30 April 2013

Playing the clown

Now if there's a smile on my face
It's only there trying to fool the public
But when it comes down to fooling you
Now honey that's quite a different subject ...

"Big deal"?


So Abbott has grown, his critics must grow with him.

Bullshit. You wish.











  • ... and James Ashby for that matter.




This is a shit article and Preston Towers dispatches it admirably.


Labor's Rolls Royce version with all the funding implications ...

Barely worth even writing that in the face of reality.






  1. Yes.
    10 out of 10.

    I would however assert that rather than incompetence being the key to the media failing to convey the incompetence of the COALition and its current leader it is actually competence at their job that is the problem.

    They see their job as getting rid of the government and replacing it with their [employers'] preferred option.
    Currently they are successful at this task, I don't share your optimism that they will fail come the election.
    Hopefully you are right.


  2. Another excellent analysis Andrew, thank you.

    Why oh why do we have such a pathetic and so easily-led free press in this country? Is this really the best we can do?

  3. The Canberra Press Gallery don't care how many of the plebs lose their jobs under Abbott, only that they do not lose THEIR jobs under the Abbott thumb.

  4. Bushfire Bill30/4/13 11:43 am

    Andrew wrote:

    "Laura Tingle explains why, and how much, her press gallery colleague Maley is kidding herself. "

    In a nutshell she said there were no specialist writers left, so the task has been given to generalist political writers.

    To a hammer everything looks like a nail.

    To a political political journalist, everything looks like politics.

    There is no truth anymore. So why search for it?

    When Climate policy became polarised (the very reason Abbott got the LOTO gig) it became political. When it became political you didn't have to be a climate scientist to discuss it meaningfully. You only had to be a *political* scientist... and I use the word "scientist" with a large dollop of skepticism.

    Suddenly every Gallery hack was an expert. And they told us it didn't matter whether the Earth was warming or cooling. It only mattered that there was a fight on about it.

    Polls about "belief" in Climate Change replaced Science, as if a bad Newspoll for Global Warming could reverse the process and save the planet.

    Whenever they fail to grasp the detail, political journos use either:

    (a) The Polls


    (b) Where's the money coming from?

    as their easy, lazy ways out of having to do any work.

    So many good initiatives have been dismissed in this way.

    Mark Kenny felt it was safe to say Gillard's China visit was a triumph... such a pity, though, a tragedy even... she wouldn't be around to gather the kudos for it next year. Lookatthepolls!

    Tony Wright wrung his hands over the awful place in which politics had found itself (in a Walkley-winning employment of the passive voice, if there was a Walkley for Blame-Shifting). He pointed out that the China Trip died within 24-hours. He *didn't* point out that HIS contribution to murdering it was to write a fluff piece on the Thatcher-Negus interview at the same time. Talk about navel gazing!

    The NBN, Gonski and the NDIS, have all been dismissed with "where's the money?"... the latter two within a couple of hours. Once the meme is set it sets rock hard.

    And then they mock Gillard because no-one knows what "Gonski" means, least of all the Press Gallery, it seems.

    Giving the national discourse over to political hacks means that everything is political.

    No matter what the government says, Abbott can disagree with it (even if he doesn't disagree at all), obliging cowering journalists at the ABC to cover it as a "he-said/she-said".

    When everything is deemed "political" then everything must be filtered through the "Fair and Balanced" gallery sieve, no matter how stupid.

    And if the only journos covering national affairs are ambulance-chasing, corridor-haunting political hacks, then you can bet your bottom dollar that presentation, production values, gaffes, hectoring, rudeness and indolence will be the tools of trade they employ.

    I hear, "But it sells newspapers," a lot, as an explanation. But it *doesn't* sell newspapers at all! They're going broke! Shedding staff, circulation plummeting, chopping up the furniture to feed the boiler room.

    When newspapers insult half their readership by telling them they're mugs for wanting to vote a certain way that's bad enough.

    But when they insult ALL their readers by serving up crap on every subject under the sun like Chris Johnson's barely readable piece and Maley's teenager's take on Canberra, it's a tragedy... for them and their useless careers, but most importantly for their fleeing readers.

    1. (c) "the devil is in the detail". I think the whole election is on a knife-edge because everyone's so ambivalent, and this fatalism is misplaced.

      Maley tweeted me today (deleted the second) and brought the Streisand Effect down on herself.

      If you take them apart line by line, you're boring; if you are direct and pungent they sniff that you're facile. Oh well.

  5. Andrew

    you mention the nbn.

    i would not be surprised if it halted,
    could they do that, just stop it its tracks


    but my question would be what happens to those who are already connected.


    1. Maintenance would be cut back, it would be left to rot.

  6. The Press Gallery in this country are a disgrace. Everytime I hear the line 'the govt' can't get its message out from the media, I feel like putting a mirror up to their face. When I listen to the govt message myself, I have no problem at all understanding their message. It isn't until I read their comments or see their commentary that I go 'WTF?' I wonder did we even witness the same event.

    As for Abbott, my pet rock could have been hailed 'the best opposition leader in history' with the degree of scrutiny the Australian Press Gallery has had to withstand.

    As usual Andrew, brilliant analysis.

  7. Anonymous,

    The free press are like that because, as Andrew says, Abbott feeds the beast, Gillard treats it with disdain.

    If Gillard wins, the power of the press gallery to dictate that their political 'reality' is fact is broken forever.

    As such, with the MSM being driven to financial destruction anyway, why would it's owners keep an overpaid assemblage of preening peacocks in Canberra any more?

  8. Fuck me this is a long and boring article. These crazy articles do the left a massive disservice.

    If you really want to make a change, how about learn how to write and become a journalist?

    1. No it isn't. By going through those articles line by line I have given those articles the respect they deserve. Plenty of people busier than you read through to the end.

      I don't want to be a journalist. I've given three examples of professional journalists who can't write and can't tell what's going on, yet still draw salaries. What I need is perceptive journalism, good writing nice but not essential. You have to take apart the crap to understand what good stuff looks like, like I've done here.

    2. And if you want to understand a complicated world why don't you learn how to read more than a pathetic three world slogan.

      Seriously, this is how Abbott's Coalition is dumbing down Australia in order to get power. What a farce.

    3. I found it well worth reading, myself, Pete. It may be long and boring to you but usually DETAILED ANALYSIS is worth doing, to actually judge whether one option is better than another. If you want soundbites then you are going to get shit policy and shit delivery.

  9. Unfortunately Journalists like Maley fail at their jobs because they don't continue to question. She should be questioning how one (in this case Abbott) can change from a clown so quick. The only thing I know that makes people change so quickly is medication.

  10. I have to wonder at your motive sometimes: why do you consider it a feature of your analysis that you concentrate on trashing the commentary of female journos (Alcorn, Grattan, Maley, et al) when there is such a glut of male journo contributions that you could equally tear to shreds with such alacrity?

    (Although, you do mention them, it is addition, not the concentrated effort you seem to put into bewailing journalism in general).

    That aside, I agree.

    The fourth estate seems too busy defending itself rather than reporting what's going on.

    How many articles have we had recently about (after scathing attacks by 'social' media) what the job of a journo is about and how hard it is to do it e.g. Katherine Murphy (many) vs Tony Wright (getting in on the act)?

    All they want to do is justify their existence, and we have page after expensive page of ruminations on the lot of journos, but no illumination on the current political scene.

    It was interesting to read today that a reporter, Callum Davidson from Independent Australia, http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/business/media-2/how-the-canberra-press-gallery-shut-out-ia/ was refused acceptance to the Canberra Press Gallery, by David Speers & council, on the grounds that Independent Australia was just an opinionated online vehicle that wasn’t a newsgathering enterprise and that Callum himself had no "history" as a journo, while just recently TheHoopla trumpeted that Gabrielle Chan, a political "sketch writer", had been accepted into the self-same hallowed halls.

    If Independent Australia can be characterised as an opinionated website, then TheHoopla is also an ‘opinionated online’ presence.

    All that being said, Jacqueline Maley’s crap about examining Abbott’s previous 7.30 contributions fail to take into account that apart from Sales’ (self-nominated Walkley-winning) interview and Abbott’s election-losing interview with Kerry O’Brien prior to the 2010 election, all of his other interviews (on serious channels) have been pre-recorded.

    Therefore the stuttering, muttering, ill-at-ease, economically-illiterate Abbott has been edited out. So much for ‘balance.’

    I’d really like to see an up-to-date opinion of Julia Gillard. She made an absolute gaffe on her first overseas journey as PM. It was an off-the-cuff remark that she’d prefer to be reading with schoolkids than embarking on foreign policy (much like Garrett’s “we’ll change everything once we’re in power” type of gaffe) – as if either should have been taken (much less reported) seriously. Slow news day. More to come . . .

    1. Oh no

      Not Speersy!

      I like David Speers and his analysis!

      Laura Tingle bless her cotton socks just shines

      She calls the advisers idiots


  11. Cont from previous comment . . .

    I reckon Gillard has taken economics between the teeth. Has made a study of it and mastered its intricacies. Abbott, on the other hand, even though he has a degree in economics, can’t abide the subject and, worse, can’t even articulate an economic program.

    Prior to becoming PM, Julia Gillard was responsible for the Education portfolio, and had only to answer for coming in on budget.

    Once in the top job, she had to get her head round economic theories, economic practices and economic outcomes.

    Like most thinking women – unlike Margaret Thatcher who, just like any bloke in power took an opportunistic avenue to garner support (war in the Falklands, anyone?) – when approaching a problem, Gillard comes at it from an honest perspective.

    Let’s lay the facts out on the table. Let’s see what can be achieved. Let’s see the downside – for each an every proposal. A thrashing out of detail.

    What more do you want in a leader?

    I know what I want. And it’s not Tony Abbott and his figurehead style while his troops go AWOL – and we’re left with the foibles of his ill-disciplined troops.

    I'd rather a solid leader like JG who has consistently told it how it is, despite opinion polls, and who has consistently displayed the utmost integrity.

    That Gillard is tagged as a liar is the shame the Canberra Press Gallery will have to bear. After all, it is their fault they do not convey to the Australian public what is really going on.

    It will be to Australia's detriment that we dispose of a great PM, for a clown.

    I can't even cry. I'm ashamed of our once great journalist tradition. Where are the keepers of integrity? Where is the "striking" power of journos in the face of owner-dictatorship? Gone.

    Keeping a job is more important now. The lifestyle, the kudos. Journos don't want to know the life of poverty, the garret. They will sell their souls for the almighty dollar.

    Murdoch understands.

    All we have left is an impotent press gallery who have no recognition, let alone affinity with, 'ordinary' people - their own constituents.

    It beggars belief that Chris Johnson, the supposedly unknown Press Gallery reporter, late of Canberra Times and now of SMH, who wrote such a blindingly poignant obit for Peter Veness, is now castigated as a non-entity.

    What did he do? He criticised the fifth estate for some pretty paltry remarks on Sales' interview with Abbott.

    What he took on was fair enough, but he went too far. And tried to tarnish social media with far too broad a brush.

    Journos really have to lift their game. They have to take it on the chin when they're criticised. As do we all.

    And they also have to realise they no longer have a privileged position.

    We're here to stay. Get used to it.

    1. Hi Kerry,

      1. With every fibre of my being I want to reject the sexism thing. I've not given any of those people sobriquets like 'The Situation' (Abbott) or 'The Verbal Dickhead' (Coorey), yet recent history points to the pattern you describe. I will be more mindful of it.

      I am pretty close to writing Maley off, much as I did with Niki Savva. I don't have it in for Alcorn, I just think she has a Kerenskyist approach that she just can't shake. Looking at the broadcast media I do consume, it does tend to feature a number of female reporters; I tend to avoid commercial TV/radio and the tabloids, which tend to be male-dominated. I offer that as an explanation rather than an excuse.

      2. Old-school journos used to be proud of their ability to cut through the bullshit. Today journos are proud of the extent to which they are part of the bullshit, praising the generation thereof and giving substantial offerings such a coating that they smell like bullshit. This is not a change that anyone has to accept. Bushfire Bill (whose comment is on this thread) is big on this too.

      3. It is impossible to understand recent stories like the Boston bombing or the Indonesian abattoir expose without understanding broadcast media and social media as inextricable parts of a whole phenomenon.

      Social media people get it but only some broadcast media people do. I love how journos characterise bloggers as wannabe journos, yet with all these broadcast media redundancies it seems a career in journalism is just an expensive form of training for setting up your own blog.

      4. If Maley et al think my blogposts are long and boring, wait until they see the Budget! No wonder they rely on Abbott so heavily.

  12. Pete

    "Pete30/4/13 4:08 pm


    It is boring to you because you're not used to listening to anything other than a three-word slogan, much less digesting nuance of policy.

    One day you may become an adult. Until then I suggest you make excuses for not being eligible to vote.

  13. I see that Maley tweeted this article was too long for her to bother with, kinda explains her indepth analysis of Tony Abbott.

    1. Indeed. The criticism is that complicated policy is beyond their ability. Their defence against that criticism? 'Oh, can't be bothered with that, it's too long.'

      It beggars belief.

      And if it's all the same to Ms Maley, I'd rather my Prime Minister be slightly more intelligent than me. Tends to work better that way. Still, big deal, eh?

  14. I have really given up on them all. What does crap me off, is the nice earners these lightweight lazy so-called journalists get for throwing together a few words praising Tony Abbott.


  15. Thank you Andrew another excellent article and the clowns of the press gallery control who can be a member.

  16. Like I said on Twitter, these journos are behaving like they have "Battered Wife Syndrome". They accept being treated like fools (Abbott running away is the classic example) and rather than fight back, they hunch over and simply transmit the press release, or the weasel words, verbatim.

    Even Sales succumbed last week.

    The Prime Minister dismissed this version of journalism (and the 'pet journo' method) very early in the piece. But instead of respecting her for same, they wanted revenge ... thus they sided with the foolish Abbott (who, lets face it, should NEVER had gotten to the position he has ... he is a pedestrian 'also ran' with an anger management problem ... not PM material AT ALL).

    Like many in the public eye, who live or die because of popularity, they have hitched their coattails and are determined to be right, even when they know they're wrong.

    Integrity is the first casualty.


  17. Watch Obama.....

    Watch Abbott.....

    Simple really

    Hes a dud and I can already see Diplomats smirking out of discomfort when he approaches them..

  18. Excellent article, Maley's work is just as damaging in some ways asthe rabid Bolts of the world as on some level we expect credible work from her. Insipid nonsense as all her work is. Let's get rid of their picture bylines for a start. They do all so believe in their own bullshit. If I am ever given an opportunity I will be giving the Prime Minister a standing ovation. I love her dignity, warmth and intelligence, her humour and her belief in education in improving the lot of kids stuck in a low socioeconomic class with no way out. These journalists have no fucking idea and care even less.

    1. Bushfire Bill1/5/13 12:40 pm

      It's they who think their critics have NFI.

      THEY have "The Savvy", and Maley is a particularly egregious example of that.

      At least now it's confirmed who's she's working for. That was a truly awful article that she'll never live down.

  19. First class analysis once again,

    Characteristic of Maley's superficiality that she can be offended by it without being able to read it.

  20. Spot on.

  21. "If Maley et al think my blogposts are long and boring, wait until they see the Budget! No wonder they rely on Abbott so heavily"

    Andrew, that one paragraph goes close to summing all this up.

  22. The Australian political media isn't worth a bucket of warm spit.

    1. Oh no. i think it is worth a bucket of warm spit. But that's about all.

  23. Whoever that was on twitter criticizing you that the length of this blog post was longer than that which it critiqued, must think that cause and effect are equally balanced. Reaction </= Action.

    Sometimes the implications of actions are far greater than the actions themselves.