Coalition Dumps Abbott For Carbon Tax

The Federal Coalition made history this morning when they voted overwhelmingly to sack Tony Abbott, and then installed Labor’s Carbon Tax as Leader of the Opposition.

The surprise move came 3 months after a pair of poll results that showed that the Carbon Tax was more popular with Australian voters (Essential Research, 46%) than Mr Abbott (Newspoll, 33%).

Former Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has been replaced by the Carbon Tax.

One senior Liberal figure (speaking on condition of anonymity) said, “It was a no-brainer, thank goodness. When the polls are that clear, it’s time to make a change.” But he denied that the change in leadership was the beginning of the end for the Coalition. “Don’t think for a moment that we’re in trouble; believe me, we’re behind our new leader eleventy per cent.”

The Carbon Tax marked its elevation to the Opposition leadership by embarking on a whistlestop tour of the country, starting in Whyalla. But the Tax plans to be back in Canberra before long.

“It’s obvious that my place is in Parliament,” the Carbon Tax said before driving off in its carbon-neutral Prius. “There’s more hot air coming out of the House of Representatives than any factory in the country. Well, that’s about to change.”

Kevin Rudd refused to comment.

Grattan And Rudd: This Isn't A Conversation, It's An Obsession

As political editor of The Age, Michelle Grattan was obliged to cover the broad spectrum of events in Australian politics. Her brief was not to pick and choose what she wrote about, but rather to decide how to interpret and report the events of the day, every day, whatever they may be.

But last week, Grattan left The Age to take on a teaching role with The University Of Canberra. At the same time, she signed on with independent news & opinion website The Conversation as an associate editor and their chief political correspondent.

Yes, Michelle Grattan has entered the blogosphere. And, as new bloggers are wont to do, she has embraced her new-found editorial freedom by writing about what really, really interests her.

Sadly, that seems to boil down to two words: Kevin Rudd.

In the five days thus far that Grattan has been writing for The Conversation, Grattan has published five articles. All five are (to some degree) about Labor, and all five are less than complimentary.

Four of the five mention Rudd.

Article one, A Fresh Start To An Important Political Year, is ostensibly Grattan’s introduction to The Conversation. Yet it focuses primarily on Julia Gillard and her government, and is unable to list a positive without countering with a negative. And in the third paragraph, even before any mention of Gillard or Labor, we get this:

“Of course, in a parliament where the unexpected is the expected, that could change – for instance, if Kevin Rudd were to achieve the Herculean challenge of seizing the leadership.”

Article two, Not So Super Profits Tax Has Labor In A Bind, is more overtly critical of Labor and their apparently-underperforming mining tax. But Grattan sets the tone of her article in the opening paragraph:

“In a notable bookending, the mining tax that helped destroy Kevin Rudd’s leadership late last term is causing Julia Gillard serious budgetary and political problems as she heads towards the election.”

Grattan also uses treasurer Wayne Swan to reiterate the bad blood:

“Rudd bitterly blamed Swan for the vicious reaction to the original tax from the mining sector, because there was not enough consultation beforehand.”

And comments from government whip Joel Fitzgibbon are reported as a backlash from “Fitzgibbon, a Rudd supporter”.

Article three, Rudd Puts Gillard And Swan In His Sights Over The Mining Tax, is pure cheerleader material for Rudd. The inconvenient fact that Rudd publicly backed Labor to win the September election under the Prime Minister’s leadership was buried by Grattan deep in the article, well after revisiting the events that had “destroyed” his leadership and labelling the tax a “fiasco” (a point of view not necessarily shared by all political commentators).

Article four, The Paucity Of Information Overload, is the only article of the five that makes no mention of Rudd. It’s essential a reprint of part of a speech given by Professor Robert Picard (from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism), but is bookended (to use a Grattan expression) by references to the Prime Minister and Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, and their unwillingness to “upset” the media companies.

And finally, article five, An Adrenaline Charged Rudd Increases Pressure On Gillard, is 100% leadership speculation. Nothing more, nothing less. There is nothing in the article that explains exactly how or why Rudd is “adrenaline-charged”; in fact, there were no new facts or events since Grattan’s earlier Rudd missive, three days earlier. This is simply a case of Grattan warming to her favourite subject and writing about it with impunity, with such pearls as:

“If Kevin Rudd were to wrest the prime ministership back from Julia Gillard”

And:

“Rudd’s bid has revived on the back of the impression of government “chaos””

And:

“Rudd knew that… he was directly undermining the leadership.”

It’s pretty clear that Grattan, freshly released from the shackles of the mainstream media, is indulging herself and, it has to be said, writing these articles largely for herself. And while it seems incongruous that I, a blogger for only three years, could possibly hope to offer advice to Grattan, a political journalist with over 40 years in the industry, I feel compelled to say this:

Michelle, if you keep writing articles based on what you want to read, rather than the actuality of events that are unfolding around us daily, then you may as well pack it in now. Bloggers rise and fall on their integrity and willingness to question; to ignore the truth is to doom yourself to irrelevance.

Sadly, it may already be too late.

Abbott's Spectacular Spectacles

Here's an article you WON'T read in the papers, about Tony Abbott's impending National Press Club speech.

Double standards, anyone?

OPPOSITION Leader Tony Abbott unveiled more than a policy launch today - he also showed off a new pair of glasses.

                      

The LOTO, who doesn’t normally wear corrective lenses, surprised a number of political pundits when he took to the lectern at the National Press Club sporting the stylish black-framed spectacles.

His hair also appeared to have been changed, with more neutral tones than before.

Some online commentators dubbed the glasses "hipster specs" while one keen fan called them "super stylish".

In response to queries on Twitter, his press secretary James Boyce pointed out that Mr Abbott's use of glasses is new – and that this is a new pair.

And with that answer, onlookers' attention went back to the speech - and the surprise policy launch.

(this article was actually published, about Julia Gillard, following her National Press Club address)

Shame, Alan, Shame.

Loathe as I am to give oxygen to the ramblings of an embittered old man, some things need to be challenged. Tomorrow's Sunday Telegraph will feature a near-full-page article describing how broadcaster/shock-jock Alan Jones told a group of Young Liberals attending the Sydney University Liberal Club President's Dinner that Prime Minister Julia Gillard's father John, who passed away recently, “died of shame.” He said:

“The old man recently died a few weeks ago of shame. To think that he had a daughter who told lies every time she stood for parliament.”

Now, I don't care which side of the political divide you may be on, or what you may think of Jones... or Gillard, for that matter. A statement like this, made by someone with influence and clear political affiliations, is a gutter act that must be rejected in the strongest possible terms by all sides.

To lose a parent is unbearable. It's a loss I know, and that so many have experienced... and for Jones to use Gillard's loss as merely another excuse to spray abuse at her is nothing short of vile.

It's particularly ludicrous that Jones should speak of shame, when clearly he has none. His is a moral compass gone askew.

I expect Jones' statements to be widely condemned; I can only hope that the Liberals who invited him to speak join that condemnation.

But if you're reading this and you feel as I do, I urge you to make your feelings clear in the only way that Jones will understand.

Boycott his radio station. At the very least, tell them how you feel.

Boycott his advertisers. You can find them here.

Make him irrelevant. Make him forgotten.

Sex, Lies & An ACL Video

It’s funny how one thing can lead you to another. This morning on my Twitter timeline, I noticed some tweets from people I know and admire, taking Lyle Shelton to task.

Now, Lyle Shelton is the Chief of Staff with the Australian Christian Lobby, better known as the ACL. That much I knew, but I didn’t know what Shelton had said other than that it was something about bestiality. Alarm bells were already ringing but I’m a curious sort so I checked his Twitter account.

I found this:

That’s one heck of a statement from a guy who professes to Christian values! Especially when you consider that Peter Singer is not, in fact, a “sex-with-animals advocate”. Yes, he wrote about the concepts of zoophilia and animal abuse ten years or so ago, but he specifically does NOT advocate the practice. Shelton’s statement is factually incorrect, something I suspect he knows.

But: a moment’s thought. In his tweet, Shelton links Singer with the Greens. Not hard to do, Singer co-wrote The Greens (published in 1996) with Bob Brown and stood unsuccessfully as a Greens candidate for Kooyong in 1994 and the Australian Senate in 1996.

Shelton then goes on to pose the question, should they (The Greens) be trusted to redefine marriage? That’s the key point to his tweet. Shelton and the ACL are diametrically opposed to allowing same-sex couples to marry; smearing Singer’s reputation is merely a device to link the concept of same-sex marriage (and those who support it) with bestiality. It doesn't even matter in this context whether Singer advocates the practice or not. The insinuation is simply being used by the ACL to further their agenda.

Gutter muck of the worst kind.

But: a second moment’s thought. Shelton’s previous tweet (made nine minutes before his abhorrent Singer slur) made the following observation:

What was this? A video on the consequences of changing marriage? A video which “continues to go viral”?

Hmm, I thought. Resisting the temptation to click on Shelton’s link straight away, I hit Google and moments later arrived at an article published two days ago in The Australian. Titled “Kirby stars in Christian same-sex attack video”, it was a blow-by-blow description of the ACL-produced video. According to the author, Ean Higgins, the ACL were planning on sending the video to 110,000 people with the hope of getting it to “go viral”. The mention of Kirby in the headline refers to retired High Court judge Michael Kirby and he doesn’t exactly star in the video; the ACL have used footage of him answering questions at last month’s Senate Inquiry into same-sex marriage and interspersed it with other footage.

The tone of Higgins’ article was decidedly odd. There was much talk of the “polyamorous community” and “polyamorist activists”, who along with the Greens were apparently “outraged” that the proposed same-sex bill doesn’t include multi-partner marriages. Little evidence of this outrage was presented; it came across more as an advertisement for the video and a classic beat-up about non-existent issues than an actual factual piece of reporting.

By now, I was intrigued. Back to Google I went, and within minutes much became clear. Over recent months The Australian has published several articles linking same-sex marriage to polygamous marriage and a supposed campaign by the polyamorous community to bring the two together. These articles are consistently lightweight and speculative; worse, they completely misrepresent not only the proposed legislation and the mood of the community, but also the few people they actually quote. One of those people was Rebecca Dominguez; it took me under a minute to find a letter that she wrote to The Australian (and published on her blog, which is quite excellent) pointing out their mistakes and manipulations of her words, refuting their claims and requesting an apology. To date, The Australian has published neither the letter nor an apology to Ms Dominguez.

(note: I contacted Ms Dominguez before publishing this article. See, Ean? It's not that hard.)

Higgins wasn’t the only journalist at The Australian involved in this misinformation campaign, but he has certainly been the most prolific. Four articles in the past month alone featuring the Greens, same-sex marriage and the polyamorous community. It’s no wonder that Higgins’ articles are regularly republished on the ACL website.

Which leads me, somewhat circuitously, back to the ACL, and that supposedly viral video. Returning to Twitter, I clicked on Shelton’s link (which had also been tweeted by ACL Managing Director Jim Wallace and the official ACL Twitter account) and was directed to the video.

Hosted on Vimeo, it’s called “'Marriage Equality'- no consequences? Wait a minute....”. I didn’t bother watching it; after reading Higgins’ plug, I didn’t need to. And besides, I made my thoughts on the “gaymarriage” issue perfectly clear not that long ago.

But Vimeo collects statistics about its videos. And here’s the graph for the ACL video which, in Shelton’s words, “continues to go viral.”

Viral? Umm... no. Considering the video was emailed to 110,000 people, and written up in a national newspaper, it’s a pretty dismal performance. If anything, this is proof that the ACL video, rather than going viral as they hoped, is actually suffering from “viewer’s droop”.

You can’t *make* something go viral; it happens or it doesn’t. An excellent (relatively recent) example was the “Anti Carbon-Tax Durka Dur” video (published on YouTube by @_spock). He didn’t make a big deal about it, but it went nuts and amassed well over a hundred thousand hits in only a few days. The ACL video, by comparison, is a dud. Maybe a “Marriage Equality Consequences Durka Dur” video would fare better.

Or maybe Shelton and his ACL film crew should have gone back to the classics, and posted a link to Sex, Lies & Videotape. Given the tweets from Shelton’s account that triggered this little foray into the grubby, smearing tactics of the ACL and The Australian, it would have been far more appropriate.

Barry’s Budget: A Lesson Learned From Clubs NSW

I’m starting to wonder how long it will be before Barry O’Farrell bites the bullet, declares his government a not-for-profit enterprise and applies for membership with Clubs NSW.

Let’s face it, they’ve been looking after the clubs industry since the day they won office. There was the Memorandum of Understanding they signed with Peter Newell and Anthony Ball from Clubs NSW before the 2010 election, which promised not only to look after clubs, but also to protect their gambling interests.

There was the 2011 “horror” NSW budget which saw slashing cuts everywhere except the registered clubs industry, which instead was patted on the head and sent on its way with generous tax breaks.

There was the recent reworking of poker machine entitlement transfer rules, designed solely to allow clubs with multiple venues to shift their pokies from less profitable sites to more profitable sites without giving up entitlements.

And now we have the 2012 budget. No specific largesse for the clubs this time around (awww) but now more than ever the O’Farrell government is behaving like a supposedly non-profit poker machine behemoth. Panthers, maybe, or the Rooty Hill RSL.

Why do I say this? Well, consider the opening statement of this media release yesterday from Honest George Souris, the NSW Coalition Minister for Gambling and other stuff:

“The NSW Government has committed $15 million in the Budget to combat problem gambling through high quality counselling services, research and education and awareness activities across the State.”

Now, put aside for the moment that counselling, research and education (at the expense of more targeted measures like, ooh I don’t know, actually making changes to poker machines or venues) is the stated policy of Clubs NSW.

Put aside the fact that problem gambling services in NSW are paid for not by the government, but by the Responsible Gambling Fund, which (as their annual report states) is funded by a 2% levy on gambling revenue from Star Casino. Not clubs or hotels; just the casino.

And put aside the fact that there is no indication if this is $15 million over the next twelve months, or five years, or whatever. I’m prepared to be generous and assume it’s $15 million a year.

The problem is that for the 2012/13 financial year, the NSW budget’s modelling shows that the government expects to rake in $1.2 billion in poker machine taxes from clubs and pubs alone.

(click on the image for a better look)

Yet they’re handing back $15 million. That’s something like 1.25%. And they’re talking it up like it’s a good thing.

Now THAT’S how you act like a club!

All Barry has to do now is install a fake waterfall, some plastic palm trees and an all-you-can-eat buffet at Macquarie St and the transformation will be complete. At least then they’ll have an excuse to lose money.

What A Fool Believes

The Herald Sun today reports that Tony Abbott is warning his colleagues not to succumb to the temptation of “believing they would win.”

That article, by Phillip Hudson, is here. It’s full of the usual Abbott rhetoric, faithfully reported, along with talk of Kevin Rudd (of course). That can only be there to take attention away from the fact that the latest Newspoll results show Julia Gillard is once again Australia’s preferred Prime Minister, despite (or perhaps because) of the attack-dog politics the Coalition has employed over the past couple of years.

But hang on a minute. Wind back the clock to the beginning of March this year; at the Queensland Liberal National Party state launch, Abbott was introduced as “the next PM” and made the following bold statement:

“Stephen Smith and Bill Shorten and now Bob Carr might think that they're the next prime minister of Australia, but I think I'll be the next elected prime minister.”

Off the cuff? A throw-away line? Maybe. But as this Michelle Grattan article in the SMH shows, it was a sign that Abbott believes the top job is his.

Only now he doesn’t.

Or does he?

It’s hard to be sure. Both of these statements, made less than three months apart, were delivered verbally... and as Abbott himself said two years ago (again reported by Phillip Hudson), not everything he says is the “gospel truth.”

This from the man who repeatedly calls Gillard a liar.

Maybe we shouldn’t believe that either.