Editorial: It ain't easy looking Green

THE council today has upheld a complaint against The Daily Telegraph by the actual founder — and former longtime national leader — of the Australian Greens Bob Brown that essentially says we were wrong to suggest an appearance by then Human Rights Commissioner Gillian Triggs at an oration for his foundation was a Greens-aligned event.

WE’D be prepared to bet that most readers would agree with the “duck test” — if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it’s probably a duck.

So if it looks like a Green, acts like a Green, speaks like a Green, then it probably is a Green. Sounds right, doesn’t it, but unfortunately not if you’re the Australian Press Council.

The council today has upheld a complaint against The Daily Telegraph by the actual founder — and former longtime national leader — of the Australian Greens Bob Brown that essentially says we were wrong to suggest an appearance by then Human Rights Commissioner Gillian Triggs at an oration for his foundation was a Greens-aligned event.

We find it a hard decision to understand, to say the least. The so-called Hobart Oration was actually started by the Greens, was until recent years called the Green Oration and has featured significant Greens’ figures throughout its history.

But the council says that because it’s now run by the Bob Brown Foundation, a so-called independent group, then it can’t be called a Green-aligned event because that implies it had to be still formally run by the Australian Greens party.

Former Human Rights Commissioner Gillian Triggs. Picture: ABC

Former Greens leader Bob Brown. Picture: Chris Kidd

Yes, that’s right: No alignment with the Greens to be seen. It’s just a foundation run by Australia’s most iconic Greens leader that campaigns on green issues, has board members with past prominent roles in the Greens and even had one of its campaigners run as a Greens candidate in the recent Tasmanian election.

The Australian Press Council has an important role. It must be careful, as an organisation, not to be captured by sectional interests in our community, so the broader, mainstream media consumers, including the loyal readers of The Daily Telegraph, do not lose confidence in its ­independence.

Like the media organisations it oversees, it must be held to the highest standards, and its determinations should not be subject to ridicule.

In this case, finding that Bob Brown, a man who is synonymous with the Greens cause, is not aligned to the Greens is simply absurd. The Daily Telegraph stands by our story.

As we said, if it looks like a Green ...

The great indoor fight

MOVE over, Pikachu. There’s a new game in town. And unlike Pokemon with its whimsical Japanese anime-style graphics, this is a fight to the death. It’s called Fortnite: Battle Royale and it is a gruesome Hunger Games-style affair with up to 100 people at a time competing to kill each other and be the last man — or woman — standing.

Fortnite is the new game that has been brought into question with kids becoming addicted. Picture: Supplied

Forty million people have signed up to play, and it is driving parents spare with electronic battles spilling into lounge rooms between siblings. Happily there have been no reports of the crossbows, pickaxes, and rocket launchers making it into real life.

Taxing time for savers

AUSTRALIANS got a taste of the coming attacks on investors this week as Bill Shorten announced his plans to stop allowing investors who don’t otherwise earn enough money to pay tax — a group comprised largely of retirees — to receive a cash credit for tax that has ­already been paid by companies on their dividend payments.

But it is not only Labor that is having a poke at investors. The Coalition is doing it, too, with tightening rules on property investors that have been described as being straight out the Labor playbook. And there is more to come. Property is also in Labor’s sights, should they come into government, with investors likely to take a hit on capital gains and negative gearing.

Any way you slice it, this is a depressing trend. Australia’s present good times were kicked off by the economic reform efforts begun by Labor’s Bob Hawke and Paul Keating and subsequently carried forward by John Howard. If Australia is to remain prosperous, Canberra will have to start looking for ways to tap into growth, not just peoples’ savings — even if they are “fat cats”.

Originally published as Editorial: It ain't easy looking Green