Australia Network:
Dave Lennon writes: Re. “Media briefs: Maiden, Crikey fan … NT News piss-take … Sky for Oz Network …” (yesterday, item 17). Speaking as a former employee of the original Asian TV service, Australia Television, and a prime mover in an ultimately unsuccessful bid team to get the licence for what is now the Australia Network when it was first offered by the Howard government in 2000 (a front page story in The Australian actually had us winning the bid before cabinet decided against it and approached the ABC to reconsider its decision not to tender for the service), I’d like to buy into this issue.
This current process has become politicised to a point where a cogent decision is impossible.
Whether that decision is between SKY or the ABC or the issues that will be caused between DFAT, who’s budget will fund the service, and Stephen Conroy’s people, who will decide who gets it, this process has been compromised to a point where abandonment is the only wise option.
My advice to the cabinet would be simply this: delay the decision for at least 12 months, leaving the service with the ABC in the meantime.
In that period revisit both the aims of the service, what its future goals should be and consider the actual shape or character of an ideal entity to run the service in the future.
Neither the ABC, nor Sky, are, for different reasons, ideal “corporate” vehicles for this important and, let’s not mince words here, disproportionately influential service.
A third way would be the best way.
The problem is that at the moment that third way doesn’t exist — the government needs to create a process that will bring it into existence.
I would like to make it clear there is no self interest here. The experience of creating a bid back in 2000 was sufficiently debilitating that I have no desire to curtail my retirement.
The CPRS:
Andrew Lewis writes: Re. Niall Clugston (13 October, comments). I picked up Niall Clugston on this once before, I’ll bet he remembers, and feel obliged to meet him again.
In Thursday’s comments (yep, I’m late again) he derides your editorial lauding the Greens because “they voted down Kevin Rudd’s CPRS”.
As I argued before, while technically true, this is deliberately misleading, as Niall seems to have a blank spot about the fact that the Coalition also voted the CPRS down. If the Coalition voted for the CPRS, the Greens vote would have been redundant.
Now no doubt he would respond with who crossed the floor from the Coalition. However, while going after the party of the Greens he seems to negate the parties of the Coalition, the majority of whom stuck solid, and yet he states that he would like the Greens to be judged like any other party. What, like the Coalition, who you seem to absolve of any responsibility?
Further, the CPRS was a dog, replaced now by a much better dog, but still a dog, but Niall almost concedes that point. The interesting thing about this, which I refuse to believe someone as astute as Niall would miss, is that the CPRS was specifically designed to wedge and embarrass the Greens. Even at the time it was barely decipherable whether Kevin Rudd had any commitment to the actual policy or was using it merely as a political tool to try and corner the Greens.
History shows that in fact Rudd didn’t have quite the necessary commitment to the policy that one might expect of the great moral challenge of our age. History also shows that this lack of commitment almost certainly cost him his public popularity, his job, and the Labor Party a clear majority.
I love it when politicians are too smart for their own good. I love it when a wedge tactic comes back and bites the wedger on the bum, and this was seriously deserved of a party and executive that thought it was oh so smart.
By the way Niall, I think what happened was the Greens made a principled stand. It’s hard to know because nobody in living memory can ever recall it happening, but there are rumours that may have been the case.
What goes around comes around, and by sheer serendipity the lucky country got lucky once again. Good government by accident. You couldn’t write this stuff.
Pokies:
Andrew Crook writes: Marcus Ogden (yesterday, comments) wrote that I seemed to be “unaware that Andrew Wilkie’s original pokies reform proposal to Julia Gillard was for maximum $1 bet machines”.
It is true that Wilkie originally backed low-intensity machines over pre-commitment, but it’s also true that he has since supported the dual approach proposed by Labor.
As Wilkie noted in his own press release on Friday, “I’m pleased to see their policy dovetails with my reforms, which include mandatory pre-commitment on high-intensity machines and the roll out of low-intensity machines with $1 maximum bets that can played outside of mandatory pre-commitment.”
It is simply wrong to suggest, as Ogden has, that Wilkie would prefer a policy that didn’t include mandatory pre-commitment technology.
In fact, in his presser, Wilkie welcomed the Greens’ commitment to “ultimately” support its introduction.
Occupy Wall Street:
Niall Clugston writes: Re. Yesterday’s Editorial. Is there a reason to protest Wall Street in Australia?
Well, Australia has slipped through the tentacles of the GFC so far — which explains why only a few hundred are protesting — but the reality remains that we are enmeshed in a world economy where bad financial decisions in the US leave a trail of wreckage from Iceland to Greece. When they’re not safe, we’re not safe.
I thank Andrew Lewis for taking the trouble to respond to my comment – and I thank him for calling me astute!
I don’t, however, remember his previous response. I do remember that the Coalition voted down the CPRS (with the Greens), though I don’t care who crossed the floor.
The Coalition under Tony Abbott, however, has had a consistent policy against a carbon price and has disparaged the climate change issue in general. It’s not surprising that it would vote down the CPRS. The issue is with the Greens, who called for action but voted against action when it was proposed. If the Greens’ position is untenable, the Emerald City Slickers’ position, as represented by Andrew Lewis, is even worse. He condemns Rudd for the abandonment of the CPRS, and applauds the Greens for forcing this abandonment. According to Lewis, this is only “technically true”. Some technicality!
Is there a disagreement here? Only in that Lewis believes the Greens (like Il Duce) are always right.
And for the record, yes, I think real direct action on climate change (like real intervention in Aboriginal Australia) would be better than a carbon tax and that a tax would be better than a phony trading scheme. That’s real action, not the fake poses of the conservatives. But I don’t think there’s much real about the Emerald City Slickers either.
PS I forgot to address the argument that the CPRS was a wedge against the Greens. This assertion makes no political sense to me. The ALP needs to win voters away from the Coalition, not the Greens who are potential allies. And the ALP did not campaign heavily on this issue.
Anyway, the Greens are not in government, and need to work with the government of the day. Surely the CPRS would have been better than nothing and could have been amended over time. The Greens are not a radical party which accepts nothing short of revolution. They are often prepared to compromise, just not this time.