A small matter As we reported yesterday, ABC managing director David Anderson was hauled in front of Senate estimates to have politicians who in every other context won’t stop banging on about freedom of speech interrogating him about what ABC journos like on Twitter.
Call it an offensive waste of time and public resources if you wish, it’s produced the funniest and strangest use of a parliamentary process since those fast-food guys who said “privilege” before every sentence no matter how many times the committee they were in front of told them they didn’t need to.
You may have seen the following tweet from comedian and writer Ben Jenkins, mocking the conservative media reporting Christian Porter’s withdrawal of defamation proceedings against the ABC as though it were a victory for Porter:
Anyway, Western Australian Senator Ben Small — oil and gas chum, expert room reader and man who has his TER score in his parliamentary bio — decided to, utterly deadpan, read it in its entirety. It’s a pretty good gag anyway, but Small’s delivery elevates it to something else entirely. It puts us in mind of the episode of decency panic in the UK back in 2008 that erupted after comedians Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross left nasty messages on Andrew Sachs’ mobile. This led to the surreal sight of current affairs show Newsnight host Emily Maitlis telling then BBC director-general Mark Thompson dirty jokes from his own programming.
Nothing but the truth Today’s Australian editorial weighs in, inevitably, on the Christian Porter/ABC defamation saga. It waxes lyrical about its brilliance in holding institutions like the ABC to account and, in classic Oz Holy War style, hints darkly at the “the work, the habits and the hubris of Sally Neighbour and Louise Milligan”, all under the grandiose heading: “Greatest enemy of truth is those who conspire to lie”.
Apart from reading like the op-ed young Lib presidents get published in their uni paper, it’s noteworthy to look at this paper’s unwavering commitment to the unvarnished truth.
This is the same paper which, on its front page this morning, argues that the following tweet — which eagle-eyed viewers may notice is actually the Black Knight scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail with some writing on it — represents a “a doctored online image of Porter without any limbs”:
Church in court This isn’t normal Crikey fare but given the work we’ve been doing lately on the Pentecostal church and questions of sex abuse we thought it worth sharing a news story that’s come our way.
NSW Police have confirmed that last Friday a 29-year-old “youth leader” attached to a Pentecostal church was charged with aggravated sexual intercourse with a person older than 14 and younger than 16, and one count of aggravated indecent assault of a victim “under authority of offender”.
The assaults are alleged to have happened between 2015-16 and 2017-18, which puts it right in the time frame of the royal commission into child sex abuse — which heard evidence from senior Pentecostal figures from the Australian Christian Churches. The ACC represents Pentecostal churches in Australia — including, until recently, Pastor Brian Houston’s Hillsong — and told the royal commission that it vowed to do better.
The ACC declined to give Crikey any comment “due to pending court case”.
From the Australian…“Greatest enemy of truth is those who conspire to lie”. Oh please! The Australian wouldn’t know or tell the truth (allegedly) if it they actually witnessed it firsthand. They’d still find a way to blame a woman, blame Labor/Anthony, Dan, Anastasia, blame the unemployed, the elderly, people with disabilities or anyone who isn’t a far-right religious extremist, whilst finding the allegedly corrupt Liberal/National federal government to be fine upstanding meritorious men…with the occasional woman thrown in for um you know good measure/balance.
MSM in Australia is abysmal. Between the stark raving mad shock jocks, the Murdoch stables, Stokes, Costello and numerous other partisan right-wing zealots, it truely amazes me that Labor ever gets elected. Labor is the party that actually builds, educates and manages the country for the people. The Coalition tears it down. Just look at what they have done to our Public Schools, Universities, Medicare, Aged Care, NDIS, Unemployed to name but a few.
Above all else the Australian hates strong women.
Good comment but so many Australians have become ignorant of the malignant influence of our media oligopoly, and are prone to be nudged to the right and far right on many issues. Why? There is no print, let alone any legacy media, of the bit centre right, then no centre-centre left to promote issues for employees, regions, education, CentreLink etc.; while catering to baby boomers in transition to, and those actually in retirement…..
Media know the latter are the most significant demographic and voting cohort, for now….. be worried if they start trying to embed ideology permanently….. which seems to be the modus operandi now in the US, and UK e.g. Brexit….
The Liberal party seem to be copying the Republican party’s handbook. Look where that is taking the disUnited States. Both of these party’s have much hate within them. Power is the goal, not the people, not their country.
Agree, and it started when John Howard, with an eye on demographics and need for ‘wedge issues’, opened the door to US style dog whistling of post white Oz immigrants (like the Trump admin immigration policies, inspired by John Tanton, colleague of Paul ‘Population Bomb’ Ehrlich at ZPG, admirer of the white Oz policy and liaised with SPA types), GOP polling techniques via Crosby Textor, Koch radical right libertarian ideology (informed by Adam Smith and Christianity, channeled via IPA and CIS) along with business sector groups, and then ‘communications’ led by NewsCorp….. with nativist right wing views presented as centrist.
Where did they find the spare parts that the good Senator has clearly been assembled from?
Those first two pieces – gold!
Do those “Littered of Oz” realise the meaning of “self-parody”? To be ‘effective’ it has to be funny for a start.
Makes you wonder just how sensitive they are – about where they actually “work”/put in time – after they couldn’t get a job as “real journalists” anywhere else?
They are notorious for not having a sense of humour. Just look at their attempts at being funny, particularly irony and satire.