Independently analysing Australia’s long history of crony capitalism around media moguls is about as core to the Crikey mission as you get.
And aren’t we lucky to have Channel Nine veteran Glenn Dyer and Bernard Keane, formerly of the federal communications department, to carve up the spin in this latest imbroglio around television licence fee rebates.
Keane has much more influence giving frank and fearless advice through Crikey than he ever did trying to get politicians to implement policies that didn’t shamelessly pander to the media moguls. Combine that with Tony Abbott’s reckless “bribe” comments and a visit from Rupert Murdoch and this looks even better than the various Murdoch versus Packer pay-TV wars over the years.
774 ABC Melbourne’s Jon Faine had a cracking opening half-hour on the topic this morning in which Stephen Conroy’s defence included that he’s constantly being taken to dinner and lunch by journalists.
At one point, Conroy pointed out that he’d had wide-ranging discussion at private lunches with Faine, to which the bearded one responded: “And you’ve also sued me for defamation.”
Nice.
At this point it should be disclosed that in March 2003, Senator Conroy was a guest on the Crikey-funded table at the Melbourne Press Club’s Quill awards, along with some other characters such as Julian Burnside, John Blackman and our pro-bono defamation lawyer Nicholas Pullen.
Conroy’s wife, Paula, also came along, which was interesting given she’d just departed from a PR gig at RMIT, which was in the middle of a sustained shellacking on Crikey about its botched IT system.
Perhaps Conroy ought to now send Crikey the $200 this night cost us, lest it be perceived that we were attempting to influence the future communications minister.
One of Crikey’s roles now is to focus on the individual journalists who get involved in the heavy reporting of this battle and question whether they are being fair.
For instance, these lines from Keane yesterday looks like a pretty blatant example of Labor getting an early return on its $250 million investment:
Out went the Prime Minister to the press gallery yesterday, under pretence of announcing $10 million — $10 million — for homelessness, to suggest that Abbott was claiming Laurie Oakes, Mark Riley and Paul Bongiorno could all be bought. The FTA response was savage. Abbott copped an absolute bollocking last night on the three news programs that count with voters — the Seven, Nine and 10 news. The Nine coverage was devastating, with Oakes telling Abbott he couldn’t be bought and Abbott looking like he was trying to evade questioning.
Did Oakes, Riley and Bongiorno all really think this political posturing was worthy of such a big run when they’ve barely covered the policy issues around the $250 million handout?
Another journalist in the spotlight is Sunday Herald Sun chief reporter Ellen Whinnett, who broke the story about the Conroy-Stokes catch-up in Colorado on the very morning Rupert Murdoch was having breakfast with Tony Abbott in Sydney.
Conroy now says it was Stokes’ idea to catch up and the handout decision had already been made before the rendezvous in the snow.
The Murdoch tabloids really took the mix-master to the yarn, which was particularly interesting given that Whinnett is the de facto partner of Tim Holding, the senior Victorian Minister who got lost in icey conditions on Mount Feathertop and wants to replace John Brumby as Premier (see Crikey tips yesterday).
Whinnett’s story did a lot of damage to Conroy, who has been intimately involved in the messy factional war dividing the Victorian Labor Right.
Conroy and his allies Bill Shorten and Theo Theophanous have been rumbling with Tim Holding, who is aligned with David Feeney, the NUW and the SDA.
Holding’s group appeared to have gained the ascendancy last year, prompting the Short-Cons to go outside the tent and make a “stability pact” with Kim Carr and the Socialist Left, essentially to lock out Holding.
While a relative calm has descended of late, did Holding hear about the Colorado trip and use it to damage Conroy through his de facto? Or did Ellen Whinnett simply continue her long record of cracking good political stories?
It’s just one of many fascinating wheels within wheels in the great media-political power struggle of 2010.
A gentle swerve off-topic. Did anyone else hear Tim Holding bollocking Tiger Woods’ morals on talk-back radio this a.m? It certainly seems that Holding is up to something.
I am no fan of Tony Abbott but the disgraceful attack on him by the journalistic attack dogs of the free to air networks shows that the $250 million “bribe” is already working. The networks have closed ranks in defence of this unsubstantiated hand out. They have been progressively receiving substantial concessions from government especially in the length and quantity of advertising that effectively stops me from watching this media channel and this is just the icing on the cake. The “attack dogs “should have been criticising the government for handing over $250 million per annum with virtually no strings attached, but of course this would be good journalism.
This proposal is good politics, but bad public administration, and Rudd has been caught flat-footed try to justify it. The $250 million pa is a permanent concession which could have just as easily have been funded by direct government outlays targeting specific outcomes and leaving the charges to the networks unchanged. The controversy concerning this gift has also been a convenient circuit breaker to take the heat off Conroy for the $43 billion NBN rollout with no business case, and his politically motivated Internet censorship proposals.
From time to time, even the most devoted fans of Crikey pig out on lesser channels – why even Aunty. Speaking of the unspeakable, ABC’s Michelle Grattan got stuck into Conroy today over his round of golf with billionaire businessman James Packer, the same day that the government announced a $250 million licence fee rebate for free-to-air television stations.
It seems that the Minister sees nothing inappropriate in ‘relaxing’ with media moguls away from the constraints of formal processes that might lead to a record of what was discussed. Long time Crikey observers of Ministerial foibles might be reminded of Tony Blair and decision making leading to Britain’s commitment to the Iraq war. The Brits coined the phrase ‘sofa government’ in reference to this era, where relaxation blended with the business of government, resulting in no audit trail of government decision making . Clearly we do not have sofa government. We have nine iron government.
Has anyone noticed the similarity between Tony Abbott and Timothy Winters (poem hy Charles Causley?)
Ears like bombs and teeth like splinters!!!!
‘Timothy Winters’
Timothy Winters comes to school
With eyes as wide as a football-pool,
Ears like bombs and teeth like splinters:
A blitz of a boy is Timothy Winters.
His belly is white, his neck is dark,
And his hair is an exclamation-mark.
His clothes are enough to scare a crow
And through his britches the blue winds blow.
When teacher talks he won’t hear a word
And he shoots down dead the arithmetic-bird,
He licks the pattern off his plate
And he’s not even heard of the Welfare State.
Timothy Winters has bloody feet
And he lives in a house on Suez Street,
He sleeps in a sack on the kithen floor
And they say there aren’t boys like him anymore.
Old Man Winters likes his beer
And his missus ran off with a bombardier,
Grandma sits in the grate with a gin
And Timothy’s dosed with an aspirin.
The welfare Worker lies awake
But the law’s as tricky as a ten-foot snake,
So Timothy Winters drinks his cup
And slowly goes on growing up.
At Morning Prayers the Master helves
for children less fortunate than ourselves,
And the loudest response in the room is when
Timothy Winters roars “Amen!”
So come one angel, come on ten
Timothy Winters says “Amen
Amen amen amen amen.”
Timothy Winters, Lord. Amen