Journalists at National Press Club functions in Canberra with Scott Morrison last Tuesday and Anthony Albanese the previous week gave viewers a rare insight into the pack mentality of some political reporters.
Morrison deserves tough questions after more than three years in the nation’s top job. He led Australia through the bushfires in late 2019/early 2020, floods in 2021, and two years of the pandemic. As he admitted, he did not get everything right.
Yet with one of the lowest pandemic death rates in the world, one of the best performing economies in the OECD and an election looming, he deserved better than the juvenile “gotcha” questioning on offer.
Most questions were clearly written ahead of the PM’s speech and paid no regard to what he had actually said. Many were scripted to make the particular reporter look good on television that night. Few concerned serious policy issues.
Albanese received a much easier time, unsurprising given his small target strategy as Opposition Leader. He deserved more serious scrutiny.
As so often since Morrison won the unwinnable election in 2019, the ABC’s reporters were worst and its coverage the most juvenile. Press Club chairwoman and ABC 7.30 chief political correspondent Laura Tingle set the tone for both events.
She opened the questioning of Morrison thus: “Do you want to take this opportunity to actually say sorry for the mistakes you’ve made as Prime Minister – not just about Covid, everything from going to Hawaii during the bushfires through to not having enough rapid antigen tests in place even as you foreshadowed a switch to a greater use of them, and for failing to live up to your pledge to hundreds of thousands of people on the NDIS that you would make sure the scheme was fully funded, uncapped and demand driven? And will you apologise to people, the hundreds of people, who’ve had funding cut under the scheme?”
The ABC current affairs edifice followed like lemmings. That night’s PM program and 7.30, the next morning’s AM and RN Breakfast host Patricia Karvelas straight after early AM, fell into line with the “refused to apologise” angle.
It was meaningless. Imagine if Morrison had accepted Tingle’s invitation to apologise. The entire ABC would have led news bulletins for days with the PM admitting he got the pandemic wrong.
Most news organisations largely ignored the PM’s central message about economic growth and his hopes unemployment would fall below 4 per cent this year, the lowest in 50 years.
That’s a pity. Wednesday’s Press Club lunch with Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe, hosted by Tingle in Sydney, made largely the same points as Morrison about the Australian economy. Lowe was treated with respect. The business journalists present asked questions closely related to what he was actually saying about growth, unemployment and interest rates.
Part of the problem last week was the Newspoll published in The Australian last Monday, that showed Labor leading the Coalition 56-44.
The press gallery treated the poll as an opportunity to attack Morrison over perceived failures of the summer’s national “opening up” in the midst of the Omicron wave. Fair enough, but there has been little scrutiny of the Labor states that opened and are enduring high case numbers, hospitalisations and deaths. Nor has there been balance in much of the media’s pandemic reporting. Despite the exponential increase in Omicron case numbers since December, death rates here remain very low by world standards.
Now look at Tingle’s opening free kick question to Albanese on January 25.
“You’ve talked about the role of the federal government and the fact that this government has stepped back from it. I just wonder if we could investigate what you mean by that in the area of health. You’ve talked about the importance of Medicare. And often you talk about the importance of the health workforce. But also I think what showed up in this pandemic is a lack of proper infrastructure of both policy advice and service delivery at the federal level. And, as a test for how you might do it differently, you mentioned free RAT tests. How would that actually work? How would you actually physically make RATs free? How would you distribute them? What role would the federal government have that it doesn’t have now?”
It was the cricket equivalent of Pat Cummins bowling slow full tosses outside off stump to Joe Root. ABC News political editor Andrew Probyn was even softer.
“For all those people who do know Mark McGowan more than they know you, who is Anthony Albanese?” he asked.
Now look at Probyn’s question to Morrison the following Tuesday.
“As you’ve indicated in your speech, you recognise that people are very disappointed, angry over the summer. Your colleagues say the anger with you is very high on the ground too, and that your disapproval rating recognised in the Newspoll was on 58 per cent disapproval … net negative 19 per cent approval rating, and that you are a drag on the Coalition vote. Why are you the best person to lead the Coalition to the next election?”
A sitting PM is always going to receive tougher treatment than an opposition leader, but the ABC really should have challenged Albanese to explain how he will pay for his promises and how he will deal with the Greens should he need their support to form a majority. It should acknowledge Albanese has made many promises favourable to the ABC.
The clear impression was the press gallery has decided there will be a change of government in May. Would Ten’s Peter van Onselen have aired the text exchange between an unnamed federal minister and former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian bagging Morrison had the polling showed the government down, say, 48-52 and within striking distance?
Ditto Sky News political editor Andrew Clennell and his “gotcha” question of Morrison’s knowledge of the price of bread, petrol and rapid antigen tests.
History shows governments underestimate opposition leaders at their peril. Rudd and Gillard underestimated Tony Abbott and Labor underestimated John Howard for decades, both as opposition leader and prime minister.
Yet if Morrison is good enough there is time to make the electorate understand Australia really is a global standout two years into the pandemic. While the ABC may laud Jacinda Ardern who is locking out Australians until July, the population here seems to be coming to terms with living with Covid. Labor cannot afford to be branded the party of lockdowns.
Morrison also needs to prosecute critical issues for our future. Standing up to China’s bullying for two years and signing the AUKUS pact with the US and the UK are good places to start. Albanese is soft on both. He has had a lifetime in the bosom of the Socialist Left of NSW Labor since winning the state assistant secretary job in 1989. The government needs to shout it out daily.
As for the media, most had dropped off the text messages Press Club story by Thursday, except at the ABC.
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