Tame Labor media laps up Gillard

Having showed utter disrespect for Indonesia, Prime Minister Julia Gillard is now trying to buy her way back into our neighbour’s good books.This ploy is being seen as a triumph for our third-rate leader by her lapdogs in the media.

If there was ever a need for an inquiry into the Australian press, its terms of reference should encompass the undue bias of political news coverage. The Gillard inquiry is of course only into print media with particular emphasis on those outlets which her partner in power, Greens leader Bob Brown, describes as the “hate” media. Gillard said in the wake of the UK phone hacking scandal that News Limited, publishers of The Daily Telegraph, has “questions to answer” about its Australian newspapers but she still has to come up with a single question. Two retired judges have found no evidence of any phone hacking carried out by any employees after an exhaustive independent inquiry. Gillard has not offered any apology for her unwarranted slur on thousands of my colleagues. The coverage of the prime minister is almost universally fawning and unquestioning, those who vary from her script are vilified. The Daily Telegraph’s Simon Benson today pointed out that Gillard has offered Indonesia four Hercules aircraft as a sweetener to appease Indonesian anger over the extension of US use of Australian defence facilities in the Northern Territory. The gift, valued at more than $30 million, will also come some way to ease tensions over her unprecedented cessation of live cattle exports without discussion earlier this year. The attempt to bribe her way out of her self-created diplomatic mess is seen as some sort of triumph by most of the reporters who travelled with her to the South East Asian Summit in Bali. Last week many of the same reporters were eager to report Labor’s condemnation of Opposition leader Tony Abbott’s excellent speech welcoming US President Barack Obama to Canberra in which he noted that the US was not embracing a carbon dioxide tax. Hyper-critical remarks by Transport Minister Anthony Albanese, and other Labor ministers, were widely reported, as if Albanese were a model for parliamentary behaviour. Nowhere was it reported that former Opposition leader Kim Beazley had actually been critical of guest’s political position on Iraq during his speech to welcome UK Prime Minister Tony Blair on March 27, 2006. As for Labor’s so-called US initiative, it was no more than the fulfilment of a policy set in train by former Prime Minister John Howard more than six years ago, and Gillard’s desire to begin uranium sales to India would see not only a major Labor backflip but conclusion of an agreement that was suspended by the election of the Rudd government four years ago. Labor plays its supporters for fools, but most in the media are prepared to play along to keep Labor in power.