tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22534369.post7276625314056578559..comments2023-12-06T00:23:28.790+11:00Comments on Press gallery reform: Media scrutiny and the Abbott governmentAndrew Elderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04705844456819481896noreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22534369.post-64359261877278523812014-09-08T16:25:45.686+10:002014-09-08T16:25:45.686+10:00Waleed Aly was appointed by Tom Switzer as the tok...Waleed Aly was appointed by Tom Switzer as the tokenistic Muslim to make them look decent.<br /><br />Narcissistic ideological creeps that don't care.<br /><br />I listened to Tim Wilson on M.M.M and he recalled an incident where a senior businessman hit him!<br /><br />They all deserve the same treatment ...a big swift slap!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22534369.post-47810380970648298962014-09-01T00:35:39.056+10:002014-09-01T00:35:39.056+10:00Silex said one of it's reason for pulling out ...Silex said one of it's reason for pulling out of the 100MW project was low wholesale electricity prices, which are, ironically, partly due to low demand and partly due to the amount of electricity produced at low marginal cost (ie "renewable"). As it was a solar plant, it would have also been competing with the other million rooftops (that produce around 2% of our annual electricity) all peaking at solar noon...power so cheap you can hardly give it away. (Yes, the wholesale price went negative for a while on a sunny day in Queensland...once).<br /><br />Public perception is generally that a MW of 'renewable' electricity simply replaces a MW of coal. Oh, if only it was that simple. It isn't.<br /><br />I read through quite a few of the larger utility company's submissions to the RET review, and most wanted to keep it, but at a true 20% of the now (lower) projections of electricity demand in 2020. (Personally, I think this would be the best option for many reasons). What is also apparent is that the RET without a carbon price or ETS is a pretty strange beast, in that it perversely causes things like the CO2 intensity of our electricity to rise as the higher costing gas on the wholesale curve gets shoved aside for cheaper brown coal. A carbon price works against this, but alas...(watch this metric carefully in the future).<br /><br />It's also true that no modern economy has managed to deeply cut carbon emissions with renewables. Germany, the poster boy of renewables, still has very high emissions and they've spent hundreds of billions. The numbers on their wind/solar output are not good (2013 PV capacity factor 9.5% and wind 16.6%) and the recent moves to cut back on subsidies an admission (of sorts) that the whole exercise is not sustainable. In the next five years, Germany will commission more new coal fired electricity output than its entire solar PV fleet.<br /><br />The Green/Left meme that renewables (as in wind/solar) are some saviour from climate change, is now so pervasive it isn't even questioned, but taken literally on faith. Sure, we have our "100% renewables" cheer teams, but in serious engineering circles, these efforts to prove the illogical are not taken seriously. Even Germany only pretends to have a target of 80%...by the middle of the century!<br /><br />So, back to Warburton: it's easy to see another AGW denier with his foot on the throat of the Messiah, but really this too simplistic. There is too much capacity (see Silex above), and without lots of subsidies, the economics of renewables don't stack up (once again, see Silex). There's a law of diminishing returns going on here folks, and we can keep chucking more and more money at companies who want to build the next wind/solar farm, but to quote Barnaby Joyce, soon "we'll run out of money".<br /><br />In round numbers, Australia produces 800g of CO2/KWh and France just 80g. <br /><br />And we are debating cutting our emissions by 5 or 10 or 20 percent?<br /><br />As the man said: SRSLY?<br /><br />chrispydognoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22534369.post-13790774558083366022014-08-31T17:55:26.825+10:002014-08-31T17:55:26.825+10:00Thanks as always for your thoughts, Andrew.
One t...Thanks as always for your thoughts, Andrew.<br /><br />One thing that has really infuriated me for quite some time is the complete acceptance of the 'labor government shambles' narrative. Even so-called moderate/balanced/left-leaning journalists and commentators like Jericho continue to repeat this as though it were an absolute truth. I fully accept the serious issues caused by the Rudd-Gillard power struggle, however the substance of most of their policies and the actual functioning of the parliament were anything but shambolic. <br /><br />I'm guessing the narrative persists because that is the only real excuse the press has for their woeful performance. But why do people like Jericho help perpetuate with it?<br /><br />AnthonyAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22534369.post-67422375421711698962014-08-31T11:00:28.274+10:002014-08-31T11:00:28.274+10:00Alas it isn't only Murdoch press doing the war...Alas it isn't only Murdoch press doing the warmongering. Consider this clanger from Peter Hartcher:<br /><br />"With Abbott confronting Islamic State terrorism, standing up to Russia's Putin and joining Obama's Iraq mission, we are seeing the transformation of Abbott from domestic scrapper to wartime statesman."<br /><br />*retch*<br /><br />http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/tony-abbott-cannot-escape-joe-hockeys-budget-20140829-10a4nt.htmlAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22534369.post-84997057007555030512014-08-31T08:36:04.966+10:002014-08-31T08:36:04.966+10:00Another good article; the Australian media has muc...Another good article; the Australian media has much to answer for. But there was another dimension; the number of so-called political experts, commentators like the lightweight Waleed Ali who assured us that when the Abbott led LNP came to power they would have to behave in accord with the political realities of office, as well as the gravitational pull of mainstream Australia, and that as a result Abbott would end up as a typical small "c" conservative PM (i.e. the pragmatic demands of office would "tame" his wilding tendencies). It should have been obvious before the election that Abbott had no capacity to learn from his mistakes, that he was a simplistic thinker, and that the nature of his elevation to the Liberal leadership, courtesy of extremists like Minchin and Abetz, involved a number of backroom deals for which we would all be made to pay. The media were not the only ones at fault; so were so many of our political "experts" who assured us that Abbott would not be anywhere near as bad as many of us feared.(He's not; he's worse.) Your blogs were one of the few sites which consistently warned us of the evils that would befall us if we elected an Abbott government.vadinoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22534369.post-3758682548714985252014-08-30T11:03:45.217+10:002014-08-30T11:03:45.217+10:00every time I knock back a subscription offer from ...every time I knock back a subscription offer from Fairfax I make a point of telling them I wont buy till Hartcher goes. And Mark f*** KennyAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22534369.post-36016663503980361092014-08-25T21:57:40.994+10:002014-08-25T21:57:40.994+10:00Wrong Henry (II not VIII) - and turbulent, not med...Wrong Henry (II not VIII) - and turbulent, not meddlesome.rhwombatnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22534369.post-58692438385258458172014-08-25T19:56:50.576+10:002014-08-25T19:56:50.576+10:00Greg Jericho is right in his criticism of the Abbo...Greg Jericho is right in his criticism of the Abbott Coalition's trickery surrounding their policy detail before the election, but your criticism of the article in letting the media off blameless is justified. Of course, the Coalition did not indicate a co-payment, etc. They would have lost the election. If one reads any report or curriculum vitae, it is not just what is said that is often significant, but what is not said. The very fact that there was such a lack of detail on the LNP's education and health policies was important in itself and the media should have drawn the public's attention to the significance of it. <br /><br />Although the Coalition's policy "plan" had little detail on education and health, it did make one clear point and that was that decisions would be devolved to the local level. This and Mr Abbott's continual talk of small government and reining in spending was "crystal clear" code for shedding Commonwealth responsibility and Commonwealth public funding for education and health. <br /><br />Since the media did not scrutinise what the Coalition stated before the election, the Government Ministers can now claim that they gave "hints". In fact, most of their "hints" were omissions and sly, cryptic clues. <br /><br />By now the media should see that, while the PM engages in self-aggrandising talk about being the "captain" of the political Commonwealth, the Abbott Coalition does not believe in the notion of common wealth, but rather that it's each state for itself, it's each individual for him/herself. If the PM is the captain of anything, it's the LNP ship, the "USS Caine", but mutiny seems unlikely.<br /><br />The Senators who vote for any co-payment , etc., will "long be remembered" (as Abe would say) every single time people have to make the payments. VoterBentleighnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22534369.post-63939508150545270532014-08-25T18:50:37.780+10:002014-08-25T18:50:37.780+10:00I've been of the opinion that we've been a...I've been of the opinion that we've been a plutocracy for quite some time. Next step? Yep - that little bundle of sticks.Fionanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22534369.post-70876581823555719082014-08-25T17:48:46.264+10:002014-08-25T17:48:46.264+10:00i enjoy blocking people like hartcher and grattan...i enjoy blocking people like hartcher and grattan on twitter if only they new, they are blocked by so may tweeters who are fed up with their style of journalism.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22534369.post-45724095222232468332014-08-25T17:41:56.835+10:002014-08-25T17:41:56.835+10:00Thank you Andrew
Thank you Andrew<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22534369.post-12414564122730384842014-08-25T17:10:12.664+10:002014-08-25T17:10:12.664+10:00He's not even a particularly accurate stenogra...He's not even a particularly accurate stenograpeher these days - not evn in Grattan's class.David Irving (no relation)https://www.blogger.com/profile/05728918405973140125noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22534369.post-62348556510706853212014-08-25T15:47:04.893+10:002014-08-25T15:47:04.893+10:00"In failing to scrutinise the Abbott governme..."In failing to scrutinise the Abbott government before it was elected, the traditional media have failed the nation and themselves."<br /><br />True, true but ...have they failed their employers [Rupert and Gina et al]?<br /><br />fredAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22534369.post-41958188575960502692014-08-25T13:26:42.757+10:002014-08-25T13:26:42.757+10:00Mr Denmore, with a financial journalist background...Mr Denmore, with a financial journalist background, once summed it up well. In his field it would be unacceptable to report on major investment activities and stories without checking them out thoroughly. Peoples and institutions savings and futures depended on the reliability of that information. Occasionally they'll get it wrong, as with Skase a generation ago, but usually that will be the more generalist reporters rather those employed specifically for financial reporting.<br /><br />Why should we expect any less from our political reporting? It is more than just the fundamental principle of a democracy needing an informed voting public. Peoples lives are affected in just as many ways by an uninformed public as their savings are when the spivs are let loose.<br /><br />When the NBN was trashed for no reason other than bowing to News Ltd and the rent-seeking lobbies, it crushed a very rare opportunity to overcome a major Australian problem of distance and small scale. What was offered in its place was a dog's breakfast of PR junk stitched together to prevent the LNP being exposed on this issue. It was a deception that was not any more heavily disguised than was Direct Action as a supposed Climate change strategy. That these destroyed the only two ministers with some credibility added to the woes of this government's reign.<br /><br />Pyne claimed he hinted at some of the nasty stuff but nobody took it further, presumably wanting to believe the lies that they had a 'Unity ticket' on Gonski, which Pyne had never read, and on NDIS. It wouldn't have taken much work to reveal the hollowness of the LNP claims.<br /><br />The thing is, they were mostly deceitful, as Dutton was and is, in pretending they had a swag of policies ready to go. It seems pretty clear now that what passes for ideas, even now they cannot be called policies, came directly from IPA, the BCA and the various lobbyists for the big money interests.<br /><br />Arguably the only promise Abbott has kept, beyond abolishing the 'carbon tax', has been the one to be a government of 'no surprises'. Because none of what they've done or tried to get away with has been any surprise to anyone reasonably well informed. <br /><br />And that is where the media failure is massive and so costly to the nation. To report the government and political scene comprehensively and fairly should not have been beyond their professional responsibility.<br /><br />A generation back I was alongside a businessman in a plane. He was fuming at reading the left-liberal political reporting in the AFR. I asked him why he read it, if he disagreed so strongly. His answer was, "Oh, I must have reliable information for my investments. So I have to put up with the political views."<br /><br />I thought it was signal that he placed reporting reliability ahead of views that suited his political leanings. That is surely what is needed. We can still draw our own conclusions but we need all the background briefing.<br /><br />We never got that in parliament over the last four years. Instead we just got the circus stuff. Both Abbott and Rudd, and their backers, were good at manipulating the fluff, but it was essentially noise.<br /><br />Serious professional reporters would have known that.Gorgeous Dunnyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10540625260311418333noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22534369.post-20491265615658353212014-08-25T12:51:36.297+10:002014-08-25T12:51:36.297+10:00Dammit, I just typed up a long post and it got eat...Dammit, I just typed up a long post and it got eaten by the posting software.<br /><br />The gist of the post was that someone like Grog may /need/ to be relatively circumspect about what he says (though preferably not quite as circumspect as in that article - the press gallery needs a solid kick every time anyone talks about them, and that article was far too nice). Grog's in a position where people read his articles and take what he says seriously, without needing to generate a twitter storm to get people's attention. If he went around saying things exactly as they are and giving the deserving their just desserts (a boot to the arse), wouldn't he be jeopardising that position? Would he be able to achieve more by saying what he thought openly than he could by being circumspect?<br /><br />How much is that privileged soapbox worth preserving, at the cost of being a little more subdued than you would otherwise choose?<br /><br />Simon Fowlerhimihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09017579766314765086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22534369.post-69826203213145495712014-08-25T12:51:09.257+10:002014-08-25T12:51:09.257+10:00There's a million stories in Canberra's na...There's a million stories in Canberra's naked city, and that is yet another one of them that goes begging. Bravo. Andrew Elderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04705844456819481896noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22534369.post-58374419803832544152014-08-25T12:38:15.274+10:002014-08-25T12:38:15.274+10:00Kelly was genuinely first class in his day, but hi...Kelly was genuinely first class in his day, but his day passed sometime early in the Howard government. It was ridiculous for ABC's 'Insiders' to indulge him for as long as they did.Andrew Elderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04705844456819481896noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22534369.post-51629860898629234842014-08-25T12:33:15.645+10:002014-08-25T12:33:15.645+10:00It would seem few people are taking any notice of ...It would seem few people are taking any notice of the MSM any more. An article over at the Guardian on line about another Christopher Pyne brain fart had over 781 comments so far, almost all negative. <br />People do care and increasingly the web is where they are going. We still need someone, anyone, to give us the facts, just the facts, and maybe an expert in depth analysis, the MSM have not done that for quite a while.<br />As an aside, how many enraged parents of high school kids does it take to change a government?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22534369.post-83421709944903827862014-08-25T12:31:33.116+10:002014-08-25T12:31:33.116+10:00I would cut Jericho a lot of slack. He's one o...I would cut Jericho a lot of slack. He's one of the country's best commentators, one who is always worth reading. I haven't gone him as hard as I would an overpaid dummy like Mark Kenny or Niki Savva. In NSW they turn over press gallery representation with each new government, lots of merit in that.Andrew Elderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04705844456819481896noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22534369.post-10620477949720353962014-08-25T12:29:49.122+10:002014-08-25T12:29:49.122+10:00Disagree, see my response to Dan below.Disagree, see my response to Dan below.Andrew Elderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04705844456819481896noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22534369.post-63433990573092507562014-08-25T12:29:24.247+10:002014-08-25T12:29:24.247+10:00I wonder why they're exempt from the widesprea...I wonder why they're exempt from the widespread redundancies that have swept through traditional media. For the AFR to get rid of Neil Chenoweth while keeping Fleur Anderson shows the difference between cost and value.Andrew Elderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04705844456819481896noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22534369.post-33422609175861865592014-08-25T12:27:59.152+10:002014-08-25T12:27:59.152+10:00Hartcher was 'cleanup crew' for Rudd. He w...Hartcher was 'cleanup crew' for Rudd. He was indignant that women interpreted Gillard's misogyny speech in ways that reflected their own lives rather than the dim-witted narrative Hartcher and co were laying down. He attempted to get close to Hockey but I'm not sure that has worked as well as he'd like.<br /><br />Hartcher is one of this country's senior political journalists and sets the tone for political coverage to a larger extent than is necessary. The CEO of Fairfax has declared him a protected species. Fairfax's press gallery representation (Tingle aside) is rubbish, and Hartcher handpicked them. Sacking him would send a powerful signal that traditional media is serious about its own survival, but it won't happen because it isn't.Andrew Elderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04705844456819481896noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22534369.post-5799314636593308742014-08-25T12:01:20.824+10:002014-08-25T12:01:20.824+10:00I've moved from 'the media is biased' ...I've moved from 'the media is biased' pre election to deciding they're lazy, clueless and ignorant. Different cause , same result.<br /><br />I was surprised more wasn't made of the 'we don't have an industry policy because Mirabella wasn't elected' idoicy - which is now sometimes used as a reason we can't expect MacFarlane to be across his brief.<br /><br />Consider the implications of that statement - Mirabel la did have policies, ready to go, but because she wasn't elected we have to start from scratch.<br /><br />So either young Sophie tore her policy documents up in a fit of pique, or somehow it has been impossible to transfer them from Wangaratta to Canberra.<br /><br />Implicit in this , of course, is that at no stage did she even discuss her policies with other Liberals, let alone show them to them.<br /><br />Yet the media not only doesn't question this but accepts it as a valid reason for a policy void in this area.<br /><br />Zuvele LeschenAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22534369.post-18754832167405019262014-08-25T11:06:39.704+10:002014-08-25T11:06:39.704+10:00As always Andrew yet again a good article.
To quo...As always Andrew yet again a good article.<br /><br />To quote part of what you wrote ...Paul Kelly said before the election that the Coalition had fifty fully costed policies ready to go, but it is hard to see any evidence of these. Kelly put his credibility on the line by making a statement like that, and it's fair to diminish his credibility in light of the actual performance of this government. <br /><br />In the light of this, it is not difficult to categorise Paul Kelly as a stenographer of only limited talent and intellect. It a question of ...you can fool some of the people some of the time; but you can't fool all the people all of the time. Except of course when it comes to the likes of Paul Kelly he can be fooled all of the time ...and it seems not difficult to do either, just ask any coalition politician.Taracumbinoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22534369.post-87461688069052065672014-08-25T10:27:24.568+10:002014-08-25T10:27:24.568+10:00Andrew, I think Jericho is just stating the obviou...Andrew, I think Jericho is just stating the obvious. It IS all we can expect from journalists these days that they attend a few press conferences etc. Until we start to turn over the Federal press gallery in particular, political journalism will remain firmly rooted in the 1980s. Just look at the number of Press Gallery members who were there in the 80s and are still there (actually the Gallery is firmly rooted!). <br /><br />I would cut Jericho a little slack. I think he does a reasonably good job in exposing the humbug of this government and those who make a living out of writing about it.Dannoreply@blogger.com