Alternative facts do not belong in serious debate

Malcolm Turnbull’s reference this week to the “rather surreal environment of the Trump administration” was uncomfortably close to home — for Mr Turnbull himself. The term alternative facts, coined by Donald Trump’s former press secretary Kellyanne Conway in 2017, sums up the former prime minister’s folly in blaming Coalition MPs and News Corp, publisher of The Weekend Australian, for his own political failures.

Central to Mr Turnbull’s victim narrative is his claim, echoed on Sunday by another vengeful and bitter former prime minister, Kevin Rudd, that News Corp executive chairman Rupert Murdoch, through his editors, interfered in the Liberal Party to bring about a leadership change to Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton or Scott Morrison, then treasurer, in August 2018. But Mr Turnbull’s alternative facts are contradictory. In his book A Bigger Picture, he claims Mr Murdoch told Kerry Stokes that Mr Turnbull had to go because “he can’t win, he can’t beat Shorten”. But on the ABC in April, Mr Turnbull claimed Tony Abbott and right-wing media “overthrew my government and overthrew my prime ministership not because they thought I’d lose an election but because they thought I would win it … a Liberal Party that they could not control was not a Liberal Party they wanted to have.” He cannot have it both ways.

For the record, our position, published before the partyroom vote that brought Mr Morrison the prime ministership was clear: “True to our mission of backing national and economic development, The Australian has argued strongly in this editorial column for the Turnbull government to succeed in its task of fiscal repair and reform. We have been constructively critical, urging the Coalition on its low-tax agenda aimed at delivering growth … Whether it is under Mr Dutton, Mr Morrison, Ms Bishop, Mr Abbott or even Mr Turnbull on reprieve, the challenge is to fight for Coalition mainstream ground rather than to haggle over Labor priorities.”

Mr Turnbull lost control on the ABC’s Q&A on Monday, personalising his attack on Paul Kelly, this newspaper’s editor-at-large. Raising his voice and wagging his finger, Mr Turnbull demanded that Kelly resign over this newspaper’s coverage of climate change. Coming from a supposedly sophisticated small-l liberal, the exchange exposed Mr Turnbull’s autocratic mindset and disregard for personal conscience and the principle of choice. The notion that journalists toe a moral line dictated by any politician does not belong in a democracy. Mr Turnbull’s claims that newspapers such as The Weekend Australian “make stuff up”, engage in vendettas and encourage conspiracy theories was ludicrous and offensive. “You know, we had 12 million hectares of our country burnt last summer and your newspapers were saying it was all the consequence of some arsonists,” Mr Turnbull raged. Another alternative fact. Making stuff up, apparently, is OK for Mr Turnbull himself.

In hundreds of news reports, commentaries, features and editorials during the summer of 2019-20, The Australian carried first-hand accounts of the fires, the deadly damage they caused and heartbreaking sufferings of so many. We also published a wide range of views on associated issues — land clearing and backburning, drought, climate change and building regulations. Arsonists were a small part of the story. By January 7 this year, police had arrested 183 people for lighting bushfires across Queensland, NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. As we editorialised on January 10: “The evidence of global warming since the Industrial Revolution is clear. More intense fires are an observed reality consistent with the predictions of climate change science.” In that editorial we quoted Bushfire and Natural Hazards Co-Operative Research Centre chief executive Richard Thornton warning “there is significant research worldwide that fire seasons are starting earlier and generally getting longer”.

Mr Morrison, we argued, “should command discipline within Coalition ranks and project a clear resolve to do what has to be done on climate change and bushfires. We should continue to be a good international citizen by contributing to climate change mitigation while being pragmatic about global politics and preserving the economic strength that allows us to fund Australia’s adaptation to new ecological realities.” Ever since the Howard era, we said, governments had accepted the need to respond to global warming: “And unlike many other countries, Australia has matched its rhetoric with credible actions to meet mitigation targets. From large-scale wind farms to rooftop solar, the growth in per capita renewable energy is well ahead of the rest of the world.” It had become common, as we pointed out, “to denounce as climate denialism any attempt to include non-warming factors in the mosaic of bushfire science … It’s clear more burning is needed, precisely because of the greater risks brought by climate change.”

Given his business wizardry and economic know-how, Mr Turnbull could contribute worthwhile insights to the national conversation. But in a move he is, of course, free to make (we do not share his unease with free expression) he has joined Mr Rudd in a hectoring double act reminiscent of the Muppets’ cantankerous old codgers, Statler and Waldorf. The two former prime ministers have much in common, including, at times, mutual disdain. Both have glass jaws; neither is a creature of his party. In 2016, Mr Rudd berated Mr Turnbull as a “little f..king rat” and a “piece of shit”. On that occasion, as prime minister, with his cabinet divided on the matter, Mr Turnbull refused to back Mr Rudd’s bid to be UN secretary-general. As Mr Turnbull rightly said, Mr Rudd lacked the interpersonal and management skills for the job. On that occasion, as on countless others on matters of domestic and foreign policy, we backed Mr Turnbull. True, we did not always back him, any more than we always backed Mr Rudd, John Howard, Mr Abbott, Paul Keating or Bob Hawke.

On Sunday, Mr Turnbull claimed Australians were living in a “siloed echo chamber that reinforces their prejudices, that appeals to the worst demons of their nature rather than their better angels”. Yet another alternative fact. News Corp publishes popular newspapers in various parts of the country, and asks readers to pay for them. Likewise, News Corp has a growing paid subscriber base for its digital publications. The Australian is among the fastest growing subscriber-only news sites in the world. If readers don’t like, they don’t pay. Simple. In Mr Turnbull’s alternative universe, presumably News Corp should not be as free to sell its publications to Australians, who are free, of course, not to buy them. Mr Turnbull seems outraged that News Corp publications are sought after and respected by Australians interested in the news. This can not be right! Commentators must agree with me! They agree with me at the Guardian Australia. In Mr Turnbull’s warped view of the world something must be done about it. What, exactly it is unclear. News is too powerful, so give Australians fewer options? More Guardian, less of The Australian? But what has changed? Just six years ago, when Mr Turnbull’s political career was on the rise, not yet in ashes as it is today, he was the minister responsible for media laws. He said this, again on the ABC’s Q&A: “You are living in the past if you think printed newspapers are still dominating the media. What we are seeing now is a period where Murdoch did dominate, certainly the print part of Australian media and of course pay TV, to a point that because of the internet and because of publications frankly like the Guardian, online publications, we are seeing more competition and more diversity in our media than we have ever had in my lifetime certainly.” And of course, as prime minister, Mr Turnbull presided over changes to media laws that concentrated ownership, allowing Nine to buy Fairfax newspapers.

But to be fair to Mr Turnbull, we too have changed. We endorsed Mr Turnbull for the 2016 election, just as we advocated for Mr Rudd in 2007 against Mr Howard.

Mr Turnbull and Mr Rudd are out for revenge against media, expecially News Corp, who had the temerity to criticise them as well as praise them. Have they forgotten Enoch Powell’s adage: “A politician complaining about the media is like a sailor complaining about the sea”?