sydney alternative media - non-profit community independent trustworthy

Collective big media amnesia of 2003 fire attack on Aboriginal tent embassy

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 18:55:04 +1100

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.

Moral clarity and hypocrisy on refugees - reply to GH

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 14:01:18 +1100

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.

Julian Moti's complexion

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 10:55:06 +1100

Julian was a student for several years at the Australian National University in the 1980ies.

He was noticeable by his coloured heritage and his attractive long time law student girlfriend, also a person of colour.

This writer's direct observation of him over those years as law student peer was that he evidenced no vices or personality flaws, was a competent student and in control of himself. No drug issues. No conflicts. No crash outs.

As regards university days, Moti does not present like the recollections on the public record of disgraced de-registered (?) Dr Suresh Nair.

We might not say that about all the peers from those days if pressed, which we are not. Nor are we so innocent of a toke, a stolen bottle of wine and other games of greater and lesser seriousness in our youth.

As a legal colleague noted there is always the private versus the public side to every personality. We've not had any contact with Julian for 20 years.

As another legal colleague noted late last week, how reliable is the testimony of a 13 year old, vulnerable to manipulation, in a toxic political context, with signifcant money changing hands in a criminal prosecution/persecution (your choice dear reader)?

We simply say, uni days are contrary indications of the reputational damage to Julian, this last many years. And we don't pretend to understand the truth of all this grim allegations.

We do say this - if Moti has been done wrong, which is a real question, it's going to be a huge compensation claim - and maybe that's just the way it has to be, if only for surviving so long against such odds. For a traditionally chubby guy he runs quite a marathon.

Yes we are concerned about protection of minors as a public policy. And also mindful of slum politics where western (suburban Australian) moral norms in reality don't fly. In that context we even wonder about Shakespeare's time when 13 year olds were of marrying age and life was short and often cruel. Or who might exploit that millieu. All quite vexed. Talk about Doubt - which ran as a movie on free to air last night in Sydney.

If Julian reads this we are not adverse to hearing his side of things or just talking off the record, not least given our transition into the world of politics and community media, with a fierce commitment to independence.

Au contraire LO

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 10:34:15 +1100

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).

Peta Credlin: "swirling rumours" and clumsy dirty laundry metaphors

Sat, 5 Nov 2011 14:42:05 +1100

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:

"I wouldn’t be able to have achieved the things I have without my grounding at SHC and the leadership of extraordinary teachers ... not forgetting, of course, the wonderful Sr Carmel."
http://web.shcgeelong.catholic.edu.au/past_students/files/Maguire_10.pdf

"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?

Alan Joyce - archetypal 'little man' syndrome?

Sun, 30 Oct 2011 08:19:59 +1100

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.

PM Gillard is NOT fooling around with her chief of staff ...

Sun, 23 Oct 2011 10:24:55 +1100

By all signs the first bloke is a good match and it's all going along smoothly. We don't suggest anything to the contrary.

Really.So what the hell is the point of this post? You work it out, smarties. Caio, caio.

Uhlmann fails the apprehended bias and common sense test

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 20:20:30 +1100

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?

Richo's definition of mad is a bit ... mad?

Sun, 16 Oct 2011 08:33:24 +1100

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.

'Iraq war' Tony, and the 'in blood' meta media electoral safety warning

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 08:24:48 +1100

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.