Triumph over Dutton-style politics: A retrospective look

Of course, any election will have various reasons for why a particular…

Imperial Fruit: Bananas, Costs and Climate Change

The curved course of the ubiquitous banana has often been the peel…

The problems with a principled stand

In the past couple of weeks, the conservative parties have retained government…

Government approves Santos Barossa pipeline and sea dumping

The Australia Institute Media Release   Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek’s Department has approved a…

If The Jackboots Actually Fit …

By Jane Salmon   If The Jackboots Actually Fit … Why Does Labor Keep…

Distinctions Without Difference: The Security Council on Gaza…

The UN Security Council presents one of the great contradictions of power…

How the supermarkets lost their way in Oz

By Callen Sorensen Karklis   Many Australians are heard saying that they’re feeling the…

Purgatorial Torments: Assange and the UK High Court

What is it about British justice that has a certain rankness to…

«
»
Facebook

Forget Kevin Rudd’s Petition, I Have A Much Better Idea…

To anyone who looks for consistency, political commentary can be confusing. You know the sort of thing, Brett Sutton is meant to be in trouble because he claims that he didn’t remember something in one of the thousands of emails he received, but Gladys is ok because she can’t be expected to remember that her boyfriend had to stand down because he was dodgy.

Ok, I know that it’s wrong of me to call Dodgy Daryl, Gladys’s boyfriend. As she’s made it very clear, he wasn’t a boyfriend, he wasn’t even an intimate associate, he was a mere ship that passed in the night, occasionally docking and causing her a lot of stress just like the Ruby Princess. She didn’t want to reveal her relationship because she’s a private person and there would be no conflict of interest because she wasn’t interested in anything he wanted to tell her. I know how much she didn’t want to reveal the details of her private life because I’ve read at least a dozen stories about all the things that she doesn’t want to talk about.

Speaking of NSW politics, did you notice that the Upper House suspended the Liberal leader for not providing paperwork pertaining to grants? The NSW treasurer, Dominic Perrottet, found this terribly unfair because such paperwork doesn’t exist and nobody has found any proof that millions of dollars of grants were outside the guidelines because, well, it’s pretty hard to find evidence when you’ve made sure that none exists in the first place.

Similarly, Michael Sukkhar has been found completely innocent of everything by a law firm he used to work for, but that’s okay too, because the guy they put in charge of the investigation wasn’t there at the same time Mr Sukkhar was. Some of you may be wondering why a law firm would be investigating allegations against a federal politician, rather than an organisation like the AFP but the reason is simple: They couldn’t use the AFP to investigate a Liberal politician without a conflict of interest.

Anyway, as for my great idea. I know some of you are signing Kevin Rudd’s petition calling for a Royal Commission into the Murdoch media. While I fully appreciate the motives behind it, I think it’s doomed to fail at one of the following hurdles:

  • The government will argue – as they did with the Banking Royal Commission that it’s unnecessary.
  • If public pressure becomes too great they will appoint someone with limited terms of reference. Possibly someone like Dyson Heydon whose already headed one RC and has found that he has no political bias and it’s only those nasty, unwashed lefties who think that he has.
  • If the Royal Commission does happen to find that there is a fundamental problem with the Murdoch media’s reach, their approach, the lack of ethics, the lack of qualified people being presented as experts or indeed, anything at all, then the government announce a billion dollars to form a committee to examine the recommendations of the RC.
  • When it’s pointed out that the committee still hasn’t been formed, the government will hastily appoint a committee with at least three of the following on it: someone from the IPA, someone from the Business Council, an ex-politician from the conservative side of politics, Twiggy Forest, a current politician’s in-laws, Hillsong, someone from a fossil fuel lobby group, or Scott Cam.
  • The committee will conclude that some of the Royal Commission’s recommendations violate the principals of free speech, and while there are certain practices that need reform, the best way to achieve this would be for all Murdoch editors to spend some time working at the ABC on a rotating basis where they can see the way that it’s done and given the ABC useful tips on how to ensure that they meet their charter and don’t forget to balance all those left-wing commentators they have from organisations like the Climate Council, charities and the IPA.

My idea is much simpler. As well as signing the petition, if everyone who signed were to contribute an amount from $1 to $100 and the money go towards buying out one of the media organisations. Each week there could be a raffle and one of the lucky donors would be awarded a small parcel of shares, so it wouldn’t necessarily be a loss-making donation. In fact, you could treat it like Tattslotto where you know in advance that you’re not going to win enough to retire on.

Now, I know that even three million wouldn’t be enough to take over something like Nine, but it might buy enough votes to elect some troublemaker to the board. And once the Liberals got wind of the idea that there’s people on the left trying to influence the way the media spin stories, they might actually do something about changing the media laws so that there were greater consequences for misleading or inaccurate stories.

Yeah, probably not. But it would be interesting to see the reaction from all those who advocate that the private media should be allowed to show bias!

 

Like what we do at The AIMN?

You’ll like it even more knowing that your donation will help us to keep up the good fight.

Chuck in a few bucks and see just how far it goes!

Donate Button

13 comments

Login here Register here
  1. Jack Cade

    Jeez, Rossleigh; I thought my cynicism was un-matched…
    I was interested to see that Barney Rubble complained that he was treated worse than ‘our Glad’. But he gave his root a job, whereas Gladys gave her root the arse.
    Eventually.

  2. Henry Rodrigues

    The Liberals, the conservatives, the singing Hillsong hypocrites, the dodgy businessmen, the so sweet and disarming Gladys and her erstwhile rooter, Barney barnyard rooster and his illegimate sperm, Scummo liar par excellence, the ‘respectable’ establishment, the ever willing’ judiciary for hire’. Taken as a group, the most unsavoury bunch of crooks, tricksters and con artists, this country has ever had the misfortune to be saddled with.

    Could it get any worse ???

  3. Michael Taylor

    I must say that I was disappointed to hear what Laura Tingle said about Kevin Rudd’s petition. Speaking to Phillip Adams on Late Night Live a few nights ago she seemed to think that a lot of bots might have signed the petition.

    Well she obviously didn’t sign the petition. If she had, she would have known that before signing you had to have your email address confirmed. That eliminates the bots.

  4. Alc

    Yes it could Henry. The Murdoch bastard press will blast their bullshit messages increasingly as the next election nears and the deluded shitfuckers who believe his rubbish will line up behind their selfish, it’s all about me election, and vote for the LNP trash again. Palmer and Twiggy et al will release some of their ill gotten gains, the Deep North will fall in accordingly and bingo, here we go again. Albanese is not cutting it.

  5. Henry Rodrigues

    Alc…. Disappointingly, that seems to be the most likely scenario. We need another Paul Keating to kick the bastards where it hurts.. Albo is doing what he can, heroically. Who knows, maybe Rupert won’t make it that far, keep your fingers crossed and your powder dry.

  6. terence mills

    One thing you have to acknowledge about Dodgy Daryl, is that he’s a busy boy with so many rorts on the go. Some would say as busy as a one-legged man in an arse-kicking’ contest : he deserves a Cartier watch doesn’t he

    Agreed Michael, if the federal governments’ dedicated petitions website could so easily be breached by bots we all have a problem. By the way the petition now has 370,000 signatures. If it gets to half a million surely they cannot ignore it ?

  7. Jack Cade

    terence Mills

    Half a million marchers didn’t keep us out of the invasion of Iraq. And Cartier watches are too good for mere public servants – only hard-core LNP rorters are allowed to take bribes in this faux democracy.

  8. B Sullivan

    Henry Rodrigues, I don’t think Albo is doing what he can heroically at all. I think his opposition is pathetic. He referred to Rudd’s petition as arguing with the umpire. Apparently in his mind Rupert Murdoch isn’t an interfering foreign entity trying to influence Australian governance through his control of most of Australia’s media. Instead he sees him as the umpire whose decisions however biased must be respected whether we like it or not.

  9. Andreas Bimba

    Tania will cut through in my view but politically Tania, Shorten and Albanese were/are the right stuff but the political and media landscape are so warped that the extra women’s and younger demographic vote will help Tania more. I think Tania is the equal or better than anyone else the ALP have to offer in all respects. Sorry Albo but politics is about winning and one more federal loss and I’m off to New Zealand or somewhere else, with probably another 15 million Aussies?

  10. wam

    Close, rossleigh, but the money could be used to advertise albo and torpid tanya attacking the crooks in government in an attempt to win the next election. If that ever occurred in the past present or future?
    ps
    they could start with the media watch figures on rupert’s editors??

  11. Andreas Bimba

    B Sullivan, Albo is just trying to limit the depth the knife gets pushed into his back by Rupert. He realises he can’t realistically stop the knife thrust before the next federal election. Maybe we collectively as a people can decapitate the world’s worst oligarch but the ALP on its own cannot – simple realpolitik. Albo is not a turncoat and is playing a smart small target game but Plebers has more aces up her sleeve.

    Who wants a Canavan Prime Ministership? Anyone?

  12. Henry Rodrigues

    B Sullivan, Andreas…….. Albo is ineffectual and probably unable to break through considering the other major events like pandemic etc. but the biggest and the most resolute obstacle is Murdoch and the rest of corrupt one-sided media. Hence my description heroic. Perhaps Rudd’s petition might , just might, manage to catch some people’s attention, but Scummo has all the winning cards in his slimy hands. The people are so desensitized to the corruption that is exposed almost everyday, Gladys still gets their vote despite her very poor judgement and even poorer choice of rooter of convenience, taxpayers money is blatantly transferred in dodgy deals to Liberal Party donors, Angus Taylors still up to his swarthy neck in rorts, The list of dirty deals goes on and on. Yes Albo is heroic if nothing else.

  13. Rossleigh

    Well, I signed it anyway because I figured what harm could it do… I also calculated that if everyone who signed contributed an average of $100 we’d have enough t9 buy a ten percent stake in Seven Media.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

The maximum upload file size: 2 MB. You can upload: image, audio, video, document, spreadsheet, interactive, text, archive, code, other. Links to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other services inserted in the comment text will be automatically embedded. Drop file here

Return to home page