The push by Bob Brown and Julia Gillard for a parliamentary inquiry into the media is so cynical, manipulative and transparently biased that if we really were as evil as they believe we’d congratulate them both for joining the dark side.
Both leaders are seeking to establish a connection in the public’s mind between the obscene and illegal practices exposed in the UK and perfectly conventional and legitimate journalism and commentary in Australia with which they just happen to disagree.
It is extraordinary both how blatantly they have hijacked the issue and how seamlessly the more naïve and ideological sections of the community have followed them to this at best offensive and at worst dangerous illogicality.
The UK phone tapping scandal is about a British newspaper or newspapers engaging in illegal activity against ordinary citizens, most disgracefully, in some cases, the victims of crime.
This is now being used as justification by the Prime Minister and Senator Brown for a parliamentary inquiry into the local media. But why?
Do they have any evidence of phone tapping here? No.
Do they have any evidence of illegal activity here? No.
Do they even accuse reporters of behaving in a dishonest fashion or employing dishonest practices to obtain information here? No.
Yet still Brown wants an inquiry into media practices and ethics here.
That, it appears, is Australian journalists’ reward for not engaging in dirty and unscrupulous practices and generally being fairly decent types: A McCarthy-esque fishing expedition based on not a shred of evidence. Not even an allegation.
This absurd logic is the equivalent of police officers walking up to random people in the street and forcing them to prove they are not criminals.
And how will it work? Will rumpled press gallery scribes be dragged from their beds to testify which politicians they were drinking with the night before? Who said what? What was on or off the record? Will they have to give up sources? Expose whistleblowers? Will they, as Senator Joe encouraged so enthusiastically in the 50s, have to name names?
And of course media ownership will be scrutinised. And why is that again?
Were the dodgy practices engaged at News of the World caused by concentration of media ownership? Er, no.
In fact the running theory as to why such dirty tricks were employed is that competition in the UK newspaper market is so fierce and so cutthroat that papers would resort to anything to get the edge on their rivals – even those in the same stable.
So no, it’s not that there’s any indication of dodgy behaviour or that media ownership has caused dodgy behaviour, so what is it? Why are we having this inquiry again?
Well gosh, no one can really say. But there might be a teeny-weeny clue in the fact that Brown describes the Murdoch press as “hate media” and that Gillard this week told the press gallery: “Don’t write crap.”
Now it’s one thing for a politician to point to a news report or editorial or opinion piece and say “that is crap” and tell the world why, but it’s a tad chilling when a Prime Minister instructs reporters not to “write crap” in the middle of a debate about a new regulatory framework to govern the media. Who’s going to enforce that edict? The Ministry of Truth?
At least Gillard’s statement confirms what is shriekingly obvious: that this inquiry has nothing to do with the illegal or unethical behaviour of journalists and is all about an unpopular Government trying to stem criticism from a free press.
That alone should be enough to make citizens recoil from this absurd proposition and in a perfect world this piece would end there, but let’s indulge the Brown-Gillard position even further.
Perhaps this “free” press is in fact malevolent and evil? Unfair and unbalanced? Surely News Ltd is just a right-wing juggernaut determined to annihilate progressive Governments the world over? Surely News Ltd is a climate change-denying behemoth hellbent on destroying the emissions trading scheme?
What historical revisionism.
The Australian and The Daily Telegraph both openly endorsed Labor at the 2007 election, at which Kevin Rudd campaigned overwhelmingly on a platform of action against climate change.
Not only that, News Ltd itself is a 100 per cent carbon neutral company, having already reduced or offset all its emissions in just three years.
In fact, as is well known to all in politics and the media, the halcyon days of the Labor Government ended because Rudd abandoned the emissions trading scheme at the urging of Gillard and others.
After Rudd plummeted in the polls for taking this woeful advice, the same people who advised him then knifed him in an unprecedented palace coup that was shocking to and deeply unpopular with the public and remains so to this day.
Following the assassination, Gillard then embarked upon what Labor powerbroker Graham Richardson – possibly the nation’s top political strategist – called “the worst campaign in history”.
During that time she unequivocally vowed that there would be no carbon tax under any government she led.
After the woeful campaign resulted in a hung parliament, Gillard reneged on her promise in order to win the support of the Greens and enable her to form government.
Since then, that deception and a string of policy failures – most notably asylum seekers (remember the East Timor solution?) and lately live cattle exports (not enough action when it was needed and then too much action when it wasn’t) – have left Labor at record low standing, with barely a quarter of voters supporting the party.
And yet the PM claims – or at least deliberately implies – that her unpopularity is due to an overly critical press.
The argument here, apparently, is that a Government which has driven itself into uncharted depths of antipathy in the public’s view, should still be treated generously by the newspapers, even though their readers and the electorate are overwhelmingly opposed to it. Perhaps that is one of the rules that will be enforced by the media’s new governing body.
The truth – and perhaps it is a sad truth – is that there is no conspiracy. After enormously promising beginnings, this Government has been nothing short of a disaster and the media – the News Ltd media at least – has reflected both the ups and the downs. It is telling that no one was calling for a media inquiry in 2007 and 2008 when Kevin Rudd was riding high but now that the Government’s copping a drubbing it wants to investigate editorial ethics.
And perhaps the biggest irony of all is that one of the reasons Gillard was installed as leader was because she was considered to be such a good communicator and media performer. Now that she’s fallen short, again the media is to blame.
The spectacular implosion and then decline of the ALP Government is many things: tragic, disastrous and – for any genuine Labor supporter – simply heartbreaking. But it is not the media’s fault, it is squarely its own.
Shooting the messenger is as easy as it is lazy and cowardly. If the Government wants better media coverage it shouldn’t be looking towards regulation, it should look towards the harder and braver task of enacting and making the case for policies that connect with both the electorate and Labor’s own values, instead of the panicked and ever-changing grab-bag of ideas nicked from the Coalition (offshore processing) and the Greens (carbon tax).
The PM also needs to get some serious and urgent advice on how to handle both the public and the media so as to avoid PR Titanics ranging from “the real Julia” to this week’s excruciatingly awkward exchange with the “Why did you lie to us?” woman.
Governments can usually get by on good policy or good spin; the best have both, this one has neither. Using the appalling behaviour of UK tabloids as an excuse to pursue a political agenda against the Australian press is just more proof of that.
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