from politicoz ….

Today is the last parliamentary sitting day of the year. The government will take the first legislative step towards a National Disability Insurance scheme, and will be pushing its (watered down) pokies reform bill. Yesterday it introduced the legislative framework for its Gonski-related education reforms, and its Murray-Darling water reform bill is before the Senate.

Meanwhile the Opposition and much of the political media is consumed by whether or not Julia Gillard sent a letter to a WA government department 20 years ago, asserting that the Workplace Reform Association wasn't a trade union. 

Because it wasn't a trade union.

Rarely – in the face of such ambitious policy reform, and so much to interrogate – has the national political discourse been hijacked to such a degree over accusations as inane as these.

No one covering the story has turned up a material fact to prove that Julia Gillard used AWU money to renovate her house, or that she knew about the misappropriation of union funds from within the AWU, or that she did anything other than what she again told Monday’s press conference. But the story’s viral now. And everyone wants a hit. There’s an ethical problem, not because journalists are choosing not to call this story for what it is, but also because of the fundamental issue of fairness that it illustrates.”