How the west was duped

Barry Says No Moore

Bemusing puns aside, this has been a long time coming.


When the Carr State Labor government dissolved and re-amalgamated Sydney City Council in 2004, they confidently expected to replace the sitting Lord-Mayor Lucy Turnbull (wife of Malcolm) with Labor candidate Michael Lee.


That's probably why, when New South Wales parliamentarian and non-(major)-partisan Clover Moore won the vote securely, doubling her nearest rival's (Lee) vote; Sussex Street (Labor headquarters) was left scratching there heads and searching desperately for a reason for their impressive backfire.

It was a costly move for the State Government who, by Moore's victory, came to the stark realisation that her campaign claims that the Labor government's dissolution of the original Sydney City Council was "a cynical grab for power" had gained traction in the community.


Labor knew Moore all too well. In the early 90s Moore, as sitting Member for the State seat of Bligh, had found herself with the balance of power in the NSW Legislative Asssembly along with two other independents (one of whom was Tony Windsor, who is no stranger to finely balanced parliaments) an had, when all was said and done, been instrumental in the downfall of Nick Greiner and the subsequent rise of Bob Carr's Labor brand.


Now, a year after the decimation of NSW State Labor at the State Election in March 2011, the Lord Mayor is in the cross-hair of the NSW Government again, but there is a significant difference this time: the conservative Government is backed up, as it always is, by the conservative campaign of the Daily Telegraph.


The Tele, along with some moral support from liberalist and career moderate (yes - irony) Alan Jones, have been engaged in an aggressive campaign against Moore for some time. At one point, the paper viciously painting an adult comic book writer, invited to a festival organised by Sydney City Council, as a sexual deviant. The Tele wheeled out Hetty Johnston, anti-child abuse campaigner (now there's a professional most people will be afraid to contradict publicly!) and used Crumb as moral cudgel to beat over Moore's head. 

Worse, NewsCorp's (Murdoch Controlled parent company of the Telegraph) attempt at a broadsheet, The Australian, all but stuck their tongue out at him when he announced he would not attend the festival because of the article. 


So what's the problem? 


Conservative media printing agenda-driven hokum doesn't concern me in itself. What do I care if a bunch of sweaty sausage-fingered xenophobes have their say: we have a broad media industry, that opinion is sure to be balanced out by an equal and opposite small 'L' liberal viewpoint isn't it? 


Well, no. The problem I see with Australia's media system is that only real  alernative to the conservative corporate media that currently exists is the Government owned ABC. 

But the ABC is obsessed with appearing unbiased (another day, another blog and we might take on that one). Great! Fantastic! It's unbiased media that we should be aiming for, and the ABC should continue it's struggle to keep it's News content objective, but that doesn't exactly even the playing field does it? 


When a media outlet picks a side (and it should be genuinely infuriating to us that a, very small, group of people have just decided that they are going to try and mould public opinion to their will - it should, but for the most part doesn't), and one picks no side, this can not be considered a fair and balanced media system.

See, we have no Jon Stewart, no bastion of reply and that's just the way the Gina Reinhardt's of Australia want it. If you think that's stretching the truth, have a look at this little nugget of nutty truth:  

In a feat of humiliating irony, the closest thing we have is "The Project" (formerly the 7:00pm Project) which makes Mornings with Mel and Koshi look like Four Corners. 


The upshot of all of this is that when industry (who buy ALOT of advertising from the companies that bring us our News) decide they don't like a policy; they change it.

It cost the mining industry a grand combined total of around $20 million to derail the  mining tax and a Prime Ministership. When you compare that to what they would have had to redistribute to the Australian people, and consider that no ONE mining company paid for it, the cost of the ad campaign was shared, its a pretty cheap way to buy the future.


And, just as a side note, when Gina Reinhardt stood in front of the mining workers concerned about the tax, told them that the tax threatened their jobs (in other words: "This is not going to affect MY bottom line, I'll just fire you first if the tax gets passed") and brutally instilled fear into the mining workers, did you ever hear a single media outlet call them on it? 


I can't recall a single article decrying it for the blatant scaremongering that it was. 

For Australia's clubs, it was even cheaper. And they're campaign didn't even have to make sense.  It turns out that a gambling reduction policy can be both ineffective in reducing problem gambling and still cause clubs to use MILLIONS (that they apparently donate to communities - because clubs who make millions from pensioners are DEFINITELY best placed to decide where that money goes). Just out of interest, if the gambling rates are not affected, where is the loss coming from. They employed a similar fear based campaign, threatening to raise drink prices and give less to communities. 


It's interesting to note that less than 1% of average gambling revenue is ever seen by communities. 


What do you think? Is Australia's media fair and balanced? Or is there room for a more broad point of view on Australian politics?