THE Q&A LEFTIST AUDIENCE STACK RETURNS
Could it be due to MWD’s prurient interests? Or perhaps a desire to get an update on Australia’s “big existential questions”? In any event, Gerard Henderson – Jackie’s (male) co-owner – tuned into ABC TV’s Q&A last night at Post-Dinner Drinks Time.
Hamish Macdonald was in the presenter’s chair. As avid readers are aware, he advised in early 2021 that Q&A this year would “deliver genuine answers” to “the big existential questions”. As readers will recall, Macdonald’s big existential questions last week involved asking female panellists about their sex lives. On the occasion of International Women’s Day, no less. How existential can an ABC presenter get when it comes to big questions?
Alas, it turned out that last night’s Q&A was just like the nights of old when Tony Jones was in the presenter’s chair and the executive producer was the leftist Peter McEvoy. MWD readers are familiar with the traditional Q&A large leftist audience stack. Well, last night it was a relatively small leftist audience stack – due to COVID-19 restrictions prevailing in Melbourne where the program was filmed.
It seems that the audience was recruited from the Sandalista Set in inner-city Fitzroy North who teamed up with fellow Che Guevara-admiring sandal-wearers in inner-city Carlton and headed to the ABC studio in inner-city Southbank, just over the Yarra River from the CBD to heckle any conservative thought and praise every green left comment.
Labor’s deputy Senate leader, Kristina Keneally expressed annoyance that the Victorian-based Education Minister Dan Tehan was not on the panel – and that the Morrison government was represented by an assistant minister Zed Seselja (who did well in difficult circumstances). But why should the Coalition put up a high profile cabinet
minister who would only attract scorn from the leftist stack which is a typical Q&A audience – especially in Melbourne?
Macdonald invariably calls for Q&A followers to be respectful. But he rarely protects panellists from the ire and scorn of the program’s leftist audience. Nor did he do anything of significance to prevent Senator Keneally from talking over Senator Seselja. No wonder some conservatives boycott Q&A – while others would if they had not been de platformed already.
MWD EXCLUSIVE: ITA BUTTROSE SIGNS OPEN LETTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER
Now the ABC Chair Ita Buttrose AC OBE is something of a MWD fave. After all, she has addressed The Sydney Institute on two occasions – including a talk on manners in 2011 titled “Australians Behaving Badly”. Jackie’s (male) co-owner is a well brought up kind of guy. But everyone can do with a manners update from time to time. Especially from Ita Buttrose.
But MWD digresses. Did anyone see the “An Open Letter to the Prime Minister” sponsored by the Minderoo Foundation – which was published yesterday in The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and the Australian Financial Review. It was essentially a plea to Prime Minister Scott Morrison to “make the lives of Australian women easier”.
A worthy cause, to be sure. But a political one. Co-authors included Lucy Turnbull, ACTU president Michele O’Neil, former Labor minister Jenny Macklin, the Grattan Institute’s Danielle Wood, ACOSS’s Cassandra Goldie and – yes – Ita Buttrose. They listed a series of demands.
It’s understandable why organisations like the ACTU, the Grattan Institute and ACOSS should petition the Morrison government before the budget. But Ms Buttrose is a high profile ABC chair. As far as MWD is aware, no other senior media figure signed the open letter.
And then there is the matter of manners – or courtesy. It’s not long ago that Ms Buttrose criticised the fact that Communications Minister Paul Fletcher released a letter on Twitter that he had written to her about the ABC. She regarded such an action as discourteous.
But now Ita Buttrose has signed an Open Letter to the Prime Minister which is critical of existing government policies. It contains such gratuitous advice as “it is time to recognise”. And it demands an answer to the question as to why an “important” women’s impact statement “was removed” from something or other – it’s not quite clear – possibly the last budget.
There’s something to be said for the Open Letter. It’s a bit like a Papal Encyclical – in that no reply is required or expected. Ita Buttrose has chosen to be an activist ABC chair – of an organisation which is supposed to be neutral in the political debate. Yet she has endorsed an open letter signed by some of the Morrison government’s harshest critics. Should the ABC chair do a quick refresher course in Nancy’s Courtesy Classes? (re which see MWD passim ad
nauseam).
[Perhaps this item could have been placed in your hugely popular “Can You Bear It?” segment. Just a thought. MWD Editor.]
CAN YOU BEAR IT?
• JANE CARO THROWS THE SWITCH TO NAZI GERMANY AND COMPARES THE “RESISTANCE” TO THAT OF ADOLF HITLER
Why is it that so many of the leftist-luvvies in the land have little or no sense of self-awareness? It’s a good question – with no apparent answer.
Media Watch Dog had this (reflective) thought after reading Jane Caro’s “Life Matters” column in Nine’s Sunday Life magazine on Sunday. It was headed “The shame of the father: When will a woman simply be a fellow human who happens to be a female, asks Jane Caro”.
Jackie’s (male) co-owner ploughed through the latest update of The Thought of Jane Caro and came to the impression that she had read it all before. But wait, the “I’m Loving” breakout segment contained something fresh:
So Jane Caro AM is delighted with her new dress from Gorman. That’s cool – as the saying goes. But you wonder how Ms Caro was able to make such a judgment while living in a society which has many “resonances” with the resistance to Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime in Germany between 1933 and 1945. Come to think of it, not many members of the resistance to Adolf Hitler had the time or funds to purchase stylish Gorman dresses – but there you go.
Catrine Clay’s The Good Germans covers the stories of Germans who witnessed the rise of Nazism and decided to resist it. Namely, (i) Irma Thalmann – a teenager who was sent to Ravensbruck and Buchenwald concentration camps, (ii) Fritz-Dietlof von der Schulenburg – who was involved in planning the Operation Valkyrie assassination attempt on Hitler and was hanged in Plotzensee Prison, (iii) Rudolf Ditzen – who was incarcerated in a Nazi insane asylum, (iv) Bernt Engelmann – a student imprisoned in various concentration camps, (v) Julius Leber – who was executed in January 1945 and (vi) Fabian von Schlabrendorff who attempted to assassinate Hitler, was tortured and imprisoned in Dachau concentration camp.
Catrine Clay writes mainly about everyday Germans who opposed the Nazi regime. The better-known ones were the Catholic student activists at Munich University, Hans and Sophie Scholl, and the Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer – who are not included in this book. All three were brutally executed.
It seems that Caro, in her ignorance, reckons that the brave struggle of the above nine is similar to her contemporaries today who “resist” the government of Scott Morrison along with President Donald Trump’s administration of recent memory. Talk about a lack of self-awareness. Can You Bear It?
[Perhaps you’re being a bit tough on Caro. Remember it was not so long ago that she got bagged for using her husband’s gas-guzzling LandCruiser VX on the way to the family’s high-emitting farm which contains lotsa flatulent cattle. Could Caro be traumatised to such an extent that she believes that Australia in 2021 is a bit like Nazi Germany – except that it has more Gorman dresses? – MWD Editor.]
• DAMIEN CARRICK REFRAINS FROM ENGAGING GREG BARNS IN HIS CRITICISM OF THE ABC’s PELL AND NOW PORTER PILE-ONS
Lotsa thanks to the avid Melbourne reader who drew attention to the ABC’s apparent recently developed sensitivity to criticism of its pile-on against Cardinal George Pell and now Attorney-General Christian Porter.
Let’s go to the transcript of ABC Radio National’s The Law Report on Tuesday presented by Damien Carrick – when a comparison was made between the ABC pile-on against Pell and the ABC pile-on against Porter. Here were go:
Damien Carrick: Greg Barns SC, like Tom Percy QC, you’re not a fan of Christian
Porter. But you do have huge concerns about, you know, upholding the rule of law and the presumption of innocence here. But, nevertheless, you also feel that there could be scope for an independent inquiry.
Greg Barns: Not into the allegations. There can’t possibly be an inquiry into the allegations because, as Tom rightly points out – the complainant, sadly, is deceased. And it would be grossly unfair to Christian Porter for there to be any finding made. And I’m not aware of a case involving – where it’s a word against word case, where you don’t have any forensic evidence or any other supporting evidence where a finding is made. And it would establish a very dangerous precedent. However, there is the issue of the fact that he, as Kate [Eastman SC] says, his office is different to that of other cabinet ministers. And he has various roles in addition to being a political member of the government. The issue of the impact on his office and the administration of law is something that could be examined, and an opinion furnished to the government by an individual. But I do not support for a moment these calls for an inquiry. I have to say, I’ve been stunned by the trial by media that’s taking place. It was bad enough in Pell. I think there’s a real issue here about the way the media conducts itself, including, dare I say it Damien, the ABC – in relation to serious allegations against individuals. I think that’s a major issue.
Damien Carrick: Okay.
Greg Barns: Not that I’m saying it should be part of any inquiry, but I think it’s a major issue.
Sure is. But not to Damien Carrick – who hurriedly dismissed the ABC’s unprofessional coverage of the Pell and Porter matters with a quick “Okay”. Can You Bear It?
MWD SPECIAL – (OUTSIDE) THE PALACE: CORRECTING MEDIA HOWLERS
MWD has gone out of its way today to avoid, in so far as possible, the latest episode of “(Outside) the Palace” starring Meghan and Harry and Oprah and Mrs King and her son Prince Charles and grandson the Duke of Cambridge and their heirs and successors according to law.
However, there is reason to correct a few howlers in the media lest additional confusion about the Royal Family prevail in the land.
۰ On Tuesday, Stephen Drill – The Daily Telegraph’s Europe Correspondent – wrote that “Prince Harry is the current ‘spare’ to the Throne”. No he’s not. The Duke of Sussex is sixth in line to the throne. He was the “spare” after his father Charles and his brother William before the latter married and had three children. That makes him Number Six.
۰ On Wednesday, Bevan Shields, the Europe correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, in Nine’s online edition referred to Catherine as “the Duchess of Sussex”. No she’s not. She is the Duchess of Cambridge. Fortunately, this was corrected. Phew. There are enough problems in the (Royal) family already without switching wives.
• PETER FITZSIMONS’ BOMBASTIC PERFORMANCE ABOUT THE REPUBLIC ON NETWORK 10 SENDS VIEWERS FOR ANY OLD PORT
It was late last night when Peter FitzSimons, Nine’s Sun-Herald columnist bobbed up on Network 10’s The Royal Fallout to be interviewed by Sarah Harris, Angela Bishop and Hugh Riminton. Quelle Surprise! Fitz was dressed all in black. Like a Catholic priest of old or a contemporary Phillip (“I’m the ABC’s Man in Black”) Adams. What’s more, FitzSimons rolled up to Network Ten with his red bandana missing-in-action. That is, the new sans red rag, naked-from-the-neck-up style.
It came to pass that the head of the Australian Republic Movement had decided to make use of Oprah Winfrey’s interview with Harry and Meghan to advance his cause that Australia should have an Australian head of state and not rely on the British Sovereign for this position.
Fair enough. MWD supports the republican cause. But MWD is not so foolish to believe that Aussies in the suburbs and regional centres will support a cause advocated by a multi-millionaire Sydney leftist who dislikes conservatives, sneers at Christians (especially Catholics) and talks down to mere mortals. But that’s another matter. Here are the highlights of Fitz’s bombastic appearance on The Royal Fallout.
۰ Fitz spoke about the “insanity of having a family of aristocrats living in a palace in London presiding as our head of state for generations to come”. He made no reference to the fact that if Australia is insane in this respect – then so is Canada (led by the beloved Justin Trudeau) and New Zealand (led by the super beloved Jacinda Ardern).
۰ Fitz then spoke about presenter Angela Bishop’s young daughter. He reckoned that she is capable of doing anything except becoming president of an Australian republic. According to the Red Bandannaed One (retired), young Miss Bishop, by the age of 40, would be talented enough “to rid us of Pauline Hanson”. By then, Senator Hanson would be around 95 years of age – by no means a high bar for the (by then) 40 year-old Ms Bishop.
۰ Fitz claimed that “it’s specifically written in our Constitution from 1901 – you little Australians….your blood is not blue”. Hugh Riminton commented: “I don’t think that’s what the Constitution actually says”. But Fitz was not for turning. Who knows? – perhaps he has not read the Constitution and has only dreamt about it.
۰ But there was no stopping the President of the Australian Republic Movement – he told viewers (if viewers there were) that he loved The Crown. Fitz did not demur when a panellist described The Crown as “a great documentary”. Fact? Fiction? What’s the difference – to Fitz at least.
At this stage, Hendo headed off for a late night port – convinced that the Sovereign will long reign over us Australians while the likes of Peter FitzSimons lead the republican cause.
AN ABC UPDATE: ABC DISCLOSURES COVER LIBERAL PARTY TYPES LIKE TIM JAMES AND PRU GOWARD BUT NOT FORMER LABOR PARTY HIGH PROFILE CANDIDATE FIONA McLEOD SC
As pointed out in MWD Issue 532, the ABC seems to have an inconsistent policy on what ABC TV Insiders host David (“Call me Speersy”) Speers calls disclosures. That is, declarations of perceived conflicts of interest. For example, last Sunday on Insiders Speersy commenced the panel discussion as follows: “Welcome to you all; I think it is important to start this conversation with a quick disclosure….”
As it turned out, the only real disclosure required by Insiders’ executive producer Sam Clark from the panel of three – Annabel Crabb, Katharine Murphy and Peter van Onselen – was for PVO to declare his friendship with Attorney-General Christian Porter. Annabel Crabb said that she knew the woman who made allegations against Porter – and then withdrew the allegations shortly before she died – some decades ago. However, Ms Crabb did not mention that she was a close friend of one of the woman’s close friends who had supported her in recent years.
And the Guardian Australia’s Katharine Murphy said that she had “no declarations”. This despite the fact that Malcolm Turnbull was involved in bringing the left-wing online newspaper to Australia and had introduced Murphy to its editor. Murphy and her editor Lenore Taylor have never declared this association on Insiders in recent years.
This would suggest that Insiders has no coherent policy on disclosures. Likewise the ABC as a whole. Here are two examples.
۰ On 8 March 2021, 7.30 did a segment on Angus Chance, a young man who plays semi professional football for Dulwich Hill in Sydney. The evidence suggests that he was punched – and badly injured – after he defended two teammates whom he believed were the victims of verbal racial abuse.
The story turned on Mr Chance’s fight for compensation under the club’s insurance policy. Reporter Elias Clure said that Angus Chance and his family are “being assisted by lawyer and former Liberal staffer Tim James”. What’s the point of this disclosure? Does it really matter in this legal case that Tim James has worked as a Liberal Party staffer in NSW.
۰ And then there is Fiona McLeod SC. Ms McLeod is a prominent Melbourne barrister and the Chair of the Accountability Roundtable. Oh yes, she was the Labor Party candidate at the May 2019 election standing against Katie Allen in the not-so-safe Liberal Party seat of Higgins in south eastern Melbourne.
Fiona McLeod appeared on a Radio National Breakfast panel last Friday, chaired by Sally Sara, which discussed the Christian Porter matter. Her fellow panellists were Terry O’Gorman (who was introduced as a criminal law specialist and President of the Australian Council of Civil Liberties) and Pru Goward (who was introduced as a former Sex Discrimination Commissioner and former Liberal minister in New South Wales).
What about Fiona McLeod’s Labor Party affiliations? Well, Sally Sara made no reference at all to Ms McLeod’s Labor Party candidacy at the 2019 election. It was much the same on Media Watch on Monday. Paul Barry presented what he termed a “Media Watch Special” which was titled “Porter’s Media Storm”. Barry cited Fiona McLeod’s appearance on RN Breakfast – and referred to her as a “barrister”.
He did not tell viewers that Fiona McLeod was a Labor Party “star” candidate in Higgins in 2019 – who attained a six per cent swing.
So it seems that when the likes of Tim James and Pru Goward appear on the ABC their Liberal Party affiliations are cited. But when Fiona McLeod is mentioned – it is as if her Labor Party affiliation has disappeared down a taxpayer funded memory hole.
• FOUR CORNERS SEQUEL ON THE CANBERRA BUBBLE A REAL FIZZER
While on the topic of the Christian Porter case, wasn’t Louise Milligan’s much-hyped Four Corners’ program on Monday a real fizzer. The fact is that Bursting the Canberra Bubble contained no fresh information concerning the unproven allegations against Porter. Apart, that is, for the fact that Louise Milligan and Four Corners’ executive producer Sally Neighbour revealed confidential information about the complainant – who Milligan named as Kate. In this instance an anonymous professional counsellor gave confidential information about a deceased client. How unprofessional can you get? Especially in view of the fact that, according to the available evidence, Kate’s family did not want her case used by Four Corners.
Nevertheless, Louise Milligan is still using Kate’s name to continue her activist campaign against Christian Porter – as the tweet below demonstrates.
I never met Kate, but I have read many, many pages of her correspondence and spoken to dozens of people who knew and loved her. I feel confident that she would have been very moved and gratified to see that #IBelieveKate is trending number one in Australia. #auspol
— Louise Milligan (@Milliganreports) March 10, 2021
So Louise Milligan has involved herself in the “I Believe Kate” movement.
***
Until next time.
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