At a recent screening of Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 the audience was less lively than I expected them to be.
Where was the applause like that which erupted at the Cannes Film Festival or the vocal agreement with Moore’s representation of George W. Bush as a nitwit and lazy President who prefers Saudi money to his fellow Americans?
Sure there were a few gasps and sighs, as well as laughs when well-known political commentator Britney Spears managed to chew gum and express support for Bush at the same time, however, there was also a feeling of emotional distance from the film in the cinema.
Funny for those of us opposed to any form of stereotyping was Moore’s take on countries enlisted into the Coalition of the Willing, including those drug-addled Dutch, who are obviously better with bongs than they are with bazookas.
“No man; let’s listen to reggae and smoke pot instead (sorry, wrong stereotype, although one strategically unimportant nation is pretty much like another).
Between chuckles Moore inundated viewers with insinuation about such topics as the apparently sanctioned ‘escape’ from the United States of members of the Bin Laden family after the attack on the World Trade Centre (WTC), links between Saudis in the oil business and the Bushes and the President’s reluctance to commit to an inquiry into 9/11.
All worthy subjects for examination, but Moore’s eagerness to ‘prove’ Bush’s guilt left him resorting to the sort of good guy/bad guy stuff that the cowboy program he uses for the purposes of parody featured.
According to Moore, for example, Iraqi civilians and disgruntled military personnel are good and pro-war Americans and soldiers who listen to aggressive rock music while in battle are bad.
By the way, Dubya gets to star in Bonanza, but John Howard obviously failed to win a role because Australia was noticeably, for antipodeans anyway, not in the script.
Whereas D W Griffith’s notorious 1915 homage to the Ku Klux Klan, Birth of a Nation, romanticised the life led by Southerners prior to the Civil War, Moore’s pre-conflict Iraq is kids with kites and shopping, as if the country used to be a playground and a potential holiday destination for Paris Hilton under Saddam Hussein’s leadership.
Propaganda is propaganda whether the filmmaker is trying to make us believe in something patently awful or a line of thinking we may have some sympathy with.
Given this, the viewer is left wondering whether Moore’s decision to black out the screen rather than show the hijacked jets ploughing into the WTC illustrates that he believes both in the dramatic power of sound and the need to reduce the horrendousness of these crimes so images from the Iraq War did not have competition for our more heightened anger and sorrow.
As a moderate opponent of the incursion (it’s surely impossible to think the removal of a tyrant is a bad thing, even if there might have been other ways to do it) the visuals of the dead, dying and injured are a necessary reminder of the terrible nature of warfare.
With the movie currently screening in America, it might be the first time many in that country have seen these pictures after largely being informed by an aggressive and nationalistic media.
It is when discussing the media’s treatment of the war, the use of different degrees of terror alert to scare, calm and then frighten again when expedient and the draconian USA Patriot Act that Moore is at his most convincing and interesting.
When filming Lila Lipscomb, a mother whose son was killed in Iraq, bent ov
July 31, 2004 | Unknown
Sometimes Moore is Too Much: Darlene on Fahrenheit 9/11
July 30, 2004 | Graham
Marcus Einfeld on Fahrenheit 9/11
I’m going to do my own take on Fahrenheit 9/11 over the weekend. In the meantime one reader – Justice Marcus Einfeld sent this short comment in to me.
Fahrenheit 9/11 has flaws but its basic message is powerful testimony to the grave sins which governments the world over are committing against their own and other countries’ peoples. Taken together with the recent fully researched books by Bob Woodward, John Dean and others, and the inquiries of the US Congress, Lords Hutton and Butler in the UK, and Phillip Flood in Australia, our system of government is being revealed as corrupted by a greed for power, wealth and influence little different to those we so strongly criticise in others.
In the process it is purveying, through a cowed, unquestioning even fellow travelling media, a litany of lies and half truths and distorting the great trust which we in democracies place in our leaders.
Everything went wrong over Iraq, they all say, but no one is to blame. We went to war in the wrong country for the wrong reasons and in the process killed or generated the killing of thousands of the very people we were supposed to be trying to protect. But no one needs to answer for it. At least our leaders got the first 3 letters of the relevant country right!!!
Moore’s film shows that we have made remarkably little progress from the propaganda methods employed by much hated earlier regimes of government which made an art form of brainwashing their peoples into accepting as true what was in fact falsehood and prevarication.
Moore himself uses some of the same technique. He thus demonstrates that “terrorism of the mind” by the state and media may be as powerful a weapon against our freedom as the “War on the Abstract Noun” in the cause of which there appear few limits to which those with access to power will go.
July 28, 2004 | Graham
National characteristics trump technology and truth.
Well, as far as I know, if you live in Australia you probably read about it first here on this blog. It took next off the block, the AFR, another 4 days to report it here. I’ve yet to see any other Australian news media cover it at all, but I don’t spend all my time reading, so I could have missed something. I’m talking about the move of Skype into landline telephony.
When the Fin did cover it the major financial context was missing – no mention of its potential effect on Telstra – and it was syndicated from the Wall Street Journal – hardly original content.
Which made me wonder just how much of an effect the Internet really is having in, and on, Australia. The ’net potentially empowers we Antipodeans by putting us as close to the centre of the world, wherever that is located, as just about anyone else. Isolation and isolationism have long been defining national characteristics, and the ’net should sweep both away. So far, it hasn’t, suggesting that national characteristics trump technology everytime.
It also opens up a new digitally enabled divide. When I speak to a particular stockbroker friend who has lived or worked overseas, he is as likely as not to direct me to an overseas news source for investment information, because the domestic sources just don’t cut it. There are those of us who read hardcopy, and then there are those of us who read on the ‘net. The first group are lagging behind.
It’s not just investment news where domestic media no longer cut it. Overseas news is another area. Frustration with the “bombs and coffins” local coverage of Iraq events led On Line Opinion to seek out real Iraqis living through the current transition to provide coverage.
Yet overseas news sources are full of nuanced, in-depth coverage of the real situation. I’m claiming another first for this site, even if it is sort of “syndicated”.
Take this linkfrom the New York Times. Where has the Australian press carried anything about the grass roots caucuses in Iraq to elect 1,000 or so delegates who will attend a national conference in Baghdad next week to elect a 100-seat transnational council? According to the Times this council will have the power to “veto government decisions, approve the 2005 budget and question Dr. Allawi.”
On Line Opinion carried a piece by Colin Ruben, republished from the Fin, which looked at the problems likely to be caused by the US imposed system of proportional representation. But where are the articles examining this part of the electoral process? While the legitimacy of the transitional Government is obviously limited because it was appointed with heavy US influence, the transnational council is an exercise in democratic decision making.
Constitutionally it is a model similar to the monarchical precursor to full parliamentary democracy where the parliament had an advisory more than legislative role. The US system retains some of these features with the administration separate from the legislature.
The description of the system for election of delegates is also very similar to what actually occurs in Australian pre-selections held by the major political parties. Small groups meet, the prospective candidates glad-hand around the room, make presentations and take questions. Ballots are filled out on paper and counted openly. I can empathise with Dr Abu-Raghif, one of the candidates for election in Baghdad. Three times I have been through a very similar process to become a preselected Liberal Party candidate.
The conference will be held this Saturday, according to Reuters. Who will cover it here and how timely will they be? Or is it just too far away? We’ll try to keep you up to date.
July 26, 2004 | Jeff Wall
Tony Blair, 10 years on – high praise from an unlikely source.
THE Right Honourable Anthony Charles Lynton Blair last week celebrated 10 years as Leader of the UK Labour Party. To mark the occasion, he has received very high marks on his service as Prime Minister from about as impeccable a source as it would be possible to find.
Lord Bill Deedes is able to judge the Blair premiership from a perspective that is almost certainly unique in the history of England. Better known as W F Deedes, Lord Deedes has written about, worked for, or against, every UK Prime Minister since 1937 – and that makes 15 of them, starting with Neville Chamberlain!
Since 1937, the UK has had some great Prime Ministers – Churchill, Attlee and Thatcher among them.
And where does Lord Deedes rate Tony Blair? In the top four of the 15 he has known. A high mark indeed.
But what makes the mark even more special for Tony Blair is the man who gave it to him.
Lord Deedes is perhaps the finest UK newspaperman of the last fifty years or more. He continues to write with clarity and integrity – 67 years after he became the political corespondent for the “Morning Post” in 1937. He has pointed out that apart from the 15 Prime Ministers who he has written about, he also knew Lloyd George, Ramsay MacDonald and Stanley Baldwin!
But Lord Deedes also has an impeccable Tory pedigree. He was a Tory MP from 1950 to 1970, a Minister in several Tory Governments, and a mentor to Tory Leaders including Margaret Thatcher.
He believes that Tony Blair’s robust leadership and bold sense of mission have made him a winner.
He holds the view that one of the key qualities that make a good Prime Minister is “mental robustness”………..and he says that Tony Blair has it in good measure.
Now Lord Deedes is not uncritical of Tony Blair’s premiership. He says Blair suffers from Harold Wilson’s defect of “trotting out instant and ill-considered solutions to problems which newspapers or colleagues have drawn to his attention”.
But, Lord Deedes says that though he “mistrusts his politics” he puts Tony Blair in the top quarter of those who have occupied No 10 in his time. Not a bad recommendation.
Interestingly, the article by Lord Deedes was written before Tony Blair appointed his closest political friend, Peter Mandelson, to the “plum” job of Britain’s European Commissioner – necessitating another by election. This appointment has caused a predictable media, and community, outcry – led by the left wing of his own party.
Not only will Tony Blair see through the outcry, he and his family will fly out to the Bahamas this week for a three week holiday!
Some will call it arrogance, Lord Deedes calls it “mental robustness”.
Tony Blair also shows absolutely no signs of leaving the political scene, much to the angst of his Chancellor, Gordon Brown, not to mention the Labour left wing.
Why should be consider quitting? The latest opinion polls point to a very divided electorate, but every poll I have seen also comes to one other conclusion – the Tories simply cannot win the next election. Labour might be forced to depend on the Liberal/Democrats to win a third term…….but the higher the Lib/Dem vote gets, then the weaker the Tory position becomes.
As an observer of UK politics from a great distance, I have come to admire Tony Blair’s toughness under great pressure, and the fact that his Government, unlike conservative regimes here and in the US, has had the courage to make the really hard decisions when it comes to issues like education reform and even law and order, and stick with them.
There is a view, of course, that his close alliance with George W Bush is one of convenience – and on the decline.
I think not. During the long walk down the aisle of the National Cathedral in Washington during Ronald Reagan’s State Funeral, George and Laura Bush walked past the whole of the Congress, Cabinets past and present, World leaders, and the elite of US society.
Laura Bush stopped to acknowledge just one person – Tony Blair. You don’t do that if your association is a phoney one, or on the decline!
Tony Blair has been through tough times. I think he will be around for a long time to come.
July 24, 2004 | Unknown
A Weapon of War
Earlier this year the world was, if sometimes pruriently, appalled at the sexualised violence inflicted on male inmates by female soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
Garnering less attention, but creating more victims, has been the systematic sexual assault of Sudanese women and girls as part of a strategy to capture Darfur, an area containing much needed resources such as water.
The Australian recently referred to an Amnesty International report which informed that, “Sudanese Arab militiamen were raping women and young girls in a violent campaign intended to drive black Africans from the troubled western region…”
The rape of females from a hostile and/or endangered population has long been an aspect of combat and terrorist actions. In Claudia Card’s paper, Rape as a Weapon of War, Vietnamese, Pakistani, Native American and Rwandan women are acknowledged as some of those who have suffered thus.
At the end of 2003, news24.com discussed those in the Democratic Republic of Congo, some as young as four, who had been similarly attacked, with the prevalent notion that “sex with young virgins cures AIDS” doubtlessly used as a rationale for some violators of infants.
The ‘success’ of rape as a method to force a people from a specific location appears to depend on perpetrators and persecuted adhering to rigid and rudimentary patriarchal structures and beliefs.
That is, for example, one side thinks sexual abuse is a legitimate weapon since females have no rights and the other considers rape only inasmuch as it diminishes them as men and ‘stains’ women.
While “martial rape” unites the first group, the latter is compelled to flee, is weakened as a combatant force and allows the basic unit of their society to disintegrate because they usually won’t let victimised females back into their lives.
As Card argues, “why women are targeted today has more to do with….cross-cultural symbolic meaning among men in patriarchies of rape as dominance – dominance not simply over women but in war even more importantly over other men who are assumed to take pride in being protectors of women”.
An article in The Age on 29 May 2004 hinted at a noteworthy by-product of men’s absence or desire not to communicate about rape, as women such as seventeen year old Radiya, who typically would be unseen and not heard from, talked about their experiences after trekking extraordinary distances in desperate conditions to obtain help.
One place they ended up is Chad, where approximately a fifth of Darfur’s one million displaced are to be found.
That around a third of Rwanda’s rape victims (April 1994 – April 1995) ended assault induced pregnancies could be cited as evidence these women have the capacity to rebel within their heavily restricted lives, even though it was most likely understood as a survival mechanism.
By aborting they negated any chance attempts at “genetic imperialism” or genocide by birth would be realised.
Although Card veers into the eccentric when proffering tactics to eliminate “martial rape”, proposing that “the long-range goal would be to terminate both domestic and international protection rackets and thereby change the symbolic meaning of rape at the same time as that of female” is a worthy and hopefully (eventually) attainable aim.
July 22, 2004 | Graham
Democrats invite pleb pundits aka bloggers inside
It won’t happen this election season in Australia, but bloggers are joining the mainstream in the US. According to Wired News in this story “Blogging against Convention” the Democrats have invited 35 bloggers in to cover their convention. The Dems even have their own official blogger, Eric Schnure.
Amongst those invited one, “Wonkette”, otherwise known as Ana Marie Cox is cross-dressing as AAP’s on air reporter.
This marks the mainstreaming of the Internet into politics. The US Democrats have been more adept at using websites in this election cycle starting with Moveon.org, and the various Howard Dean blogs, like Dean for America than the Republicans.
Political blogging in the US is gigabits ahead of Australia. One of the few doing anything with blogs is Malcolm Turnbull who is running one from his Turnbull for Wentworth. It has a particularly competitive constituent mention per paragraph ratio of around 1:2 and the headlines are well-written, perhaps reflecting the fact that Turnbull is in fact a mainstream journalist making the seachange move to the iconclastic waves of blogdom. (BTW, heard a revealing line from the Turnbull/King preselection stoush. Apparently Peter King’s supporters were saying that while King might not have set Wentworth alight, Turnbull will probably burn it down. Boom Boom.)
Of course, On Line Opinion is up with the best in the world. We will be covering the federal election via blog, as we did the Queensland state election and just so we have a broad coverage, we’re looking for some extra bloggers to add their input. If you’re interested, just drop me a line. I’m particularly interested in party operators who might be prepared to give us a jaundiced and opinionated take on the machinations of the day, although you’ll have to use your own name.
July 22, 2004 | Graham
Two good reasons for investors and governments to sell Telstra
I’m not monomaniacal about it, and I think it’s bad politics, but the government should sell Telstra,and Mark Latham should agree to it. Every day the case for doing so gets stronger and stronger, as two recent pieces of evidence show.
The first piece of evidence is contained in the Australian Communications Authority March Quarter Telecommunications Performance Monitoring Bulletin . If you don’t feel like reading the report you can read the press release .
I wouldn’t recommend reading the news media on it because they all basically get it wrong. To check this assertion, read The Age or the SMH . Both Fairfax newspapers (and News, but their links die after this period of time) run the line that “Telephone companies were increasingly using bad weather as an excuse for failing to meet fault repair and line connection time targets….” (Age). The report doesn’t say that on my reading. What it does say is that performance deteriorated over the previous period because of bad weather. However, the report also says that the performance is pretty similar to the same period last year when presumably the weather was much the same. So the newspaper headlines are beat-ups – on Telstra more than Optus.
What is interesting is that none of the Telcos meet the government’s Customer Service Guarantee (CSG) Standard timeframes. Surely the question ought to be why they never have in any quarter to date, not whether it was a problem with the weather? Another question ought to be why privately owned Optus does better than publicly owned Telstra.
Predictably the anti-privatisation lobby used this report to call for abandonment of privitasation plans. In fact, the evidence points in the opposite direction. If Telstra, which is still in public hands, can’t meet the standards, and performs less well than the privately owned companies, then it is obvious that the public ownership experiment has failed.
No doubt that is why Australia is one of the few countries in the world to still have a publicly owned telecommuncations carrier.
The other piece of evidence can be found on this website – www.skype.com.
Telstra has abandoned its grandiose cross-media convergence based plans to concentrate on being a simple, well-managed utility providing telephony services. The theory is that this should provide a steady, if unexciting, income stream to investors who will reward the company by pushing its share price up. Returns could also be enhanced by some fancy financial engineering, aka gearing. All of this is predicated on the assumption that Telstra can continue to gouge the consumer on telephony costs because of its near monopoly on the infrastructure.
Skype should make Telstra, investors, financiers, politicians and voters think again. It offers telephone calls via your internet connected computer for 2c per minute to anywhere in the world. If you are talking to someone else also on a computer, it can be less than that. In fact it can be free (apart from your internet costs). Not only that, but if you and your contact have webcams you can see the person you are talking to as well, something you can’t do on a normal handset.
What the combination of Voice over Internet Protocols (VoIP) and Peer to Peer (P2P) connections offer is a radically cheaper and better way of long-distance verbal communication where Telstra’s domestic monopoly is exposed to competition from the cheapest pipes on the globe. With a significant percentage of Telstra’s business being telephony, and a premium attaching to long distance and international calls, Skype, and other products like it, mean that rather than Telstra having access to a utility stream of profits which will increase in line with GDP, it is sitting on a gold mine that is rapidly running down.
It’s time for the government to get out of our investment now, so that it can redirect the funds to infrastructure and social services before the market realises that Telstra is a wasting, rather than appreciating, asset and Mark Latham should be on board.
It would represent a once in a political lifetime bonanza to fund a number of worthwhile projects without resorting to debt, a la Liverpool City Council.
July 21, 2004 | Graham
Minoritarianism
Consider this – a mild-mannered Australian newspaper editor with a slight US accent says that Palestinians are “vicious thugs” and “cannot be trusted”, and his employer, the Fairfax Group, is found guilty of inciting racial hatred and fined. Two nights ago ABC Four Corners showed a programme on Mamdouh Habib, one of two Australians held by the US government at Guantanamo Bay. In it they showed excerpts from a taped sermon from a Lakemba prayer room that contained the words “the Zionist – those pigs – the Zionist-American domination in every corner of this earth?” The tape is for sale in NSW. Will the sellers, publishers or authors of the tape be sued? I doubt it.
In a recent On Line Opinion article , Amir Butler explained why he had changed his mind on the need for anti-villification legislation. I have never been a fan. Punishing hate speech doesn’t stop it, just drives it underground. ASIO and the NSW Police are apparently aware of the activities of the prayer room, but presumably doing something about it using hate speech laws would cause more trouble than leaving it alone.
For one thing, it would probably attract more of the sappy sort of “analysis” that Four Corners brought to bear on the Habib case Monday night. It was an interesting study in minority rights sensitivities. The Habib story was told almost entirely from the point of view of friendly witnesses. There was his wife Maha, there was his taxi-driving celtic-Australian Moslem convert friend Ibrahim Fraser, and there were two Moslem clerics – Sheik Taj Al-din Al-Hilaly and Sheik Abu Ayman.
Habib, according to the programme, has a long history of associating with people accused of being terrorists, two of whom were convicted in connection with the World Trade Centre bombing. The clerics have a long history of advocating Jihad, and one of them runs a prayer room which he admits is used by some as a recruiting ground for Jihadists. Habib has apparently twice been to training camps run by Al-Qaeda or Al-Qaeda associated terrorist groups and was arrested in Pakistan while returning from the second one.
Things that grated about the programme include the description of Al-Hilaly as having moderated his views. The proof? In 1988 he said “The Jews try to control the world through sex, then sexual perversion, then the promotion of espionage, treachery and economic hoarding.” But, about the 9/11 attack he said recently that it was “God’s work against oppressors.” Some moderation.
Habib was portrayed as a lost soul. The clerics were the mouth-piece for this argument and were treated as credible witnesses. As other evidence in the programme suggested that Abu Ayman is involved in recruiting for Jihad he has a motive for suggesting that:
… I was really shocked [about Habib’s internment in Camp X-Ray], because the assessment of the Government should be better than anyone else. They know he’s a disturbed man, they know his background. He never did a real threat or a real problem for the Government or for outsiders. But the Government didn’t do anything to let the American understand “This is not the right man in your hand. He is not what he claims he is.” He is a disturbed man. He doesn’t deserve that punishment for his big mouth.
The programme left you in no doubt that this was Four Corner’s view as well – these were afterall the final words in the programme.
Al-Hilaly also inferred that Habib was paranoid because he thought people were watching him. If ASIO had knocked on my door frequently over the last few years and I was in contact with people with associations with known terrorist organisations, I might think people were watching me too, but it wouldn’t be because I was paranoid! This charge of paranoia was left to hang in the air seemingly as part of the proof that Habib is harmless and just a bit disturbed.
Another thing that grated was the use of the adjective “so-called” by the interviewer to qualify the term “War against Terror”. It’s adjectives like this that see the ABC accused of bias. Both Mark Latham and John Howard see no need to qualify it, why does Aunty?
Now, let’s conduct a thought experiment using the mix of criminally accused, family, friends and clerics, but this time, let’s assume that the accusation is involvement in a paedophile ring rather than conspiracy to kill and maim innocent people through terrorism and that the clerics are Anglican or Roman Bishops and Archbishops. One of them might even be retired and hold the highest office in the land, say that of Governor-General.
Need I go any further? What sort of story would Four Corners do in that situation? A nice soft one, or would the people concerned be damned without a trial? I’m sure you get my point.
We’ve worked ourselves into such a sweat about treating everyone equally that members of the majority, even be they publishers of national newspapers or establishment religious leaders, often find themselves treated the way we used to treat minorities. At the same time we refrain in some cases from using laws alleged to enforce tolerance because not only will they be ineffective, they might even bring sympathy to the perpetrator.
It’s the feeling of many that they are strangers in their own land which delivered Howard his winning constituencies in 1996 and again in 2001. Looks like Four Corners is doing its bit for Howard in 2004.
July 20, 2004 | Graham
Another poll, another beat-up.
I woke this morning to the ABC Radio telling me that “Labor has hung-on to a slim election winning lead, but voter satisfaction with leader Mark Latham’s performance has slipped.” This was a pretty trashy take, even on the basis of the figures that the ABC quoted.
There are three polls covering mid-July and on two-party preferred voting intentions they are all within the margin of statistical error. Morgan has Labor on 54%, AC Nielsen 52% and Newspoll 51%. This is not “a slim election winning lead”. The combination of the three polls represents a huge sample. Averaging them out points to as solid a result by Latham as Howard achieved at the last election. Not that Howard can’t win, because of course these samples are nationwide and can’t tell us what is happening in the marginal seats.
What is most interesting is what is happening within the overall figures, and here there appears to be some divergence. AC Nielsen shows a strong deterioration in the ALP Primary vote which is matched by a surge in the primary vote for the Coalition. The publicly available AC Nielsen figures don’t show whether that is likely to be a straight swap, or whether it is a result of the ALP losing support to third parties.
Apparently some of it is due to a deterioration in Labor’s standing with older voters. I suspect that what is happening is that as voters look more closely at Latham some are moving to independents with their first preference vote, but still coming back with their second or later preference vote. Other demographics are probably just swirling around and substituting for each other – you lose older voters but pick up somewhere else.
Latham’s approval rating, according to Newspoll and Nielsen, is dropping, although still very healthy at around 50%. The move in party and personal ratings could be derived from the same thing – voters who were looking for something radically different from Latham are coming to understand that while he may use different language, he is an enthusiastic proponent of the economic and social orthodoxy espoused by both major political parties.
So there could be something ironic about The Australian’s headline “Labor gets no kick out of Kim”. If I am right about this dynamic, then elevating Beazley to the Ministry will exacerbate the first preference trend away from Labor because it is a sign that business is continuing as usual and the punters have been punted. It’s a bit early for it to show up in the polling, but the kick might have come – in the pants.
Another interesting straw from the Nielsen research is that support for the Iraq War is rising. This may be tending to soften Labor’s vote as well. At the moment Labor is making a major tactical mistake by spending so much time on the Iraq War. Whatever the rights and wrongs, it is Howard’s issue. Talking about it fixes voters’ minds on International Affairs, Defence and Security where Howard is perceived to be the best to deal with the issues. An improved impression of the War in Iraq would most likely heighten those perceptions.
Of all the polling figures, the most significant is Morgan’s showing that 54% of Australians expect Howard to win, while only 32% expect Latham to do so. Latham will maintain his winning margin if he can leverage off that perception and ensure that voters focus on Howard’s record rather than Latham’s promises. While the ABC story was not good reporting, it helps to confirm perceptions that Howard will win, and is indicative of a wider mood amongst journalists. It’s reminiscent of 1996 where, despite all the evidence to the contrary, voters thought that Paul Keating was going to hang on – it made his demise even more certain.
July 20, 2004 | Jeff Wall
John Laws takes on the big end of town – a spectacle not to be missed.
IN recent days John Laws has demonstrated two things. Firstly, he has not entirely lost his enthusiasm for radio after 51 years, and, secondly, talkback radio remains a powerful political medium.
It’s been compelling listening as John Laws has taken on the NSW Labor Government, and the far too influential shopping centre giant, Westfield.
His cause has been the jobs of 450 workers, and the future of 62 small businesses, at the Orange Grove outlet centre at Liverpool in Sydney’s west that are at risk following court action by Westfield to effectively close the centre down.
John Laws is normally well disposed towards Bob Carr, but in recent days he has given the NSW Premier, and a couple of his Ministers, a real hammering. He has given Mark Latham a spray for good measure.
And his listeners have lapped it up. There have been mums and dads, and young girls who work at Orange Grove, ringing up in tears appealing for their jobs and small businesses to be saved.
Yesterday he had Orange Grove developer, Nabil Gazal, on after Premier Carr had described Mr Gazal as “a known associate of former Fairfield councillor, Phuong Canh Ngo”. That’s akin to be named as a “known associate” of Saddam Hussein. Ngo is serving a life sentence for the murder of NSW State Labor MP, John Newman.
Whoever advised Bob Carr to link Gazal with Phuong Ngo should be sent on extended “gardening leave” for, as Laws gladly pointed out, Phuong Ngo was “a known associate” of Labor Party Members – and a Labor Party activist himself.
But it got worse. Gazal was even happier to point out that he had been introduced to Phuong Ngo by Carr Government Minister, Reba Meagher, and Labor Party faction heavy and MP, Joe Tripodi. Ouch!
The Carr Government has handled this one appallingly………..and has allowed itself to be seen to be doing Westfield’s bidding.
And Laws has taken Westfield and the Government to the cleaners in a forensic and generally libellous dismantling of its refusal to prevent Orange Grove closing down as a result of Westfield’s court victory.
The issues are complex, and not really relevant to the point I want to make……but it would suffice to say that Liverpool Council (once headed by Mark Latham) gave approval for the Orange Grove outlet centre, but that was overturned by the Land and Environment Court after the centre had already opened.
Law’s main complaint is that the Carr Government has rejected Liverpool Council’s plan to rezone the Orange Grove land to enable the outlet to remain open.
There is some irony in this position, as Orange Grove was officially opened late last year by – wait for it – the NSW State Planning Minister, Craig Knowles! His Assistant Minister, Diane Beamer, is in the firing line good and proper, and her refusal to go on radio and defend the Government’s position has enraged Laws, and made the Government’s position look very sick.
(Diane Beamer would seem to be Bob Carr’s equivalent of John Howard’s hopeless Veterans Affairs Minister, Dana Vale).
The “Daily Telegraph” columnist, Piers Akerman, has sided with Westfield, and has tried to drag Mark Latham onto centre stage, with limited success. The original Orange Grove application goes back to the early 1990’s and over the weekend he claimed that Mark Latham was Mayor when the original application was refused by the Liverpool Council. Wrong – as Akerman gingerly pointed out in today’s “Telegraph”.
But John Laws has been far more effective in dragging Mark Latham into the action, and, once again, Latham’s media advisors have let him down rather badly.
By not taking sides on the future of Orange Grove, Latham has left himself open to the claim that he is backing the big end of town against small business and the workers.
One of his backbenchers, Julia Irwin, the MP for Fowler, has been much smarter, She has been on John Laws program twice in recent days giving her full backing to Orange Grove, its tenants and workers – and her voters who shop there!
Laws has been at his cutting best for the best part of a week. The Carr Government has been made to look mean spirited, and, to put it bluntly, very sus!
Yesterday we saw the partial back down.
Minister Beamer said the Government would allow the outlet to stay open if it reverted to its lawful use as a “bulky goods” outlet. That will be cold comfort for small business.
I doubt John Laws, or Orange Grove, or the traders and staff, will be satisfied. Small businesses will still close, and jobs will be lost.
The standing of the NSW Labor Government in its heartland has taken a real battering. Mark Latham runs the risk of being hit by some of the fallout.
The biggest losers will be Westfield, who have been portrayed as heavy handed, mean spirited and good at calling in political favours.
They might be getting used to that claim. If I was advising Westfield, I would be counselling the Company that it needs to urgently review its whole approach to competitors, and to small business – including its own tenants.
The day will come when a section of the media will delve very deeply into Westfield’s deals, and how it deals with its tenants.
It won’t be a pretty sight!