The esteemed Press Gallery continues to fantasise that Question Time and related parliamentary events should be the determining factor in the public’s mind when it comes to political analysis.
Perhaps this isn’t as surprising at it may seem, as the word often missing from “Press Gallery” is “Parliamentary”. Their be-all and end-all is what happens in Parliament, or to be more precise between 2pm and 3.10pm during Question Time and the the endless points of order, SSOs, and other stunts brought on by the Opposition.
They also maintain the fiction that “both sides of politics” are as bad as each other, because for every tactical stunt by the Opposition there is a Dorthy Dixer or a balancing catcall from the government.
But consider the logic…
Why would the government seek to wreck its own parliament?
This simple and obvious question is rarely asked, because the answer is also obvious: childish as it may seem to say it, in the overwhelming number of cases,
“It wouldn’t. The Opposition starts it, almost every time.”
Q. Which side makes the overwhelming majority of pointless Points Of Order? Which side calls unnecessary (and 100% doomed) Suspensions Of Standing Orders? Which side asks virtually no policy questions at all (causing, for example, Craig Emerson to complain that he’s not received a single question on Trade in the life of the Parliament. Ditto for questions from Pyne on Education, Turnbull on the NBN, and Bishop on Foreign Affairs – except for her bogus “Boganville” question, which doesn’t count).
In short, which side is out to wreck Parliament, to discredit it and make it unworkable, despite promising (when it suited them) that we would see after 2010 a new paradign, a “kinder gentler polity”?
A. The Opposition.
If Question Time is to elicit information, what choice has the government but to ask itself these questions, as ridiculous as that may seem (perhaps more ridiculous because the Press Gallery ignores every one of these Dorothy Dixers)?
In the Daily Telegraph today we have a Steve Lewis penned article listing a supposed “poll” of Press Gallery journos “awarding” gongs to various ministers and members for things the Gallery finds important: Best Moment, Biggest Gaffe etc. The contributors to this “poll” keep themselves anonymous, perhaps a case of protecting their journalistic sources, even though their sources are themselves!
Ironically the single mention of policy is an award for the “Smooth Introduction Of The Carbon Tax”, although from the way the same bunch stenograph the Opposition’s outrageously exaggerated claims about the Tax, you could be forgiven for believing they thought it was an abject failure. So, a bit of a surprise there.
Predictably, Steve Lewis cites the Peter Slipper texts as the low point of the Parliamentary year. Well, he would say that wouldn’t he, seeing as Lewis himself was the chief enabler and purveyor of the egregious abuse of process that Mr. Justice Rares found these Slipper “revelations” had become.
Lewis published the stories found to be irrelevant. Lewis suborned the diary leaks found, in part, to prove the abuse of process. The female genitals comments that finally caused Slipper to resign were not even uttered while Ashby was in Slipper’s employment, but in the spirit of stitching-up the Speaker for anything and everything, Ashby threw them into the mix at the last moment anyway, after Slipper’s abuse case had been made, and therefore not included in the judgement. Nothing to do with Ashby’s employment, so probaby they would have constituted part of the abuse of process, if they had been made public earlier. Rares did not mention these, but hey, he only had 76 pages to make his case! He’d have needed hundreds of pages if he was to really give this disgraceful legal episode the write-up it well and truly deserved.
So, we have the Press Gallery delivering their judgement in their terms of what made up the best and worst of the year in politics. They have a monopoly on Parliamentary coverage, so naturally they would reckon what goes on in Parliament is the most important thing of all. You could call it “Protecting their proprietary interest”.
But what was truly important, and while we’re at it, what do the PBers believe were the worst journalistic performances of the year?
I’ll kick off with the Bludger’s Award for “The Most Morally Bereft, Nihilistic, Senseless and Unnecessarily Cynical Article Above And Beyond The Call Of Duty” for Michelle Grattan’s recent column on the upshot of the Ashby court case, where she said that a scandal over which she had once, before the judgement was delivered, called on the Prime Minister to “fall on her sword” had become, by the time that judgement was delivered, a “battle which had been lost, but a war that had been won by Ashby.”
Grattan could not find it in her heart to express one scintilla of synpathy for the ex-Speaker, despite the travesty of justice that had brought about his political demise.
Why? Because even though the judge believed the case was an abuse of process, Ashby had succeeded in wrecking Slipper’s reputation and ruining his career from a position of millions of dollars worth of subsidized legal aid and the liberal use of lies, irrelevancies and outright bullshit, spread evenly around the place by the very people who now call this “the Lowest Moment”.
The Press Gallery’s collective indifference to the tainted process by which Slipper was destroyed was disgusting, but Grattan’s column stood out for its particular brand of casual, indifferent cruelty. In response to all this morally barren behaviour by the complainant and his lawyers, plus the salacious coverage by herself and her colleagues while they thought they could get a resignation from Gillard, Michelle Grattan wrote one of the most disgusting “So Whats?” in recent journalistic history.
So, PBers, I give you “The Bludgers Awards For Putrescence In Australian Journalism And Politics”.
Other nominations for the worst of the journalistic-and-political worst will be enthusiastically considered.
THE PUB 
Newspoll Queensland Oct-Dec 2012 – 1139 voters
Two Party Preferred: LNP 56 (-4) ALP 44 (+4)
Primary Votes: LNP 42 (-6) ALP 31 (+1) GRN 8 (-1) KAP 4 (+3)
Campbell Newman LNP: Approve 38 (-9) Disapprove 48 (+10)
Annastacia Palaszczuk ALP: Approve 34 (+5) Disapprove 30 (0)
Preferred Premier: Newman 45 (-10) Palaszczuk 29 (+8)
Taking on the teacher.
For those not on Twitter, and an indulgence asked of other PB Tragics, this twitter exchange..
jaundiced view @JaundicedV@PollBludger How the poll differs from parties’ twit/blogtariat view of the ABC. Confirms the power of confirmation bias.
William Bowe @PollBludger @JaundicedV @GhostWhoVotes That too.
PuffTheMagicDragon @PuffyTMD @JaundicedV @PollBludger @GhostWhoVotes This doesn’t mean that there is no rw bias in ABC, just that it is not perceived as such.
PuffTheMagicDragon @PuffyTMD @PollBludger @JaundicedV @GhostWhoVotes Years of items starting with “The Opp’n says…” +stacking panels with rw AOWM & it all seems normal
PuffTheMagicDragon @PuffyTMD @PollBludger @JaundicedV @GhostWhoVotes Poll measure not bias but perceptions of bias. Research 101, be sure you know what you are measuring
jaundiced view @JaundicedV
@PuffyTMD Really? But where is the independent empirical evidence? @PollBludger @GhostWhoVotes
PuffTheMagicDragon @PuffyTMD @JaundicedV @PollBludger @GhostWhoVotes That is what I am asking you.
From the Ghost, another Quarterly State Newspoll
QLD State 2 Party Preferred: LNP 56 (-4) ALP 44 (+4)
QLD State Primary Votes: LNP 42 (-6) ALP 31 (+1) GRN 8 (-1) KAP 4 (+3)
QLD Newman LNP: Approve 38 (-9) Disapprove 48 (+10)
QLD Palaszczuk ALP: Approve 34 (+5) Disapprove 30 (0)
QLD Preferred Premier: Newman 45 (-10) Palaszczuk 29 (+8)
Poor Fellow My Queensland.
jaundiced view @JaundicedV@PollBludger How the poll differs from parties’ twit/blogtariat view of the ABC. Confirms the power of confirmation bias.
The other possibility is that most people don’t watch the ABC, yet because the broadcaster’s presenters talk all serious like, they are held in high esteem.
Remember these are the same people who said the quality of commercial radio was good.
What’s this then? The band’s back together?
Puff, Abbott gave the game away when he said …
“I have a lot of time for [Chris] Uhlmann, I have a lot of time for Mark Simkin. They are, I think, highly professional, even-handed commentators-reporters. But I think there is still this left-of-centre ethos in the ABC and I hope that Mark Scott continues to address it.”
News & 7.30 in his pocket and still wants more!
http://www.afr.com/p/national/abbott_accuses_abc_of_bias_O6x4nVP9GPezQXPMxq5RAK
jaundiced view @JaundicedV @PuffyTMD Well the perceptions are of no bias. That’s the poll. @PollBludger @GhostWhoVotes
PuffTheMagicDragon @PuffyTMD @JaundicedV @PollBludger @GhostWhoVotes Good we agree,
Testing. I trust the little bunny with the paper clip is there.
Because my opinion doesn’t count, they are all as bad as each other. But Chris Uhlmann is just a lttle bit badder. Why? He just is.
Yep, the perception. that’s all it is.
ABC does plummy accents, therefore they are believable.
And it takes a humble Dragon to head them off at the pass to saying there is no bias in the ABC according to this poll. *bangs head on desk*
I don’t know about the plummy accents, how many of them are saying day-BOO for debut, these days? They need a good thrashing.
Look mate its in the poll. Says the ABC is not biased, so its not biased.
Polls measure reality, yeah? So what ever they say, is how it is is, how it will be reported, AMIRIGHT?!
puffy:
Where are the socialist think tanks proliferating all aspects of the ABC in order to “balance out” the IPA and the extreme libertarian platform it is given at our public broadcaster?
As usual, jv is blowing it out his arse due to some kind of retributive crusade against PBers.
“But in a blunt message to the ABC – and in a sign an Abbott government may ring changes at the national broadcaster – he urged managing director Mark Scott to address what he regards as bias.”
From AFR article. Abbott should have been immediately tracked down and questioned on this. I just wish Conroy would quit his disdain for twitter and had been on his case.
Leroy:
Teh Polls roolz.
Whatever Teh Polls say is reality.
What about that analysis of guests on QandA? The IPA was over-represented and the leftish wing think tank whose name I can’t even remember (no bias in the ABC eh?) barely got a gig. And the IPA have camped out in The Drum webpage.
I think the point is, they ask people for an opinion, when they wouldn’t have a clue! Then print the results as if it was a poll taken among people who genuinely had a clue.
New Thread
https://pbxmastragics.wordpress.com/2012/12/26/polldaddy-83alp-9-coalition/
Found it .
http://abcgonetohell.net/2012/07/18/ipa-wins-the-battle-of-the-think-tanks-and-the-abcs-heart/
“Looking over a period of a year (June 2011 – June 2012), I have analysed how many times a representative from a think tank has guested on ABC TV’s The Drum. Out of the 9 think tanks appearing in that period, the results showed an overwhelming representation of the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA). It took a staggering 42% of the media exposure. The next highest was the Centre for Independent Studies at 18%; followed by Per Capita and the Centre for Policy Development at 16% and 10% respectively.”
I want bemused banned for lies .
Also for because it makes smarmy comments.
I’m sure that smarm takes this for something to be savoured.
Perhaps I can help,
” Ackerman Dermatitis Syndrome is a rare condition which is manifested in the form of skin rash followed by joint pain.
Unfortunately there is little information available about the causes for ackerman dermatitis.”
The causes for this disease are easily diagnosed.
inflated ego, spluttering disdain, buffoonery and the onset is generally bought about by prolonged, misguided blatherings in a daily rag.
It is thought that the dangerous combination of the bizarre and delusional have manifested themselves in this condition and will grow worse as time goes by.
Apart from alcohol induced torpor, the recommended treatment is complete and total rejection of newspapers owned and operated by international news gathering corporations. Happily, a trend that appears to be growing daily.
I awake to find some young lad who fancies himself on a red Streetfighter ‘R’ has deposited the necessary readies via EFT.
Garage cleaning day.
Should I wash it before it’s collected?
Naw.
I like that ; “The ABC. not RW. biased”…when Scott, Uhlmann Simkin sit oround the Milk-Bar table sucking on a straw from a shared “milk-shake” W/the IPA, LNP. and Rupert’s little reindeers!………Just like the old days, sans Maurice and Albrechtson!