics in 2000 of their effective barracking to keep an ugly demountable volleyball stadium on Bondi Beach - by having a journo spruiking a petition to locals for exactly this - in the name of testing public opinion of course. Incredible breach of objectivity. Naturally locals scorned the petition.

The more newsworthy and recent memory was this very brief response below by email from the pocket dynamo Ecuyer herself, to our unsolicited correspondence, and notice the bit in bold:

----- Original Message -----

Sent: Friday, October 12, 2007 9:06 PM

Subject: re: Oz editorial today, Saffron Howden yesterday Telegraph, gossip re local cultural mafia

Thanks Tom
 very interesting there is a lot of water to pass under the bridge, please keep me in the loop.
cheers
danielle

From: "ecology action australia"

Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2007 1:48 PM
To: "WomenForChangeDE"

Subject: Oz editorial today, Saffron Howden yesterday Telegraph, gossip re local cultural mafia

You're quite a gutsy effective campaigner, and obviously will find this unnecessarily patronising too (!), and seem to have dodged a PR bullet this time, perhaps because high profile Reba Meagher is getting the blow torch at roughly the same time (?).

Saffron Howden is very good value, impressed with the choice (?) of journo - daughter of Jocelyn Howden loyal Green Party staffer at Parliament at some stage, Maroota sand mining campaigner 45km north west of Sydney some years back.

My intuition would be you remain on the News Ltd/Milne/Sydney Telegraph hit list for daring to challenge Big Mal former federal treasurer of the Liberal party organisation.  Look out too for Michael O'Conner of the national CFMEU. He is a vicious ruthless player as per this backgrounder on both his organisation and Catherine Murphy head of National Association of Forests (ex Howard staffer, formerly headed up by Robert Bain who then went to AMA national office - very dangerous campaigners against forests, and committed [deleted]):

6th Dec 2006 - New paper: Logger terrorism under the Howard federal government

OConner by all accounts is still very chummy with Julia Gillard too.

Lastly and perhaps most instructively:

When I was an elected councillor there at Waverley, late 1995 the Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200511/s1498430.htm   was assassinated by an ultra right wing Jewish extremist. I wrote a diplomatic neutral (I thought) kind of letter (being an ambitious youngish bloke) to the main synagague in Bondi Junction expressing condolences to the community and the view that all those who support peace would be shocked and saddened at this turn of events. The reaction is instructive and also why George is a bit unusual in terms of the right wing of Jewish politics there, which frankly I gave up on, much as Antony Lowenstein seems to have from his own ethnic milieu:

(I am legal tutor as a friendly solicitor to a disabled Jewish woman over there [name withheld] by the way)

Perhaps 6 or 12 months later I heard some feedback to my letter:  That this letter was not really appreciated at all. The conclusion I took from all this was that the majority view in Sydney's Eastern suburbs Jewish Community was quite right wing, pro settler, pro expansion in the West Bank, quite likely anti Rabin. If not supporting the assasin, nor were they openly condemning. I think this is the Joe Gutnick view of the world for instance - a successful gold miner at some point with family ties in the area. Obviously there will be a spectrum of left to right, green to brown, in any ethnic group, but it shows the right wing leverage that Sally Betts will be promoting to curry favour with Mal Turnbull and the federal party regime by seeking to tap into any veins of ultra right stuff.

By the way you may know of a quite popular Jewish tree planting group called Jewish National Fund, might be some green synergy there, although again it is implicated in West Bank annexations possibly. 

Sally was always the most strategically determined and maybe effective warrior for the Liberal Party from my recollection. Hence no surprise she was in the story in the Australian earlier this week.

...............................

Another subteranean dimension of eastern suburbs politics given you have returned from far away:

Westfield is the heart and soul of retailing now, more a regional sized facility in a sub regional location, thus over sized, but it served the purposes of one Paul Keating as covert consultant to Lowy's mob 97-99 after Keating lost the 96 election. WBJ crushed the anti ALP Double Bay financial viability which shifted to the ALP dominated Bondi Junction, which used to be half Woollahra, half Waverley. I was the one who proposed a boundary redraw which went to Dept of Local Govt and they agreed so all BJ is now Waverley. It was basic logic but it couldn't happen until the Waterloo incinerator closed in 97 due in some part to moi, because each council owned half and needed to keep the diplomatic peace. Once it closed in 1997 there was no necessity to be mates with the conservative Woollahra council anymore, so the ALP went for their best asset.

.........................................

You're the kind of emancipated corporate business woman the conservative press want to hear from in the age of Rupert pro climate change action 'give the planet the benefit of the doubt' future. They sure don't want to hear from a deep ecology radical like me. Yacht Club luncheons indeed.

As for patronising, I detect a very condescending tone in the tail of the Oz editorial today "well meaning". Thank heavens you and others are, rich or poor.

Yours truly

Tom McLoughlin, editor www.sydneyalternativemedia.com

principal ecologyactionsydney

 ..........................................

The SAM editor also recalls talking to Ms Overington earlier this year urging her to take a role in the scandal of land clearing by the big grain growing industry here in NSW, especially after her effective probing of the AWB. She said it was unlikely her editor would allow her to spend time on it.

Maybe. Or maybe it was the John Laws Effect, moth to the flame of more juicy power stories? I think we can say Overington burned her wings a bit on ABC tv last night.

And here is a bit of pro bono legal advice - a journo can't offer front page PR inducements to influence a person's voting (read preferencing) intentions in a serious election contest. That would almost definitely be a criminal offence. So did Overington offer such a PR inducement to preference Turnbull or not? Could she even deliver such a front page?

We offer no legal opinion about that. But we can see how it's a valid matter for investigation and consideration. Better get a lawyer Ms Overington, better get a real good one.

.................................

Postscript #1 14th Nov 07: Two significant developments summarised in the links here:

Firstly Emperor Rupert Murdoch in a visit to Adelaide refers to "discipline" for any staff member who meddles in preferencing in one of their newspaper's name. That's the sound of ominous thunder over Caroline Overington's head there: Emails explore reporter's own preferences, then turn nasty 

Secondly a tricky legal attack on George Newhouse to protect Turnbull losing his grip on the seat seems to be underway front page of the Sydney Morning Herald: Legal blow to Labor bid for key seat. We treat this all with a grain of salt. My view Newhouse is at least competent enough to have lodged his resignation and its more a Coalition inspired smear to create doubt, similar to profiling his marital status.

Posted by editor at 7:41 AM EADT

Updated: Wednesday, 14 November 2007 8:47 AM EADT

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Mood:  don't ask

Channel 9 run the Government election launch at no.5. Really. Behind sundry other worthy but likely less impacting stories. At least we thought so.

Here's hoping veteran Laurie Oakes is okay. A break in the middle of a tough 6 week campaign? He was absent channel 9 Sunday talkie show too. His last entry on his Oakes Report is 5 days old and his penultimate entry is ominously called The stayer strategy 

It's a mystery. Is it possible the brutal Ch7 election night promo labelling the veterans like Oakes as boring has done him in? Surely not?

The guy is an icon. And this writer is a sincere fan.

.......................

Postscript #1: Laurie Oakes returned to the screen in Sydney Ch9 prime time news last night 13th Nov 07 as sharp and effective as ever, with even a bit of catch up footage of the Coalition launch the day before. Thus the Planet returns to orbital rhythm with the reappearance of the 'Sphere', and looking markedly slimmer than yesteryear.

Posted by editor at 6:17 PM EADT

Updated: Wednesday, 14 November 2007 8:11 AM EADT

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Mood:  a-ok

We noticed the Sunday nightly news disdain for the Glenn Milne "Shock confession" story trawling over aspiring Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard's ill fated private life some 15 years back. We think it might also effectively trespass on her obligations of solicitor client confidentiality so she can't answer back in full.

The Big Media seem to know it's a beat up: So much so that Danielle Ecuyer (with her own News Ltd live blog no less) via barracker, err sorry reporter, Saffron Howden, has even cheekily run a tell all story today in the shadow of the Milne shemozzle arguably to avoid a similar beat up on her in the last week over the marginal seat of Wentworth. Her News Ltd blog looks very dignified and diplomatic stuff too. The woman has brains and guts and looks (and so does the reporter). No wonder people want to marry her (3 times it seems). Now we notice Ms Ecuyer has her own website as well courtesy of a 'friendly' picture story by Caroline Overington at the Oz (offline it seems).

This morning we wrote this on a Sydney Indymedia string and notice the reference to Cobber Grattan/Fran Kelly there in point 4:

Julia Gillard story most likely a beat up with whiskers

There are some fatal problems from a sceptical point of view about this attack on Gillard on the front page of the Sunday Telegraph , and I apply some media and legal experience on this:

1. If she did anything wrong chances are she would have been totally smashed professionally in the Victorian parliament working for the ALP there over 15 years back. Didn't happen. Only splashed 2 weeks out from a federal election. The timing looks crap as far as credibility goes.

2. She might know lots about who really did what in the AWU including Wilson but there's one sticky problem - solicitor client confidentiality. You can't just go blabbing about your client's wrong doing. Our whole legal system is based on lawyers acting for clients. AND NOT BREACHING CONFIDENTIALITY. You could be struck off for that. And by definition clients sometimes need lawyers because they (the client) break the law.

An aspect of this is the reported house purchase by the unionist. Unions buy property as a way of doing business. Of course they do. Just like they run super funds and invest members money. Yes solicitors need to be on their toes as to being compromised and positioned by sleazy operators, but here's the thing. The more idealistic one is the more you want to believe your client is a good person too. You want to even when you are actually disappointed by them ie mugged by reality. The crucial thing is to act once you do find out, or be an accessory after the fact. Go to point 3 for the question of being an accessory

3. Which raises a whole new aspect - if she was in on any fraud chances are she would eventually have been struck off by the Victorian Law Society and lost her practising certificate, and likely all it would take would be a critic to lodge a complaint  eg the defrauded AWU or business operator or conservative politician and God knows they have plenty of lawyers in there (at least that's the process in NSW, then the LawSoc investigate).

4. Michelle 'cobber' Grattan who is Melbourne based and renowned as a fair commentator reckons the story won't go on, saying to Fran Kelly on Radio National this morning, in Cobber's terms "it didn't get lift off yesterday" or similar. And she is right about that. I watched all 4 tv nightly news yesterday and only saw one oblique reference on SBS with Hockey slyly raising it to back off it, though 9 and 7 clashed a bit so hard to watch both clicking between both. Indeed I think we could in rare form congratulate the Big Media for some real integrity except of course for cipher Glenn Milne who ran the trash as news.

5. It's quite well known in the precedents of Big Politics for lawyers to have had a few spills earlier in their career. Chief Justice Sir Garfield Barwick was a declared bankrupt at one point in his career, and then went on to be Attorney General for the Coalition side of politics and then Chief Judge of the High Court. He also used to publicly argue that paying taxes was a legal but not a moral obligation, while enjoying public health services, traffic lights and all the rest.

Posted by editor at 2:49 PM EADT

Updated: Wednesday, 14 November 2007 7:58 AM EADT

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Mood:  lyrical

* November 11, 2007

Welcome to nowhere .... a 10 km trudge to my connection and then another 3 hours rail run to Warrnambool. It’s dry and chilly. Incredulously the gritty security guard (at Avalon Airport, which serves as Melbourne’s 2^nd), says I can’t exit by foot on Federal Airport land to get started. I have to catch a bus or taxi there. “You’ve flummoxed me now” I plead “This is an Australian democracy and I’m in a public car park” I bang on. All those clever travel plans based on Google Earth, ancient frequent flyer points and a busted budget gone to waste on our hyper security conscious culture.

He looks at me again, a man of a certain age who might have served in the Forces. He leans in and speaks quietly, “Look, I won’t stop ya” and there you have it - the living spirit of democracy you can't put in rules. I’m off like an excited rabbit in spring, despite the backpack, heading for the main road .

Very few signs. They certainly don’t encourage a walk on the wind swept open roads past the horse paddocks, the Lara Speedway, the Barwon Prison Farm, two scary dogs, Olive Growers Coop and the wheat silo. And always the somehow menacing traffic barrelling along the dual Melbourne Geelong highway over yonder. The friendly Lara hills rising off the plain in the other.

The outskirts go on .... and on .... and then finally commerce where I am fed, watered and relieved. It’s a nice place. Chirpy kids out of school bustling around, healthy parents. And always the squat mute pine trees about 15 metres high in long sombre lines around the tennis courts and sports ground, and main streets. It’s an Avenue of Honour.

The memorial stone reads “no greater love hath man …… planted in 1948 …..". WW1, WW2, Korea, Vietnam. ….. Collins #1, Collins #2. Duggins. Tipping” and so on. And one shocking surname …..Cashmore #1, Cashmore #2, Cashmore #3, Cashmore #4.

There is no doubting they thought about Lara in their last minutes and hours, and vice versa this place about them. This was the place they desperately wanted to see, to keep safe and be kept, to lovingly embrace.

The green sentinels thrust out of the soil like a consumation of desire and anguish respectively, of those who went and those who waited, to hover now over the social, sporting and business life of Lara. A caring silent declaration of love, sacrifice, death and in the end vigorous green life. In my reverie the thought strikes home that this obscure little town would always know itself ... quietly and seriously ....  probably in a subliminal way, because of these very trees and memorial ..... just as another Avenue of Honour underpinned my own childhood/country town 3 hours away.  I was glad I walked that 10 km.

May they rest in peace.

Posted by editor at 11:45 AM EADT

Updated: Tuesday, 13 November 2007 9:10 AM EADT

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Mood:  crushed out

Picture above: In the election season presentation is probably everything especially for the "environment minister". But you can't choose your neighbours. Taken Saturday 10th Nov 07. There was a State MP for the Coalition in Vaucluse, now a fundraiser for Mal Turnbull who also thought he could buy a political career, by the name of Michael Yabsley.

Author’s general introductory note (skip this if you know this regular weekly column):

This is not a well packaged story. It’s a contemporaneous traverse of the Sunday television free to air political talkies indicating the agenda of Establishment interests: Better to know ones rivals and allies  in Big Politics and Big Media.

Indeed it’s the tv version monitoring task similar to what Nelson Mandela refers to here in his book Long Walk to Freedom (1994, Abacus) written in Robben Island prison (where he was meant to die like other African resister chiefs of history in the 19C), at page 208

“..newspapers are only a shadow of reality; their information is important to a freedom fighter not because it reveals the truth, but because it discloses the biases and perceptions of both those who produce the paper and those who read it.”

Just substitute ‘Sunday tv political talkie shows’ for "newspapers" in the quote above.

Media backgrounder

- Sunday Teleg front page biffo by none other than rubbish can trawler Glenn Milne today. One wonders how many dud women he's had in his life, if you don't count alcoholism as a woman. One presumes Gillard cooperated with the story to get in front of it which is gutsy and wise. The story fundamentally alleges 2 things with a sensational personal angle to attract broader interest

1. Julia Gillard could have been in on a corrupt union scam involving violent stand over tactics - highly unlikely, would have been revealed in Victorian Parliament long ago if true so it's just another smear job by Coalition/Costello friendly Milne adding some evil lustre to a boring a election 2 weeks too long and heading into Hunter S Thomson territory; 

Barwick also said paying tax was not a moral obligation:

"In his memoirs, entitled “A Radical Tory” (The Federation Press, 1995) at p 229, Sir Garfield Barwick sets out, as plainly as may be, his views upon taxation. He said,

“Criticism from some quarters of my decisions in taxation cases warrants a brief reference to them. They are fairly numerous and relate to many aspects of the assessment of taxation. As I remark elsewhere, the Commonwealth Statute of 1936, which resulted from Mr Justice Ferguson’s efforts and those of David Roper (later Chief Judge in Equity), his assistant secretary, was generally understood and gave no undue difficulty in its administration. It has, however, suffered frequent amendment, so that now it is a patchwork which often lacks consistency. Into the detail of my decisions on this hotchpotch of legislation I will not go, but I will indicate the principle upon which I acted, a principle denied by some politicians but one which is fundamental to the operation of income tax law and has had the endorsement of earlier courts.

The liability to pay income tax is wholly derived from the law imposing and providing for the assessment of that tax. The obligation to pay it is a legal one. Some politicians try to treat it as a moral obligation. But it is not. The citizen is bound to pay no more tax than the statute requires him to pay according to the relevant state of his affairs.

Consistently with this view, it has long been a principle of the law of income taxation that the citizen may so arrange his affairs as to render him less liable to pay tax than would be the case if his affairs were cast in some different form. In the language of the layman, the citizen is entitled to minimise his liability to pay tax. This is sometimes expressed as a right to avoid tax, an expression which is in contradiction to the evasion of tax, a failure to pay tax which is properly due.

On this principle, I regularly acted. Provided the citizen’s transactions were not shams, pretences, the form of his transactions and their legal consequences would affect his liability to tax, even though that form might be unusual and adopted for the express purpose of limiting the liability to pay tax.

I do not countenance fraudulent dealings, or give effect to sham transactions or the destruction of records. But clearly I did not accept the view that there was a moral duty to pay tax. Further, I held the view that it is for the Parliament in passing laws imposing taxation to make its meaning as unambiguously clear and certain as the use of language will permit. In the event of ambiguity in such legislation, the citizen, not the executive government, should have the benefit of that construction of the language of the statute which is most favourable to his or her interest.”

[bold added]

Inevitably there will be a chunk of the population who will slow the car to view the damage but it looks more like a fender bender than a write off to this writer. Julia Gillard is one talented lady and yes charming in her way. Her beau is lucky to have her. Time for a proposition, yer reckon Tim (hair care salesman Mathieson)? As Shakespeare says,  in Julius Caesar

" There is a tide in the affairs of men. Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries "

A famous Julius Caesar quote by William Shakespeare, the great Bard and dramatist

Time to step up boyo.

..............................

- Similarly Sandra Lee, the chunky hiefer also at the mutant Teleg, gets a bad case of skinny envy attacking Danielle Ecuyer for daring to take on the big boys from the Coalition and the ALP. In fine Mardi Gras form Ecuyer has turned to flesh for some electioneering stunts having already won the credibility battle on brains as a former merchant banker, articulate speaker in many tv spots, and resolute - with trip to the wilds of Tasmania. With the polls neck and neck in Wentworth she is likely to make a real difference to the outcome on the shoulders of the radical Green Party on reportedly 14% or so. She has our blessing here. We notice Ecuyer gets the nod from Geoffrey Cousins  here in a full pager Wentworth Courier 7th Nov 07.

And Sandra, it's a cliche, but still quite true - stop whining at people and who can and do, and go on a diet and deal with it.

- Could have fooled me - spotted at Town Hall station as MX flunkies for News Ltd distribute their trashy fodder:

 - The malice of the mutant News Ltd is pretty obvious in

 Latham: Soaking up the high life 

trying to make out a $535K house on a greenfield site, compared to say a $1M poky terrace anywhere in inner Sydney, is somehow "a mansion" when reporting on Mark Latham's report in turn the Financial Review. How dare he go to Fairfax indeed. Then we read this and sure enough

First home benchmark $1m same day rival paper. 

A $65K annual pension for a guy who can't walk down the street - what would you rather? The guy has a pool presumably because if he went to the beach his family would get hassled by such as these photo stalkers taking pictures of him in his towel through a metal fence. Are these 'news' folks for real?

As we understand the Latham piece we just bought today 2 days stale now, this is the main concern of Latham (below left) regarding profligate materialism, while the Telegraph still seems to prefer the 'leadership' of this chump below right?:

Meanwhile big business seems to get it, at least those not hopelessly conflicted: See this full page advert in the Good Weekend recently

- Very funny channel 7 election night promo take off of coalition anti union adverts instead targetting "boring" [but worthy] Kerry OBrien (not including his ding with the bouncers, prefacing Trigger Trioli for a new future), Laurie Oakes etc

- New Age style home front in Wentworth, picture taken yesterday 10th Nov 07 from footpath

- pro developer bias of the Big Meeja at the cost of everyone else's amenity and peace of mind? Anti democratic given the loathing of Big Business developers and this ALP govt? The old DA for a cubby house cliche of local govt as the State Govt panders to donors and smashes neighbourhoods to keep its money politics grip on power? In short systemic corruption?

Sartor's housing horrors

DELAYS of as much as six years and complications for developments as minor as a cubby house are amongst the complaints against Sydney's councils.

 

- Go Warrnambool, you good thing - 100-1

Triumph ... Nikita Beriman at Flemington yesterday.
Photo: Getty Images

10 Meet the Press

 

Press round up sure enough leads with Milne dirt digging dealt with above.

 

Alot of technical probs at start - no audio first minute including opening file footage of Rudd, Nick Minchin etc. Fairly understandable - everyone is getting ragged including this writer with 2 weeks still to go. 

 

Talent is Nick Minchin whose middle name is boring.

Out take is flattering grab of humorous Gillard at Press Club getting the laughs.

1st adbreak - Get Up spoof about an empty box of scaremonging. Subtle. Interesting actor talking head. Might work. Not sure.

Panel has Milne slumming it to a degree and another bright telegenic  woman Jessica Irvine. Milne bowls up 2 tough questions including tipping hat to Gillard for some balance.

Minchin waffles on. Great grab of HR Nichols extremism by Minchin. Irvine strong questions - Milne goes at him too re IR wobbles (my word) of govt.

2^nd adbreak funny advert with animation offsetting Get Up almost as a culture jam. Shows little union turning to big monster similar to those recycle telephone book munchy figures.

 

Economic boffin  Dr Steve King from Western Sydney sounds very credible on debt burden (says Res Bank downplaying very heavy historical burden), borrowing boom, individually sensible collectively bad idea. Milne asks deferentially ‘how bad is it going to get?’ . Got to attack negative gearing, another aspect [missed it] tax cuts? Far too scary for any mention prior to the election. Need structural change he says.

 

Outtake no audio Milne and boffin in animated conversation.

 

 

Transcript in due course www.ten.com.au/meetthepress ,

 

 

Myspace web address: www.myspace.com/meetthepeople

 

 

 

 

 

7 Weekend Sunrise, 8.35-40 am Riley Diary  -

 

Riley picks up visuals of Seinfeld 'show about nothing' alluded to by Latham in his AFR article. Very funny editing and connections words to mataphors. Again one of Riles best. Q & A, no mention of Julia Gillard story in the pre package or after, just as ABC no interest in 7 am and 7.45 radio bulletins. Riley agrees with Gawenda article about tactics gone hyper yet so shallow and losing track of real policy substance.

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.seven.com.au/sunrise/weekend

 

 

 

 

 

 

Insiders 2

 

 

Main talent is Kevin Swan, washout of interest rate rise. Lots on signficance of the word of apology. Almost swallows his voicebox at one point but recovers okay. (Long long interview interrupted by Ross Coultard wrap on rival 9. )

Missed alot of the show due to 9 coverage. 

Final observations - Lenore Taylor - David Marr - Piers Akerman.

 

Home page is http://www.abc.net.au/insiders/

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday 9

 

 

Headlines have flattering footage of  Gillard on interest rates.

Wrap up with curious Godfather music in reference to the Coalition Govt. A metaphor for death foretold?

Focus group horse stables spring carnival obviously Vic not NSW where equine flu apparently has voters very anti federal govt?

Panel discussion with Bob Brown for Greens, Lyn Allison looking a bit left out and Steve Fielding by remote screen identified with Pauline Hanson and Lyn Allison drives that point especially Qld FF is pro Coalition.

Peter Andrews feature to follow about drought proofing. 

 

http://sunday.ninemsn.com.au/sunday/default.asp

Posted by editor at 6:55 AM EADT

Updated: Monday, 12 November 2007 4:26 PM EADT

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Mood:  special

The editor of this humble news website was a pioneer amongst many of the Green Party in NSW from about 1994 and as one of the first crop of Green Party councillors 95-99. (Before that we helped deliver the ALP into power in March 1995 as NSW campaign coordinator for The Wilderness Society for 2 years.) We got a bit jaded/exasperated with Party personalities by 2000 and let our membership lapse after a very busy 6 years including 4 doing our public duty on Waverley Council in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs.

Since July 2002, in addition to community media development we have been promoting the 'ecology action sydney' and now 'ecology action Australia' message mostly online and with email networking. Our influence is mostly subliminal - we see our phraseology and conceptual analysis reflected back all the time, often in real politik time as well.

The lower case name in the screenshot below is deliberate - we seek to spread flat and horizontal and to NOT compete for profile or fundraising in the green ngo sector, which in fact is usually the same thing inviting all kind of compromises with institutional power for access/grants/platforms and indeed postures, not least the consumption economics based Big Meeja (we don't reject 'growth economics' theoretically, but in reality its still mostly unsustainable extraction here).

We notice the latest notable echo of our missionary vocation - The Green Party election platform in The Australian feature yesterday. We have our sincere critics and rivals in sections of the Green Party here in NSW but when their national platform echoes our message .... well you can't complain. Indeed we find it very gratifying.

Very few Australians know about local informal network 'ecology action' role in boosting that winning campaign against huge odds - not least because this writer is a non aligned sometimes critic of one's own ngo sector and thus not favoured for profile or media access or back slaps.

Indeed we notice action over talk is a little confronting for lazy or less committed or informed careerist folks. But after 6 years, in 2000 we just got bored with endless diplomacy and preferred peaceful confrontation in the Gandhi style and honest independent review of who, and what works, and what doesn't to save our planet from ecological destruction by powerful cynics in our society. We still feel that way.

Our programme of current campaigns are explained further here. Feel free to donate via snail mail C/- Addison Rd Centre 142 Addison Rd Marrickville 2204 or call 0410 558838 first. But only if you want to make a difference: like this

#1

and this

#2

Posted by editor at 8:24 AM EADT

Updated: Monday, 12 November 2007 7:36 AM EADT

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Mood:  energetic

Our correspondent Jarrah Keenan forwards this email doing the global rounds:

.........................

Dear activists, colleagues and friends,

Most of you are aware, and most likely have been for a while, that under the guise of "news" Fox has offered its viewers a steady stream of bias pertaining to social and political issues since its inception in 1996. From attacking Black America to pushing for war with Iran, from demonizing bloggers to distorting environmental issues, theirs is quite a record of achievement in propagating propaganda that is neither fair nor balanced.

1. Watch the video 2. Sign the petition

Today we have a surprise (well at least it surprised all of us at BNF). Thanks to the terrific work of the News Hounds, we bring you Fox and ole' Billy O'Reilly attacking decency. Yes, you read that right. The self-righteous, pompous, bloviators who deign to lecture on how we should behave in our personal lives, are in fact exploiting women, pandering to the lowest common denominator and pushing smut out on the airwaves on a daily basis!

Watch the video: http://foxattacks.com/decency?utm_source=rgemail

And this will definitely raise your hackles. YOU ARE PAYING FOR THIS! Yes, you read that right too. So watch the video and pass it along to as many on your email list as possible. We simply must let the FCC know we are mad as hell about having their smut in our homes and being forced to pay for it. And we're simply not going to take it anymore.

Posted by editor at 8:13 AM EADT

Updated: Friday, 9 November 2007 10:36 AM EADT

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Mood:  hungry

* measure up to 6th Nov, more like 9,100 hits up to 3rd Nov07 

• Sept -  8,100 (roughly, no screenshot)
• August - 8,845
• July - 7475
• June - 9675
• May  - 9, 059
• April  - 12,087
• March  - 6,684
• February - 5,372
• January 07 -  2800 (3rd Jan - 3rd Feb 07)

Posted by editor at 10:33 AM EADT

Updated: Wednesday, 7 November 2007 10:46 AM EADT

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Mood:  energetic

In the absence of the usual chunky package of big media background notables in our last Sunday Political Talkies story (due to ragged recovery from trip to the wilds of south west Victoria) we shall start a listing here as we catch up the grist:

- Joe Hildebrand hidden away on the inside last page of the Saturday Tele with this cracking quote in I feel right at home in state of fearing death | The Daily Telegraph attributed to colleague Simon Benson, which is saying something given Benson's big 'in' with this State ALP

"As my exasperated colleague Simon Benson recently put it to a nervous Liberal staffer: "For God's sake, this is a Government whose main policy agenda is killing its citizens - and you blokes can't even land a glove on them in Question Time!"

Trioli on abc 702 before 9 am today implicitly makes the same point over the DOCS minister  over the tragedy of the 7 year old who never got a fair chance in life, dead of starvation. Bad governance, nepotism, cronyism, sinecures, zoo like attitude in Parliament (especially the Upper House), stacked branches, cynical power games, developer donations. It's very ugly governance in this state, and the Coalition are potentially as bad. It's the crap two party duopoly to my mind.

Simon Benson clearly has broken cover from the ALP skirts (like Putin's KGB from the tattered skirts of the Yeltsin/Oligarchs?!), which is surprising given his very big 'in' to the ALP networks, or alternatively is that Benson the cipher via Sussex St strategically helping Kevin07 break down that Howard line on 'ALP Federal/7 State dictatorship' election strategy?

The notion that Kevin will help remove the appalling NSW ALP govt will indeed be popular but just as likely a temporary posture till the election on Nov 24? 

Sincere or not, Benson's logic has great resonance with Barry OFarrell so obviously competent as an Opposition Leader if not his bunch of rat bag/religious nutter shadows, with a few honourable exceptions.

Read Simon's piece today timed late 6th Nov 07and judge for yourself: State ALP gone if Rudd wins

- This cracking tip off to catch John Laws who apparently is in melt down mode after 55 years in the career until the federal election when he resigns. Tune in to hear Laws let rip | The Daily Telegraph

- The laughable PR postures of Bob Carr given his pro woodchipping history (dealt with here on SAM news site last week): Ex premier Bob Carr's push to protect his bush | The Daily Telegraph

Au contraire, the truth is much more like this: 

Masters believes the media must change - slowly, from the grassroots  up - but he wonders whether the politicians have really taken any heed. The same ones who clapped him on the back still "run up to Jone's flat for the endless meetings".

It made me think if they crawl to Alan Jones and they so disrespect him, what do they think of the rest of us?

- Kimberley set to become battleground | The Australian - piecemeal LNG developments come under fire.

- Desire and the green cure - Richard Glover - Opinion - smh.com.au

Posted by editor at 9:35 AM EADT

Updated: Thursday, 8 November 2007 9:27 AM EADT

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