The Australian offers a surprise Newspoll with the two-preferred vote exactly where their accurate pre-election poll had it: 50-50. However, both major parties are down on the primary vote – Labor to 34 per cent, compared with 36.4 per cent at the pre-election poll and 38.0 per cent at the election, and the Coalition parties to 41 per cent, compared with 43.4 per cent and 43.6 per cent. The Greens are on 14 per cent, compared with 13.9 per cent and 11.8 per cent. Tony Abbott has dropped three points on preferred prime minister to 34 per cent, with Julia Gillard steady on 50 per cent. If nothing else, two 50-50 polls in 24 hours provide a nice rejoinder to the fresh-election-now lobby.
[“The AFP’s report on their investigation into the leaking of a confidential Treasury note to The Sydney Morning Herald effectively confirms that the leak came from the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, or a senior member of his staff,” Mr Robb told The Australian.]
Or, indeed, the Flying Spaghetti Mosnter.
Grow up, Robb!
Mad Dog, I said the story was factual and objective. But entertaining you further:
[The ABC headline is biased and false. It says there was a Treasury leak.]
No it doesn’t. It says there was a leak. The word Treasury does not appear in the title. The leak could’ve come from anywhere including from within the Opposition.
cyril,
Them and a box hat makes a pretty weak strippergram.
blue-green:
The problems in NSW weren’t just to do with preselection, but included getting postals out early, and bizarre decisions about which electorates to distribute campaign funds. Personally I think Tone is right to blame the NSW branch, but the blame can’t lie solely with them. He needs to accept responsibility as well.
I suppose I should add a patronising line like “try harder next time”. Best try harder next time.
[the mountain of evidence I have collected of similar biased and/or false headlines]
Good work, Mad Dog! Please do keep collating the evidence. hen consider forwarding it to Greens Senator Scott Ludlum (who it is believed is considering a push for a Parliamentary Inquiry), John Menadue, Senator Conroy, your local MP and state Senators, to Audience and Consumer Affairs department at the ABC, to Friends of the ABC, in letters to the editor, calls to talkback shows, comments on ABC and other blogs etc. You know the drill. I say again, good on you, MD.
But yes, in the first line of the story they should’ve included the word “alleged”. Incompetence should always be favoured over conspiracy.
Confessions
I think it is because they couldn’t give a toss about winning back Fed govt. Their entire operation is geared towards winning back NSW govt.
[Incompetence should always be favoured over conspiracy.]
Why?
Rudd and Gillard had a long meeting to discuss foreign affairs
on Monday this week
http://www.foreignminister.gov.au/transcripts/2010/100915_press_conference.html
[Why?]
It’s far more likely.
Itep,
The quote of the headline in my post was cut and pasted from the ABC Online News site.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/17/3014321.htm?section=justin
Please don’t call me a liar, I find it offensive.
cheers,
Mad Dog
[Has Gillard talked to Kevin Rudd since he became foreign minister?
I find it curious we have a Foreign Minister who has absolutely no communication with our Prime Minister except maybe through faxes.]
You obviously haven’t been paying attention, TTH!
Both Rudd and Gillard have mentioned the long conversation which they had on Monday prior to his trip.
“QUESTION: On Pakistan, you said that everyone needs to lift their efforts. Why do you think the world, including us, has been so slack and secondly was it your idea or the Prime Minister’s idea to go via Pakistan?
KEVIN RUDD: I recommended it to the Prime Minister in a long conversation with the PM on Monday and she readily agreed to it. She, like myself, shares a deep humanitarian concern for what has happened in flood-affected Pakistan and, of course, as authorised already, a humanitarian support of $35 million for the aid effort there.”
From http://www.foreignminister.gov.au/transcripts/2010/100915_press_conference.html
[*sigh* Where did you get that from?]
Any photos or video footage of Gillies and Rudd talking to each other?
I certainly haven’t seen any. There was “that” meeting where Gillies and Rudd looked into oblivion while pointing to all the seats they were going to lose in QLD… but other than that, nothing.
[Please don’t call me a liar, I find it offensive.]
Very odd since I never called you a liar. Perhaps your attention to detail is as lacking as your insistance that the headline claimed there was a Treasury leak.
[The quote of the headline in my post was cut and pasted from the ABC Online News site.]
Well to humour you I’ll copy and paste the exact headline from the story you just linked to:
[AFP drop probe into election leak]
There’s no mention of Treasury in the headline, which is what you’re trying to use as evidence of ABC bias. As I said earlier, there was a leak of some sort, what is not known is where the leak came from. Was it the Treasurer’s office, from within the Opposition?
I hadnt noticed this line of Abbott’s, quoted in the AFR:
[And he {Abbott} suggested that one reason Mr Oakeshott might be seeking the speakership was to avoid voting on individual pieces of legislation, which could alienate voters in his electorate]
I suspect Liberals and Nationals have ferocious campaigns lined up in Lyne, whenever the next election occurs
[Any photos or video footage of Gillies and Rudd talking to each other?]
Do you think meetings between the PM and ministers are always photo opportunities for the press? They just meet in their offices and don’t invite photographers. Gillard has already said that she had a one-hour meeting with Rudd after she appointed him FM, and for all anyone knows they had more meetings before he flew out. Why don’t you listen and read instead of throwing out these silly assumptions based on no evidence whatsoever?
[Why?
It’s far more likely.]
More probable it might be, but the point does come, would you agree, when the benefit of the doubt has been exhausted.
To take the inflexible approach of Ltep – always favour the incompetent over the conspiracy – is a cop-out and the maxim of denialists and defeatists. It restrains the possibility of open-minded, more fruitful analysis in a straitjacket.
[All that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing]
TTH
You need to complain to the ABC that they do not have enough stories
with photos of Rudd and Gillard meeting and discussing their
joint action on foreign matters.
[You need to complain to the ABC that they do not have enough stories
with photos of Rudd and Gillard meeting and discussing their
joint action on foreign matters.]
And since it’s supposed to be bipartisan, Mesmer should be there too.
[ You tend to take a ‘realist’ type view of things. I am more of a ‘constructivist’ ]
” A cynic is what an idealist calls a realist”
I’m not making it hard BG, merely pointing out the pitfalls that lie ahead, nobody but the most flowery idealist will thank the government for increasing tax and consequently prices once the warm fuzzies have worn off. If you stab somebodies hip pocket nerve the result is that you invariably get kicked. I think KR’s decline was a combination of factors sure, one was the backflipping but another was the branding as a GBNT. This was an extremely simplistic but effective strategy.
This gained traction partly I think because the drought that bought climate change to such prominence at the end of JWH’s time had mostly broken and what was the most obvious example of the effects of CC seen by people on the news night after night went away.
I’m not sure if calling it anything different will make much difference but the political realities make this issue a difficult and thankless one IMHO.
Good grief this is is bad…public maladministration; how could so much be wasted in so few months (again from AFR)
[The bill for the scrapped CBD Metro in Sydney has crept up to $411m and there’s more to come…
NSW Transport Minister John Robertson {said} ” If a private developer had bought the buildings, emptied them in the expectation construction would proced and then cancelled the project, the process would have been the same”]
Well, except that the private developer quite possibly would have gone broke, and at the very least ,senior heads would have rolled.
190 days to go
Laocoon
I am going to get a t-shirt printed with a baseball bat on the front.
Media perspectives:
AFR:
[Universities acclaimed
Six Australian universities, led by the University of Melbourne, have made it into the top 200 best learning institutions in the world…]
SMH:
[Top unis sink in latest world rankings
UNIVERSITY executives have been left scratching their heads after a change in methodology sent NSW universities plunging in the latest set of world university rankings….]
http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/top-unis-sink-in-latest-world-rankings-20100916-15eqy.html
[Has Gillard talked to Kevin Rudd since he became foreign minister?
I find it curious we have a Foreign Minister who has absolutely no communication with our Prime Minister except maybe through faxes.]
How does TTH know this? Who does he/she/it work for? Tell us TTH, what do you do for a living? What qualifies you to make these outrageous statements?
TTH posts about 30 silly comments a day and he gets quite a few responses each time, telling him what a fool he is. Lets face it, he is just wasting everybody’s time.
It would be better if everybody just ignored him and he went and trolled elsewhere.
I’m not sure if anyone’s mentioned it, but viewing an interview with senator-elect John Madigan this morning on ABC News Breakfast (great show) I wasn’t filled with much hope that he will be an effective representative. Actually felt a bit sorry for the poor man who struggled through the interview. All I could garner is that he wants to do something about drug culture.
774 Radio has reported that Abbott will meet with Oakshott next week to further discuss the parliamentary reforms
[This is the current version of a balanced ABC report – apply emotive adjectives, and pejoratives references to Government policies and responses that are reasonable, but softly describe nonsensical and out-of-step-with-Industry Opposition ramblings as merely ‘interesting’ then allow a free kick to the Coalition by playing only their media soundbite of the hour – virtual paid advertising for the Coalition, courtesy of our tax payer funded ABC.]
BigShip@3019 – this is also Fox News and US Republicans modus operandi. Emotive words, a shake of the head to infer that the Govt. is insane or incompetent.
It needs to be pointed out to Marius Benson that we want to hear from both sides equally. I noticed Scott MOrrison is getting another good run today with just a few words from an interview with Chris Bowen. At least Bowen is starting to explain what is happening in immigration.
Super Radio Network from Sydney was beating up the AS issue again this morning. It might not have much of an audience in Sydney but it is networked up to the Sunshine Coast and has a big rural/coastal audience. Labor has ignored it for the past 3 years and I hope it doesn’t in the next 3.
11.00 ABC radio news leads with story that the coalition have said that the AFP investigation found that the leak came from the Treasurer’s Office. This is because the AFP have not been able to find it coming from anywhere else!! WTF!!!
Itep, The Just In headline page still has it, thus: (middle story) Click on ABC News, then Just In.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/justin/
[A Victorian secondary school has suspended three students after the death of a kangaroo at Anglesea, on the Victorian coast, last week.
Tags: secondary-schools, animals, crime, antisocial-behaviour, anglesea-3230
AFP drop probe into election leak
Posted 1 hour 15 minutes ago
The Australian Federal Police will not be taking any action over a Treasury leak about the Federal Opposition’s election costings.
Tags: law-crime-and-justice, federal-elections, australia
Rudd announces more cash for Pakistan Video Photo
Posted 1 hour 47 minutes ago | Updated 1 hour 21 minutes ago
Kevin Rudd has used his visit to Pakistan to announce that Australia will contribute an extra $40 million to help victims of the country’s devastating floods.
Tags: disasters-and-accidents, emergency-incidents, floods, relief-and-aid-organisations, pakistan
Hazaras risk death if refugee claims rejected: expert Photo
Posted 1 hour 49 minutes ago | Updated 1 hour 6 minutes ago]
When you’ve dug a hole for yourself, its best to stop digging.
And thanks for confirming that the story itself was false and biased.
Only a tiny difference, really, between ‘alleged’ and an actual event.
cheers,
Mad Dog
Swan was quite evasive when asked during the campaign if he was the leaker. I think he probably was.
[And the IPA have regular gigs on just about every ABC program and internet site going.]
Cuppa@2877 in reply to jv – the other morning Tim Wilson of the IPA was discussing the papers on ABC Breakfast. I couldn’t believe that the presenters allowed him to get away with denigrating Rob Oakeshott in the way he did over the speakership issue. He virtually said that Oakeshoot would be looking for the extra loot and prestige. He sarcastically pointed to his 17 min. speech and made fun of what he would do as speaker. Blah, blah about his electorate too.
There were laughs and smiles all round but I thought it appalling that he was given that time to denigrate RO.
Of course there was no mention that IPA is a RW think tank for anyone not knowing who Wilson is.
Mad Dog, I think you need to look up a definition of what a headline is. Do try harder next time.
[Swan was quite evasive when asked during the campaign if he was the leaker. I think he probably was.]
Wasn’t Swan one of the backstabbers?
I can’t imagine him being the one. Probably a Rudd staffer.
[And thanks for confirming that the story itself was false and biased.]
I did no such thing of course. Able to provide a quote from me where I suggest you’re a liar, or was that another confection of yours?
[Wasn’t Swan one of the backstabbers?
I can’t imagine him being the one. Probably a Rudd staffer.]
As usual, TTH, you haven’t got a good grasp of the facts. We are discussing the leak to a newspaper of a coalition policy costing.
Itep, I’ll leave the conclusions to others. You are out of your depth.
cheers
MD
back to work.
When I worked in soccer I used to laugh at the conspiracy theorists who claimed there was a coordinated effort to minimise media coverage of the sport. Then during a court case over pay TV it emerged that there [had] been an unwritten agreement with the AFL.
Cock-up v conspiracy? The former 90 per cent of the time but that leaves 10 per cent the latter.
The ABC’s issue is that several identifiable incidences of reporting in the past few weeks mean the organisation is either biased or has a real issue with staff competency in the basics of writing and subbing.
Ltep’s point about editorialising is very applicable to the ABC. This is a major issue in ares such as RN Breakfast. Fran Kelly’s sarcastic wtte “let’s hope Telstra shareholders like it or you’ll be in trouble” to end an interview with Stephen Conroy was this week’s example.
As Ltep said, the distinction btween news reporting and editorialising is crucial in news organisations. The ABC not only tolerates editorialising by journalists and hosts, it actually encourages and endorses it by allowing those same staff to also appear as panelists.
The ABC does need a thorough review. If it is not deliberately biased, then at best senior management have allowed the development of a work culture which blurs the lines between independent, even handed reporting and the delivery of opinion. That in itself is worth analysing and correcting.
It is also crucial that the perceptions created by senior management positions being held by people with very direct ties to the Liberal Party to be addressed – not by appointing Labor appointees but by selecting genuinely independent directors an executives.
GG
I think you’ve missed the point about the Foley article. The bit you quoted was a criticism of Foley that he had stuffed up the costings for the New RAH as everyone told him he had it wrong. Everyone laughed at him saying it would be a PPP. And now he’s finally worked out he was wrong all along.
Thank you for pointing that out for us.
Goshome
Apparently I heard this morning, Malcolm Turnbull believes that there should be more funding of the ABC. He believes they are underfunded, and therefore can’t do their job properly.
ltep 3076
[I’m not sure if anyone’s mentioned it, but viewing an interview with senator-elect John Madigan this morning on ABC News Breakfast (great show) I wasn’t filled with much hope that he will be an effective representative. Actually felt a bit sorry for the poor man who struggled through the interview.]
I think the difficult thing for someone like this is that they sort of have no-one “helping” them when they start, unlike the newbies from the major parties or even the Greens (who at least have Senators to help Bandt). I am sure it would be overwhelming to be in his position, especially as it was fairly unexpected. I think Ted Mack helped Phil Cleary in this regard. I think Madigan should go and see Nick Xenophon.
This article does not mention funding by Turnbull. That part I heard on the radio.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/turnbull-backs-abcs-expansion-strategy-20100916-15eo2.html
Itep @3052
This is what the ABC says:
[AFP drops probe into election leak
Posted 2 hours 33 minutes ago
The Australian Federal Police will not be taking any action over a Treasury leak about the Federal Opposition’s election costings.
The Coalition refused to submit a number of its policies to Treasury to be costed after the department’s analysis of its paid parental leave scheme was leaked to a newspaper.
The AFP says it has found no evidence of Commonwealth offences being committed.]
Surely, you can see that it says a Treasury leak? See “over a Treasury leak about the Federal Opposition’s election costings.”
[Good work, Mad Dog! Please do keep collating the evidence. hen consider forwarding it to Greens Senator Scott Ludlum (who it is believed is considering a push for a Parliamentary Inquiry), John Menadue, Senator Conroy, your local MP and state Senators, to Audience and Consumer Affairs department at the ABC, to Friends of the ]
CUPPA, was nt going to re log in but when i saw your comment about the abc.
About 18 months ago sent a complaint re abc to the ministers office to my amazement i got a reply from the abc. I rang Senator Conroys office and gave them an ear full and told them the email was meant for them the person i spoke to apologize. So if you send an email to the Minister make sure you put on it its just for the Minister.
Also may be time to start asking when they are going to advertise the MD job i know is not till July next year but i hope they take there time with this one.
Goshome, interesting post. I would weed out editorialising from the ABC. I don’t want to hear the opinions of people like Uhlmann. I just want to know what has happened, who has said what etc. so that I can make up my own mind. This should be the role of the ABC and they should bring to an end a disturbing drift towards the editorial approach to news they’ve displayed by the promotion of Uhlmann and the start of The Drum.
There is a place for investigative journalism, in shows such as 4 Corners, but this should be kept separate from other aspects of ABC News.
I also agree that there should be a clear ban on any obvious partisans from management positions within the organisation. The Conroy reforms go one step towards this, but could be strengthened further by removing any ministerial discretion.
There’s no harm in looking at a new charter either.
What I do find absurd, though, are calls for writers to face criminal charges.
Itep
[story was factual and objective]
There has been an allegation of a leak. No leak has been proven to have occurred, therefore any story which says “the leak” is factualy incorrect. A factually correct story would say “the alleged leak”.
Well, this is the view of a country bumpkin. No offence intended.
This morning there has been debate about the ABC and it’s bias. (so called, alleged and so on.)
I know there will always be snakes in the grass.
You just do.
Many can be lethal.
So what do you do when you are walking through the grass.To not get bitten.?
Stamp your feet, agitate, make noise.
No point whingeing, snakes don’t understand.
Make noise.
Well according to the coalition there was still a treasury leak by the Treasurer.
[Surely, you can see that it says a Treasury leak? See “over a Treasury leak about the Federal Opposition’s election costings.”]
Yes, but that’s not in the headline, which was the main thrust of Mad Dog’s argument. The article should have included ‘alleged’ or rephrased the first sentence, but I would say this is incompetence rather than bias. Others obviously disagree.
Itep
as per your 3057