The latest Essential Research survey has the Coalition’s two-party lead unchanged at 51-49, with their primary vote down a point to 45 per cent, Labor steady on 39 per cent and the Greens up one to 10 per cent. Supplementary questions find respondents overwhelmingly of the belief that more competition is needed in the banking sector, trusting Joe Hockey and the Liberals slightly more on the issue than Wayne Swan and Labor; attaching high importance to our relationships with the United States and perfidious New Zealand, but indifferent about Germany and South Africa; rating the influence of the United States as weakening (60 per cent) rather than strengthening (20 per cent); and supporting same-sex marriage.
[More opt out of fixed lines – THE number of people ditching their fixed line telephone in favour of mobiles is bigger than thought, with just two-thirds of young Australians connecting their copper wire line when they move out of home.]
polls?????????
Tracey Bowden so her dad is that Mr. Bowden that means she was born here
[That said, I’d rather Jones than Uhlmann for 730ReportLand!]
ill will second that
I felt a huge pang of sadness when the camera lingered on Christopher Hitchens’ face at the conclusion of the Lateline interview.
Yes good luck to Hitchens, it doesn’t look good for him though.
Whilst I do find him a bit pompous at times (he is a bit too much in love with his own intellect at times I find – “the cuban author X once said”) he is a brilliant writer.
Good interview by Jones although I felt part one was better. Must get the 7.30 report gig I reckon.
My oh and I were listening to Fran K interviewing Nicola Roxon this morning, and afterwards oh said wtte…..why are interviewers so aggressive these days?…..she only seemed interesting in catching her [Roxon] out…..
Many on here have commented in a similar vein…..bring on the scheduled review of media ownership/ABC board membership…….it can’t come soon enough for me!!!
BK – did you watch Agenda with Hewson and Richardson. Hewson definitely not going to give Julia any credit for anything at all.
Richardson still being Richardson and trying to find his relevance again after the dodgy business with Rivkin but his comments about the carbon pricing were interesting. He doesn’t want to wait for the result of a commission finding but just get on with pricing it now. Does he work as a lobbyist for the mining industry now.
I think the report on the media needs to include disclaimers before every interview is carried out so that we know just who these people represent and what kind of conflict of interest is involved. A caption could be placed at the bottom of the screen with the name and the disclaimer. Might whack of a request to Ludlum to ask for it to be included in the stuff he is collecting.
Joe de Bruyn “offering some guidance” on the issue of gay marriage.
[
POWERFUL union boss Joe de Bruyn has warned Julia Gillard her government is drifting and being dragged to the left by the Greens.
Mr de Bruyn, the shop assistants union national secretary and also a member of the ALP’s national executive, attacked Ms Gillard this morning for allowing MPs to vote for a Greens motion that called on parliamentarians to talk to their constituents about gay marriage.
The vote came after several Labor MPs spoke in favour of the shifting its position on gay marriage, including cabinet minister Mark Arbib, as well as Australian Workers Union boss Paul Howes.
But Mr de Bruyn said Ms Gillard should have killed the issue yesterday and that “there are no votes for Labor” in the issue.
In an interview on ABC’s Radio National, Mr de Bruyn said he was “not threatening” the Prime Minister – who was installed with the help of the parliamentary wing of the SDA – but “offering some guidance”.
]
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/union-boss-joe-de-bruyn-warns-julia-gillard-on-influence-of-greens/story-fn59niix-1225956234914
[Might whack of a request to Ludlum to ask for it to be included in the stuff he is collecting]
Yes and Mr. Wilkie also. good idea as if they are going to do that.
Another crap headline from ABC Online …………”Union boss savages Gillard on gay marriage”……( http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/11/19/3070792.htm?section=justin )
Hasn’t De Bruyn heard about the “New Paradigm”?……Buddy, MP’s are now allowed to introduce Private Members Bills/Motions in the HoR…
If this diminishes your Catholic right wing influence……too bad!! We live in a democracy and if this makes it difficult for you to peddle your reactionary, medieval points of view….all the better for the rest of us!!
[Good interview by Jones although I felt part one was better. Must get the 7.30 report gig I reckon.]
Agree Tony Jones would be the best choice he is on top of his game whilst Leigh Sales is still learning the ropes.
I’m not liking what I’m hearing about the direction the 7.30 Report may be heading in
[
The news that the ABC is reviewing what its flagship current affairs television program, The 7.30 Report, should look like once the long-term presenter and hard-hitting interviewer O’Brien departs at the end of this year is cause for alarm.
Officially, according to the acting head of news and current affairs, Alan Sunderland, the review is an “opportunity to look at the host, format and how to do current affairs in 2011”.
Word from within the ABC, however, is that the program’s ratings are falling, and that this is being put down to the format being “old” and the program too serious. The incisive political interview is being talked about as having outlived its usefulness. No one else, the rationale goes, could do it like Kerry.
There is even speculation that the ABC is looking at The 7pm Project as a role model – meaning the only prime-time program where political leaders feel obliged to explain themselves would be replaced by a light-hearted and humorous “take” on the day’s events. Please say it isn’t so.
]
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/fears-for-the-future-in-730-reportland-20101119-17zl3.html
[Joe de Bruyn, national secretary of the Shop,]
labor voters voted for julia .
quess what its 2010 not 1950 we can have personal votes on all sorts of things doesnt mean it is legilated this is democracy at work.
I would feel it is more helpful to say nothing and see what happens.
Anne Summers has come out in defence of retaining some semblance of integrity within the 7.30 Report and how important it is for our democracy:
Why does our tax-payer funded national broadcaster have to pay much attention to ratings anyway? Especially on important current affairs and political reporting where the goal should be a high journalistic standard, not high ratings. News as entertainment clearly undermines the whole purpose of undertaking a journalism degree in the first place, doesn’t it?
And you beat me to it madcyril!
markjs – I also heard Roxon on RN and thought her content was good but gee, she missed great opportunities to go in heavy against Abbott on the pharmaceuticals.
She only mention once that he was costing the budget money and that the industry had agreed with the Govt. She left it at that. She should have raved on about the taxpayers missing out and having to pay much more, etc.. but no – there is absolutely no killer or political instinct in sight in these interviews. Abbott would have got his lines in throughout the whole interview.
New media advisers needed urgently for these Ministers.
Fiz, I agree with your sentiments. Well said
my say,
Robert Fisk writes for The Independent. I consider him the best informed English-writing journalist on Middle East affairs. He and Christopher Hitchens have been considered among the best left-leaning political analysts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_fisk
tracey bowden would do me any time but if we beleive the article above may be it will be the chaser boys.
wrote to the abc and ask them whom they plan to have in their commedy news area
at 7.30
madcyril:
If we lose high standards on the ABC you will struggle to find them anywhere else. I fear that once it’s gone, it’s gone for good. I think we are watching the death spiral of political and journalistic integrity – both are chasing populism down the entertainment drain.
[Fisk writes for The Independent. I consider him the best informed English-writing journalist on Middle East affairs]
yes i really enjoy him and during the Iraq war, now you have promted my memory i had him confused with an american economist who speaks very well to any one remember.
I feel sorry for Mr. Hitchens better to beleive insomething at his time of life i would think
If they dumb down the 7.30 report then the rabbit will have no one to hold him to account for his lack of detail or his sloganeering. He will get away with murder.
He hasn’t been back on the 7.30 report since the election – he’s just biding his time until Kerry retires. Tony Jones is really the only decent hard interviewer left once Kerry goes. Leigh Sales is too chummy with the likes of Scott Morrisson and Chris Uhlmann is just a tool. Something about him just really annoys me.
[
tracey bowden would do me any time but if we beleive the article above may be it will be the chaser boys.
wrote to the abc and ask them whom they plan to have in their commedy news area
at 7.30
]
my say,
Your right. It’s starting to sound like it’s going to be the 7.30 comedy sketch rather than the 7.30 report
[New media advisers needed urgently for these Ministers.]
BH:
A number of people on here have been calling for a change in media tactics since last year when it was becoming clear that the important messages that need to get out into the electorate weren’t getting out there. It seems the govt is still tramping on down the same path as during its first term in this regard.
[Fiz
Posted Friday, November 19, 2010 at 9:36 am | Permalink
madcyril:
If we lose high standards on the ABC you will struggle to find them anywhere else. I fear that once it’s gone, it’s gone for good. I think we are watching the death spiral of political and journalistic integrity – both are chasing populism down the entertainment drain.]
the abc have done this to themselves and in the end they will regret from what i understand from my children they dont watch the 7.30 report because the presenter has given up asking the hard question equally.
One watches that 7 pm project , but they left the abc in droves there generation because of perceived bias, i was surprised when i mentioned last year when they where all here about the abc and with one chorus not being ask they said no we have been over obrien and his slot for some time now.
and at the time oh and i thought it was just us
[I also heard Roxon on RN and thought her content was good but gee, she missed great opportunities to go in heavy against Abbott on the pharmaceuticals.]
BH:
I was disappointed in how she answered the dixer on the pharmaceuticals thing in QT yesterday. The key point to make is that the coalition are are standing in the way of Australians being able to access cheaper medicines. Anyone currently taking medication for conditions like asthma, high blood pressure and cholesterol, and depression are paying more for their medications than they would have to because Tony Abbott and the coalition have blocked the government’s legislation in parliament.
I can bet people took no notice when she said the coalition are stopping an agreement the government had reached with whatever authority it was she mentioned. But the minute you point out that people are paying more, that’s when they sit up and listen to what you say.
we must write one and to the abc to hold them accountable, we do not want commercial chanels this is OUR taxes we are talking about,. and as i love to tell them
WE PAY YOUR WAGES
Thanks BK for the link to the Hitchins’ interview – he’s one of our heroes – and markjs for his special mention. Both were very special.
I have lost OH (also an atheist, as am I) to the swifter, more aggressive & rampantly invasive adenocarcinoma sibling of Hitchins’ squamous cell oesophageal cancer.
Like Hitchins, OH & I believe that, if we can spread the warning about these “unsexy” and, in the case of OH’s version, most rampantly increasing cancers, and save but one life, give but one family the early warnings we received when medical emergencies led to early diagnoses, and spend quality time together, he will not have died in vain. Please help us do that (details in a following post)
[He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.]
W H Auden http://homepages.wmich.edu/~cooneys/poems/auden.stop.html
[also heard Roxon on RN and thought her content was good but gee, she missed great opportunities to go in heavy against Abbott on the pharmaceuticals]
MAY BE SHE doesn’t get it either they get detached for reality in their world.
I take tablets every day for lupus ect and its all generic. I dont live in Canberra but if i did i would ring and ask to speak to her Press people try it.
the phone along with the power bills are being coming a real worry.
I am still waiting for a letter to her department re gp clinics i found out the information from MR Wilkie in the end.
Deprive people of their generic medicines and see what they say., yes if she did not press that point she is certain lost the ball game
my say:
I’m afraid that most people under 30 would probably find the 7.30 Report dull. I know I did in my 20s. But that doesn’t mean the show does not still hold value for everyone over 30 who take some vague interest in current affairs and politics!
The ratings issue for the ABC is strange – it’s not like they have to chase particular demographics for advertising revenue.
oz poll so sorry to hear that, i am sure the love will last for ever some way.
Good Morning Poll Bludgers,
I am hoping you guys can restore my sanity. I woke this morning to find a pipe had burst at my front door, cannot get out of the house while the workers fix the pipe. They are busy pulling up paving and garden as I write.
My mouse turned it’s toes up this morning and managed to dig my old mouse circa 2005 and managed to get it working (bless Microsoft for including all the MS mouse drivers in Vista).
My mobile phone also decided to cark it this morning. People can call me or I can call them but they cannot hear me.
So I am hoping that is my third strike for this morning and that my day will get better, but if I suddenly disappear of the radar, it is likely my computer had decided to explode!
A good post over at Political Sword – one the blunderbuss Hockey could well read to get a well-rounded view of debt and deficit
http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2010/11/18/Deficit-Hawks-and-Spending-Doves.aspx#comment
Time to go back to bed and wait for Saturday to arrive Space Kidette? 😀
OzPol: Very sorry for your loss.
Fiz,
Sounds like a plan!
OzPol,
What a tragic loss. Good luck with getting your message out.
OzPol,
My most deepest sympathy for your loss. I cannot even begin to contemplate how that must feel.
I hope the Auden poem gives you some comfort. It is a fitting tribute.
The Hitchens interview was a very tricky one, and was handled very well by Jones. It is not often that both an interviewer and an interviewee increase in one’s estimation as a result of an interview.
My initial reaction to the second part of the interview (though not the first) was that Jones was being soft on him, given some of the comments that Hitchens made with respect to the Iraq war, and other such matters in the post September 11 years, though to be fair Jones himself appeared to hold some of the same sentiments at the time.
But how could you attack someone about such things in an interview with someone who is dying, who has had the courage to make strong statements that go against the views of his normal “allies” , and who always has had the honesty to revise his position to some extent when confronted with clearly dissonant evidence anyway? You can’t.
Jones often seems glib to me, but he certainly wasn’t in this interview. Hitchens is obviously one of his heroes. Sometimes in such circumstances interviews can come across as sycophantic. This one didn’t. The first part, especially, was truly a tribute to both men.
I, too, am sorry for your loss OzPol.
On rhetoric (again),
another use of the “i’m not threatening you but…”
[Mr de Bruyn also told ABC radio he was “not threatening” the Prime Minister – who was installed with the help of the parliamentary wing of the SDA – but “offering some guidance”.]
The “offering you some guidance” line seems to evoke a Godfather-like vision.
The technique of drawing attention to seomthing by saying your are not saying it is called apophasis (http://www.virtualsalt.com/rhetoric4.htm#Apophasis)
Finns
I know you are from the “The more books you read, the more stupid you become school” but this might have helped last night.
The Trial of Henry Kissinger by Christopher Hitchens
[Hitchens details Kissinger’s bloody hand in the events in Indochina, Chile, Bangladesh, Cyprus, East Timor, and the murder of a journalist in Washington, D.C. Prior to Hitchens’ book, I was most aware of Kissinger’s malevolence in the events in Indochina and Chile. Hitchens details Kissinger’s efforts to prolong the Vietnam War by encouraging South Vietnamese obduracy at the Paris Peace talks in 1968, so that Richard Nixon could be elected.]
http://www.amazon.com/Trial-Henry-Kissinger-Christopher-Hitchens/product-reviews/1859843980/ref=cm_cr_dp_synop?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending#R3HUW1HDN8K64E
Bloody hell! Who posted Auden?!?!?!
Now there is water on my keyboard and i’m at work! hmmm must have knocked a glass or something….
OzPT – It’s been a tough time for you and your verse explains the pain beautifully. As one who has watched and waited in an ICU for days after prostate cancer , but in the end been lucky to retain an OH, those words are just so real. Best wishes to you and I wait for your details to help spread the warnings.
OPT – condolences for your loss.
[It’s starting to sound like it’s going to be the 7.30 comedy sketch rather than the 7.30 report]
If it’s done properly that might be a good thing.
Viewers of Stewart/Colbert in the US are better informed than every other “news” source.
I’m not sure if they are better informed because they watch these two, or they watch these two because they’re better informed. Chicken and egg?
Discuss.
The 7.30 Report has been dumbed down enough over the past few years, most of the stories featured on it currently are rather light-weight.
I guess the logical progression further downmarket is for “Their ABC” to start promoting miracle weight loss cures and get into bashing welfare recipients & dodgy car salesmen.
mysay,
Just thought i would let you know I took your advice and phoned the Canberra office of Nicola Roxon.
Spoke to a lovely lady there and told her that the minister needs to concentrate more on the cost aspects of Abbotts attempt to block the drug legislation. I said that it was all well and good to talk about budget implications but the minister needs to strongly point out that while Abbott and Hockey go on and on about cost of living pressures they are now standing in the way of thousands and thousands of ordinary Australians getting access to cheaper medication. I pointed this out nicely of course.
The lovely lady seemed really interested in my comments and said she would pass it on and thanked me for my call. Don’t know if it will do any good but it can’t hurt.
OzPol: best wishes to you and yours!
My grandmother isn’t too well at the moment – I know what you’re going through!
When it comes to 7.30 Report, I don’t have a problem with the program format. But I do have an objection when it comes to the lightweight questions and gotcha type questioning. I also object to it lamely plagarising the OO and it’s biased opinions.