Rodney Tiffen writes on the last of three inquiries into the so-called Climategate emails however in his conclusion that the media created damage to popular support for action on carbon he fails to state the obvious question. Why?
Why did the mainstream media give so much credence and coverage to what was transparently a sensationalist stunt with the obvious purpose of derailing the Copenhagen summit?
A simple explanation may well be that the mainstream media, particularly the populist press were keen to reinforce their self importance in the minds of the public by “breaking” significant news. Since their reputation for accuracy is highly questionable anyway, truth was never really a consideration. They simply exploited the big story to sell their product.
While this simple and more conventional argument has some logic to it, there would seem to be a more sinister aspect to the source and motivation of some of the more outspoken mouthpieces for the denialist camp. Clearly they were politically motivated in their desire to undermine the science on climate change and furthermore they were enabled in that process by their position. The obvious objective was always to first undermine any consensus at Copenhagan with a second even more desirable objective to raise doubt in the minds of the public.
Have the reporters, journalists and editors responsible for spreading such a blatant piece of propaganda publicly admitted their wrong-doing and have they been summarily dismissed from their offices? No.
What’s more they wont be because they did exactly what they were supposed to do and did an excellent job of it. Strangely for an industry whose purpose is to manufacture consent, for once the industry decided to undermine popular belief in something it had helped create. It defies belief that such a course of action was merely the work of a handful of independent operators.
David Mann’s article identifies the poverty of thinking in Gillard’s recent announcement of refugees arriving by boat. He points out that the so-called regional framework is hollow rhetoric and the “new” policy is remarkable similar to Howard’s infamous Pacific solution.
It is clear that Gillard’s policy is an appeal to voters worried about the prospect of a rising tide of refugees arriving by boat yet it seems odd that this article and the debate generally ignores a couple of salient realities which, if acknowledged, have broader implications for public policy.
Obviously the boats arriving on our northern border carry people hopeful of a better life. Who can blame them? Australia’s wealth and size compare very favourably to anywhere else in the world. Strangely we admit this fact in the glossy advertising campaigns designed to lure tourists here but somehow fail to connect the advertised image with how that might appeal to potential refugees.
If Australia wasn’t such a great place then tourism campaigns like this would never see the light of day.
Nor would refugees desperate for a better life, spend their life savings to procure passage with parasitic people smugglers.
The debate needs to move forward. We need to acknowledge the wealth and appeal of Australia. We also need to acknowledge the reality of the world north of Darwin. Asia is the most populated landmass in the world and one beset by a host of regional conflicts. The people who want to escape this genuinely want to have a better life for themselves and for their families.
The current political policy is deliberately aimed at discouraging such immigrants by making the prospect of settlement in Australia difficult and uncertain. While it might work in the short term it ignores the medium and longer term where the pressures on those people to our north will increase. India, for example is forecast to overtake China as the most populous nation. Climate change has yet to significantly impact the ecologies of Asia but if the worst case scenarios are right then the potential for refugees is unimaginable.
There is a eerie sense of deja vu about this debate. As was the case twenty years ago when Australia could have embarked on an aggressive program to harness its abundant solar energy potential and now reap the much reduced carbon pollution benefit (not to mention developing an export industry and creating a sustainable energy economy), today’s debate on immigration completely ignores the distinct possibility that Australia may well be overrun by immigrants in the medium to long term.
It seems sensible to deal with the minuscule number of refugees who peacefully want to build a better life here in Australia in a humane and friendly manner. How we treat our new migrants will inculcate them with values of what it is to be Australian and in so doing create a stronger and more robust Australia. Unfortunately for the Gillards and Abbotts of this world, the rest of the world, and especially our northern neighbours, may well be forced to ignore the niceties of international conventions. Short of arming the thousands of kilometres that is our northern frontier we need to admit this obvious fact into our domestic debates.
Gillard and her supporters are actually doing the long term interests of Australia a massive disservice by focussing on punitive short term solutions. Furthermore they are doing so because their long term vision is bereft of any considerations of where such short sighted policies may take us. As is the case with coal and green power where today’s utter dependence on fossil fuel is locked in thus producing a lifestyle and an economy that perpetuates unhappiness and inequality, so to the short term politics of immigration ignores the broader picture and long term view.
But then that’s what passes for politics in this country.
ABC management, driven mostly by former Liberal Party staffer and businessman Mark Scott seems hell bent on imposing a technocratic regime on the public broadcaster. In many ways this amounts to privatisation by stealth and Scott’s successes are many and far reaching.
While management has been able to argue that most of its decisions are in the best interests of the ABC it is debatable whether or not they are in the best interests of Australians.
While the ABC service has long relied on technology provided by third parties, dating back to its early dependence on Telecom for signal distribution, the current outsourcing and partnership arrangements do raise a question regarding what is a public broadcaster. Even the term “broadcaster” is questionable as more ABC content is distributed in the non-broadcast space.
A short list of outsourcing and partnerships reveals that the core of the ABC’s technical infrastructure is now captive to commercial operators. These include a lucrative deal with Maquarie Group’s Broadcast Australia for transmission services, a partnership with the privately owned WIN network for centralised TV presentation and an almost exclusive deal with Microsoft Australia for server and desktop solutions.
Fundamentally these arrangements undermine the independent nature of the public broadcaster. However a direct consequence of these outsourcing and partnership deals is to transfer significant amounts of the ABC’s annual budget to a small number of favoured private businesses. This in turn raises questions regarding the decision making and motivations of those dispensing such favours.
Furthermore the impetus for a highly technically centralised ABC based in Sydney is counter to an earlier philosophy of a regionalised ABC and by its very nature one more susceptible to spectacular failure as demonstrated by the new Media Hub’s effort on the recent night of the ALP’s long knives.
Mark Scott has long been at pains to paint this scenario in glowing terms as one that will transform the ABC into a 21st century media powerhouse yet his direct interference with editorial policies combined with decisions which make the ABC captive to private industry players and a wholesale attack on the internal culture of the ABC suggests that your ABC is so only in name and slogan.
Even more worrying is the broader implication of a elitist ABC managed in such a way that bestows as much money as possible into the coffers of private interests while at the same time restricting the actual content of public information in the interests of avoiding contentious or dissenting opinions. The one voice that speaks with authority that is quietly milking the public public purse for the benefit of mates in business. The new ABC model is classic partnership of government and big business combining to manufacture consent, paid for by the very people it supposedly serves.
Michelle Grattan in her analysis of Gillard’s lurch to the right has concluded that the left wing of the ALP is dead.
Interestingly, Gillard has got away with her asylum backflip within Labor Party ranks. Partly, it is that she is new; also, the election is so close. But the quietness shows as well that the left within the ALP, traditionally exercised about these things, is effectively dead
With Faulkner retiring to the backbench and Tanner leaving politics completely Grattan’s observation has some credence. Any claim that Gillard herself is a closet red is laughable. Some might say the ALP and its supporters have finally accepted economic realities, others might observe that the ALP has abandoned the fight to change the economic conditions that enslave the vast majority. I think regardless of the motivation, Grattan’s conclusion is correct.
Like a few people I am rather cynical about the role of the mainstream media (msm). In part this cynicism arises from working in media for a while, in part it is reinforced by the fact that the msm has become a fully integrated component of the capitalist system and as such is unable to examine or question the dominant paradigm that seems to have the world rushing towards a rather unpleasant future.
Yet its role in providing us with some form of public record of events persists. In this regard I am not referring to the vast quantities of opinions or op-edits that clutter most of the press sites or their physical manifestations. Nor am I talking about the gratuitous and highly condensed form of TV reporting that graces our screens around dinner time. I am simply observing the fact that the press still provides a first draft of history, incomplete for sure, but a draft nonetheless. However we also learnt something else from the Rupert’s Australian in recent times.
What we learnt or observed quite explicitly is that the public domain of knowledge about what goes on in the corridors of politics is manipulated by practitioners of spin who are highly connected to media outlets and political sources. We see daily the public fascade of politics, the proceedings of the houses of parliament are public record, and we glimpse the stage managed events designed to neatly encapsulate some minute bit of government policy. And then we get the codified version of the behind the scenes mechanations offered up by the various journalists imbedded into Parliament House.
Imbedded journalists were used by the US recently to improve their media profile during the invasion of Iraq and in the Afghanistan campaign. The idea was that such journalists or media would form a close relationship with their protectors and report a version of the ground war that was largely sympathetic to the US mission. Of course given the life and death nature of combat, the highly charged emotional nature of such environment has parallels with the psychological phenomenon know as the Stockholm Syndrome.
The atmosphere in media circles on Capitol Hill during the few days that saw Rudd deposed in favour of Gillard was highly charged. The twitterverse was alive with random noise and the iPhones were hardly able to stay on charge long enough to work for more than a few hours. The symbiotic nature of the relationship between institutionalised media that is embedded into Parliament House and the political sources was clearly illustrated, both needing the other to play a role in a drama that becomes part of the public record, both reaffirming and legitimising the other.
There is a widespread belief especially among left leaning circles that the media has an overriding right wing political agenda. This view is often expressed when considering the overly political “campaigns” waged by the Australian against things like the government’s roof insulation scheme or school building program. Given such concerns it seems remarkable to learn that certain elements within this so-called left leaning government were using the very same media to conduct a campaign of destabilisation directed against the incumbent Prime Minister.
What is knowable about the events of last week is limited. Public access to the halls of Parliament House is restricted, our knowledge is mediated by professionals. These professionals in turn are locked in with their subject material and on one hand they are dependent on the business of politics to justify their existence. On the other hand they are subject to the demands of efficiency or motivated by concerns for profitability even if such considerations are at arms length to the day-to-day business of reporting on politics.
What is clear from the events of last week and the behaviour of the msm is simply that none of it can be trusted to inform the public with a complete factual record of what goes on. Clearly the media subscribes to the notion that we can’t handle the truth. Also clear is an acceptance and exploitation of this modus operandi by political parties. Equally as likely is the idea that drama of politics transcends the business of government which has serious implications for any concerns about the capacity of government to improve the living conditions of the public they supposedly serve. The soap opera of politics now dominates the inquiring mind of the our fourth estate watchdogs while the broader substantive issues are abandoned to writers who preach from the pulpit of vested interest.
Despite reports that oil continues to leak into the gulf at an alarming rate the continuing pressure on the stock of BP and the need for other oil companies to stay afloat has forced one man, a judge in the US, to overturn the Obama moratorium on new oil wells in the Gulf.
Oil companies say the government has not proven the need for a blanket ban on deep sea drilling and warn it will lead to major layoffs. Judge Feldman agreed and in his ruling on Tuesday sharply rebuked the U.S. government.
The downward pressure on BP’s stock price has now been linked to pensioner funds in the UK. So the global impact of our neverending thirst for stuff to put in our cars rewards the capitalists but punishes the workers potentially affected by the moratorium, undermines the financial security of retirees and still costs the earth.
Of course it is easy to suspect the motivation of a single judge delivering a decision that favours the oil companies despite the explicit wishes of the President. Even from Oz you can easily imagine various scenarios that would explain it. Local pressure to keep local businesses afloat, traditional distrust of the north by the south or straight out graft and corruption.
But there’s a far more troubling dimension to this news. It connects somewhat arbitrarily to the local mining reaction to the election of Julia Gillard as PM. Both outcomes seem to illustrate that public politics is subservient to other forces. Our democratically elected representatives can do no more than ask the capitalists to play along. When the capitalists decide not to play the game is up.
And just in case you thought there was some vestige of the socially progressive spirit alive in the US consider the news (both fair and balanced) from Fox News that in the US the minority Republican extreme right has somehow defeated an Obama bill that would extend unemployment benefits and provide financial assistance to the states to avert unemployment. The reason, government debt. Of course government expenditure on defence in the US has nothing what so ever to do with government debt, let alone the billions of dollars routinely handed private enterprises like Blackwater.
The extraordinary media campaign against KRudd’s Labor government continues in the Oz and it seems Fairfax media has been suckered into the media agenda. Yet if evidence of the failure of the mainstream media to explore the story behind the news was ever wanting then today’s article by Peter Hatcher and Phillip Coorey illustrates just how shallow journalism can be.
On the face of it the SMH story is based on rumours that a KRudd staffer is checking on the party room support for his man. Well blow me down if that has never happened before. Then there’s bit of duboius context before we get something more concrete, that is the concerns of Labor MP’s as expressed in the caucus room, any one of which would surely be more newsworthy than a bit of speculation based on hearsay.
However…
The chief concerns MPs listed yesterday were asylum seekers, the cost of living, mental health, the mining tax, and climate change.
also illustrates the extent of the problems face by KRudd and Co and I think explains some of the optimism in the mind of the Mad Monk. On asylum seekers and boat people the government is faced with a force completely beyond their control. Let’s face it, as the world goes Australia is a pretty good place to live and it’s inevitable that the hundreds of millions of people immediately to our north agree. Short of sinking the boats and and throwing everything we can into protecting our northern frontier we will find increasingly that more people are going to take the risk of a journey in an open boat to our shores.
Likewise cost of living is a problem largely beyond the control of the governments of today since costs are largely determined by the private sector who profit from making life affordable for the masses. Another sharp jump in oil prices for example would be a killer for the government but something over which they have no control. Similarly if food production was suddenly hammered by catastrophic climate change then there’s bugger all the government can do about it. This is a consequence of laissex faire economics, something no socially progressive government with leftish tendencies has actually dealt with in recent times.
Similar arguments can be extended around mental health. I am reminded of an experiment where rats or mice were allowed to keep breeding but their physical constraints were fixed, that is as their numbers increased they became more crowded. Their social patterns became disrupted and individual behaviour became more erratic. Humans are not rats or mice but our 21st century lifestyles are relatively a long way from our hunter gatherer evolution. Does KRudd have a panacea for that?
Of course global warming is a subject far far away for this government but it and the mining tax also illustrates how the combined conservative right in this country is frustrating the will of the people as expressed in the election of KRudd and Co yet simultaneously exploiting the political impasse to gain popular advantage. Without senate control Labor’s laws always had to be negotiated through which meant that anything which upset the myriad of self interested groups represented by the various nutbags in the senate (stand up steve fielding and nick xenophon) as well as the reactionary right as represented by the liberal party and its country cousins wasn’t going to see the light of day. And then Labor gets smashed in the popular press for inactivity or failure.
Australians took a half step towards the left when they elected KRudd and Co but the parliamentary system deliberately constrains the capacity of governments to act. Journalists have no such constraints and they seem incapable of any insight beyond the fascade of sensationalism or opinionated speculation.
The unreformed finance sector is the central vehicle for this rollercoaster. The perspicacious Lordon once more: “Save me or I’ll kill you.” Or, more accurately, “Save me and I’ll kill you.” A sector whose integral function in economic activity gives it a public purpose has been appropriated for entirely private ends, and with disastrous consequences.
Meanwhile here in Oz the MSM are reporting the banks (all 4 of them) recorded a 9% increase in income from bank fees last financial year, a little under half of that coming from households who pay fees for mortgages, personal loans and credit cards.
Also echoing sentiments expressed by Jones, the ongoing debacle surrounding the Government’s moderate proposal for a Resources Rental Tax has included repeated threats by multinational mining companies to take their business elsewhere unless they get the proposed tax scrapped.
Despite the spectacular collapse of high risk schemes on Wall Street based on pernicious and predatory lending schemes and the public retreat of neoliberal ideology it is obvious that capitalists has no intention of modifying their behaviour or a desire to accommodate any desired social objectives that might be expressed by the majority of people. While this is classically portrayed as fundamental to the nature of free-enterprise and human behaviour it is also underlines the necessity for structural change. The choice is fairly obvious, either capital is brought within the sphere of social control or any ideas of social progress and ecological stabilisation must be jetisoned since the two are clearly incompatible.
Robert’s article hasn’t escaped the attention of the right. Today’s Oz features a Green bash written by Gary Johns whose articles frequently appear on the right wing think tank IPA’s website. Gary is the leftie the right loves, a former Labor minister in the Keating government and now Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Australian Catholic University’s Public Policy Institute, his article is right at home with the Oz’s right wing agenda.
However, not content with smacking down an idea before it gains traction in the public’s mind, Gary has plenty to say about the Greens and the people who might vote Green.After visiting some anonymous polling data (unreferenced of course) that labels the Green voter as young and working in Education (bloody teachers) Gary goes on to vent his spleen on these lost souls…
My theory of the green mind is that they are people who are pessimistic about the human ability to deal with the physical world. This is because their experience, as rich and powerful as it may be in, say, human relations, has little bearing on the world that determines our physical wellbeing.
That would put Gary into the hard deterministic camp. It’s also a sweeping generalisation and one that denies the importance of human relations to our society. Still after 9 years as a senior fellow at the IPA Gary’s social agenda is pretty obvious.
Gary is also guilty of rewriting history. According to Gary the VFT was
abandoned when the cost and benefit study proved it was not viable
which might be superficially true but ignores the roles of vested interests who opposed any serious competition to existing road and air transport operators. This is a structural economic issue. By pricing a VFT out of the equation, the entrenched operators preserve their monopolies which in turn reduces government decision making to ad-hoc market intervention of the type the owners and writers for the Oz consistently attack. It also restricts the choices (reduces the freedom to choose) of future generations.
Financial viability is the great debate killer of our times yet one that is used selectively. The financial cost of our Afghan adventure is never an issue when one of our soldiers die. Yet when a so-called “Green” idea surfaces that might undermine the existing status quo, its financial viability is immediately questioned and declared suspect.
The mistake in Gary’s thinking is that while Green issues do concern technology and economics, these are not the only values that matter. Unquestioning subservience to the gods of economics and technology isn’t really in the best interests of a free society or individual freedom.
Apparently things are so good at Fairfax that even bylines make no sense, “Michelle Gratan is Age political editor”
However trivialities aside, what does the fortnightly beauty contestpopularity contest reveal? That the tiny sample of Australians force fed their regular diet of nightly news, shock jocks and front page sensations is a bit over the mainstream political parties and they are thinking of voting Green.
Unfortunately the two party system is decidedly skewed against any third party such as the Greens. To be really serious the Greens need around 30% of the vote but if things keep going the way they are that’s a distinct possibility. The right wing fan club of Murdoch and Co might be salivating at the prospect of their favourite monk getting in but the voters are apparently thinking beyond sermons.
