Scooped

A newspaper journalist manages to correctly spell “its” and misspell “it’s” in the same block of text. Such are the perils of the 24 hour news cycle.

https://www.news.com.au/national/politics/labor-tells-voters-youll-be-worse-off-under-dutton-in-new-campaign-ad/news-story/b72d59fbf676effc9358519411b829d5

Message discipline

The Australian Republican Movement has been campaigning since 1991 for Australia to become a republic. This means replacing the current constitutional arrangements with a popularly elected Australian president.

Citing their own research, they claim that 92 per cent of Australians either support a republic, or are open to the idea. However, independent polling shows that only 32 per cent of Australians strongly support a republic, and 35 per cent support retaining the constitutional monarchy.  

Undeterred, they launched a campaign branding King Charles's visit to Australia as his "farewell tour." Given the King's ongoing cancer treatment, the timing seems tactless. The Australian Monarchist League described the campaign as "terribly disrespectful." 

I'm inclined to agree with them. 

https://www.malaymail.com/news/world/2024/10/14/a-royal-send-off-activists-playfully-dub-king-charles-visit-to-australia-the-monarchys-farewell-tour/153618

https://au.yougov.com/politics/articles/46044-one-year-king-charles-reign-where-do-australian-at

Fair suck of the ketchup bottle

Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will be the next Australian ambassador to the United States, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced today, describing Rudd as an "outstanding appointment." 

One hopes that Rudd will be more successful in this role than he was as Prime Minister. At least now he will have something else to focus on, rather than blaming everyone but himself for losing a job that he thought was his vocation. He will have to carry himself a bit more carefully from now on, as Joe Hockey, another former Australian ambassador to the United States, has stated. 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-20/kevin-rudd-appointed-washington-us-ambassador/101791798

https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/politics/kevin-rudd-must-rebuild-bridges-and-rein-in-outbursts-as-new-ambassador-to-united-states-joe-hockey-warns/news-story/baea55545b3db7f61aff7cc0def542f1

It belongs in a museum

This is a contentious issue. An auction house in Queensland, Australia, is selling Nazi memorabilia, including a signed photograph of German dictator, Adolf Hitler, a propaganda children's book, and SS artifacts. A company representative sought to justify the auction as a legitimate business activity, but there is the very real danger that these items may fall into the hands of neo-Nazis, as is the opinion of a Jewish community group spokesperson quoted in the article. 

Rather than sell them to make money, arguably these items should be donated to Holocaust museum. This will allow them to be displayed to inform and educate society about recent history, and not be used as a conversation piece for a private collector, or for more nefarious purposes. 

https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-690328

Tragic

Eight teenage girls have committed suicide in the first 7 months of this year in Victoria, a marked increase in the number of young women taking their lives in a tragic toll being closely watched by the Victorian Coroners Court. The alarming rise has been recorded by the court amid a deepening youth mental health crisis that expert professor Patrick McGorry has described as a “shadow pandemic”. New court data reveals 8 girls committed suicide to July 31, up from just one in the first 7 months of last year. In the same period in 2019, Coroner’s Court statistics show three teenage girls took their own lives while the number was four in 2018 and three in 2017. “The court has noted a potentially higher than expected number of suspected suicides among women under 18 this year,” a court spokeswoman said.

“While it is too early to determine whether this represents a trend, the court is continuing to monitor closely.” The rise in suicides comes as the state is gripped by a teen mental health crisis that experts are linking to Covid-19 and lockdowns. Teenage girls are among the hardest hit with increasing eating disorders, self-harm and suicidal thoughts or actions during the 18-month pandemic. Professor McGorry, who heads youth mental health service Orygen, said problems suffered by young Victorians had grown worse and health services were overwhelmed. “The system is drowning or crumbling,” he said. “This is the shadow pandemic. And every lockdown makes it even worse.

“It’s not that the government hasn’t recognised the problem, it’s that they don’t have the same sense of urgency, federal or state, about addressing it like they do with Covid.” Professor McGorry described this year’s eight suicides as a “real phenomenon” and said they needed to be considered in the broader context of the pandemic and lockdowns. “There is an increase in deaths and that is occurring from a rising base of suicidal behaviour particularly among young women,” he said. “There has been a very substantial surge, 20 to 30 per cent of deliberate self-harm and suicidal behaviour that is occurring in particularly young women and that is what is flooding into emergency departments. “The coroner is cautious about over-reacting. You have to put the number of suicides in context of the rising tide of suicidal behaviour amongst young women.” Girls have been hit during the pandemic as they battle eating disorders.

There was a sharp increase in new eating disorder cases early this year, from a weekly average of 654 in 2020 to 878 this year, a 34% jump. The number of teenagers rushed to hospital after self-harming and suicidal thoughts spiked 51%, rising from a weekly average of 98 in 2020 to 148 this year. The most serious cases, where teenagers have needed resuscitation and emergency care, jumped 44.9%, with the 2020 weekly average of 19.8 rising to 28.7 this year. Victorian Liberal Democrats MP David Limbrick said he was concerned the Andrews government did not understand how lockdowns affected the mental health of young people. “They have been saying they have been spending huge amounts of money on mental health, and yet children who need help can’t get access to it,” he said.

Limbrick went on “The mental and physical health effects of lockdowns on children are catastrophic. They are becoming socially isolated.” Mr Limbrick said schools should be immediately opened, and the government should set a date when all pandemic restrictions end. Resilience speaker Graeme Cowan has spoken about his 5 year battle with depression, and the habits he has cultivated to look after his mental health amid uncertainty. The Victorian government acknowledged the emotional toll of lockdowns. “We know how tough repeated lockdowns are on all Victorians, and that the emotional, social and financial toll of the pandemic is profound for so many people, but we just can’t risk the devastation of an uncontrolled outbreak of the Delta variant spreading rapidly across the state,” a spokeswoman said.

The government said it had invested more than $225m to help boost mental health services during the pandemic, and also referred to its $3.8bn delivered in this year’s state budget to implement the findings of the mental health royal commission. A spokeswoman for youth mental health organisation Headspace said their national online and phone counselling service noted a spike in demand “associated with strict lockdown periods both in Victoria and in other states experiencing heavier restrictions, such as Greater Sydney and NSW.” The government did not respond to questions about the eight suicides, pointing to broader court data that showed overall suicide numbers in 2020 were in line with those in 2019.

A senior child psychiatrist said the rise in teenage girls committing suicide reflected health department data confirming a mental health crisis. “There has been a sustained increase in referrals and presentations of young people with self-harm and severe emotional distress,” the expert said. “The data shows this demand has persisted independent of whether the state has been in lockdown or not. “One might hope there could be as much attention paid by the press and the government to suicides, and the monthly reports on children’s mental health presentations as there is on Covid cases and hospitalisations each day. “ But we in the field are no longer holding our breath. “The continuing injury, fear and despair will continue to take their toll, long after the active trauma of restrictions ever ends.”

Source: Compiled by APN from media reports

Brain fade

Can you spot the error?

Things that make you go hmm

So much for that alleged News Corporation protection racket that its papers run for the Liberal Party. Its attacks on the Victorian Labor government's mismanagement of the pandemic has had no affect on its approval ratings, according to an opinion poll released late yesterday. Of those surveyed, Labor Premier Daniel Andrews holds an approval rating of 52 per cent. Liberal Opposition Leader Michael O'Brien's approval rating for his handling of the pandemic sits at 15 per cent. The Labor government has given the Opposition plenty of material to work with, but it seems that O'Brien is not cutting through with voters. 

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/andrews-support-strong-but-liberal-leader-floundering-poll-20201026-p568kz.html

Maintaining the rage

Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (2007-2010, 2013) has started a petition to call the Australian government to hold a royal commission into News Corporation's dominance of the Australian news media. Rupert Murdoch's company owns 70 per cent of Australia's newspapers, and in Rudd's view, this is "a cancer on Australian democracy." Rudd also claims that Murdoch uses his newspapers to exert political power in Australia to influence election outcomes, campaigning against the Australian Labor Party, especially in Queensland. 

Having walked the corridors of power, Rudd has dealt with a hostile media first hand. He also courted Murdoch's support in his successful 2007 election campaign. However, I hope that he doesn't blame Murdoch's newspapers for the failure of his prime ministership, or allegedly turning voters against him, when he was deposed in June 2010. According to Rowan Callick, Rudd has only himself to blame for this. His own caucus could not work with him. As Rowan Callick wrote at the time, his downfall was: 

"a result of his arrogant style, of a series of poor policy choices, and of the failure of his government to implement policies effectively."

Allow me to offer some personal responses to this petition. Back in 1996, I wrote an Honours thesis, looking at Australian newspaper coverage of former US Presidents Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) and Ronald Reagan (1981-1989). Looking at Murdoch and Fairfax newspapers of the time, on microfilm, mind you, I wanted to see if the Democrat Carter received more hostile newspaper coverage from Murdoch owned papers in Australia than Reagan, his Republican successor, because of Murdoch's supposed right wing leanings. 

As part of my research, I interviewed two respected former newspaper editors. One of these editors, who worked for a rival masthead, cautioned me against reading too much into things. My thesis examiners also marked me down because they were not sufficiently convinced by the premise of my work. Now that I am older and wiser, and have more of an understanding of how politics works, and how numerous non state actors, be they individuals or groups, attempt to influence politicians to make decisions favourable to them, I no longer stand by the viewpoints I expressed at the time. I actually disowned my thesis a few years after writing it. 

While it is true that in my lifetime, the Liberal Party has held government federally for longer than Labor, Labor has won more state elections than the Liberal Party, especially in my home state of Victoria. Over the past forty years, the Liberal Party has only been in power for 13 years (1992-1999, 2010-2014). Australia's most popular newspaper, the Herald-Sun, is published in Victoria. As recently as 2018, the Labor state government was reelected in a landslide, with an increased majority. The same voters that voted for a Labor state government in the November 2018 election in Victoria chose a Liberal federal government in the May 2019 federal election. Western Australia, Queensland, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory also have Labor governments. This would suggest that the situation is not as clear cut as Rudd argues. 

Finally, Rudd's analysis also strikes me as condescending. It implies that readers of Murdoch owned newspapers, who generally speaking, as market research data shows, are from a less affluent and educated background than readers of rival newspapers, such as The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, or the Guardian Australia, which are marketed towards tertiary educated readers, are unsophisticated, easily manipulated, and lack critical thinking skills. They just accept whatever they read in the newspaper without question. This is another way of saying that they are "low information voters," identified by some media commentators and political scientists, of the type who voted for Brexit and Trump in 2016, or Scott Morrison in 2019. 

He also fails to account for the changing media landscape. Newspaper readership and advertising revenues are declining year and year, as well as competition from online news platforms, radio, free to air, and cable television news. 

Rudd is also vague on what the outcome of this proposed royal commission should be. Would the federal government use its power to break up News Corporation's alleged monopoly, take legal action against it, or impose new regulations to ensure that private media companies are non partisan? Are we also expected to believe that aside from News Corporation, all other news media outlets in Australia are completely unbiased and non partisan? Why should they not be included in an enquiry as well? Overlooking Rudd's long standing grudge against Murdoch, perhaps there is room for a mature, sensible debate about these issues. 

https://asiasociety.org/australia/downfall-australias-kevin-rudd

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/oct/11/kevin-rudd-petition-royal-commission-news-corp-media-domination-australia

https://www.statista.com/statistics/894218/australia-news-literacy-by-education-level/

Commonsense on the corona virus

At last, a mainstream media journalist, namely Joe Hildebrand, cuts through the sensationalism and mass panic, as evidenced by the panic buying of toilet paper and non perishable foods from supermarkets. Cool heads must prevail.

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/the-truth-behind-the-coronavirus-spreading/news-story/0eeec118f5a06278e24e77e5000e8fd3

The annoying know it all who nobody talks to at parties

Former Premier of Victoria, John Cain (1982-1990) has died. Television news obituaries were mostly accurate, except for one minor detail. They credited him with introducing Sunday retail trading in the state, but this is not correct. His government introduced reforms permitting retail trading on Saturday afternoons, whereas they previously closed in the early afternoon. Later state governments fully deregulated trading hours.

Why the ABC needs more funding

For years, it has been blatantly obvious that political campaign finance in Australia is hopelessly corrupt. Today,  the ABC reported on an ongoing investigation by the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) into alleged illegal donations from a Sydney restaurateur family to the New South Wales Labor Party. 

This is an important story, but that isn't what this post is about. Whoever wrote it made a small typographic error. New South Wales is a proper noun, so it must always be capitalised. 

As Australia's national broadcaster, millions of people rely on it as their main source of trustworthy news and information. Pardon the sarcasm, but it seems that they cannot rely on it for error-free articles on their website. 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-04/chinese-donations-to-nsw-labor-examined-icac/10636610

Looking like a dill

From the Adelaide Advertiser: 

Sarah Hanson-Young has made an embarrassing blunder claiming Australia Day is celebrated in memory of Captain Cook’s landing at Botany Bay rather than commemorating arrival of the First Fleet.

To make matters worse, the error was contained in a statement to the press lashing Communications Minister Mitch Fifield and his department for not knowing the name of the indigenous nation where the Government was erecting a memorial to Captain James Cook.

“Despite an important national debate about changing the date of Australia Day away from Captain Cook’s landing at Botany Bay, the Government has decided to spend taxpayer money it is stripping from the ABC on yet another monument to Captain Cook on the land of the Dharawal people,” Senator Hanson-Young was quoted as saying in the press release.

“This Government is out of touch with the Australian people — taking money from our most trusted news service which will no doubt lead to further job cuts, and ignoring why our First Australians find the celebration of the arrival of Captain Cook so painful in one fell swoop.”

The Advertiser understands the error was made by a staff member. A press release correcting the mistake was issued about an hour later.

She later said that the error was made by a member of her staff. If this is true, I wonder who was responsible. Is it someone who has gone straight from a cloistered, rarefied private school environment, onto a cloistered, rarefied university, and then to a position as a political staffer?

http://www.news.com.au/national/south-australia/greens-senator-sarah-hansonyoung-makes-bad-australia-day-mistake-in-press-release/news-story/1b3ab9e0bd945dcdf1d20f9ece79f98a





By from the National Maritime Museum, United Kingdom, Public Domain, Link

Killing two birds with one stone

Australian Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has fathered a child with a former staffer, and his marriage has now ended, His estranged wife, four daughters, and his electorate will understandably feel hurt and betrayed. He may yet be forced to resign from Parliament for this scandal.

Well known radical feminist commentator, Clementine Ford, couldn't resist the chance to write an article attacking Joyce, because he opposed same sex marriage whilst being unfaithful to his wife. She also uses her article to smear the Australian Christian Lobby and the Australian Family Association, because of Joyce's past association with them during Australia's same sex marriage debate.

She also claims that if a woman in Joyce's position had committed these indiscretions, she'd have already been forced to resign. In her view, Joyce is a man, so he is held to a different standard. I don't know what media she consumes, because I don't see this at all. Media commentators have clearly said that Joyce's position is untenable, and he must resign.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern recently announced her pregnancy. She was supposed to have been attacked for not disclosing this information during the election campaign. I don't see what this has to do with Barnaby Joyce. Besides, expectant mothers often wait until the end of the first trimester to announce their pregnancies. It is very offensive to accuse her of lying to New Zealand voters.

We get it. She is no fan of conservative politicians, or conservative Christians, especially men. She uses this article to attack both of them. As well as a misotheist, is she also a latent misandrist?

I'm glad I'm not a radical leftist. I couldn't handle being angry and hateful all the time.

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/news-and-views/news-features/barnaby-joyce-doestina-not-understand-marriage-20180207-h0v87i.html

Head in the clouds

Sky News Australia has ambitions of rivaling the Australian Broadcasting Corporation as Australia's largest media organisation. I occasionally notice spelling errors in its news ticker. Their website is no better. Perhaps the same people are responsible for both. Consider if you will this report from today. Attorney General George Brandis said that he had "no sympathy" for former Senator Scott Ludlam. Ludlam was forced to resign from the Senate because his dual Australian and New Zealand citizenship makes him ineligible to be a senator. What on earth is "duedilagence?"

http://www.skynews.com.au/news/politics/federal/2017/07/16/brandis-unsympathetic-towards-scott-ludlam.html

Underhanded

Dodgy registered training organisation (RTO) Acquire Learning went into voluntary administration earlier this month, and yesterday was fined $4.5 million by the Federal Court for its unethical conduct, preying upon vulnerable prospective students, The company used brokers to convince students to sign up for courses they were unlikely, and in some cases incapable of completing. As an inducement, they were also offered free laptop computers.

Not only is the Australian taxpayer being ripped off. It sullies the reputation of Australia's vocational training industry. In late 2015 I visited their premises for some career advice. The consultant I met with didn't even bother to look at my CV. She was more interested in attempting to enrol me in a course. I recently completed a course at a legitimate RTO, I am glad that I was not taken in by Acquire's sales tactics.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-30/acquire-learning-federal-court-fined-4.5-million/8571494

How much can a koala bear?

Caramello Koala. Not a bear.

Here's how Reuters reported on US Vice President Mike Pence's visit to Australia. Pence, his wife Karen, and daughters visited Sydney's Taronga Zoo, and met some native animals. This included a koala, which the Reuters article erroneously described as a bear. As I distinctly remember learning in primary school, koalas are marsupials, not bears.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-pence-asia-australia-idUSKBN17P02Q

Mood lifter

This was my good news story for the day, at a time of the week when good news was exactly what I needed to hear.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-06/bible-stories-told-through-indigenous-art/8419790

Grief and loss

Controversial Australian artist and cartoonist for The Australian newspaper, Bill Leak, died suddenly yesterday. He was 61 years old. By all accounts, he was loved by his family and friends, who will miss him dearly, and supported him in his campaign for freedom of speech in Australia. Unfortunately, he also had many enemies in the offence industry, including human rights activists, the mainstream media, and internet armchair critics.

They smeared and vilified him as bigoted, racist, and homophobic, and some of them gloated over his death, using social media to dance on his grave. They forget that he was also a husband and a father. Think how his wife and children must be feeling right now. I dare say that non of these critics have experienced the sudden and unexpected loss of a father. And to to think that they like to pride themselves on their so-called tolerance.

Corporate citizenry

Google is showing its philanthropic side by giving grants to Australian innovation projects. These include an app that allows people in remote areas to test their eyesight, an app to help people give up alcohol, an autonomous robot that cleans up the Great Barrier Reef, mobile technology that records fish stocks around the world, and a system to send personalised text messages to chronically ill people.

These all sound like worthwhile projects, but it's hard not to be cynical. Google is alleged to have exploited tax law loopholes to avoid paying millions of dollars in corporate taxes to the Australian government. In the wake of these allegations, I'm sure that it has not at all occurred to Google that this initiative will help to improve its slightly tarnished corporate image.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-26/google-gives-$5m-to-australian-innovation-projects/7968800

Mean streets?

In the wake of the tragic Dallas police shootings, thousands of Melburnians are planning to hold a Black Lives Matter rally on the streets of the city next Sunday. I'm in no position to say whether or not there's an ongoing racism problem in the Victoria Police force in its dealings with ethnic minorities, but if there is, then it should be dealt with.

I also hope that the rally will be peaceful. One worrying trend in recent times is for opponents of these rallies to organise counter rallies in an attempt to disrupt them. These usually end up in violent street clashes that do either side no favours, particularly the professional agitators who seem to delight in these incidents.

By the way, this is my 500th blog posting. Where's my party whistle?

http://www.3aw.com.au/news/thousands-prepare-for-black-lives-matter-rally-in-melbourne-20160710-gq2thc.html