Even if you don’t follow sport, you’re probably aware that fans tend to see decisions by umpires and referees differently. Part of this is because the supporters don’t always fully understand the rules, but often it’s a perception thing. I mention this in the light of various journalists complaining that the public doesn’t understand their role and that any criticism is vastly unfair and, anyway, Twitter is a sewer full of rats.
If we continue the sporting analogy for a moment, it’s common for both sides to be critical of umpiring decisions. It’s also true that there may be a lopsided free-kick count from time to time. However, while it’s not common that officials will take to the media to justify themselves, it does happen. However, I’m yet to hear an AFL umpire get on social media and say something like: “My decisions shouldn’t have led to the vitriol and abuse. In fact, I’m even upset that someone said that I missed a crucial free in the dying minutes, but Carlton fans are a mob of pathetic whingers who lack basic good manners and breeding. They don’t have the intelligence to see what a great job I did and any criticism of me just shows how ignorant they are!”
To me, democracy is a fairly simple thing: People put forward ideas, either as a member of a party or as an individual, and everyone else votes for the person whose ideas they think are best, so it’s a matter of some concern when the media aren’t discussing these ideas but instead resemble football commentators speculating on which team is best placed to win and what last week’s result suggests about the upcoming finals.
The fact that the media can switch from: “But we’re just reporting what the PM said; it’s not our job to filter it!” to “There’s no basis for Labor’s scare campaign.” without seeing an inherent contradiction baffles me no end. And it also baffles me that they can say that Bill Shorten’s agenda was too scary and complicated in 2019, so it’s really outrageous that Labor have dumped nearly all of it and are trying to adopt a small target while overlooking the fact that the Liberals haven’t put forward a single element of any of their so-called plans for net-zero or the economy.
So with my rather simple view of democracy, I found Ted Baillieu’s opinion piece in the Nine papers rather perplexing. Ted Baillieu was a Liberal Premier of Victoria for two years before deciding to stand down after one of his MPs quit the party leaving it in a rather precarious position, so as someone who seems to understand the nature of needing a majority of votes in a democracy, his views on the independents challenging Liberals seemed a little confused. Apparently, their decision to stand was somehow wrong because they were challenging the next generation of Liberals and – if they won – we’d be missing out on a truckload of talent.
Now, I would have thought that it’s up to the voters to decide on whether these MPs deserve another term, but not according to Ted, who went on to list the many attributes of Josh Frydenberg, before adding how well respected Dave Sharma was internationally and following with something that made his praise of these two seem like sarcasm when he praised Tim Wilson for his “extraordinary diverse experience in public policy, community and human rights”. But no, it’s really naughty of these women to stand in what should be safe Liberal seats where we’ve but the best of the next generation to ensure that they don’t have to waste time with things like putting forward a case for why they think that a Coalition with the likes of Barnaby Joyce and Matt Canavan is in the best interests of the country.
When one of the big talking points of the election is Albanese’s mental lapse where he failed to recall some numbers, while ignoring Morrison’s mental lapses where he said, “Mr Speaker” on three occasions in a week instead of a day, you’ve got to wonder when we’ll talk about the big ideas and not play some silly games. I mean, I’ll bet nobody in the media asks Scott Morrison for a curry recipe and says that he’s not fit to be PM when he can’t recall all the ingredients!
We need to hear about what the actual plans are to ensure net-zero and an effective economy. Parroting the idea that we have lots and lots of jobs isn’t really an indication of the economy running smoothly. The fact that businesses are claiming that they can’t get workers is just as much a sign that the government is mismanaging the economy as higher unemployment.
While there’s every chance that the election will be tighter than the polls suggested a few weeks ago, there’s also a strong tendency to overlook the difficulty the Morrison government will have in holding on. Of course, it doesn’t help when the media keep asking Labor how much things will cost, while never asking the same question of the Liberals.
According to the framing, Labor spends money on things like infrastructure and education, while the Liberals invest in infrastructure and education.
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