It was Hangover Time on the morning of 20 September when Hendo turned on ABC Radio National Breakfast and heard the presenter Patricia Karvelas talking to a certain Dr Michelle Maloney about, you know, the End of the World and all that. For the record, the learned doctor has this oh-so-impressive title – National Convenor of Australian Earth Laws Alliance and Co-Lead of Stop Ecocide Australia.
Now Media Watch Dog has always held the view that it is ABC executive producers and producers who are primarily responsible for choosing individuals for interview. MWD understands that Katie O’Neill was responsible for the Maloney interview.
Now, here’s some background. Vanuatu, Fiji and Samoa have introduced a submission to the International Criminal Court in the Hague asking for an amendment to recognise ecocide as a crime against humanity. What’s ecocide? – MWD hears avid readers cry. Well, alas, Dr Maloney could not quite say. Indeed she told RN Breakfast listeners (if listeners there were) “it depends on who you talk to”. Really. But, according to Comrade Maloney “really we’re talking about, you know, large and extensive damage to an ecosystem for prolonged, long-term damage”.
Following a series of short and soft questions from Comrade Karvelas, Dr Maloney said her group wants “ecocide recognised as a crime” by the ICC with respect to “extreme damage to the environment”. [Interesting. Would this include acres and acres of solar panels, many a wind turbine and lotsa transmission lines? MWD Ed]
The aim, in Dr Maloney’s words, is to make it possible for the ICC “to accuse people of ecocide and to prosecute individuals like CEOs of companies – or heads of government”.
So, there you have it. If the Stop Ecocide group has its way, some of the Top End of Town could find themselves in a clink in the Netherlands along with some heads of government.
In view of the fact that China produces the most emissions – and Australia produces very few – it would appear that Dr Maloney is wasting her time appearing on Radio National. She should be on, say, Radio Beijing with a “We warn the Chinese Communist Party president” refrain. But don’t hold your breath.
CAN YOU BEAR IT?
ABC’S report from Washington DC on the ‘apparent’ assassination attempt on Donald Trump’s life on 13 July
The taxpayer-funded public broadcaster seems to have lots of ABC reporters in the United States right now, in the lead-up to the presidential election on Tuesday 5 November. In view of the substantial coverage of the US elections available in Australia from international and other national sources, there is reason to wonder whether having ABC reporters in – and traveling to and from – the US is a useful expenditure.
Especially when you get this kind of report from Barbara Miller – the ABC North American correspondent based in Washington DC. Let’s go to the transcript of Comrade Miller’s report from the US (political) front line on Wednesday 18 September:
Bridget Brennan: In breaking news, the US Secret Service is investigating after shots were fired in the vicinity of former President Donald Trump. It’s understood the incident took place at Mr Trump’s Florida golf course, and that he’s currently safe. For more, we’re joined by North America correspondent Barbara Miller. Barb, what do we know?
Barbara Miller: Well, it looks like these shots were fired near Donald Trump’s golf club that’s in West Palm Beach, Florida. Donald Trump was playing golf at the time. We heard about this first from his campaign, who put out a statement saying he was safe after shots were fired in his vicinity. Still very little known or confirmed at this point, just getting reports in from the Associated Press, and they say that Secret Service agents opened fire after seeing a person with a gun near that golf club. According to the Associated Press, that person fled but was later apprehended. So, details Bridget [are] very, very scant at the moment. We’re also hearing the President and Vice-President have been briefed on this, and, of course, very concerning given it’s only been a couple of months since that apparent attempt at the rally in Pennsylvania on Donald Trump’s life.
What a load of absolute tosh. There was no “apparent attempt at the rally in [Butler], Pennsylvania on Donald Trump’s life”. On 13 July, Trump was shot in his right ear after he turned his head. If Trump had not moved to look at a sign, he would be dead. Thomas Matthew Crooks, the unsuccessful assassin, was shot dead by the US Secret Service’s Counter Sniper team.
Here’s a question. How can the ABC’s North American correspondent regard this incident as an “apparent attempt” [Emphasis added] on Donald Trump’s life? And here’s another one: Can You Bear It?
Shock horror! Comrade Remeikis revealed as a landlord
As avid Media Watch Dog readers will recall, a couple of weeks ago this segment ran a piece titled “The Guardian’s ‘Wage Slave’ Amy Remeikis Blames The World’s Faults on Capitalism”.
Attention was drawn to Comrade Remeikis’ appearance on Network 10’s The Project on 1 September where she sided with the Greens’ attack on the Albanese Labor government concerning rising rents. The Guardian Australia’s political reporter declared that “a lot” of Greens are renters – but renters have not “been top of mind for politicians before” since they have “been so focused on housing ownership”.
As might be expected, lots of MWD readers felt Amy Remeikis’ pain as a renter in a nation led by property-owning politicians of both Labor and the Coalition genre. Let’s go to the transcript where the interview ended:
Hamish Macdonald: Just out of interest. I mean, I know you said renters like are angry…at who?
Amy Remeikis: Uh, capitalism, mostly, and those who uphold capitalism….
As MWD put it. This was spoken like a true Guardian reader/journalist/comrade /Marxist. It’s all capitalism’s fault.
Despite the fact that The Guardian was founded in Manchester off the back of money made by the slave trade, it has identified as anti-capitalist and pro-socialist for eons.
What a surprise, then, to see the report in The Australian’s Media section on 16 September headed “Amy’s housing omission”. James Madden and Sophie Elsworth revealed that – shock, horror – Comrade Remeikis “is a property investor herself”. Let’s go to the Media’s report:
Queensland’s Land Titles office confirm that Remeikis is the co-owner of a two-bedroom unit at Maroochydore on the Sunshine Coast, a property she has jointly owned with a former partner since 2007. Remeikis, like millions of other Australians, collects a weekly sum (in her case, her flat rents for $400) to help pay off her investment loan.
How about that? The Guardian Australia’s reporter is part struggling wage-slave renter with a socialist belief and part landlord property investor capitalist.
In her rant, Comrade Remeikis expressed concern that what she called “us” renters have “allowed ourselves to be used essentially to pay off somebody else’s asset”. Without telling the leftist viewers of The Project (if viewers there were) that she is in a situation where her tenant was paying off her Sunshine Coast investment. Can You Bear It?
[Er,no. Now that you ask. This runs the risk of giving double standards a bad name. Just like when Guardian Australia editor and eco-catastrophist Lenore Taylor used to reside in one of Canberra’s least energy-efficient houses. Re which see MWD 475, 1 November 2019 – MWD Editor.]
The Age understates Kerri Judd KC’s ‘failing upwards’ on the way to the Supreme Court of Victoria
In this Vale of Tears in which we all reside, the phenomenon of Failing Upwards has become a reality. Media Watch Dog was reminded of this when it was announced on 17 September that Kerri Judd KC, the Victorian Director of Public Prosecutions, had been appointed a judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria by the Victorian government.
As avid readers are aware, Ms Judd led the prosecution of the late Cardinal George Pell in her determination to continue the prosecution despite the fact that the first jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict or even deliver an eleven-to-one decision. And despite the fact that even Pell antagonist David Marr acknowledged that the Judd-led Victorian Office of Public Prosecutions failed to adequately explain its case against Pell to the Victorian Court of Appeal.
In this instance, Chief Justice Anne Ferguson and the (then) President of the Victorian Court of Appeal Chris Maxwell KC upheld the jury’s guilty verdict in the second Pell trial for historical child sexual abuse. But Justice Mark Weinberg KC delivered a devastating dissent which ultimately was followed by seven out of seven judges in the High Court of Australia. Kerri Judd led the prosecution case before the High Court as Victoria’s Director of Public Prosecutions.
It was not the (then) Victorian DPP’s finest hour. Here are a couple of exchanges between (then) Chief Justice Susan Kiefel KC, (then) Justice Virginia Bell KC and then Justice Geoffrey Nettle in the High Court on 12 March 2020. The first relates to the complainant’s claim that there were two priests involved in a procession with Pell – but Ms Judd could only recall one. Let’s go to the transcript:
Ms Judd: I do not think it was ever definite that there were other priests on those days and
Nettle J: The complainant said that there were other priests on those two days.
Ms Judd: There would have been. McGlone said certainly for one of the days – there is a lot of material here.
Nettle J: There is a lot.
Kiefel CJ: You are not the only one who has a lot of material, Ms Judd, but you are supposed to be taking us through it efficiently.
Ms Judd: I am trying to take you through it efficiently.
Nettle J: Perhaps you can leave that to later, if it would suit you. You go ahead on your own pace.
Ms Judd: I have got a lot of helpers. I just have to know which one to go to….
And then there was this:
Bell J: …You have a conclusion that it was open to the jury to consider the realistic possibility that the offence could have occurred.
Ms Judd: Yes.
Bell J: Well, to some that seems awfully like a reversal of the onus of proof….
Towards the end of the High Court hearings in George Pell v The Queen, Judd KC argued that the High Court was not entitled to acquit Pell but, rather, that the case should be sent back to the Victorian judicial system. In its unanimous decision rejecting Judd’s submission, the High Court of Australia wrote this:
It is a rare case when the High Court dismisses an application by a Director of Public Prosecutions as “specious”. But it happened with respect to Ms Judd – and Pell’s conviction was quashed in a unanimous single judgment.
Reporting Kerri Judd’s appointment to the Victorian Supreme Court online on 17 September, the Herald Sun’s Rebekah Cavanagh covered Ms Judd’s role in the Pell case and her controversial decision not to lay charges with respect to Victoria Police’s handling of the Lawyer X Case (which has been reported by MWD).
Writing in The Australian on 18 September under the heading “DPP promotion triggers alarm”, Ellie Dudley quoted priest and lawyer Frank Brennan as saying at The Sydney Institute in January 2024 that the “Pell case was nothing more than an appalling sting operation”. Gavin Silbert KC, a former chief Crown prosecutor in Victoria, told The Australian that he was not surprised by the Judd appointment, adding: “In the Supreme Court at least there are appeals and things can be fixed there.” Meaning that a single judge’s decision in the Supreme Court can be overturned in the Victorian Court of Appeal. The ABC Online (17 September) quoted Silbert as describing Judd KC’s appointment as “a reward for incompetence”. He added: “The only way to get rid of a DPP is to send them to the Supreme Court.”
And what did The Age – which along with the ABC and The Guardian Australia led the media pile-on against Pell – say? Well, its online report on 17 September mentioned Kerri Judd’s clashes with various Victorian judges and former judges and all that. But the ABC report ignored her poor performance in the Pell Case – along with the fact that all seven High Court judges ruled that her final submission with respect to Pell was “specious”. Can You Bear It?
[No. Not really, now that you ask. I note that The Age, along with the ABC, censored references to the books on the Pell Case (written after the High Court’s decision) by Keith Windschuttle, Frank Brennan and Gerard Henderson. And yet the paper boasts of being “Independent. Always.” – MWD Editor.]
PK Presents herself as fact-checker but gets her own facts wrong
It would seem that some Australian journalists have decided to follow the lead of the ABC (United States) journalists who presided over the Kamala Harris/Donald Trump presidential debate on 10 September 2024. As Media Watch Dog readers will be aware, David Muir and Linsey Davis fact-checked Trump on numerous occasions. But Harris was not fact-checked even though she made numerous false claims with respect to Trump – one of which was documented in the previous edition of MWD.
On 18 September, Patricia (“Please call me PK”) Karvelas interviewed Senator Simon Birmingham, the Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, on ABC Radio National Breakfast.
When discussion turned to the interception of an Australian P-8A Poseidon by a Chinese J-16 fighter in international airspace in the South China Sea – the following exchange took place:
Patricia Karvelas: Do you think incidents like these will dent the diplomatic inroads made this year between Australia and China?
Simon Birmingham: Incidents like these necessitate the Albanese Government to show strength. There has been too much timidity on the part of the prime minister in particular, who infamously refused to raise issues in relation to Chinese military conduct with the Chinese president when he had the opportunity. And the Albanese Government-.
Patricia Karvelas: I must fact-check you. It was subsequently absolutely raised.
Simon Birmingham: Subsequently by the government elsewhere.
Patricia Karvelas: But the government, I mean he [Anthony Albanese] runs the government.
Simon Birmingham: Not on the occasion when the Prime Minister had the opportunity to raise it directly with Xi Jinping.
Turn it up. Of course, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese runs the government. Senator Birmingham never said otherwise. All he said was that the Prime Minister had not directly raised the issue of China’s military intimidation of Australia’s military assets in international waters/airspace when he met with China’s President Xi Jinping in Beijing in November 2023.
The point here is that PK was wrong – and Senator Birmingham was correct. Yet Comrade Karvelas saw fit to what she termed “fact-check” her interviewee. And when it turned out that Senator Birmingham’s comment was correct PK changed the topic without conceding her error. Can You Bear It?
A TIM MINCHIN MOMENT
In which bro Tim Minchin has a few, like, guilt feelings about, like, joining the George Pell pile-on
So it was Gin & Tonic Time a few days ago when Ellie’s (male) co-owner decided to listen to the latest segment of the Good Weekend Talks podcast which went out on 14 September. It is titled “Tim Minchin on social media, doubt and the surprising advice he gives Uni students”.
It was, in fact, a stream-of-consciousness [do you mean stream of unconsciousness? – MWD Editor] rant about this and that and something else. The discussion commenced with a (long) question by Thomas Mitchell about whether your man Minchin is worried that we are in a time where “self-interrogation has just been completely benched in favour of, like, validation”.
Okay. Hendo does not know what you man Mitchell was on about – or, indeed, on. Ditto with Comrade Minchin’s answer:
Tim Minchin: Yeah. And it’s - everyone sees it happening everywhere else. Like, if you talk to any, you know, I would consider myself a left-leaning progressive, social progressive, you know. I mean, I suppose I’m what? I’m a lefty, right? But am I? Like, because I, I find the way my ostensibly progressive friends act kind of appalling because I don’t think it’s progressive to call anyone you disagree with a fascist … or deliberately switch off your empathy for someone because they’re a race or gender that you see as an oppressor, not an oppressed.
And here is MWD’s translation. Like, it’s foolish, like, for a lefty to brand anyone whom they disagree with as, like, a fascist. Right. Well, like, thanks for that.
Your man Minchin goes on to say that he regrets his “performative righteousness” which led him to believe that he had something useful to say by posting about “Trump and Brexit” – wondering who he was “trying to change”. Good question, don’t you think? The discussion continued:
Tim Minchin: I’m an artist. Put it in your freaking work, bro. Like, I got off Twitter years ago because I was, I had a moment, a sort of Damascene moment, of realising that I was –
Thomas Mitchell: Was there a particular thing that triggered the moment?
Tim Minchin: I think I just, I just, I guess it’s my job to think about things, and not everyone has time to think about things. And I started going, “what are we - is this helping?”.
Go on. He did. And went on to confess that he had been part of “a massive public shaming with [Cardinal George] Pell”. The reference was to Minchin’s song Come Home (Cardinal Pell) which included the words: “I mean with all respect dude, I think you’re scum.”
Minchin went on to confess that he had been in touch with the Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse – headed by Peter McClellan KC – to get information about Pell before composing “Come Home (Cardinal Pell)”. Let’s go to the transcript:
Tim Minchin: … I think there’s a role for satire and there’s a role for art in politics. In my defence, or to my credit, I worked incredibly hard to make sure all I talked about in that song -- by the way, people remember it as me accusing him [Pell] of being an abuser. Like people have a massive false memory about that. People on the right, they’re like, “are you going to apologise for Pell, to Pell for calling him an abuser?” I’m like, I didn’t. It was nothing to do with that. This is before all that, I wrote it about him faking a sickie, to not come home to face the Royal Commission. And I had people very close to the Royal Commission, and I had read a lot of data on, on how meaningful it is for people who are victims of systemic abuse to have an apology….
It was very important that Pell came back. And yeah, I got a sense that - and I knew every flight he had taken in the previous months, I knew he had only seen a doctor in the Vatican. I wasn’t pissing around, and I was reflecting stuff that was already written in the media. I was making it funny, accessible, and I was giving abuse victims a voice, right?...
Do I think public shaming is the right mechanism for change as a rule in a post social media world? And I think probably we should be very, very careful with public shaming as a rule, because how, why are you the moral arbiter?....
What’s missing, like, from the Minchin rant is, like, evidence. In fact, Cardinal Pell spent more time giving evidence to the Royal Commission than anyone else, including three days in Rome. Even so, the Royal Commission found no evidence – evidentiary or forensic - that Pell had covered up child sexual abuse. Moreover, Pell had a serous heart condition for years – and he was advised not to take long flights during times of stress. In the event Cardinal Pell gave evidence in Rome by video link in front of a live audience, including some of his critics.
Tim Minchin’s somewhat verbose rant presents as, like, something of, like, a confession, delivered when the person attacked has died of a heart attack. But, like, you can hear about this bro’s guilt by tuning in to Good Weekend Talks.
DOCUMENTATION
Dee Madigan and Barnaby Joyce go nuclear on Q+A
The Monday 16 September edition of Q+A was broadcast from Newcastle, NSW. In recent times the federal opposition has considered the possibility of building a nuclear power plant at the nearby and recently decommissioned Liddell power station. In August the region saw a number of earthquakes, which opponents of the Coalition’s nuclear plans have used to raise safety concerns about the proposed site.
Predictably, the question of nuclear safety and earthquakes was raised in a question from an audience member. In the presenter’s chair was Patricia Karvelas, and on the panel were, among others, Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce and Labor political consultant Dee Madigan. From the transcript:
Barnaby Joyce: I was actually in Muswellbrook the next day...
Patricia Karvelas: After the earthquake
Barnaby Joyce: After the earthquake. Went straight there. I had lunch in the RSL club. The damage from that was a chimney fell over and maybe a couple of windows broke out. But even that, if you go through the design process of power plants today, baseload power plants today, they take this into account. And this is why there’s such things as the engineering, the peer structure of engineering to compensate and to deal with issues such as earthquakes. Remember, 30 countries in the world are using nuclear power, serious economies, and they all deal with issues like this, so they do engineer for that circumstance.
Dee Madigan: Except there’s been 36 accidents, I think, worldwide. And even the slightest, the slightest raise in radiation means increase in miscarriage and stillbirth, in childhood cancers. I certainly wouldn’t want my kids living near one.
Barnaby Joyce: You just brought that up. Can you put some substance to that?
Dee Madigan: I did. That’s literally
Barnaby Joyce: Yeah, but where, what are you quoting there?
Dee Madigan: Literally science. Literally science.
Comrade Madigan did not say where the “science” can be located. This non-answer, combined with a condescending eye roll from Madigan, drew hysterical applause from the baying lefty audience that Q+A somehow always manages to attract no matter where it is filmed.
Later, during a discussion of wind power, the following scintillating exchange took place:
Dee Madigan: It doesn’t make sense.
Barnaby Joyce: You don’t make sense.
Dee Madigan: What?
Patricia Karvelas: Guys, I’m putting you on mute.
Dee Madigan: Apparently, I don’t make sense.
It’s not clear what, if anything, Ms Madigan and Mr Joyce were talking about and PK no doubt made the right decision to move the conversation on.
A short while later, apparently unmuted, Comrade Madigan went into another anti-nuclear rant. This time she claimed that the Coalition’s proposed nuclear plants will cost $600 billion to build, not open for 20 years and only supply 3.7 per cent of Australia’s electricity demand.
Some Q+A viewers may have experienced a sense of déjà vu upon hearing this, as these are the same figures that were presented in an advertisement Labor is currently running attacking the plan (except that on Q+A Ms Madigan helpfully rounded up from 16 to 20 years). The author of that ad is none other than Dee Madigan, through her firm Campaign Edge.
Although Ms Madigan’s past work for Labor was mentioned at the top of the show, her current involvement with a Labor advertising campaign was not declared. It seems a perk of hiring Campaign Edge for an ad is that you may get the copy for that ad read by Ms Madigan during one of her many TV appearances. Perhaps even on the ad-free ABC.
MEDIA INTERRUPTER OF THE WEEK
Speersy prevails in interview with coalition senator Jane Hume with 21 interruptions in 17 minutes
While on the topic of the latest media craze – namely the propensity of journalists to present themselves as fact-checkers – did anyone see the interview by David (“Please call me Speersy”) Speers with Liberal Party Senator Jane Hume on ABC TV’s Insiders? The date was Sunday 15 September.
It was more like a hostile cross-examination of a witness in a court case than a normal interview – with Speersy firing off brief statements/questions on a range of issues – many of which were outside Senator Hume’s responsibilities as the Shadow Minister for Finance.
How can Media Watch Dog establish that the interview was hostile without printing the entire transcript? – MWD hears avid readers cry. Here’s how. Speersy used the term “with respect” on a couple of occasions. Which is journalistic-speak for “I do not believe you”.
Let’s go to the transcript where Comrade Speers raised the question of the cost of establishing nuclear power stations in Australia:
Jane Hume: …everywhere around the world, we’ve seen when nuclear power is part of that mix, that energy prices come down. At the moment, Australians are paying around 56 cents per kilowatt hour. In places like Ontario, where nuclear is part of the mix there –
David Speers: [interjecting] Well a lot of other parts of the world than Ontario, and a lot of them have higher prices.
Jane Hume: and Tennessee –
David Speers: [interjecting] Quebec next door. But what’s the cost going to be of your policy?
Jane Hume: Well, hang on, I think the most important thing here, David, is that when nuclear is part of the energy mix, we see energy prices come down. And in places like Ontario, they have 14 cents per kilowatt hour –
David Speers: [injecting] Well with respect Senator-
Jane Hume: In Tennessee –
David Speers: [interjecting[ a lot of experts would challenge that.
Jane Hume: - it’s around 18 cents per kilowatt hour.
David Speers: What’s the cost going to be and when? When are we going to see this?....
Needless to say, Speersy did not name the “experts” he cited. Nor did he acknowledge that the cost of energy in the Canadian province of Quebec is determined by the fact that it relies overwhelmingly on hydroelectricity. The other provinces of Canada do not. In short, Speers’ focus on Ontario is not a comparison between apples with apples as the saying goes. But, rather, apples with salmon in inland lakes.
By the way, Comrade Speers managed to pile in 21 interruptions in a relatively brief interview. So, it is a matter of David Speers – Media Interrupter of the Week. Well done Speersy and so on.
HISTORY CORNER
Greens Party’s Max Chandler-Mather commits an historical howler on ABC Radio National & on Elon Musk’s X
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing – as the cliché goes.
On 16 September Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather, he of what Paul Keating used to call The Hyphenated-Name-Set, was interviewed by Patricia Karvelas on ABC Radio National Breakfast. Comrade Hyphenated-Name fanged Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, as is the wont of inner-city Greens parliamentarians.
Note that even some Greens senators are inclined to live in the inner-city – in spite of the fact that they are supposed to represent the whole of their state including the outer suburbs along with rural and regional areas. The NSW Greens senators Mehreen Faruqi and David Shoebridge have their offices in inner-city Sydney – namely Surry Hills and Redfern. While in Melbourne, Steph Hodgins-May works out of Brunswick East – since apparently there was no office space available in nearby Fitzroy North.
But Media Watch Dog digresses, not for the first time. Comrade Chandler-Mather told an unquestioning Comrade Karvelas that Labor PM Albanese should be like Labor PM Gough Whitlam – who was brave when he introduced free tertiary education. Or something like that.
Later on, the Greens MP for Griffith (in inner metropolitan Brisbane) put out this post on 17 September on – believe it or not – Elon Musk’s X . Here it is:
The Whitlam Gov introduced free university, the precursor to Medicare, and oversaw a mass build of public housing. Why, in the middle of the worst housing crisis in generations, should renters accept worse than scraps from a Labor party that has forgotten they are in gov pic.twitter.com/ApOTjWaxam
— Max Chandler-Mather (@MChandlerMather) September 17, 2024
The Whitlam Gov introduced free university, the precursor to Medicare, and oversaw a mass build of public housing. Why, in the middle of the worst housing crisis in generations, should renters accept worse than scraps from a Labor party that has forgotten they are in gov
10:14 AM · Sep 17, 2024
What a load of absolute tosh. The issue is well explained in the entry on the Robert Menzies Institute website titled “Commonwealth Scholarships”.
On 1 January 1951, the Menzies government (which came to office in December 1949) introduced the Commonwealth Government University Scholarships program. Scholarships for free tertiary education, including a generous means-tested living allowance, were allocated on an academic merit assessment with respect to marks in the final year of schooling – what today would be classified as Year 12.
The Commonwealth government was given a head of power to give financial assistance to tertiary studies following a constitutional amendment of September 1946. It was the last time a Labor government obtained a “Yes” majority in a referendum to alter the Constitution. On this occasion, to give the Commonwealth power over a range of social services – including education. The Labor government, led by Prime Minister Ben Chifley, considered introducing a university scholarship scheme but had not done so when it lost office in December 1949.
Robert Menzies took up the issue and introduced the Commonwealth Government Scholarship Scheme. Initially, there were 3000 scholarships a year but the number increased throughout the 1950s and 1960s and into the early 1970s when Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam made tertiary education free.
Once upon a time, universities in Australia had essentially been the preserve of the wealthy and middle classes. After June 1951, it was possible for the sons and daughters of lower-income groups to attend universities – and, soon after, technical institutions – without paying fees and with the benefit of a means-tested allowance.
In other words, Max Chandler-Mather’s assertion is false. The Whitlam government extended free tertiary education – but it did not introduce it.
For the record, free tertiary education was continued by the Fraser Coalition government between November 1975 and March 1983. It was abandoned by the Hawke Labor government in 1989 and replaced by the Higher Education Contribution Scheme under which students pay for their tertiary education in accordance with certain conditions.
In other words, free tertiary education for all students in Australia lasted for less than two decades. Less than the longevity of the Menzies government’s Commonwealth Scholarship Scheme.
Media Watch Dog is of the view that readers would like to “learn” this – if they don’t know already. [By the way, what is the evidence for Chandler-Mather’s claim that the Whitlam government oversaw a mass building of public housing? There was a Minister for Housing from December 1963 which included the three years of the Whitlam government. But half a century ago housing was overwhelmingly the responsibility of the States. – MWD Editor.]
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Until Next Time.
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Abandoning Israel comes with high price in Indo-Pacific
A continued weakening of US influence in the Middle East amid intensifying competition will play out not only in Riyadh but in Taipei. The war is about much more than Palestinians and Israelis.
Rally for business or risk reputation as economic basket case
Australia has one of the least competitive company tax rates in the OECD. We’re third highest, ahead of only Columbia and Portugal. We’ve also added a lot of new regulation. So how do we tempt business investment here?