If you don’t like Clive Palmer’s decision, he’ll give you a different one
PUP’s chief may come across as a weather vane, but at least he’s not a stick-in-the-mud.
CLIVE Palmer on April 21:
WE can’t see any reason to vote for “direct action”. We think it’s hopeless. It’s goodbye direct action. It’s gone.
Palmer media statement, June 25:
DIRECT action is a waste of money at a time when families, pensioners, young Australians, stay at home mums, single parents and our indigenous communities are facing unfair measures in the budget.
Clive Palmer on Lateline, June 25:
TONY Jones: You very clearly said today you reject the direct action policies of the government.
Palmer: That’s — absolutely.
Jones: So you won’t make your repeal of the carbon tax bill in any way contingent on that?
Palmer: No.
Palmer at the National Press Club yesterday.
PALMER: Our support for direct action is contingent upon the ETS being introduced.
Phil Coorey: It is? So I just want to clarify … If the government comes at the ETS, your ETS, you’ll support direct action?
Palmer: That’s correct, yeah. Yes.
Palmer on ABC News 24 yesterday:
LYNDALL Curtis: If the government does not support your ETS, will you vote direct action down?
Palmer: Well, I think there’s a high likelihood of that.
Oh, you’re making us blush. The Spectator Australia pondering The Australian on Saturday:
SINCE Chris Mitchell rudely burst back on to the editorial scene at Holt Street in 2002, no publication has drawn the wrath of the media sophisticates as much as Rupert Murdoch’s national flagship, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this month. Yet no other publication in this country has broken so many important news stories, taken ideas and public policy so seriously, published so many arts and literary reviews and led so many political and cultural debates.
An alternative. The Speccie goes on:
WHEN Margaret Simons in The Monthly berates the Oz for its “belligerent”, “narcissistic” and “increasingly partisan” tendencies, what she really means is that people like her can’t stand an alternative to what everyone else understands is the dominant Left-liberal print-digital media. We can’t recall Ms Simons’s solemn and hair-tearing meditations when The Australian barracked for the republic and an apology in the 1990s. Nor do we hear her criticise The Age and Sydney Morning Herald for publishing unbelievable stories on their front pages — as they did recently when we were told Clive Palmer and Al Gore had saved the carbon tax and that Tony Abbott’s climate-change views would damage US- Australian relations.
The broadest of churches. The Speccie has the last word:
NEITHER The Age nor the Guardian Australia publishes a weekly conservative columnist. Don’t expect Ms Simons — who runs an outfit called the Centre for Advancing Journalism at the University of Melbourne — to condemn the old Spencer Street Soviet and its pale online imitator for silencing dissent. Yet when The Australian stands up and tries to defend our nation’s interests or highlight the folly of wild and woolly world views, it is treated with shock, distaste and outrage by the likes of Ms Simons. The Australian’s editorials tilt Right, but its opinion pages showcase many Labor-leaning writers such as Peter Beattie, Craig Emerson, Troy Bramston, Gary Johns, Ross Fitzgerald and Barry Cohen, not to mention the darling of the Left intelligentsia Phillip Adams. Under the much-maligned Mr Mitchell, The Australian endorsed Kevin Rudd for prime minister in 2007 ... Add to this all the many exclusive reports that have hardly helped Coalition governments — children overboard, Haneef and AWB among other scandals — and it is difficult to see how The Australian lives in a “black-and-white world”.