The fallout from former Attorney-General Christian Porter’s dropped defamation case against ABC investigative reporter Louise Milligan shows no signs of abating, with news the media is continuing to dig into the matter.
Porter would likely have hoped his resignation from the government frontbench would take the media heat out of the issue that preceded his move: the revelation a blind trust had helped to fund a defamation action he launched against the ABC and Milligan.
Porter’s action had been prompted by Milligan’s February story about a letter to the Prime Minister containing allegations against a “senior cabinet minister”, who it later emerged was Porter.
But the frontbench resignation by Porter may not be the full-stop on the matter that Porter perhaps hoped for. Diary is reliably informed some in the Canberra press gallery are still chasing the identities of who contributed to the blind trust.
We’re told some Canberra types have the theory the trust is made up of a single very rich person, while others in the press gallery believe it is closer to a secret crowd-funding situation.
Journalists have called various individuals asking if they have contributed to Porter’s fund, but no one called has definitively confirmed their involvement. Some have apparently even refused to “confirm or deny”.
Media stories are not Porter’s only potential hangover from the shelved ABC defamation case. With shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus pushing hard, Labor wants to refer the Porter blind trust to federal Parliament’s Standing Committee of Privileges and Members’ Interests.
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Hamish imports Q+A ratings woes to The Project
Have Hamish Macdonald’s well-chronicled struggles with ratings on the ABC’s flagship panel show Q+A now spread to Ten’s The Project?
More than a month since Macdonald made his big switch back to commercial TV, the early numbers are in. And so far, there’s been no Hamish-led ratings boom on The Project, despite all of the fanfare of the announcement of his “homecoming” to Ten.
Ratings, of course, can be an unforgiving – some would say unfair – beast. But to put it as kindly as possible, The Project’s Friday and Sunday ratings have somewhat flatlined since Macdonald came back.
Even the numbers of Peter van Onselen – now back full-time as Ten political editor after being elbowed aside in July to pave the way for the triumphant return of Macdonald – were generally higher than those of his celebrated successor, particularly on Fridays.
In order to give The Project as big a boost as possible, Ten has for some time been cleverly playing the ratings game by splitting the whole hour of The Project into two distinct shows: the 6.30-7pm version, and the 7-7.30pm version. This allows The Project to record higher numbers for its traditionally stronger 7-7.30pm half-hour.
So we’ll take Ten’s preferred metric, the 7-7.30pm “show”, to examine Macdonald’s ratings since returning. On PVO’s last Friday as The Project’s co-host with Lisa Wilkinson, his numbers (423,000) were higher than any of Macdonald’s Friday shows since (337,000-406,000) in the benchmark five capital city ratings.
Only once has Macdonald got out of the 300,000s on a Friday night since returning: something that may start to worry Ten beancounters – who paid big coin to bring Macdonald back – if it continues.
There has also been a loss of momentum on the Sunday night version of The Project in the last fortnight. For his past two Sundays, the Macdonald version of The Project has steadily declined in its five-city ratings (446,000 and 437,000), leaving them slightly lower than PVO’s last Sunday (447,000).
This is despite some big news Sundays over the last month, plus the finale of Australian Survivor and the endlessly-promoted return of The Masked Singer that has followed The Sunday Project.
But happily for Macdonald and The Project, help could be at hand. Insiders are confident Celebrity MasterChef – Ten’s great ratings hope for the last quarter, running straight out of The Sunday Project from Sunday week – will be a hit, and give the Ten flagship panel show the lift it needs.
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Keating the great ‘hater’ targets Uhlmann
Paul Keating has always had a reputation for being a great ‘hater’, as the former prime minister’s predecessor Bob Hawke famously noted. But it turns out Keating has kept a special place in his allegedly vast reservoir of contempt for Nine’s political editor, Chris Uhlmann, for nearly a decade.
The latest instance came in Keating’s opinion piece in Nine’s Sydney and Melbourne mastheads, where Uhlmann is a fortnightly columnist. Keating took aim at the journalist over his “hawkish” stance on China. The ex-PM provocatively claimed: “Peter Hartcher’s bi-weekly froth-mouthed articles about China and its supposed threat, along with Chris Uhlmann and his wicked representation of China as marauding Nazis, has constituted an important part of the climate that has allowed Morrison to now shop the country to the Americans.”
A week earlier, Keating had gone just as hard, using a published SMH letter to the editor to lash out at Uhlmann’s hawkishness over China. After beginning by sarcastically noting that Uhlmann had “a sideline writing fiction”, Keating went on to lash the Nine political editor for joining “Peter Dutton and the Prime Minister in the growing chorus of Australian hawks who hear the drums of war beating and compare the current situation in East Asia to Europe in the 1930s”.
He went on to claim that Uhlmann’s “simplistic analysis” — which, he argued, portrayed Beijing as “a one dimensional villain” and Australia as “the blameless hero” — was a “dangerous fantasy”.
Uhlmann took his own shot at Keating the week before last in a piece titled: “Why Keating’s dovish advice on China should be scorned”. He derided the ex-PM’s alleged habit of routinely advising that “giving in to Beijing is just so much easier than making a fuss”.
Turns out this enmity between the pair dates all the way back to 2012. Uhlmann, at the time, was still in the role now occupied by Laura Tingle as 7.30’s chief political correspondent. And back then, Keating was just as critical as today. He wrote a published letter to the ABC that was scathing of Uhlmann’s interview on the ABC program of then PM Julia Gillard.
Keating started by writing he was “appalled” by the interview, accused Uhlmann of treating Gillard like a “junior state minister”, and concluded: “My criticism of Uhlmann is not that of bias, but of competence.”
In response, the ABC’s then current affairs boss, Bruce Belsham, accused Keating of “a personal and unreasonable assault” on Uhlmann.
When Diary reached Uhlmann about Keating’s criticism of his work, he replied that he would be “well down the list of the former PM’s hatreds”. We’ll take your word for that, Chris.
Diary was unable to reach Keating before going to print.
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Hartcher’s harsh words for ex-PM
While Chris Uhlmann has built up an impressive history of public stoushes with Paul Keating, he’s not the only Nine journalist wanting to get in on the action by warring with the “Placido Domingo of Australian politics” over China.
Keating’s description of the Nine papers’ political and international editor Peter Hartcher last week as writing “biweekly froth-mouthed articles about China and its supposed threat” wasn’t taken lying down by Hartcher.
It was clear by the weekend Hartcher had taken careful note of Keating’s literary lashing, and was happy to return the favour in kind.
Hartcher noted most Australians didn’t support appeasement of China, and instead wanted Australia to impose “retaliatory trade bans”.
“This frustrates the small minority of people who want Australia’s place to be in thrall to China,” he wrote. “Paul Keating, for instance, vehemently attacked the new AUKUS grouping.”
He then quotes Keating as saying Australia had turned “its back on the 21st century, the century of Asia, for the jaded and failed Anglosphere”.
But Hartcher contradicted Keating by pointing to the rise of the Quad alliance, which features two other significant Asian powers, India and Japan.
“They are great powers in the Indian and Pacific oceans, not part of the Anglosphere … That doesn’t fit the Keating critique. He didn’t think the Quad would ever materialise. It doesn’t fit his storyline. So he just ignores it.”
And still, Hartcher was only warming up: “Keating would prefer that everyone defer to Beijing as the rightful ruler of the Indo-Pacific. By refusing, Washington, London, Tokyo, New Delhi and Canberra are confounding Beijing’s plans and Keating’s coaching.”
Just to irritate Keating some more, he gave “full credit” to Scott Morrison for “reluctantly” choosing the US over China.
“Crucially, Labor has supported all the major decisions, making them national choices, not partisan postings. Keating this week lashed Labor for this, which shows how far events have left him behind.”
But it was Hartcher’s final line on Keating that was the killer: “Labor is adjusting to reality; Keating is still adjusting to retirement.” Ouch.
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Palaszczuk’s nemesis strikes on jabs-for-tickets
It should have been smooth sailing for Annastacia Palaszczuk on Thursday, at a media conference to launch a new mass vaccination hub at Brisbane’s cruise ship terminal.
With Queensland anchored to the bottom of Australia’s vaccination tally for both first and second jabs, Palaszczuk’s army of spin doctors came up with an ingenious way of getting more jabs in arms: free footy tickets for people who chose to get jabbed last week.
All up, the Premier offered 3000 tickets to the freshly-vaccinated for the two NRL finals on the weekend – a winner for footy-mad Queenslanders.
But the Premier’s media nemesis of 2021, Seven Sunrise correspondent Bianca Stone, struck again, this time playing the role of arch villain for the Premier’s big pro-jab triumph, broadcast live on Palaszczuk’s state-owned PNN news network to her thousands of Facebook fans.
If you remember, Stone was already in Palaszczuk’s naughty corner, after the Premier infamously dubbed her “very rude” a few months back after Stone dared to question her about “publicity stunts” surrounding the state’s take-down of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
And once again, early on Thursday morning, the Sunrise reporter was back, setting the cat among the pigeons by daring to point out that the jabs-for-tickets deal was in breach of federal Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) rules.
Nine reporter Peter Fegan took Stone’s ball and ran with it in Palaszczuk’s presser, by grilling her repeatedly on whether the TGA had indeed banned the footy-led jab incentives.
Palaszczuk eventually told gathered hacks that day she was “sick of being attacked” by the media. But, alas, things didn’t get any better for her throughout Thursday, with Stone’s prophetic point about the TGA rules confirmed to be true later in the day.
This time, Palaszczuk’s loyal lieutenant, Health Minister Yvette D’Ath, was the one wheeled out to break the bad news, putting on quite a show for the gathered media by storming out of Brisbane’s “tower of power” at 1 William St for a snap afternoon briefing. Yes, she confirmed, the jabs-for-tickets scheme was indeed in breach of TGA rules, as she angrily put the blame on Scott Morrison and Greg Hunt, and lashed the rules as federal “bureaucracy gone mad”.
If those histrionics were aimed at forcing a result, they achieved the desired effect. The TGA ultimately amended its rules overnight by Friday morning to allow the jabs-for-tickets scheme to go ahead.
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Jane Caro’s question: ‘Who are the Dees?’
The rest of the country may have been basking in the Melbourne Demons’ fairytale AFL premiership win on Saturday night, breaking a 57-year drought.
But at least one high-profile media figure was unimpressed with the Dees victory.
Feminist commentator and author Jane Caro sledged the national AFL grand final obsession by posting on Saturday night: “Dear most Aussies, who are the Dees? What is this thing you all care so much about? Actually, no, please (PLEASE) don’t explain. This tweet is just for all those kids like I once was who could not give a toss & felt weird & had to pretend. It’s OK. One day you can just ignore it.”
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Alan Jones reveals full extent of surgery
Alan Jones was in feisty form on the weekend ahead of his return to TV screens on Monday night after a five-week lay-off for major knee surgery.
“I’m not fighting fit,” he told us. “I still have very significant swelling and pain, but it’s manageable. It’s important to get back on the horse, and back in the saddle. It’ll be like this for a few months, but you can’t sit around and do nothing.
“It was a knee reconstruction, but the knee joint was quite significantly damaged, so they first had to saw through that before they did the reconstruction.”
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Melbourne media calls in the guards
They were cast by the media as the villains during Victoria’s infamous 2020 hotel quarantine fiasco.
But last week, security guards became the media’s most in-demand accessories, as news outlets struggled to cover Melbourne’s violent anti-jab protests without being injured.
The turning point was the assaults on Seven reporter Paul Dowsley during the demonstrations on Tuesday. Dowsley was first put in a headlock, then even had urine and a can of energy drink thrown at him.
Diary understands Dowsley had set out on Monday and Tuesday mornings with no guard, but Tuesday’s events rapidly changed that.
Indeed, guards became essential services workers for all TV and print reporters covering the protests after the Dowsley attack, we’re told, given the mob’s targeting of hacks.
But such was the demand that there was at times a shortage of guards to go around. One boss of a major media security firm told Diary of a big spike in demand for its services last week.
“The situation has been quite unique, with the level and type of protest,” he said.
With Melbourne’s assorted lockdowns, marches and even earthquakes, it was that kind of week.
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