New Paradigm Politics may not change a thing
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Karma police, arrest this man - he talks in maths, he buzzes like a fridge, he’s like a detuned radio. — Radiohead So the first day of New Paradigm Politics didn’t go so well. The media took a relatively minor difference between Wayne Swan and the independents and — you’ll never guess — treated it as evidence the happy couple were at each other’s throats before they’d even reached the honeymoon suite. And in what is now a well-established ritual, the Press Gallery, in turn, copped a bollocking online from observers frustrated that a different kind of politics was being treated in the same old way by journalists apparently incapable of viewing events in Canberra as anything other than a two-horse race. Annabel Crabb promptly penned a dissection of the clash on the ABC site, suggesting the traditional Gallery obsession with dispute and disunity might take a while to adjust to the dissent-rich environment in which we’ll live at least until the next election, and suggesting some ways it will need to change. It is true that one of the benefits of this minority government is that a particular obsession of modern politics, the maintenance of strict unity of message by all elements of a government — preferably by saying as little as possible — is now impossible. Journalists will be served up a regular diet of dissonance, and many will feel impelled to offer that as evidence of impending disaster, either because they’re partisan and want to create the sense of a government in crisis, or because they’re incapable of understanding politics in any other way. One of the reasons why journalists will struggle to adjust is because a minority government messes with their conception of the role of political journalism. The Press Gallery is one of the last holdouts of what I’ve called the sacerdotal view of the media, in which the journalist — or more correctly the Journalist — acts as intermediary between a remote source of authority, and the masses who need to be guided in their understanding of the ways and actions of that authority. The model has been breaking down for a generation, but the coup de grâce is being administered by new media, which dramatically reduces the distance between journalist and reader and multiplies sources of interpretation far beyond those who happen to control printing presses or transmission towers. Minority government plays the same trick at the other end of the relationship. Suddenly there are multiple sources of authority. It used to just be a Manichean structure of Government and opposition. Now journalists will need to take seriously several independents and a party, the Greens, that the ABC simply pretends doesn’t exist and News Ltd, in the context of last year’s bushfires, in essence called terrorists and murderers. Which means, for example, those dreadnoughts of dead white male journalism Kerry O’Brien and Barrie Cassidy, who were just too damn important to bother interviewing Bob Brown during the election campaign, will have to think a lot harder about whom they talk to. Indeed, the ABC, which is entirely reliant on a bipolar political landscape for its balance-without-judgment editorial approach, will have to entirely rethink its notions of fair coverage. But I’m not so sure political journalists will adjust. They don’t have the same imperatives as major party politicians, whom voters have deprived of the option of operating in the usual manner. There’s a sense, even from senior commentators, that they dislike this new environment because they saw nothing wrong with the old one. The old one served up conflict and simplistic, easy-to-report narratives of winners and losers and endless material to convince audiences that interesting things were happening, even when they weren’t. They have one template of “good government” — unified, disciplined, reformist, “on-message” — - and anything that deviates from that is necessarily poor politics. For all the media’s incessant criticism of politicians who refused to say anything interesting, and risk-averse political parties offering no leadership, politics-as-usual was easy to cover. But let’s try all this from a different perspective. See how this grabs you for a gloom-and-doom prognostication. The mainstream media only ever tells us half a dozen or so stories. The details and circumstances differ, of course, and they populate them with different stereotypes as necessary, but in the end it’s the same small number of stories designed to reaffirm mainstream social values and maximise the chances of selling stuff. Major party politicians, and partisan media outlets are a miniature version of this. They only want to tell a couple of stories, the same ones over and over again, about themselves and their opponents. Anything else is just interference. The Rudd Government was the most extreme example of this, abandoning even the goal of telling stories in favour of endlessly reiterating motifs, a form of content-free buzzing designed to fill the media cycle. It brought to mind the Karma Police line about a detuned radio. This was partly in reaction to the fact that both the media and major political parties face the problem of a disengaged audience, one that uses mainstream media less and less, and in particular, that consumes mainstream political coverage less and less. Conversely, the segment of the population that actively engages with the media and politics is empowered, informed and aware. They can shape the media they consume, and if they don’t like it, create their own content. They can share the media they like and discuss it as others consume it. And younger users aren’t interested in, or don’t understand, traditional forms of political journalism anyway, but engage with ideas via other formats like comedy that are regarded as lightweight by traditional political journalists. This has meant the fragmentation of a once-collective intellectual space, created by the mass media, into a collection of niches, in which media users shape their media consumption to their own preferences. The new media environment empowers us all to consume exactly what we want, how we want it. This facilitates ghettoes of agreement, where users shut out content they disagree with, or interpret it through the prism of their own views and interact only with people who share those views. In short, we’re letting a thousand echo chambers bloom. The fragmentation drives a circle — vicious or virtuous, depending on your perspective — in which the media tailors its product to appeal to these niches. There are sound reasons why The Australian, for example, has moved from being a conservative paper, with a diversity of opinion from the Right, to being a rigidly pro-Coalition outlet — because that better reflects the views of a readership that heavily skews old, white and male. Political debate is thus increasingly a dialogue of the deaf. Politicians offer the same couple of narratives over and over. The mainstream media reports politics using the same core set of stories, over and over. Politically-engaged users rely on media that confirms their biases. The rest of the community tunes out. There’s no communication, only noise from everyone speaking at each other without listening. Will a new political paradigm change that? In its core themes of instability and disputation, it actually risks reinforcing it. The stories the media and politicians tell may well remain the same. Engaged users will become more and more empowered to shape their media consumption to reflect their prejudices and more and more angry about the mainstream media. Mass audiences will fragment into ever-smaller groups. We’ll just endlessly, futilely buzz away at each other without listening, like a detuned radio. |
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65 Comments
Sounds like the conversations I have with my Dad, who is an avowed Australian reader.
He spouts all the points he’s read: BER was a disaster, Rudd was the worst prime minister in history, and I reply with stuff based on what I’ve read in, and through, Crikey — a report said the BER was actually OK, Rudd had his faults but wasn’t totally incompetent, etc and we keep disagreeing, each believing that the other is hopelessly misinformed.
Good article. I believe that, if your conclusion is correct, this will see Australia drift to more of a US style politics — increasingly region and personality based with people getting information from the sources that reinforce their own views.
How long before we have our own Fox News or MSNBC? (Sky and ABC24 really don’t cut it on that ideological spectrum.)
Great article, Bernard, though I’m not sure about the “dialogue of the deaf” line, but it’s a great though depressing description of the segregated “communities” created in the virtual media space. Can one obtain a couple of handfuls of barbiturates on the PBS?
Ah yes the BER, 10,000 good stories and a couple of highlighted bad stories.
And Rudd did have his faults but he is most certainly competent.
Great article, although it did make me wonder if I am becoming someone who only listens to articles that support my beliefs. For example I think that Rupert Murdoch is trying to run the country through his papers constantly trying to tear down the ALP, am I biased or just right!!
I agree entirely with BK to day. However, it seems to me that the consequences of what he says is that Crikey (of all places) MUST NOT be anything like the mass media. Perhaps Crikey could assume that most of its readers do get info from the ABC (including Kerry O’Brien) and the state papers, and bits and pieces of news from the radio. What I want from Crikey every day is insightful comment on policies, background info on the issues that really matter (eg sustainable population, climate change, ecologically sustainable development, sea level rise, peak oil, the interconnectedness between economics, health, prosperity, and the stupidity of the GDP as a measure of progress. I want to know if the changes to our parliament are permanent or cosmetic, I want to know what ALL indpendents think as much as I want just ONE comment from Labor and ONE from liberal. If Crikey cannot live up to the point of view so elequently explained by BK today then in time I will cancel my subscription and adopt the view that the best thing that could happen to our way of life is for it to crash into oblivion
Outstanding. Now it would really be excellent if some of the
DWM’s and their management actually learn’t something
Change a few words in the article and you have pretty accurate description of I.T. cock-ups caused by management forgetting to modify interfaces when new program versions are installed.
My preference is to design systems that don’t need interfaces.
Put the bloody 4th Estate up against a wall.
D. John Hunwick says it very well.
Thanks for the Radiohead citation, BK — perfect
Great food for thought and for many the new media will or already has become an echo chamber or a buzz box where no one listens. I can only see this getting worse in the short term. Longer term however this can be addressed by upping the quality of public education especially in the area of critical analysis. A good english teacher should be able to engage students and assist them in recognising literary tools so favoured by partisan journos from all sides.
Emotive language and the use of personal pronouns are bell ringers and it may even be possible to teach some of our best and brightest the are of logic and the ability to come to their own conclusions. Media bias wont go away and their is a place for it but lets hope that media ownership is corrected and most of all that all of our kids get the best possible education.
That is and always was the best medicine for ignorance and intolerance.
I could not agree more with John! We need some more thoughtful, informed and less tribal alternatives than the usual political analysis available in the media. If Crikey cannot provide such a resource I for one will lose interest and stop logging in.
We are facing a time when there will potentially be substantial changes that will effect all interest groups in Australian society. Politicians and communities cannot be expected create sustainable, just and fair solutions to some of the shifts needed by themselves. In such a process diversity of opinion is a major strength and the usual simplified ‘for’ or ‘against’ approach for the unthinking masses is simply inadequate. The ABC has really been disappointing during the election is this an outcome of the interferance about their bias during the Howard government. I wonder can Crikey place pressure on other media such as the ABC to lift their game and justify their taxpayer funding?
I’m finding political journalism bloody annoying at the moment. The journalists are like a bunch of school kids standing around itching to chant fight…fight…fight every time an Indie or Labor Party person dares raise an eyebrow in each others direction. Boring, disappointing and lazy.
Our media, which art above me,
Gallery be Thy name,
Thy keystokes come,
Thy word limit done,
On page after page of drudgery.
Give us this day our daily news,
And reinforce our prejudices,
As we reinforce those that are prejudiced against us.
Lead us not into ruination (like the Age),
And deliver us from evil Liberal Governments.
For Thine is the Fairfax, and the Aunty and the Crikey,
For ever and ever.
Shaman.
I learnt a while back that there are only a limited number of story types available with only the names of the characters changing. I think Shakespear covered all of them but I will stand corrected. If this new paradigm serves to put a rocket up what passes as political journalism in this country I for one will be delighted. I think the new social media is moving us in that direction anyway. The fact journalists “saw nothing wrong with the old way” says it all. Thanks Bernard.
“The fragmentation drives a circle — vicious or virtuous”
Surely at the moment you mean vacuous?
@Timothy
It highly unlikely we will ever see dedicated partisan political propaganda channels like Fox News or MSNBC here in Australia simply because there is no viable market for it.
As Bernard quite rightly points out, most politically-engaged consumers rely on media that confirms their biases whilst the rest of the community tunes out most of the time .
In the United States, with its population circa 315 million people and substantially higher market penetration of cable, it’s easy enough for Fox to find audiences of 2 to 3,000,000 hard-core political junkies to watch Glenn Beck spout his deranged proto-fascist psycho-babble on a nightly basis.
Australia simply just doesn’t have anything like the population of far right wing myopic wing nuts,even on a per capita basis, to support that kind of business model.
I’ve also actually seen research that would indicate as little as 15% of the Australians who regularly listen to shock jocks on right-wing radio here even have a cable subscription - let alone would be interested in viewing partisan talk TV during prime time instead of watching lighter entertainment.
News CrapOration are undoubtedly deeply committed to growing this particular market segment within Australia but I simply don’t see the potential for it here
Thankfully Australia has never had large numbers of the Christian Conservative whack jobs and “Big Gummint” hating gun nuts that have always made up a large proportion of the Fox fanatic demographic in the United States.
What we will see more of is the fairly balanced balanced yet polarising “talk TV” model the ABC has now wholeheartedly embraced with programs like the Insiders in the Drum - because it is very cheap to produce and will always rate fairly well in a nation of knockers who love nothing more than a good argument.
The greatest danger here is that the right-wing noise machine will over time, be even more successful in skewing these kind of programs to the right with their relentless campaigns accusing said programs of left-wing bias.
Peter Phelps - Terriffic.
All this talk of parliament changing because a few independants hold the balance of power is like people thinking the Wallabies are going to be competitive against the All Blacks tomorrow as they won in South Africa a week ago. Absolute rubbish! One swallow does not make a spring. Nothing has fundamentally changed. The same strengths and weaknesses of the main teams (and the game) remain the same.
I foresee much the same government as before. More rural or green friendly legislation will get up (not necessarily a bad thing), but that’s about it.
@DJohn and KateC with a smiley: Is it just me or is the highly selective “Comments allowed” policy of News Ltd papers’ online offering (compared for example with Crikey’s delightful and irritating rainbow of special pleaders, paid and unpaid lobbyists, climate-change deniers, co-religionists, re-route the rivers/roads/refugees radicals, axe-grinders, one-eyes, bleeding-heart pinko bed-wetting fellow-travelling no-growthers, luddites, feed-the-worlders, assorted monomaniacs and multiple strangers to logical argument) even more offensive and revealing than the content of the tosh they tosh up for smashing?
Is it time for a social media “stylee” (sorry) meta-blog that just links together (and to) the several but limited “stories” expressed in the responso-sphere? I’d love to see some graphical rendering of the way in which - for example - the Courier-Mail treats its printed letters and online “allowed to appear” comments. Perhaps Possom and GraphJam could get something pie-chartish together?
Or is that a little too much of a self-referential, sphincter-loosening death-spiral for hacks whose pensions depend on readers still reading for some years yet (as opposed to just spouting tosh themselves) to contemplate?
Two Bob there is a place for it in editorials not on front pages as has been the Australians want.
Peter Phelps — brilliant.
A clear and lucid (albeit depressing) voice in a terrain peopled by noise and detritus. One point of difference: social media and ‘ghettoes of agreement’. This is certainly true of some of the minor blog sites which are often patently partisan (commonly Labor or at least vaguely left wing and some increasingly bitter). But there is Crikey and there is Twitter. No doubt you would argue that T gives you the option of only following those who concur with your own political/world view. But, in my naive and social media illiterate case, that is not always possible or true. I follow who I think has something intelligent to say. I don’t always agree with it, very occasionally defend my own views or ‘unfollow’ pedants and arrogant opiners, but sometimes just read and think. That, in my view, is a good thing. Sometimes the links in Tweets are things I would never have normally reached/read and sometimes they provide a new insight into a major issue whether national or international. There are so many good heads to follow on T and there is a lot to learn – even if it does consume too much of my valuable time!
Great article.
+Bernard,thankyou again for crystallising a few of my doubts and vague concerns anout the fragmented cosy little niches that abound in Australian life.
An example:
Recently a very dear friend died suddenly leaving me with the realisation that he was the only person close to us who genuinely admired John Howard.
Too lazy to listen? Why, where’s the need when we know all our favourite stories and certainly don’t want to listen of the less favourites.
Yes, I agree that for a secure future, excellent public education is the first requirement. And good for you, Prime Minister, for pushing that message.
The Press Gallery, et al, may have to get used to the new paradigm, but not for to long. I don’t believe we’ll see this minority schemozzle last past the current term. I predict a return to clear majority government next time we have an election.
It is sad that the ABC, which is after all could be the prime media outlet that should be the circuit breaker of this vicious cycle of opinion, has either been so influenced by a previous government and/or is so under resourced that it is part and parcel of the problem.
Nice use of Radiohead BK. Does that make Julia the girl with the Hitler hairdo? Very appropriate - “and we have crashed her party”.
@Socratease
More detail required. Is “I predict” the same as “I want”? In which case Bernard’s main thesis is abng on.
On what basis do you make your prediction? The basis that - led by the discomforted mainstream media - the electorate will magically dump in unison some “mis-guided” (or is that “accidental”?) flirtation with yer aksheral democracy en masse (or with spoiling its vote) and revert to some sort of type?
Or the one where they revert to one or other of the more or less “born-to-rule” mainstream parties that led them to the previous conclusion because the outcomes delivered over the next session by those exact same pollies are even more cr#p?
Or just because you think Aussies can’t/won’t cope with a little unexpected political complication?
Hmmm, lots of variables in there. Hope you’re offering good odds and not just going for the easy call. There’s a remarkable mumber of individual people’s conscious and considered political decisions out there to be reset to “numb”.
But maybe I am being overly optimistic …
I’d like to follow up Jimmy’s line of thought. Am I just as biased as the News Ltd readers and talk back radio listeners? On the surface I am but I think back to my uni days doing pol sci. I maintained a subscription to The Oz back when Paul Kelly was editor and to the Bulletin and read SMH/The Age most days.
But Packer turned the Bulletin into a rabid, fanatical propaganda piece against Keating and a pro Howard sham. I, and many other people, stopped reading the Bulletin about this time (mid to late 90’s). You can’t blame the internet because the internet only started going mainstream in 1995 - too early to blame the bleeding of readers on the internet, or at least the amount of readers the Bulletin was losing.
Or take Gerard Henderson for example. Even during the Howard years I would still read his columns and find them rational even if I disagreed with them. But as the years have gone on he’s become more sensationalist and distorted - almost as Miranda Devine is writing his columns and submitting them with his name of them.
Excellent, BK, excellent.
I’m 100% with D. John Hunwick. And yeah, with Jimmy as well.
@Macadamia Man:
I base my prediction on two things:
(1) The minority government situation is novel, if not unnatural, for our House of Reps, and new things suddenly thrust upon systems need to work very well in order to last.
(2) I expect the Coalition under Abbott is not going to sit there and let it last. The feeling that they are “entitled” is almost palpable through Abbott’s body language and choice of words.
Do I want the situation to change? Not yet, because another election — albeit just for the Reps — is more than I could stand, however I may want it as I see how it plays out in the coming months.
And ditto to Sausage Maker. The likes of Andrew Bolt, Michael Smith, Steve whoever who does 7pm Project etc. all the talking head types not only on the radio but offered up as guests of morning and evening tv - i completely tune out from anything they say because I don’t think its reasoned discussion just sensationalist opinion - but is that just me blinkering myself? Mostly i just think ‘god help us if this is what the nation listens to and agrees with’.
BK you forget one thing about political journos. They are all ensconced along with the politicians in the Canberra Bubble.
What the Americans call the beltway.
It would change the media narrative to a degree if the journalists and their editors were forced to spend some time in the real world. That is on rotation spending time in the electorates of the leaders of the parties and the independents.
A bit hard to bang on about how lower taxes is good when people are not getting services. (Not that would stop the News Limited Crowd.)
Like any group the views of the press gallery end up reinforcing each other. This is why the likes of Glen Milne are held in high regard by the gallery but not by most outside it in my view.
BERNARDK: You have excelled yourself with your editorial. Congratulations.
“”Which means, for example, those dreadnoughts of dead white male journalism Kerry O’Brien and Barrie Cassidy, who were just too damn important to bother interviewing Bob Brown during the election campaign, will have to think a lot harder about whom they talk to. Indeed, the ABC, which is entirely reliant on a bipolar political landscape for its balance-without-judgment editorial approach, will have to entirely rethink its notions of fair coverage.”” Wonderful stuff.
Will anyone at the ABC follow up this stinging critique? Their election coverage was woeful. Reams and reams, and a million more reams of words covering little more than trivia.
And Kerry O’Brien has developed the art of talking at the interviewees rather than to them. Politics would be a lot better off reverting back to the auto-cue free days of TV. At least this used to make them feel and think about their words. Another so-called bit of progress turning out to be yet another regression of our lives.
One of the worst examples of this was Tony Abbott’s opening speech of the campaign. He had all the integrity and wisdom of a tooth fairy.
With some luck this minority government could work out to be the best thing that could have happened to Australia. It could clean out the Augean stables far more efficiently than the unfortunate Hercules.
Carpe Diem fellow keepers of the flame. Carpe Diem.
What an enthralling (and spot-on) narrative covering the disappearance of nuance from Australia’s ‘political-media complex’. Throw in Radiohead as well as choice quotes such as “dreadnoughts of dead white male journalism”, and you have an extraordinary piece of opinion journalism. More please.
The Greens will never seriously address the task of transferring power into the hands of those who believe in an ecological and equitable world until they begin the task of building their own mass media machine. Including commercial mass media where necessary.
They are currently mendicants to the ABC, and hapless orphans when it comes to the commercial Big Media. They have to build their own broadly based, entertaining and interesting media.
One of the next steps surely is to start the project of building a mass media that manifests their 4 princples because BK is surely right that the Big Media are merely a revolving door with Big Party politicians, all based on the old materialistic, high consumption, overpaid, hierchical, gluttonous encumbency.
And one of the key aspects of such a project is to make it diverse and interesting, not earnest and bland and overly idedological. So that it has a decent circulation when the leadership in opinion is called for say at election time. After all we get is propaganda from ..vine, ….han, …derson, ..stello, …nahan, …arson, ..nson, .olt, ..berthy, ….chberry and so on. It seems some people will write anything for their pay cheque.
But will the Greens ever make the start, or keep dodging the critical work, and remain mendicants for another 20 years?
“building their own mass media machine”.
No, really, that’s teetering on the brink of “absolute power corrupts absolutely”.
Thirty-some years ago a bunch of fruit loops launched local independent public FM radio in Oz and based it in a few cities around precisely that idea, that access to the airwaves (like the alternative magazine model of the Sixties) using insanely popular but largely unbroadcast music would lead to or contribute to cultural change and the serious airing (sorry) in peace of the environmental and socially aware issues scoffed at, sidelined or suppressed by mainstream media and their leaden governmental offshoot, Aunty ABC.
And just like punk, and jazz and reggae, it wasn’t until the commercial beast’s version arrived with its inexorable blurring, centralising, softening, corrupting, de-souling , de-naturing imperatives that more than a few thousand fellow-spirited listeners ever paid any attention. And some jack-boot types in Queensland, of course. But for a little while, the rot was resisted, and the spirit lives on.
But it remains a truth proven by endless repetition that precious few people ever want to hear hard truths, make difficult decisions, have less, consume less or get off their ars#es to fight for their rights or their children’s future, let alone someone else’s rights.
All any “mass media machine” will ever do is dilute progressive messages, dumb down ideas, stall insight or analysis and reduce political and cultural debate to one of two things: a dialogue of fools or a propaganda swamp.
We have to think for ourselves, learn for ourselves and question each other constantly. And that starts with our children and our own childhoods. Top down is not the way to go.
“Political debate is thus increasingly a dialogue of the deaf.” OMG how true and how imperitive is it that the media take a genuine interest in informing the electorate? How competent/professional/fair is the Australian media- in all its forms? Let’s see.
Further to BK’s piece the ABC ran a poll today…. Does a new political paradigm require a new media paradigm? YES 91% NO 9%. Says it all…
Fantastic article, thank you Bernard.
I’m hoping against hope that at least some of the mainstream media will make an effort to focus on matters of substance rather than the daily soundbite.
Of course, journalists could always try looking back to the kind of political coverage we read in the latter half of the 19th century. At that time, Australia was the wealthiest country in the world, and it was coming to realize it could be the freest country in the world too.
There was an explosion in awareness of history, of global politics, of ideas - democracy, liberalism, secularism, the Enlightenment. This culminated in the move for national federation; the constitutional debates of the 1890s were closely followed in the Press, widely discussed, and even widely understood.
Thus, not only was South Australia the first state to give women the vote, it was also the first state to create a police force based on Robert Peel’s formula of a professional cadre to protect the public rather than just the government.
The Australian colonies led the way creating universal secular education, while allowing private and church-based education to compete as long as it met minimum standards. The colonial education departments conferred closely with each other to maintain standards and identify best practices, while maintaining a creative competition with each other. This competitive spirit was well understood by the public, which is why Australians chose to form a federation rather than a union, so that states could compete with each other on public services while facing the world as a united country. As a result, by 1914 Australians were the most literate people in the English speaking world.
None of this would have been possible with the kind of newspapers we have today, in which political ideas are merely batons carried by political characters attempting to win a sort of sports event. While modern journalism has certainly made advances in readability with active verbs and the “inverted pyramid”, it has gone backwards in its sense of mission.
Rediscover that old sense of mission, combine it with a professional approach to specialized knowledge such as economics, and new journalism techniques, and the Press could really rescue itself from its impending obsolescence. It really could.
Great article. Congratulations.
I am a bit pessimistic too. People are unnerved by complexity. They want their politics as simple as a two-sided game. Many will interpret the enrichment of politics by multi-dimensional input as a sign of the failure of the new paradigm.
@ Free Country
Great input.
First state in the world, I meant to say. South Australia was the first state in the world to give women the vote, first in the world to make police servants of the public, and so on.
I certainly get the sentiment of the article and in principle agree.
It’s a sad human trait that we all do tend to gravitate towards sources of media that reinforce our own beliefs.
That said, Crikey is no exception. As hard as it try to come across as unbiased, the fact is that it runs pro green stories constantly. It’s the bob brown of the news cycle. Generally criticising both major parities, but siding with labor most of the time.
I think Crikey wouldn’t deny this analogy either.
What I wonder though, after reading the above, is what is the average person to do? We can only read what we read, and don’t have time to become political experts and delve into the depths of whats going on behind the scenes in the house of parliament to know if deep disagreements are being had, or if it’s just the media spin cycle.
For instance, isn’t the fact that Windsor wouod like the mining resource rent tax talked about in the tax summit, and labor is saying it won’t be, reason enough to think that things aren’t going quite as smoothly as planned? This is the first week of the new government and a major tax isn’t being brought up in a tax summit? Seems like a pretty major misunderstanding between the independants and labour to me
What a wonderful article Bernard! Brilliant ideas. The imagery you provide of echo chambers blooming is a great device. I turned the television on the first time around 24 hours after Rob Oakeshott’s speech and it “sounded’ surreal like a Stravinsky tape running on rewind at high speed. With the volume turned low, it looked like a traditional shadow play albeit they contemporary puppets but just overwhelmingly familiar. ABC24 like a repeating belch. ABC1 like the repeating repeater gang of ABC24. The vision of repeating bobbing heads agreeing like clowns or frowning interspersed with repetitive graphics - so imaginative - blue-grey rectangles.
I shuddered and shook my head as one does a tablecloth of crumbs to discard them, as one sillily does. I felt disbelieving. Nothing had changed.
I am relucant to accept your imagery about the deaf. The deaf have significant skills of interpretation of nuance, body language, assertion and character. They are merely deaf.
I cant believe Rudd accepted Foreign Affairs. He know that being sacked as PM means he loses face in Asia (and elsewhere) so why expose himself to this?
At least he wont be Kevin 747 as he cant leave Australua when Parliament is sitting.
I do have some optimism that the new paradigm will bring some changes. If the Coalition try to undermine and destabilise the cohesion of the minority government and the media’s crave for sensationalistic reporting of drama and gossips have a positive effect on the government; that is it drives and motivate the independents, greens & labor to work hard to succeed and prove them wrong.
The way the parliament is now is balanced between the centre left and centre right which I believe is best for democracy.
I have to disagree with some commentariats to some degree about Crikey is bias in the same way as The Australian or other media outlets.
Yes, we know that Crikey is sympathetic to the left but it is able to provide criticisms of Labor government where it is due; and it deals with factual evidence. The Australian which was once a great newspaper (which used to be recommended by university professors to politics students to read) had turn into a butt joke; it shamelessly try to descredit non-coalition political entities with misinformations, lies, fears and gossips; and does not put the coalition under scrutiny. It is just a vile mouth piece for the Coalition which make even the traditional or Liberal purist feel turned off.
Also I don’t think Crikey has money to employ writers on the right so they opt to privide links to articles from other sites instead; I find that there are decent numbers of links to the right sites so I’m not complaining.
sites of the right
BK - love your work.
My only hope with the ferocity of the attack on the new government, is that it will become difficult, over time, to maintain the rage. The articles will begin to appear tired and boring and the editors will start kicking the journalists for something fresh to keep the punters engaged. Because sure as sh*t, sales will decline if the readers think they are just buying yesterdays fish n chips wrappers with the same old stories.
My hope is that when this happens those lazy cut n paste journo’s will be forced to get off their lazy asses and do some real research and start delivering some well thought out analysis. And regardless of your political leanings, I think all any of us really want is some reasonable representation of the facts and some analysis that looks at all sides of policy and its impacts on our fellow Australians.
I know for me, that I have been happy to change my views, when presented with a factual presentation and analysis of the pro’s and cons. But I HATE being presented with someone elses opinion and having it forced down my throat using sensationalist scare tactics to force me to accept their opionion as my own.
Dear Julia,
How the hell you thought Bill Shorten, one of the architects of your near political demise deserved anything but derision and humiliation defeats me. You have failed the first test of this new paradigm. As it was 90% of the final mark, you cannot pass now.
Watch Labor implode. then watch Liberal implode. Bring on multi-party coalitions.
And I notice Greg Combet, another of the cowards and thugs who thought it would be a good idea to let the worst opposition leader since Billy Snedden to have a chance of winning, has also been given a ministerial post. Julia: you have absolutely failed all tests of leadership: courage, ethics, vision, individuality, strength, creativity.
You must resign, as your cronies adn thugs must too.
I read an SMH article yesterday about a book by Nicholas Carr called “The Shallows: How the Internet is Changing the Way We Think, Read and Remember.”
One quote was: “A growing body of scientific evidence suggests that the net, with its constant distractions and interruptions, is turning us into scattered and superficial thinkers.”
Although the idea is not entirely new, it serves to emphasize the danger posed to attention spans and reflective thought
of lives constantly interrupted by electronic chatter - mobile phones included.
Of all professions, journalists must be ones most frequently seduced by this white noise - as they eventually subjugate their own thoughts to those of others. Instant access to the reporting of others serves to encourage lazy imitation.
There’s safety in numbers, but we the public are then subjected to a monotone of reporting which endlessly repeats the
same few “stories” that Bernard is referring to.
The inability of the mainstream media to come to grips with the idea of a hung parliament is a sign of their obsequiousness and immaturity.
I see the same problem happening in education too - but that is another story.
Freecountry- as you’ll be aware New Zealand gave women the vote a year earlier than South Australia, so is it really appropriate to talk about ‘firsts’ when a state is a lesser entity than a nation? ‘Second juristiction’ would perhaps be more appropriate don’t you think? Sorry, I’ve just always considered that description a bit of a snow job.
Eclectic Eel - I read the same article but had the nagging feeling I had read that story before but about rock and roll, and a plethora of other new media and fads. Hmmm…. But the fact that I see what the ‘youff’ are reading and writing in my classes inclines me to disagree with said article. I have become more educated and able to interact in society in a far more meaningful way since the inter-web came about. And my students are able to learn and develop their own narratives and discourses with inputs and challenges garnered from said web. And here in ‘Crikey’ we are arguing longer and more complex narratives are needed to engage us. BK’s brilliant article is a case in point. Yo, way to go my man!
NATHAN.B. - I stand corrected. NZ did indeed give women the vote a year earlier in 1893. South Australia trumped this a year later by allowing women not only to vote but to stand for election to the lower house. Ironically, Kiwi women could vote but could not enter parliament until 1919. And the Australian Federation allowed women to stand for upper and lower federal seats in 1902.
So there.
South Australia is not a “second jurisdiction” in the sense of a municipal council, regional authority, or branch office of the central government. Many in Canberra think it is, but if they check with a constitutional lawyer they will find they are wrong. Like all Australian states, South Australia exists within the federation as a sovereign State in its own right. South Australians are citizens of two sovereign States: SA itself, and the Commonwealth of Australia. The same is true of all the other states.
BERNARD KEANE,
During the 2001 election campaign, the broadsheet newspapers in Australia attempted to make the election about humanitarian issues. Oppression of Aboriginals, children overboard, mandatory detention of asylum seekers, mandatory sentencing in NT and WA, and so on.
Howard and Beazley both collaborated in trying to sideline such issues, to make the election about division of wealth within the community and personal greed. I know many people had different perceptions of that campaign. But to me, it was chiefly a war between the politicians and the media for the power to set the agenda in the minds of the Australian public.
In the end Howard won the election of the day, largely because of security paranoia. (Neither side, of course, pointed out that Australia has the world’s biggest moat for a border so “border security” was always a bit of a beat-up relying on ignorance and prejudice.)
But both Howard and Beazley won the bigger victory in the struggle for the political agenda. The mighty Australian was beaten into submission and it has never recovered, devolving into what it is today, a crude Coalition mouthpiece.
Since then, political parties have not only set the agenda; they have become the agenda. As far as I can see, media organizations have made no serious attempt since then to venture outside the paradigms (to use the word of the hour) of the political parties in presenting ideas to the Australian public.
That’s why Australian public discourse is now a case of the bland leading the bland.
I tend to disagree with a lot of what you write, Bernard, but this is spot on. The polarisation of opinion, and the increasing tendency of engaged debate participants to seek out reinforcing agreement ghettoes, is as astonishing as it is disturbing. You have to trawl through a lot of material to find a left-leaning viewpoint on an Australian blog. Similarly, it is very difficult to find right-leaning opinion on an SMH or ABC blog. And if you go on to either and express a view contrary to the prevailing majority, the self-righteous defenders of the faith immediately swarm. It is utterly predictable and utterly depressing.
Is Australia really a Democracy or a Plutocracy. The way the governments have and are treating different groups of pensioners, it is more of a Plutocracy.
Dear./Madam.
I submitted the attached letter to the AFR in response to an article printed previously; of course they would not publish, too far against the establishment.
Dear Sir/Madam.
The article “Government does not help the rich get richer” AFR 18’th Aug.2010 page 33 should not go unchallenged.
Take retiree: 1)
Worked for 45 years and paid taxes, but did not accumulate enough assets to be completely independent of the age-pension. For every dollar of extra income for him and his wife above $6,500, the couple loses $0.50 of age pension, and if their income exceeds $45,000 per annum, the couple will pay tax of $0.315 in the dollar including medicare levy, leaving them with an income of $0.185 from every dollar extra income. For the defined benefit income a 10% tax-offset applies if paid from an Australian super fund, but not if the income comes from an overseas fund.
Retiree 2)
Has accumulated assets of $1.5million and the assets are in a so-called taxed Self Managed Super Fund. To be very conservative, the assets are in a term deposit earning 7.0% income of $122,500 per annum and even if the retiree is single, he/she will not pay a cent of tax.
Now if the assets are in fully franked shares, like banks and return $100,000 worth of franked dividends, he/she will again pay no tax on the dividend, and the government will send him/her a cheque of $30,000 for the franking credits.
Retiree 3)
Is an ex-politician or highly paid public servant, in receipt of a defined benefit pension of $100,000, on which he/she will have to pay tax, but he/she gets a 10% tax offset, which equals %10,000 after reaching retirement age, but before retiring, the public servant can establish a SMSF and contribute into it extra with tax concessions if the $25,000 total for under fifty and $50,000, if over fifty is not exceeded and in addition he/she can contribute $150,000 from after tax income, and the earnings from the SMSF will only attract 15% tax, and when the person reaches the age of 60 even the income will be completely tax-free from the SMSF.
What Ken Henry should have recommended is, abolish all tax concessions for super, abolish the means test for the age pension so that even millionaires get the full pension, but then the retirees should pay the same tax as do the workers.
At the moment, the superannuation guarantee means that an amount equal to 9 per cent of our earnings goes to our super. This will gradually increase to 12 per cent by 2020. For an average working 30 year old, that means an extra $108,000 in retirement.
The extra $108,000 will be paid by him/herself over the years and the people who will manage this funds will most likely finish with Self Managed Super Funds assets of average $943,000 as reported recently and pay little tax while their funds are in accumulation stage and pay no tax at all when the funds start to pay at the age of sixty.
I would like to refer you to an article in the AFR Aug 21-22.2010 on page 26 item 3) Stop pampering the aged, what B.Toohey should have mentioned, pampering the super rich.
The Australian compulsory super is a ticking time bomb which will one day explode, or more likely implode; Australia is not a true Democracy now, but the enormous super assets mostly owned by the top 30% of owners of wealth, will turn it completely into a Plutocracy.
Is there anyone in Australia who is prepared to go in to bat for the “So called battlers” by cunning politicians?
Yours truly
Hawil
ECLECTIC EEL: “”The inability of the mainstream media to come to grips with the idea of a hung parliament is a sign of their obsequiousness and immaturity.”“
I like that comment. Not quite sure why. But I do.
ECLECTIC EEL: Yes. I was particularly enamoured of your comment. I think for me it fits this experience of mine as well as I can describe it.
It seemed to me that air was being drawn in and thus words uttered in the same way bellows work - by either ladies of or gentleman from the press. In what direction might they turn and what was there to say sufficient to justify their continuing for days on end to fill their bellies with food on the strength of every appearance of a vaccuum amounting to an imminent hanging. That’s too much space for silence. It’s taught in all the texts and by dyed in 100% wool front line broadcasters.
Those leading journalists are in their same jobs for too long. Turning the same tricks. It is an entrenched culture. A fashion emerged of posturing good times were being ‘rolled out’.
Julia has seized that hour.
I was relieved to hear senior practitioners e.g Bob Hawke make sensibly calm comment as the counting moved towards a hung parliament and the feeding frenzy became more intense. At those moments (I am sure Hawkey said “of course”) the votes were not all in.
“Asylums with doors open wide, where people had paid to see inside” (IC) Kevin Rudd is a nut and should be seeking help. He is now back in the job he is most unsuitable for, Foreign Affairs. It is less than 12 months since his famous angry words “those Chinese rat f**kers are trying to rat f**k us” Yep, with Mr diplomacy in the Foreign Affairs job again our releationship with Asia will be on a downward spiral, they hate him in Asia!
China, Japan and even Singapore can’t stand him, yet he will be representing us all in dealings with our nearest neighbours. bai chi
Chinese folks tell me Rudd is a source of amusement. Prone to temper tantrums, indiscreet outbursts, breaches of confidence … none of this is good for face in China. When he speaks Chinese they all practice their poker-face smiles because it would be impolite to burst out laughing. Appointing him foreign minister is a case of, ask not what you can do for your country, ask instead what you can pretend your country owes you.