Welcome to Chocolategate.

By now it's old news that Prime Minister Tony Abbott, while in Opposition, promised $16 million to Cadbury to "overhaul" their factory in Tasmania. This decision has come under increased scrutiny since the Federal Government started refusing subsidies to other producers and companies such as Holden and SPC.

Well, things just got a little more interesting.

This report was published in today's Fairfax media. Written by Health editor Amy Corderoy, it tells how a new food rating website was launched by the Federal Government, only to be pulled down hours later with little explanation. Accusations are being leveled at the government that they have bowed to pressure from the junk food industry.

Corderoy writes:

"Fairfax Media has been given evidence that Assistant Health Minister Fiona Nash and her chief of staff, Alastair Furnival, personally intervened to have the site pulled down - despite it being approved through a Council of Australian Governments ministerial council."

And later:

"Mr Furnival last year acted as a spokesman for Kraft/Cadbury. He is also the former chairman of Australian Public Affairs, which is listed on the lobbyists register as representing the Australian Beverages Council and Mondelez Australia, which owns the Kraft peanut butter, Cadbury and Oreo brands, among others."

That's a strong connection indeed between the government and Mondelez. I wonder if it had anything to do with Abbott's decision to support Cadbury?

Welcome to Chocolategate.

Top 20 reasons to ignore the Climate Action Rally in Melbourne.

So. Yesterday morning I, along with thousands upon thousands of Victorians, rocked up to Treasury Gardens for Melbourne's Climate Action rally. I know we were just one of 130 events being staged simultaneously around the country but the turn-out was massive, the goodwill undeniable and the message clear.

Or so I thought... more fool me. Having read many of the articles (and accompanying comments) written about the rally, it seems I wasted my time. The rally apparently didn't matter.

For your convenience, I've compiled a list of all the reasons WHY it didn't matter... if anyone uses ANY reason from this list, feel free to laugh at them and walk away.

Top 20 reasons to ignore the Climate Action Rally in Melbourne.

1. It was a nice day. 
2. It was a rent-a-crowd. (wish someone had told me, I could have been paid!)
3. Unions.
4. Greens.
5. Lefties.
6. Climate is always changing.
7. Humanity’s impact on climate change is negligible.
8. Warmer is good.
9. CO2 is not a pollutant.
10. Nothing we can do matters because China/India/USA.
11. Nothing we can do matters because nature.
12. Nothing we can do matters.
13. Temperatures are not rising.
14. Global warming is an international scam.
15. Cold days are proof that global warming is a lie.
16. Climate change is an urban myth.
17. Humanity has had zero impact on the Earth’s climate.
18. Linking natural disasters to climate change is exploiting the misery of others.
19. Increased bushfires are the Greens’ fault.
20. Australia voted against a carbon tax.

The Climate Action rally in Melbourne. If you look real close, you can see me. :)

Daily Telegraph Misdirects Readers To Liberal Website

With less than three weeks to go until the 2013 Federal Election, we've already seen a lot of attack-dog tactics from both of the major parties… yet nothing they've done has managed to top the blatant electioneering of Rupert Murdoch's Sydney tabloid The Daily Telegraph. Photo-shopping Kevin Rudd into a bank robber or a comical Nazi, misrepresenting him and his policies with hysterical “gotcha” headlines and lightweight articles, their tactics have been heavy-handed and blunt.

But now, they’re getting subtle.

Unsurprisingly, the Liberal Party is advertising heavily on the Daily Telegraph website. Every second or third story has the Liberal “choose real change” ad in a banner across the top of the page, as well as a second ad placed next to the body of the story.

But the Daily Telegraph (like most of Murdoch’s News Ltd publications” is pay-walled. And when someone like me, who doesn't want to stump up the cash for the privilege of reading obviously and unapologetically biased fluff, ends up on their website, I get a “please register” pop-up.

Now, normally I just close the pop-up (by clicking on the “X”) and scroll through the rest of the page to see if there’s anything else of interest. Not everything is behind the paywall, after all.

And this is where it gets interesting.

When the story has a Liberal Party ad, closing the paywall pop-up actually opens the Liberal Party website in a new window.

Oh sure, you might say. It’s a mistake, clicking on the “X” must accidentally translate to a click on the ad behind the “X”.

Problem with this, is that when the story has any other kind of ad, closing the paywall pop-up does just that: closes the pop-up window. Nothing else.

The ONLY ad that is triggered by closing the paywall pop-up is the Liberal Party ad.

Try it for yourself.

Menus, misogyny and Mal - why the cover-up is a lie

The media has been buzzing all day about THAT menu. The mock menu allegedly created for a Mal Brough fundraiser back in March. The menu that refers to a number of Labor MPs, but specifically to Prime Minister Julia Gillard in less-than-flattering terms.

And by "media", I mean ALL the media. Newspapers. TV. Social media. Radio. It's been everywhere, and other stories (such as the 260 Target workers made redundant in Geelong) have slipped through the cracks.

This evening, there was a twist. Apparently Joe Richards, the owner of the restaurant where the fundraiser was held, has claimed responsibility for the menu, and says it was an "in-joke" that was not used at the fundraiser.

As reported on The Age website only a couple of hours ago (at 7:46 pm, to be precise), Richards wrote a letter to Brough explaining the situation after seeing it reported on the evening news.

Bullshit. Here's why.

At midday, this story was released on the ABC website, written by Latika Bourke. "Liberal National Party candidate Mal Brough apologises for 'offensive and sexist' menu which mocked Julia Gillard's body" the headline screamed.

The third paragraph of the article states:

Mr Brough says the menu was drawn up by a non-party member who thought it would be "humorous" and "didn't mean any harm by it," but is now "deeply apologetic".

So. At midday, Brough was aware that the menu had been drawn up by a non-party member, who was now deeply apologetic.

How could Brough have known this, if Richards didn't write to him until later in the day?

Remember, Richards didn't write his letter to Brough until after seeing the story on the evening news.

And in his letter, which was subsequently distributed by the LNP, he stated the following:

As you know no one at the dinner was privy to such a menu, and it is so unfortunate that an in-house joke between myself and my son has caused you great problems and embarrassment.

How, then, could Brough have known that Richards, a non-party member, was responsible for the menu when the ABC article was published at midday?

It doesn't add up.

Brough made statements, reported at midday, containing details that he couldn't have known until later in the day... if he and Richards are to be believed.

I'll let you be the judge of that.

My "Budget Reply 2013" analysis

In September 2010, Tony Abbott offered newly-elected Independent MP Andrew Wilkie $1 billion for Wilkie's local hospital, if he would throw his support behind the Coalition.

Wilkie rejected the offer, labelling it "over the top and irresponsible".

Almost three years later, in his budget reply speech last night, Abbott pledged to scrap Labor's carbon tax, but keep the associated compensation packages. That pledge alone will cost almost $4 billion a year, every year.

Nothing has changed.

 

Expert Support For Coalition NBN Proposal: Political, Not Technological

Telecommunications analyst Kevin Morgan published an article on the ABC website The Drum today, explaining why the Coalition’s cut-down broadband proposal made more sense than Labor’s more ambitious, more advanced policy.

Just in case you’ve been living under a rock for the past 5 years, Labor is rolling out a fibre-to-the-home broadband network called the NBN. It will connect 93% of households, deliver speeds far greater than we currently have and will be, in theory, infinitely upgradeable.

The Coalition, after opposing the NBN for years, have just released a hybrid proposal that would see fibre rolled out around the country, but not connected to individual households. Existing copper phone lines would be used for that. The cost would be a little lower; the achievable speeds would be considerably lower. The Coalition proposal would also be significantly more expensive to upgrade.

That’s the background.

Morgan’s article was heavily critical of both the Government and the NBN, calling the network roll-out a “train wreck” and “lead in the saddlebags” that the Coalition will have to deal with. The Coalition’s plan is described as “eminently sensible” and goes into some detail as to why hooking the NBN up to the existing copper infrastructure makes perfect sense.

Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull obviously approved. He bobbed up on Twitter shortly after the article was published:

Thing is, Morgan is speaking rubbish. He is opposed to the NBN in principle, and has been from day one.

Consider this article that Morgan published in The Age in April 2009. Called “Rudd's $43bn broadband plan is just another sham”, it slams the proposal and concludes with this statement:

Welcome to 21st century broadband Australian-style, delivered over rotting copper wires.

Sixteen months later, on the eve of the 2010 Federal election that would eventually see Labor returned to power, Morgan called the NBN a “political cover-up” that had nothing to do with technology or economics.

NBN a pie in the sky: Morgan

Once the election was over, Morgan changed his angle of attack. Suddenly our phone lines were no longer “rotting copper wires”; now Morgan was saying “The copper still has good life in it” and claimed the existing network still had more to give.

Analyst: NBN is wasteful as copper is still viable

Move forward another 12 months to October 2011, and here’s Morgan again. This time he’s writing about the NBN gravy train and the pork-barrelling that goes with it. No mention of copper though.

Consultants, lawyers, contractors: All aboard the NBN gravytrain

And another year on, in October 2012, Morgan and The Australian were at it again. This time the NBN’s commercial viability was under attack.

NBN's commercial viability is a joke

And now he’s back. His article on The Drum not only goes to some lengths to explain how we can keep using copper (but not the rotting copper wires he was so scathing about in 2009), but also tries to use the “our future is wireless” argument:

The flexibility of an FTTN deployment recognises that in an age of tablets and smartphones, predicating our future on one vast investment in fibre to every home, at unknown cost, is not sensible.

Morgan, with his years in the telecommunications industry, knows this is grade-A gold-plated bullshit. Wireless and cabled technologies are complementary, not adversarial. That’s why we have wireless networks in our homes home, fed by our physical broadband connections, to provide data to our wireless devices.

Ultimately, Morgan’s position on the NBN can be described in his own words:

Not economic, not technological, pure politics.

My Response To The Daily Telegraph

Journalism can be a dangerous business; no one is denying that.

In fact, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), it can be deadly.

As their website says, the CPJ is “an independent, nonprofit organization that promotes press freedom worldwide.” And they have some truly frightening statistics:

• 974 journalists killed worldwide since 1992
• 232 journalists jailed worldwide, as of the end of 2012
• 463 journalists forced into exile since 2007

The list goes on.

Countries such as Syria, Somalia, Iraq and Pakistan are among those where reporting the news can lead to jail, exile or death.

Australia, on the other hand, doesn’t rate a mention… which makes the hysterical bleating of Kim Williams, Paul Whittaker and co from the News Ltd stable a bit hard to swallow.

I won’t re-hash the hysterical nonsense about media regulation that The Daily Telegraph has vomited into the tabloid press over the past couple of days. There’s no need; it’s enough to point out that at the end of the working day, Williams, Whittaker and the rest of them can go safely home to unwind. Relax. Be with loved ones. Get a good night’s sleep. And front up again the next day to do it all again… without fearing for their lives.

Want to attack the proposed regulatory reforms? Go right ahead. Be factual, be clear, be persuasive. Convince us that you’re right.

But to play the “woe is us” card and liken your situation to those in oppressive regimes around the world? Where to report the news is to risk your life?

You gutless, spineless, self-important wankers. You are an embarrassment to your profession.