Interesting interests It’s always fun peeking at recent updates to politicians’ registers of interests. Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young had to list every single person who contributed to a GoFundMe campaign to bankroll her lawsuit against former senator David Leyonhjelm. The list is two and a half pages long, and includes one Kevin Rudd.
Elsewhere, Labor Senator Kimberley Kitching attended a masterclass on the US-Australia alliance put on by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, and Nationals’ Bridget McKenzie got given a book on climate change by the Institute of Public Affairs. Over in Queensland, LNP Senator Matt Canavan was donated four shirts from local business Southern Cross Brands, and renewed his membership to anti-abortion group Cherish Life. Oh, and Western Australian Senator Ben Small is now a director of a business called Tailgate Smokehouse.
Hanson clash at family law inquiry It’s nearly forgotten now that One Nation leader Pauline Hanson was effectively handed an inquiry into Australia’s family law system, despite her position as a prominent men’s rights activist and repeated false claims regarding women and domestic violence.
Yesterday, Hanson’s views were again under scrutiny at public hearings. National Council of Single Mothers and their Children (NCSMC) CEO Terese Edwards fronted the inquiry and wanted to make her feelings clear about Hanson’s role.
“She’d spoken about women lying in court. She should never be on a significant inquiry where she’s already compromised,” Edwards later told Crikey.
Things got heated at the inquiry when Hanson hit back at Edwards’ claims about her impartiality, and attacked her evidence about men not paying child support. Edwards and NCSMC never wanted this inquiry, and were always concerned about having Hanson in charge. But they fronted up anyway.
“There is not one person committed to women’s and children’s safety who thinks this [inquiry] will be a good outcome to progress safety,” Edwards said
“[Hanson is] part of the problem, not the solution.”
A Mandarin-speaking mandarin News that Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) secretary Frances Adamson will finish up her role to take a lovely job as South Australia’s governor led to a flurry of speculation about the appointments carousel at the top of the public service. Even Home Affairs boss and war-drum-beater-in-chief Mike Pezzullo is being considered as a dark horse to follow Adamson as Australia’s top diplomat. What a statement that would be.
But Adamson has one key attribute that’s surprisingly rare among the top echelons of the bureaucracy — she’s a fluent Mandarin speaker. A recent Lowy Institute report found a widespread lack of China literacy across the public service. Those issues were most troubling in DFAT and the Department of Defence, where less than 2% of employees speak Mandarin or Cantonese proficiently. The China relationship will be Australia’s most profound foreign policy challenge for years, if not decades, to come. We’d do well to pick a successor with Adamson’s skill set.
Comments section cesspit A new report has found that the comments sections under opinion articles in the Australian media are frequently terrible places that normalise Islamophobia. Researchers from NGO All Together Now examined 4500 comments across 29 articles in The Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun, and Sydney Morning Herald, finding comments sections act as a “cradle for racist discourse”, and encourage polarisation and the airing of racist views without reference to facts.
Clarification A recent article in Crikey “I spy with my little eye: another blow to privacy in Australia” said that the parliamentary joint committee report into the International Productions Bill did not address a loophole that legislation could be used to surveil journalists without using a journalist information warrant. This was so, but the loophole was addressed in a separate PJCIS report recommending the expansion of a public interest advocate to include this legislation as well. Our story has been amended online.
Did you say a book on Climate Change by the IPA. I’d love to see what it says about gas-fired power generation.
the book is blank
It was washed up in d’Nile.
With Barry O’Farrell in India, George Brandis in London (where he replaced Alexander Downer), Arthur Sinodinos in Washington (where he replaced Joe Hockey), Mitch Fifield at the UN, Will Hodgman in Singapore, do we even need a secretary at DFAT? Surely even this government could list the pale, male, LP failures ready to drop them into vacancies?
I was interested in that media comments report because the SMH is a strange bedfellow in it to the Newscorp gutter press. The report does provide some disaggregation and while I haven’t gone deeply into it, it was pretty “bias confirming” in terms of my expectations.
In terms of negative portrayals of race by story content, the Herald-Sun won easily with the Daily Telegraph a (dis) honourable second in terms of negativity, albeit a winner in having even fewer inclusive pieces than the H-S. The Australian, home of the respectable (I am not a racist but) racist was the next highest for negativity. It was a long way behind its tabloid versions for negative portrayal but equal to the Telly in having few inclusive pieces. A Current Affair led the commercial TV shows in negativity with Today Tonight on its heels. The Project led the commercials in inclusivity, might have something to do with it having a person of colour and Islamic faith on it, plus its audience skews young.
The report is at https://alltogethernow.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Politely-Racist_Media-Report-2021.pdf
I agree about the SMH (and the Age). I recently read all the comments on an article about population growth. Not one focussed on any or all ethnic groups, but the opinion was pretty much unanimous that using immigration to grow the economy was not a good idea.
Exactly, though it probably speaks to a combination of the readership and what the moderators won’t tolerate.
Irrelevant, subjective opinions claiming to understand demography due to media’s obsession with one now retired academic described as ‘Australia’s best demographer’ producing non peer reviewed ‘research’ (often based on the comments referred to) who always presents post 1970s ‘immigrants’ in a negative light (BK here has choice description of the same academic); wait five years when the baby boomers start popping their clogs…. won’t be much population growth to fear…..
My point is, comments on population were never couched in racist terms, everyone argued the demographic angle ( though opposite to your side).
That’s the point of presenting eugenics or ‘eco-fascism’ behind a thin veneer of subjective commentary or vox pop round superficial and/or unrelated environmental issues or other proxies e.g. ‘infrastructure’ so as not to appear racist…. deflecting from fossil fuels etc., while the latter use sinolar technique son climate science; avoid experts at all costs.
When Australia’s ‘best demographer’ has hung out with Paul ‘Population Bomb’ Ehrlich and contributed to the ‘academic journal’ (TSCP The Social Contract Press) of white nationalist John ‘passive eugenics’ Tanton (admirer of the white Oz policy), one should pause for thought on the veracity of their ‘research’ and prectable catastrophic Malthusian claims as a result of ‘population growth’…. that have never come to fruition…..
Oops ‘while the latter use sinolar technique son climate science’ should read ‘use similar techniques on climate science’ to confuse and obfuscate; SPA, ‘Australia’s best demographer’ et al. were described by an Australian writer, on their mob SPA, as ‘Pauline Hanson in koala bear suits’ but much about splitting or deflecting the old centre and left on need for robust environmental regulation…..
Thanks for posting that link. The report seems to be more about the Muslim religion than race. Muslims attract a lot of venom in some press but races such as Chinese, Japanese, Indian where the Muslim religion is negligible don’t get a mention in this report.
“The China relationship will be Australia’s most profound foreign policy challenge for years, if not decades, to come. We’d do well to pick a successor with Adamson’s skill set.” – this is the last qualification Morrison will have on his mind! He will of course select someone who ‘toes the Party line’
Well the current trend is to provide parliamentary has-beens with lifetime appointments. Can’t imagine he’ll change that now the precedent has been set.
Did Canavan say who does his “coal miner” make-up for those PR photo shoots?