The truth about Malcolm Turnbull’s axing he keeps ignoring

MALCOLM Turnbull has blamed a media bias for his downfall as Prime Minister. But there is one thing the former PM needs to get straight.

OPINION

LATE last Thursday afternoon, as Scott Morrison was working the phones and the Peter Dutton plotters were working out their portfolios, I was working my way through an interview on ABC radio.

The conversation naturally turned to the claims of media bias and the role that certain outlets had in stoking the fires that eventually immolated Malcolm Turnbull, especially Sky News, 2GB and of course that perennial favourite, my beloved News Corp.

And so when we took a caller on the subject I naturally braced for the worst. And, sure enough, she stripped off more paint than two litres of turpentine and a heat gun.

“He was never given a chance!” she railed. “The journalists have derided him since the moment he came in as prime minister. It’s been like a blood sport, an absolute blood sport.”

Elizabeth, from North Sydney, perfectly summed up the sentiment that thousands of Australians have expressed about the media’s role in Mr Turnbull’s downfall.

You could have cut and pasted those words into just about any tweet from any number of left-wing activists who last week took time off from posting photoshopped memes of Mr Turnbull in a top hat to blame his demise on the right-wing media.

However, there was just one catch: Elizabeth wasn’t talking about Sky News or 2GB or The Daily Telegraph. She was talking about the ABC.

This alone should tell you everything you need to know about bias and those who accuse others of it. The truth is that bias is everywhere and it’s extremely easy to identify: It’s simply anyone who disagrees with you.

THE RISE OF THE ‘FAKE NEWS MEDIA’

Emboldened by the almost godlike self-belief of Donald Trump, the hard right has recently elevated this philosophy into something of an art form. Any story it doesn’t like is immediately dismissed as “fake news” and even when facts are demonstrably true they are countered with “alternate facts”.

Those of us left on what remains of the real world are understandably concerned by this Orwellian newspeak.

But what is even more troubling is that the supposedly rational players on the left use exactly the same arguments when it suits them.

The term “fake news” was in fact brought into the global vocabulary by Hillary Clinton, who used it in December 2016 to explain her shock loss to Mr Trump the month before.

Two days later, Mr Trump used it in a tweet for the first time — although of course being Trump he put it all in caps with an exclamation mark at the end.

And lest this be considered a right-wing media conspiracy, all of this is catalogued in an insightful analysis by The Washington Post, the flagship of fearless progressive journalism in the USA and a paper that Mr Trump himself calls “the Fake News Washington Post”.

Now, amid the crazed and chaotic demolition of yet another democratically elected government, the fake news war has apparently come to Australia.

Winston Churchill famously said that a politician complaining about the media was like a sailor complaining about the sea. And how do we know this? Because Malcolm Turnbull reminded us.

“A very great politician, Winston Churchill, once said that politicians complaining about the newspapers is like a sailor complaining about the sea,” he told reporters in New Zealand just last year.

And how do we know that he said it? Because it was reported by the ABC, which as Elizabeth informed us is a great Turnbull-hating monster.

This only makes it more confusing that he was assassinated by the right-wing of his own party for being too cosy with the ABC.

Australia’s new Prime Minister Scott Morrison and deputy Liberal Party leader Josh Frydenberg after the oath-taking ceremony in Canberra last week. Picture: Saeed Khan/AFP

CAN’T BE FOOLING ALL OF THE PEOPLE, ALL OF THE TIME

In fact, while we’re here, let’s just tabulate all the media bias conspiracies in one handy paragraph: Sky News is an all-powerful right-wing regime-changing machine even though nobody watches Sky News; The Australian is an all-powerful right-wing regime-changing machine even though nobody reads The Australian; The Daily Telegraph is an all-powerful right-wing regime-changing machine even though newspapers are dead; 2GB is an all-powerful right-wing regime-changing machine even though it’s owned by Fairfax. The left’s own arguments defeat themselves.

Of course on the other hand the right are convinced that Fairfax, the ABC, the Saturday Paper, The New Daily, The Guardian, Buzzfeed, Crikey, New Matilda, Twitter, Facebook and the rest of the internet are all united against them and they’re probably right.

Still, that’s a lot of fake news. As Abe Lincoln said, they can’t exactly be fooling all of the people, all of the time.

So when you get right down to any claims of media bias from any direction the answer is the same: Yeah. So what?

Indeed, the most laughable are the claims that there is some kind of conspiracy afoot. Anyone who thinks it’s new or remarkable that 2GB skews a little to the conservative side of politics should immediately drive themselves to the nearest emergency ward to find out if they’ve been dead for the past decade.

Alan Jones doesn’t like Malcolm Turnbull? No sh*t! He’d already banned the bloke from his show when he became prime minister in the first place.

Ray Hadley supports Peter Dutton? Well pluck my petals and call me Daisy! He shouts it from the rooftops every day.

Mathias Cormann and Peter Dutton leave the party room on August 24 after losing last Friday's party vote. Picture: Ray Strange.

CENTRIST POLITICS; LIKE A DRUNKEN THREESOME

Indeed, speaking of which, the last Liberal politician that Hadley banned from his show just got elected leader of the party. If Ray is really picking prime ministers he’s sure got a funny way of doing it.

As for Sky, if anyone is left guessing what anyone thinks on its evening line-up they should also probably check in for a CAT scan.

Of course the conservatives are laying the boot into Malcolm — they’ve been doing it ever since he rolled Tony Abbott.

The reason why it looks like such a massive pile-on is that the Labor voices on Sky, like Richo and Nick Reece and my mate Darrin and, until recently, Kristina Keneally, also delight in attacking Mr Turnbull from the other direction.

Indeed, this is the problem that Malcolm has always had with being a little bit too left-wing for the Liberal Party and not quite left enough for Labor.

Centrist politics is a bit like a drunken threesome: As soon as you’re stuck in the middle you get screwed by both sides.

But let’s not stop there. Just days before the supposed News Corp Coup, a Labor strategist was complaining to me how kind The Australian was to Mr Turnbull and as for the Telegraph’s right-wing bias, let us never forget that The Tele, the Oz and almost every News Corp paper editorialised in favour of Kevin Rudd at the 2007 election.

It was hardly our fault that the Labor Party crapped its daks and decided to knife him for no reason three years later. Sorry we missed the memo guys!

As for Mr Turnbull, his biggest conservative cabinet opponent was Barnaby Joyce and look what the Telegraph did to him. I guess that was a right-wing conspiracy too.

And of course then there is Elizabeth from North Sydney who admonished the ABC for not supporting Turnbull enough despite his tireless leather jacketed appearances on Q&A.

Former PM Malcolm Turnbull and then Foreign Minister Julie Bishop after a party meeting in Canberra on Friday, August 24. Picture: David Gray/Pool Photo via AP

MUTINY, MISJUDGMENT AND MADNESS

We can only wonder what she must think of the constant shitcanning he got from left-wing warriors in countless outlets who then blamed the right for his unpopularity.

Sorry comrades, but you were the ones who begged him to roll Mr Abbott and then shat on him when you remembered he was still a dirty Lib. At least the right never liked him in the first place.

Personally, however, I did. And so did countless people in News Corp, Fairfax, Seven, Nine, Ten and all the other stations of the cross that lead to such crucifixions.

Almost every journalist I know is staggered that this could happen yet again.

In my experience the plotting of spills and kills is reported more often with dismay than with desire.

And you have to wonder what the alternative is. There have been suggestions that the media should be regulated to temper reports of discontent or chastised when it does so.

Just think about that for a second: The media ought to abide by rules that support the incumbent government? Perhaps we should get Kim Jong-un to draft them.

It’s a bit like the calls for the Liberal Party to impose rules preventing the mindless assassination of leaders, as the ALP has done. What a state we have descended to when that becomes necessary. Perhaps we should also pass a law saying you shouldn’t stick your dick in a Thermomix.

If our elected representatives, the pillars of our community and leaders of our nation, are so cripplingly dumb that they can be spooked into self-annihilation by a shock jock or front page headline then no rule can save them.

Neither the good ship Malcolm that sank in stormy seas, nor the bumbling plotters who tried to scuttle it can blame anyone but themselves for the horrible mess of mutiny, misjudgment and madness that will almost certainly drag the Liberal Party down to the bottom of the deep blue sea.

There is only one thing more stupid than a fool who gives advice and that is the fool who takes it.