Mood:  chatty

To do a good job engaging in social media activism requires following the intense 24 hour news cycle across big/little media including social media, in order to have anything original to say. At least this is the only way we have found to synthesise the evidence and the facts and build on that with a unique life/professional experience.

For instance we find our blog posts including comments on ezines are barely 5% of the effort, the mere tip of the iceberg, with 95% of time involved in following all background themes and threads. In this sense less is more in terms of influential blog posts with any prospect of getting in the mind of a specialised beltway audience: Political staffers, press gallery, other activists.

We feel some sadness at the decision as our influence has only grown over this time with concurrent value in the domain name. A google of the editor's name presently comes up no. 1 in Australia and no 2 globally behind a namesake in the shlock horror movie business. 

For instance we notice a new narrative in the big media at the end of this week relating to the sexual "hypocrisy" of various people and institutions. Right or wrong we feel this "hypocrisy" theme was kicked off by SAM's expose' of a commentator, and News Ltd, in relation to their alleged history regarding prostitutes and/or brothels. 

Yes, we feel there will be alot of people relieved we are hanging up our social media political sling shot, metaphorically speaking. For instance we rang and left a message for the director of news of ABC Radio News about the Assange misreporting only last Friday.

Also relief closer to home amongst loved ones.

We expect players in politics will be sceptical that this author will indeed remain silent after 5 years given the wonky addictive nature of politics, indeed the siren song. Believe it.

Putting down this work will be liberating in some ways, after the cold turkey. And we expect to supplement our irrepressible creativity with some new activites such as singing and exploring the Wild Dog Mountains back country and family time.

We note some other political websites in Australia have gone dormant or closed down (eg  Lavartus Prodeo) which we interpret as due in part to a recognition of sufficient social media opportunities out there such as crikey, the drum, unleashed, new matilda and no doubt others. 

A corollary is that the owner of this domain "sydneyalternativemedia.com" is also open to offers regarding taking over the domain name, with preference to those with a compatible values set. The price and terms are negotiable.

Posted by editor at 1:26 PM NZT

Updated: Wednesday, 4 June 2025 4:01 PM NZT

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Mood:  sharp

The ABC Radio News channel has a story line for most of this morning in words to the effect "Assange does not regret leaking diplomatic cables". Bold added.

This is wrong and the ABC should know better. Allegedly the cables were leaked to Wikileaks/Assange, which then published and reported on the cables. At least as we understand the stated position of Wikileaks, the organisation didn't leak, just as a journalist and a newspaper do not leak, rather they are leaked to.

There is much speculation that Bradley Manning did the leaking to Wikileaks and is in jail in the USA facing related charges. By contrast we are not aware of any facts in the public arena that Assange or Wikileaks solicited or facilitated that leak so as to have conspired in the leaking. Like any modern news organisation Wikileaks published the news leaked to them which is quite different.

We look forward to the correction by ABC Radio News, but we won't hold our breath either.

Posted by editor at 5:10 PM NZT

Updated: Sunday, 27 May 2012 11:45 AM NZT

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Mood:  blue

The rumour along the Oodnadatta Track near Coober Pedy, and William Creek is that an official investigation report is now in for the fatal helicopter crash of Gary Ticehurst, Paul Lockyer, and John Bean. 

The rumour, right or wrong, is that flying at night there is precious little orientation regarding elevation and sand dunes are deceptively high, claiming pilot error flying into a sand dune. 

Whether this is the content of the report cannot be confirmed. The rumour is sourced to a roustabout with experience of gyrocopter flying over long distances but strictly at daytime, and another character who worked for a decade on the Ghan, and local home steads, as told to a grey nomad tourist from NSW, and passed onto this writer at the Coober Pedy Stuart Ranges caravan park.

We take a skeptical legal view. We note the experience of the helicopter pilot and the unconfirmed nature of the rumour as well as the predeliction at times for remote areas with an economic dependence on tourism to play down dangers and mishaps including via blame the victim type stories. Whether this is the case time will tell.

Certainly tourist flights to Lake Eyre are advertised in every road stop and town centre in the region with numerous small town airstrips at Marree, Hawker, Wilpena, William Creek and no doubt more.

In any case the above rumour is running.

Our photo album of our outback road tour is here Outback road trip South Australia tour via the ubiquitous facebook. One beautiful location is here called Blanches Cup which is a mound spring in the desert near Oodnadatta Track 100 km or so east of William Creek:

May they rest in peace.

Posted by editor at 11:24 AM NZT

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Mood:  chillin'

Miranda "baa baa" Devine is a rather malicious journalistic sheep for the Coalition ideologues in Australia. Her latest column however is the high water mark of weird and scary.

Under an extraordinary title " Class war barb sees Abbott wooed like Corleone dons"  the article in the Murdoch owned Sydney Sunday Telegraph published by the bad News Ltd, refers to a Liberal Party fundraiser at Sydney's expensive Wentworth Hotel late last week. To avoid any misunderstanding about the mafia overtone there is even a prominent picture frame from The Godfather movie.

Well, well. We take Baa Baa at her word. Tony Abbott, as Opposition leader with a very healthy poll lead, is like a mafia Corleone Don.

Wikipedia describes the script of the movie as such:

 "To end the feuds, Vito meets with the heads of the Five Families, withdrawing his opposition to the Tattaglias' heroin business and swearing to forego revenge for Sonny's murder. He deduces that the Tattaglias were under orders of the now dominant Don Emilio Barzini (Richard Conte). With his safety guaranteed, Michael returns home and over a year later marries his girlfriend, Kay Adams (Diane Keaton). Seeing his father at the end of his career and his brother too weak, Michael takes the reins of the family business and promises his wife to make it legitimate within five years. ...As the christening proceeds, on Michael's orders, Corleone assassins murder the other New York dons and Moe Greene. Tessio is told that Michael is aware of his betrayal and taken off to his death. After Carlo is questioned by Michael on his involvement in setting up Sonny's murder and confesses he was contacted by Barzini, he is escorted to a car whereupon Clemenza kills him with a garrotte. Michael is confronted by Connie, who accuses him of having her husband killed. He denies killing Carlo when questioned by Kay, an answer she accepts. As Kay watches warily, Michael receives his capos, who address him as the new Don Corleone."

We think CEOs of Australian business - big and small should take due note of the metaphor.

The metaphor seems to imply a capacity for extreme violence, and seems scary and weird, yet credible coming from such a loyalist to the conservative side of politics like Miranda Devine.

After all this is the politician who remains loyal to the Iraq War project even after the confirmation of no WMD existence. This is the politician who seeks to 'bribe' the women of Australia out of their right to choose, no matter the cost.

There also seems to be an implication of real menace in the story. Arguably the story carries a suggestion of extreme punishment for those who stray or fail to display loyalty.

Which raises another question  for me, just after Anzac day, whether Australians are cowards to be initimidated by menaces or like Marlon Brando in On The Waterfront, can stand up to and conquer the pain and trouble posed by thuggery.

Is this the kind of PM the CEOs of Australia seek to embrace? Indeed the kind of country they seek to embrace under Abbott?

Posted by editor at 9:41 AM NZT

Updated: Monday, 14 May 2012 10:16 AM NZT

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Well out of left field, we note the 7.30 Report in NSW last night of the beat up of the Migration Review Tribunal/Refugee Review Tribunal last night.

Ruddock as ex Coalition minister was in the story as was idealistic migration agent Marion Le, hence balance. 

Two so called whistleblowers were asserting (without evidence provided but let's acccept the allegation for now) that a corrupt immigration racket exists for papers via the Afghanistan government outlet in Pakistan, to the effect Pakistanis gain fraudulent papers that they are from Afghanistan.

Apparently the MRT and RRT are too stupid to consider the possibility of fraud. Apparently the good hard working lawyers of the Australian Government Solicitor and indeed big law firms outsourced similar work by DIAC (such as Clayton Utz) are too stupid to employ forensic document analysis (they are not so stupid).

Even corruptly sourced 'genuine' documents via Afghanistan agencies can be legally assessed against verbal evidence and other evidence.

So what was the story really about? Do we view this via the prism of the leadership fights in the NSW ALP, including participants of the NSW Right such as Immigration Minister Chris Bowen, who backed Kevin Rudd in the last damaging ballot? A tickle up perhaps from within the ALP Govt that Bowen has enough on his plate without playing leadership roulette? We say this as we hear objective Fran Kelly on ABC radio national ask the leadership question regarding PM Gillard.

Also we noted heavy moral reliance of the DIAC 'whistleblowers' on 7.30 last night on the the concept of "integrity" in the immigration system for Australia.

Regretably we are aware that "integrity" is already compromised in DIAC towards the rejection of genuine refugees, that is in the opposite direction to the allegation made on 7.30 last night.

We know of a serving federal magistrate who gave a training paper to all Independent Merit Reviewers in recent years. These IMRs contracted by DIAC are set the task of implementing the High Court of Australia decisions about procedural fairness and other legal principles. In that training paper - which we understand the magistrate and DIAC refuse to release to the Catholic Edmund Rice Centre under freedom of information - the magistrate states his political support for strict application of the politically determined queue. The magistrate does this by giving the example of the highly emotional and loaded concept that a refugee allowed in from Afghanistan or similar deprives an African woman suffering all manner of abuse in an African refugee camp getting into Australia. The magistrate grand stands with an example of the proverbial African woman weeping on his arm in Western Sydney out of gratitude.

Significantly this magistrate refers to himself, to paraphrase, as 'one of the club'  having been a Dept of Immigration staffer back to the 1970ies.

There are many political views about such an assertion about the queue by the serving magistrate. That there is no real queue in refugee camps in SE Asia, or it is a flexible political number that changes with community views, as signalled by Minister Bowen himself in 2011 at the ALP National Conference.

The problem is that legally this claim about the 'integrity of the queue' by the serving magistrate has no legal basis in the legal training of IMR tribunal staff. Why so? Because IMR members must consider whether a person is a"refugee" under the relevant treaty, not whether they fit into a political queue number. Similarly the IMR must consider the High Court of Australia decisions on applicability of procedural fairness legal principles, not the political merit or not of a queue set at 10K, 15K or 20K depending on which side of the bed the minister got out of that day.

In short the serving magistrate has misdirected a whole cohort of IMRs by referring to the political queue as relevant to the legal principles for review of merits of an immigration decision. We are aware that senior barristers in NSW who work at Federal Court level are askance at the serving Magistrate's misdirection potentially tainting a whole cohort of IMR trainees.

Presumably many copies of this flawed training paper are in circulation with the numerous serving IMR and will be revealed to the public sooner or later.

Posted by editor at 10:09 AM NZT

Updated: Thursday, 3 May 2012 10:11 AM NZT

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Mood:  bright

News Corporation apparently are holding or improving their share value despite the huge reputational damage to the Murdoch regime at the top from the UK Leveson Parliamentary Inquiry. 

We are wondering if serious investor groups, ironically, agree with the view that Rupert is not a fit and proper person to run an international company, and that the prospect finally of having him removed against all previous experience, will finally release the value in the company massively constrained by nepotistic share structures and appointments. 

In short the creative destruction of capitalism at the expense of the Murdoch brand to the benefit of his Corporation? Or to put it another way - Murdoch bad, News Corp good?

We are actively googling for those Stephen Mayne stories of yesteryear say pre 2010 verifying hundreds of millions if not billioins of dollars of value in News Corp lost by Rupert Murdoch's bad commercial judgement - things like purchase of MySpace, forays into China and no doubt a host of other disastrous frolics by the Grand Old Man, all the while maintaining the ascendancy of his children.

Postscript:

Here is a useful list from Stephen Mayne via the website of the public library of Victoria (Australia) with bold added by moi, dated 13 October 2011:

"Seventy per cent of the News Corp shares on issue don’t get a vote. Let’s have democracy in Iraq, but not at News Corp. When I ran for the News Corp board in 2002, Rupert completely censored the platform. So it was the only one of my 40 tilts where shareholders weren’t even told how old I was or that I had a degree. That was free speech for you, Rupert-style. So when Rupert does colossally stuff up, it’s hard to do anything about it because whilst the Murdoch family only own 13 per cent of News Corp, this gerrymander gives them about 40 per cent of the vote and the ability to dominate appointments to the supine board, where power ultimately resides. Rupert really should’ve retired in 2006, when he turned 75. It’s been all downhill since then. One billion lost on MySpace, three billion lost on Dow Jones. And now suddenly News Corp has gone from being the most valuable media company in the world in 2007 to being $20 billion behind Disney. And then, of course, there’s phone hacking. With a compliant board and Rupert entrenched as executive chairman, there simply hasn’t been a mechanism available to impose regime change on a control freak who does have dictatorial tendencies and an unfortunate tendency to hire, promote and support rogues, which is something he has done around the world.

Representing the Australian Shareholders’ Association, I had lunch two weeks ago with Sir Rod Eddington and Peter Barnes, the two Australian-based independent directors of News Corp. Whilst I can’t reveal what they said, my comments can be openly discussed. And I really enjoyed talking truth to their power for two hours at the Kenzan Japanese restaurant just opposite the old Herald Sun building. At one point, I said, quote, ‘Guys, it must be hard holding the most powerful family in the world to account, representing us non-Murdoch shareholders. But are you up for the job of regime change?’. I’m not confident. When a majority of the independent shareholders vote to remove the Murdochs from the News Corp board next Friday, which they will, it will be very interesting to see how the independent directors react."

Posted by editor at 9:08 AM NZT

Updated: Thursday, 3 May 2012 9:20 AM NZT

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Mood:  chatty

Official findings of the big Leveson UK parliamentary inquiry that Rupert Murdoch is not a fit and proper person to run an international company.

Significant as the UK is the template for Australia's system of law and dominant western European culture albeit it highly multicultural. Also influential as both the leader of the Australian Government and leader of the loyal Opposition here in Australia were both born in the UK.

The Washington Post reports this way:

LONDON — Rupert Murdoch “is not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company,” a British parliamentary committee said Tuesday in a scathing report on News Corp.’s handling of the phone hacking scandal.

The report, which culminates months of investigation by a select committee, was far more condemning of the 81-year-old media titan than expected, saying the chairman and chief executive of News Corp. had “turned a blind eye and exhibited wilful blindness” over the widespread malpractice at his now-closed News of the World tabloid.

It appears the Inquiry report findings split along political lines of 6 to 4 regarding the Murdoch finding. The Post link is here. We go to that source because it may preface the huge media gorillas in USA and indeed in the government turning on Murdoch. Time will tell.

Posted by editor at 10:55 AM NZT

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Mood:  don't ask

Do Bolt's views echo those of Norway's mass murderer, without actually doing the deed? Certainly there seems to be some common beliefs against multiculturalism.

If there are common traits, we wonder if Bolt possibly inherited aryan dutch intolerance from the colonial East Indies network in south east Asia of past centuries? Apparently some of these white colonialists arrived in Australia after the collapse of the Netherlands empire in now Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

And it seems more than a coincidence that high profile Bolt attacks renewable energy initiatives which most thinking people understand to be addressing the science of climate change. One thing is clear - the institution Bolt writes for - the Murdoch press in Victoria and NSW - is raking in big advertising dollars from the mining industry via a sister newspaper broadsheet as pictured here in today's edition.

Posted by editor at 12:19 PM NZT

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Mood:  chatty

We hear shadow AG George Brandis wax lyrical on abc radio about distinctions, arguably without a difference, on why both major parties endorsed Slipper MP in a world of trouble now. Certainly Slipper is hog tied for at least a while by legalistic smart alecs helping Opposition leader Tony Abbott. And the mechanism of choice of the Coalition is revealing of their own character.

Like the worthy Scribe in the Media section of the wicked Limited/News broadsheet, all this recent Slipper imbroglio has got me thinking.

Let me explain. But first note on page 4 of the Murdoch broadsheet today where we see the marginal issue of private sexual matters and petty cab charge misdemeanours.

We submit suing Peter Slipper for sexual harrassment of a 33 year old in a civil suit, in order to unravel a government in a hung parliament is just too small. It is small minded, and legalistic, nonsense with scant regard for the democratic process.

We note in the same press that legally trained Abbott staffer Peta Credlin is negotiating a deal with cross bencher Andrew Wilkie. No doubt Credlin was a chef in the kitchen cooking up this smallness when Abbott was incapable of winning an election fair and square in 2010.

This Peter Slipper affair remind of an episode of the West Wing (Season 2) where Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman must weigh up whether to sue the white supremacists who put a bullet in him. He decides against, according to the script, because the political strategy is “too small”. He doesn’t want gun crime to be defined, to paraphrase, by the 'civil suit equivalent of slipping in the driveway'. Taking government by such a small pretext, in contrast to a national election, is like that. Too small.

Tony Abbott has form on legalistic, albeit financially expensive, games as a weak substitute for good faith motives.

In one of our first forays in this SAM blog some 5 years old now, was a first hand account of bruiser Tony Abbott in action in Sydney University student politics. The story is here:

Monday, 8 January 2007

Why did student activist now minister Tony Abbott punch Peter Woof?
Mood:  quizzical
Topic: election Oz 2007

 with postscript here

The common element in the current rumble is the reliance of Abbott on heavy weight legal support. Back then it was to avoid suit for assault in then Glebe local magistrates’ court. Not for our Tony the George Washington declaration 'that it was I who cut down the apple tree', being the honest good faith response. To own up to mistakes.

Abbott similarly is also implicated in tricky legalistic devilry to attack the One Nation virus that was nurtured ironically in his own electorate office. That all ended in the false imprisonment of Pauline Hanson in Qld.

Not for Abbott the full blooded repudiation of racists and white supremacists which again would have been the George Washington option. To take that overt and honest moral political position would have cleaved the red neck rump on the Coalition right.

Bob Brown, retiring Green MP and leader, came close to the essence of good faith last night on Q & A when challenged on his position 30 years ago in the Franklin River campaign for his support for a coal fired power station alternative. BB announced something like ‘it’s in the newspaper, and I was wrong’ with grace and a winning smile, as if to say, yes I am human and fallible. That folks was the George Washington response, for real. No wonder folks love Brown.

We doubt folks love Tony Abbott that way, or ever will. And the reason is that he is too small, and more practically speaking, too small to be a good PM or maybe even PM at all.

Last night we also saw Abbott interviewed by Uhlmann on 7.30. It was a workmanlike but clunky affair, as the cogs turned over slowly and descended into legalistic distinctions over Slipper then and now, ours then now theirs, and a traverse of other broad policy concerns. Abbott looked very much like a man with trainers on, and painfully under done. And we feel this is really his default position. We think the public, business and conservative alike, ought not expect more if he ever gets in the big chair.

We’ve seen this before. The smart arse charm, with a habit for the cheap joke - note the comic insert on Meet The Press on Sunday catching Abbott’s low brow comment about 'spicy workplaces', as if he would know(?). In my experience such personality types have less than meets the eye in the gravitas department when actually in harness. By distinction some other types grow in the job and rise to the occasion. My conclusion is we are witnessing Abbott at his clunky zenith.

Another serious clue to Abbott's nature is his ideological support for the Iraq War despite estimates of 100,000 to 600,000 deaths on the pretext of presence of weapons of mass destruction which didn't exist. Even after the expose' of this mistaken or falsified WMD claim Abbott remains loyal to the project.

In this Abbott is loyal to a fault to the old man, ex PM John Howard. Arguably Abbott having been mentored by Howard is also his cipher. Howard famously wanted the country to be relaxed and comfortable which is ridiculous when faced by global terrorism, ripples from GFC Mark I, expected Mark II, the war in Afghanistan and grim climate change science (as distinct from geologist and oil industry fiction).

Perhaps the churchy people amongst us by definition are small people who embrace the history and grandeur of a world religion to fill up a vacuum in their own persona? They need a bolt on moral substance that others install internally? Whatever the reason, to quote the West Wing opening season, Abbott is not the real deal.

The answer to Uhlmann’s penetrating question “Are you ready to govern?” in truth should have been “No, and I never will be. It‘s not in my DNA.”

Posted by editor at 12:02 PM NZT

Updated: Tuesday, 24 April 2012 1:20 PM NZT

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Mood:  lyrical

We posted this on our private Facebook page, which deserves some wider distribution:

#1

It seems to me [Christine Milne] is far more mainstream than Bob in relation to her biography sent out on the Greens email list. Just saying. Also it is jarring to read Cheryl Kernot comment in the press today. Can't see CM getting into bed literally with the bastards. Talk about HUGE error of judgement by Kernot, given she was supposed to be making independent critique on same lover (Gareth Evans). I mean, talk about no credibility. One well remembers the Stott euphemistically referring to the news of Kernot's defection to the ALP as "very interesting" with quite a deal of acid in her tone, presumably sourced to the inside knowledge of the affair, that the Australian public were not deemed important enough to be informed of until Laurie Oakes broke the unofficial embargo of the insiders. Absolutely hopeless self awareness of concepts of duty and independence from Kernot.

#2

Some more distilled thinking on the transition - errors in big media coverage -

First BB as admirable and indeed lovable as he is, is not really historically "the father" of the environment movement. Arguably that might go to say Miles Dunphy and some degree son Milo Dunphy (?) back to the bushwalking days of the depression and cheap rail links to the Blue Mtns. Noting BB lived in Dundas as a young medical student not far from me here in Eastwood.

Second - As great as the Franklin River issue and victory was - my vote for Hawke as an 18 year old was because of the Franklin issue while a student at ANU law school - more arrests and protest numbers occurred in the late 80ies and 90ies in the South East Forests of NSW. Thus SE Forests were arguably the biggest green issue of our time politically (?).

Thirdly - the malicious wedging pursued by the anti greens in the validly described hate press is flawed in relation to NSW Greens regardless of genuine tensions or debate. Note
(i) green in Green history of SE Forests which drew me to join and be jointly a first Green Party local councillor in NSW in 1995-1999 at Waverley (which was Rhiannon's home branch by the way, though I lapsed from 2000).
(ii) the wedgers always ignore Lee was effectively brought in by Geof Ash her boyfriend, who is fairly described as the founder and architect of the NSW Greens (I shared a group house in 1992 at Bondi - Geof worked delivering organic vegetables, was famoulsy a refugee from the ALP Left of the 80ies).
(iii) I suspect Lee's ambition as I understand has always been to achieve what her mother failed to do - be elected to the Senate. That is, arguably she has achieved her life goal, which was not it appears to annexe The Greens to the CPA (or renamed variant).
(iv) Regarding BDS - it's a bit trite and naive for those who do not live in the core centres of Jewish diaspora and who are not well informed on a very real streak of ultra right fascism in the Israeli Right - here and there - to seek a quiet life with the powerful Jewish lobby. People of good will MUST address the exemplar of Yigal Amir as Jewish assassin of Israel's PM, given Amir's crime has significant support amongt the diaspora then and now. Think about that in a nuclear armed world power of gifted people. Truly only love will overcome the racism against Jewish folks but that's no recommendation for willful blindness about terra nullius policies on the West Bank and Gaza.

#3
...... the denial of the role of sick capitalism in GFC mark I, and expected mark II, by such as The Australian rherorticians owned by ...... Rupert Murdoch. Inconveniently for them the rusted on socialists like Lee Rhiannon have quite a deal more credibility in their life long contempt for capitalism. Although I don't personally feel that contempt or ideological hatred, I believe an honest appraisal of the GFC and those who warned constantly of the sickness within capitalism (see for instance doco The Corporation, or Smartest Guys in the Room re Enron collapse) should be given due credit and acknowledgment. It's easy in Australia which dodged the recession to ignore that some estimate the cost of the GFC was comparable to the sum of the cost of the Great Depression, WW2, Vietnam War and The Space Race. That's a very very very big price paid and why the valid aspects of socialism and central regulatory government should be honestly appraised. Not for ideological reasons - practical ones.

#4

Also a personal note. Milo Dunphy was a mentor of mine 1993-96. Probably a bigger influence than BB here in NSW. I understand Milo ran as a candidate in Tasmania during the Lake Pedder campaign for something called the United Tasmania Group (?) - Indeed I note this quote: "1972 United Tasmania Group (UTG) set up with Bob Brown and Milo Dunphy as co-directors, largely to campaign against damming of Lake Pedder. Regarded as the world’s first “green” political party." at http://www.ecodirectory.com.au/index.php/green-history

*******

We note this blast from the past too, involving hand delivery of 4,000 by the author to the Bondi Basin residences prior to the Waverley Council election in September 1999, that we would like to think resulted in 3 new Greens being elected to that council. Though the authorisation is in editor's name it was in fact co-written with Geoff Ash in the printing shop of Colin Chartlon at Waterloo, Sydney.
 

Posted by editor at 2:57 PM NZT

Updated: Monday, 16 April 2012 3:26 PM NZT

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Mood:  accident prone

Mmm, funny how the front page today of the Murdoch owned Sydney Daily Telegraph has sanitised the Sydney skyline by airbrushing the typical brown smudge of smog.

Could it be the smog is an inconvenient truth about promoting more motorways and hence more traffic on said tarmac? The fact that literally 1/4 to 1/3 of the Sydney landscape is already dedicated to motorised transport whether it be roads, garages, carparks, and probably other land tenure doesn't seem to rate. But the truth is that's alot of valuable real estate quarantined for cars and trucks and arguably quite excessive already.

Indeed we recently went to NSW Dept of Health website and noticed  their figure up to about 2009 or so that premature deaths from smog in Sydney is now running at 640 to 1,400 people a year. Putting aside the rather large statistical spread of those figures, it is clear that smog is a killer "right here, right now" as one federal politician Greg Hunt is prone to say.

The Sydney Daily Telegraph articles today are prominent in their support for the M4 East and M5 road expansions, but NO ONE believes they won't just choke up like Parramatta Road in a few years unless there is substitution off the roads. 

We understand Australians buy 1 million cars a year, and a great many of them are in Sydney right here, right now. 

There is token reference to the North West rail line in the SDT package of stories but it's a left over really. It seems the package is all about building the next road. And given head of infrastructure Nick Greiner is a road builder one doesn't have to be a genius to know who the Coalition aligned newspaper is barracking for.

No wonder the public are cynical about the Murdoch media, not just politicians. How about addressing the smog Mr Editor? Like supporting conversion to bicycle based transport for short trips? 

It seems to us fundamental change to transport in Sydney is just too big an ideological problem for an editor who is prone to bashing the current Mayor of Sydney who actually supports bicycle based infrastructure. 

Posted by editor at 12:00 PM NZT

Updated: Friday, 12 July 2019 12:09 PM NZT

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Mood:  d'oh

Interesting to read Laurie Oakes in a News Corp lead opinion piece this weekend with a comment that only a twisted mind would view Tony Abbott's recent words as suggesting a tear down of  Aboriginal tent embassy.

Oh really?

Wikipedia carries this entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboriginal_Tent_Embassy

"There have been a number of suspicious fires at the site, with the most devastating being the loss of 31 years of records when the container burnt down in June 2003.^[8]"

Reference: "^ Yaxley, Louise (19 June 2003). "Aboriginal Tent Embassy burnt out". The World Today. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 31 May 2010.

We say Oakes is suffering amnesia, and not just about suspicious fires during the halcyon days of the Howard regime served by Tony Abbott. We note David Oldfield nurtured his bigoted One Nation party in Tony Abbott's electorate office.

Fact is Tony Abbott is sitting on the fence on constitutional reform in favour of the Indigenous and is part of the former racist regime on native title.

We say Piers Akerman gave the true version of Tony Abbott's views on the Aboriginal Tent Embassy today in the Sunday News Corp tabloid - an honest form of racism, if you like. To quote the bloated one:

"The 40th anniversary of this monstrosity should be it's last."

 Or in colloquial terms - tear it down.

13 years ago Tony Abbott's current mentor, then PM John Howard, delivered bucket loads of extinguishment of native title.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Including the lazy big media giving a shallow view of political reality.

Posted by editor at 6:46 PM EADT

Updated: Sunday, 29 January 2012 6:55 PM EADT

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Mood:  d'oh

The Greens and the Left in effect believe people have the right to die trying to be free in Australia. And not persecuted when they succeed in their marathon trek.

The Right in effect, like Gerard Henderson today, and some others who should know better, prefer people die in silence in a theoretical queue in the country of persecution, or a living death in a hostile intermediate country, away from the Australian public eye - in equal or greater numbers.

These folks from the Right are the ones who read down say 650,000 deaths in the Iraq war, to "tens of thousands" or "over one hundred thousand" deaths in the news reports last week. Raw numbers of death of innocents is a very slippery concept for these types - like Henderson.

There is alot of talk about derisorily low numbers of boat people swamping the 13,500 annual refugee intake figure. But the treaty on status of refugees doesn't refer to arbitrary limits, it refers to "fear of persecution".

Fact is Australia is lazy. Henderson is lazy. The ALP and the Coalition are lazy.

And dishonest - boat people are a scapegoat for the 250-300,000 economic immigrants that apparently Australia has no trouble accomodating every year not least for cheap labour for big business. I don't remember Henderson, Morrison or George Pell for that matter saying we should hypothecate economic immigration to refugee lives? That is less of the former and more of the latter.

When they start talking about that we might start listening to the alleged moral analysis of the authority figures. Until then we will do our refugee duty in the legal sector.

Posted by editor at 7:27 AM EADT

Updated: Wednesday, 21 December 2011 2:01 PM EADT

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Mood:  caffeinated

SAM Editor's view of the withdrawn Australia Network tender:

 1. Rudd was keen either when PM or after to trade support for the government for Murdoch's greed, with the price being sell down of ABC turf. A logical if amoral bargain. 

 2. Now post NOTW scandal cabinet make a very different political calculation that they can buck the Murdoch regime, and maybe they can too (no disrespect to the Sphere who writes for the Daily Liberal Party tabloid).

3. The sabotaged tender keeping Aunty in the "soft diplomacy" business, charter of independence notwithstanding, suggests to this punter and probably quite a few more in the beltway and general public land (?) that the ALP are masters at the fix, same as it ever was.

4. Item 3 above is inconsistent with Laurie Oakes' theory that the sabotaged tender will evidence incompetence to the public as the resonating message. Au contraire - that's not our experience, in NSW where funny things happen too often to be random.

5. Rather all this evidences the jaded reality of national politics where good process and good policy outcomes are disconnected from political economy and careerism. Same as it ever was (refer Giuseppe De Lampedusa's awesome novel The Leopard for a beautiful case study in the context of the Sicilian aristocracy).

Posted by editor at 12:07 PM EADT

Updated: Sunday, 11 December 2011 10:34 AM EADT

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Mood:  accident prone

We've managed to flush out the defensive Peta Credlin profile from the flagship of the Liberal Party media machine, namely The Weekend Australian, via their colour supplement and teaser on page 1 main paper.

It's a grasping the nettle sort of situation for the Liberal Party and the newspaper itself so heavily invested in that side of corporate politics.

The opening line is priceless, referring to those "swirling rumours".

We posted this on facebook, last week, complete with politician network, as follows:

Tom McLoughlin

I think it's time to acknowledge the rumour swirling around the Canberra insider club aka beltway. The rumour, even if false, is that the leader of the opposition is having an affair with his chief of staff. I've heard this rumour exists, from two independent sources now in the last 4 weeks, the latest political in Canberra. Even if it is not true it is swirling. Abbott's family values platform may be up for review in an election. Wednesday at 2:31pm

Of all the verbs journalist Kate Legge could have chosen in her opening sentence, it turns out to be an echo of "swirling". We used the same word on a Crikey thread last week also.

And the two independent sources of the rumour "swirling" in Canberra are real.

Four years ago at the outset of this SAM blog we nailed Abbott for being a student thug in the 1970ies.

Now we offer these comments on Credlin:

1. For a West Winger fan she missed the one about Josh Lyman ("joking lie man"!) and the imperative of the chief policy adviser staying out of the spot light - "it's not what we do" he laments.

2. Seems her husband and no doubt herself are interested in two things out of this story, given it had to be written, with social media closing in:

(a) to harvest the profile position for her own career ambition to be the first conservative female PM, if and when Abbott crashes (as predicted by the real political journalism today by ... Laurie Oakes in the sister SDT), that is some insurance post Abbott;

(b) to get ahead of the social media curve and control the story of those dirty laundry rumours.

3. But what the Liberal Party can't publish are updated pictures of happy families - the Abbott marriage, the Loughnane-Credlin marriage, in contra distinction to the Happy Couple PR image of PM Gillard and partner at CHOGM recently over in Perth - under byline of Gemma Jones of the Sydney Daily Telegraph in the belly of the conservative beast, so to speak. That sort of says it all.

 

4. Credlin and her allies may want to note (unkindly) this story leads the soft and gossip section of the newspaper with not one reference of substance in the main newspaper. That's an expendable kind of PR perch there. Most serious colour mag profiles have a cover article in the main press too.

5. Despite clumsy metaphors about dirty laundry and washing of Abbott's lycra, the article ominously did not meet or even attempt to address the real "swirling" rumour and by ramping Credlin's attractive 40 year frame can only intensify the swirl, so to speak. Is this indeed the infamous News Ltd turning of the rack on Abbott's DLP economics and a warning of corporate big brother to get back on script re the IMF funding etc? One does wonder. If so, it highlights the danger for Ms Expendable in a much bigger game of real politik thuggery internal to the Coalition over 'pure' free market economics after the GFC made it look like the mumbo jumbo it really is, and of course, IR ideology etc.

And what we noticed about alleged bright burning brain Credlin in my google research last night, pre The Australian story, was this quote with clumsy, awful grammar, of a so called lawyer of words amongst mere mortals, courtesy of the Sacred Heart Women newsletter:

 "wouldn't be able to have achieved the things I have ...." Whoa, stop, help, give me oxygen, grammar crime underway! Passive, not active, repetition of word choice, excess length.

That ain't no Ainslie Hayes talking there (badly hazed Ainslie - everyone's favourite conservative on West Wing show, and the hilarous Gilbert & Sullivan episode with the dessicted hate flower delivery, saved by gallant Sam Christ Born err Seaborn).

And note the confusion over hair colour - seems some therapy may be called for contrary to the 'happy in her self' cliche from Ms Legge. Perhaps via the First Bloke known for his hairdressing and listening skills?

Posted by editor at 3:06 PM EADT

Updated: Saturday, 5 November 2011 3:42 PM EADT

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Mood:  caffeinated

We've met one or two in our political activist career, both nominally same side and opposition. The truism about the enemy being behind you tends to apply.

These short arses can be quite recalcitrant about their own central and special power role. They won't compromise. They will push and push and push until yes, metaphorically they magically grow another 12 inches from 5 to 6 feet as properly befits their status in the world.

This is the psychology the Australian people are dealing with in Joyce, who as smart and plausible as he is, assumes above all democracy that he must know best. That is, an attack on democracy itself aligned to corporate executive self interest.

Napolean is th exemplar, who famously spent human lives as a daily allowance of cannon fodder. 

No doubt union hard cases have another psychology again, of ideological rejection of individual talent and profit above the group interest.

Pre GFC the corporate free trade mantra might have been valid, but those days are gone, well gone. Govt intervention is highly necessary including nationalisation of the carrier again.

Posted by editor at 9:17 AM NZT

Updated: Sunday, 30 October 2011 9:19 AM NZT

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Mood:  down

Chris Uhlmann's spouse is an ALP politician which is well known in the belt way of insiders, but not to the general ABC public audience. 

Here is a beltway report of same:

http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/05/06/chris-uhlmann-a-pro-says-abbott-but-is-there-an-abc-double-standard/

Uhlmann runs his pompous jaded cynicism against The Greens tonight on the 7.30 Report. We think it's projection of his own flaws.

His concluding punchline is that the Greens are just like any other political party by failing to criticise Asher, who has quit the C'th Ombudsman role. 

Wrong.

Wrong for failing to disclose his own ALP family connection.

Wrong on the merits because anyone in said beltway knows that no one else at the Senate Select Committee from the major parties was ever going to pursue the questions that needed to be asked, other than the Greens, regarding the desperate plight of asylum seekers and broken detention policy.

Asher in effect voted with his morality and his heart to save peoples' lives, which both major parties have abrogated with extended mandatory detention, not least in the face of Dept of Immigration senior bureaucrates saying the system is broken.

Which by definition makes the Greens a political party, granted, by cooperating in asking critical questions the answers of which the public has every Right to Know.

But it also makes the Greens a very different kind of political party to the lazy, arrogant born to rule characters in the two major parties. Including said ALP spouse.

And Uhlmann appears to have deliberately airbrushed out the role the Greens played in embarrassing Gillard on her failed Malaysian solution as an obvious grounds for subjective bias in the quotes from Senator Faulkner. The only real news indeed in the story was that the two major parties are bullies against the Greens and free speech. Nothing new about that. 

What Asher has done is basically verified what most thinking voters already know. That the two major parties stink with inflated self interest and have no ideals or convictions and only the Greens fight against injustice. Because if Asher had given the dorothy dixer questions to other parties to ask you can be sure the chair of the committee would have shut him down real quick.

But Uhlmann prefes sophistry to reporting the obvious real politik? Conflict of interest have anything to do with that Chris?

Posted by editor at 9:17 PM NZT

Updated: Thursday, 20 October 2011 9:20 PM NZT

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Mood:  quizzical

Unreasonable people change the world and society. Lee Rhiannon is such a person, no doubt. I find her unreasonable no doubt.

But then we have puffer fish (they are poisonous too) Graham Richardson pontificating on talent pool and sanity of elected officials. 

Which might play pre GFC but a wise person said: The definition of madness is doing the same thing - read doing the same kind of politics and business - and expecting a different result.

That's Richo in the frame there. A dinosaur mendicant to big media and corporate interests including the business donation base of the ALP and broader corporate interests.

One notes that Rhiannon's greatest achievement is the promotion of the Democracy4Sale research of such assistance to journalism. 

Even to the extent of a backlash on herself regarding donation to Survey by a foreign nominally hostile power under Gorbachev. The irony.

Mmm. What could Richo tell us about cash in brown bags I wonder? The man has a vested interest. Even if it is ovetaken by the parental career instinct nowdays.

As for talent pool of the Greens 'dropping off' after Brown and Milne'. Not according to reports (Crikey) of the green think tank behind the climate change committee. 

And the WA green senators are superb speakers and thinkers. No problem with talent there. Hanson Young will mature and is already a raw beauty in the political talent stakes that any major party would be proud to annexe, but won't.

Qld practicising lawyer. Medical doctor from Victoria. 

Indeed how deep is the talent in Richo's old mates network, you know, deeper than self interest and Keating's most cynical of philosophy that ushered in the dregs of the middle class?

People in glass houses Richo, will not prove to be a sustainable provider. Understand?

Secondly the deification of leader Bob Brown, admirable as he is, and courage beyond measure, has his human failings. Failing to publicly stand up for Alec Marr would have to be a big one, duly noted. Especially with Garrett's mates behind the unravelling of Marr. More irony.

Posted by editor at 9:21 AM NZT

Updated: Sunday, 16 October 2011 9:33 AM NZT

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Mood:  accident prone

What's in a cartoon and headline today? 

Did all this start with Moir's hilarious cans of "spin' and Tony as a 'one sandwich short of a picnic' Popeye character? 

Or did it start with the humble SAM expose in January 2007 of a thumping student politician Tony back in his bladish student glory days amongst the Sydney uni snobs of the 70ies?

Or the unnamed caller to abc radio who knew Tony at school throwing oranges at people.

One  wonders.

One notes a certain echo, a certain theme with a big mo, in today's major Sydney press, indeed even a cross corporate consensus News to Fairfax, that Tony Abbott is energetic to the extent of dangerous violence. That or his mates in the right wing who follow his lead.

Tony is not your Gandhi style politician. He's not for taking a whole country with him. No he's a hard action man into the fray no matter how wrongheaded, self serving, or backward.

Tony's own weather system of activity can generate the vortex of attention even as it leads downward.

Tony believes in transubstantiation but not climate science. Go figure. 

And so the big press note insightfully Tony's oath "in blood" yesterday against the carbon tax in the wake of the mass murder by a Norwegian right wing extremist, the day after a page 1 story of similar ilk in the Sydney Morning Herald on the same local concern, backed by the authority of the intelligence agencies here.

Just like the critical error over the Iraq War - supported by Tony.

Conservative people, nay conservative voters, will note the concern, and surely agree. No matter your view say on asylum seekers and their miserable situation, you have to wonder about a man who makes light of that misery with a deliberate quip about "stop the boats, stop the smokes".

But why?

We speculate such a person may have taken a few too many knocks to the head in their younger, rugby sporting career. Whatever the reason, it's all Tony's own work and the media have reported today to useful effect.

Posted by editor at 9:21 AM NZT

Updated: Thursday, 13 October 2011 9:24 AM NZT

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