Anyone who read Tory Shepherd’s article The guts of the matter is that we want policy, not politics on news.com’s The Punch this morning would have reached the same conclusion as I. It was a shocker. It strictly adhered to the Murdoch Media’s rules one and two: blame the government; when in doubt . . . blame the government.

The article, which was about an open house Community Cabinet in the South Australian electorate of Boothby reminds the reader that:

Labor has disembowelled itself and we’re all standing around trying to divine the future from its spilled entrails.

And those standing around, we learn, want to know if the Government is going to fix important mainstream issues:

How will they fix mental health, and youth violence? What are they going to do about those drowning at sea and those arriving here? How will they look after single parents who struggle to both pay the rent and buy food?

What are we going to do about climate change, the cost of living, education, childcare, the ageing population?

What are we going to do about climate change? You’ve got to be kidding me. My question is: “Why haven’t the media told them?”

For over a year they followed Tony Abbott as he visited every business in the country and predicted with fear and smear how the ‘carbon tax’ would destroy their respective industries and how he was likely to be the last person to walk through their doors. Butchers, bakers, candle-stick makers; there’d be none left after the dastardly tax annihilated them. Even whole towns were predicted to be wiped off the map. And the media turned each utterance into a headline. The Government is tackling climate change, a simple point that the media has failed to point out. The Murdoch media have been long-term debunkers of climate change and now one of their journalists has the audacity to join in the community chorus and ask of the Government what they intend to do about . . . climate change.

How hard it must be for a journalist to visit a Government web site to look at what is actually being done about an issue? Why can’t they then publish their findings in an informative way? I’ve spent five minutes in Google and I’ve found the answers to all the questions asked by the community and echoed by Tory Shepherd. Here are a few: You can click on a link for climate change, here for mental health, or here for youth violence.

Even though I thought Shepherd’s article bordered on the ridiculous, it still didn’t prepare me for the quality of the reader comments her article attracted. Consider these gems of ignorance:

A Concerned Citizen says:

07:55am | 22/02/13

What function does a government serve if they are not going to address and fix problems facing Australia, or manage infrastructure?

PJ says:

07:28am | 22/02/13

The carbon tax is another Gillard Government tax, like the Mining Tax, which does not work. Its burdon has fallen entirely on the ordinary Australians.

Leopold says:

06:52am | 22/02/13

This government has been too focused on bribing voters with handouts that ultimately go into the pokies and the pockets of carlton united breweries, rather than investing where it will make a difference.

Super D says:

07:15am | 22/02/13

Eventually the ALP will realize its actually about policy.

GregE says:

12:38pm | 22/02/13

If pensioners are struggling, wtf has the ALP done for them over the last 5 years?

GregE says:

09:54am | 22/02/13

. . . the problem is that we have seen lots of policy announcements from the ALP over the last 5 years. And many if not most of those ended in non delivery or a disaster.

james says:

12:41pm | 22/02/13

Gillard have policies only to safeguard her job ( knifing!! !)
Not for the ordinary people’s jobs.
That is the bottom line!!!

james says:

01:16pm | 22/02/13

I am too eager to go to polling station now !!!!
I am sick and tired of all these bloody nonsense lies from Gillard.
Time to restore the integrity of our parliamentarian standards in this country.

People who provide comments on news.com sites would obviously belong to its group of loyal readers. As media consumers they are fed very little. The media doesn’t even bother to inform them of what is happening in their own back yard. Starve them as much as possible but throw a bit of manure around to fertilise their ignorance.