Wednesday 27th of November 2024

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Ruddquake: That's not a meltdown. This is a meltdown

Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes:

ABC, KEVIN RUDD

I missed The 7.30 Report last night and was all excited to later learn that there had been some sort of prime ministerial meltdown, a Ruddquake of anger at Kerry O'Brien, so I eagerly clicked over to the ABC website to watch. And watch, and watch, and watch, and apart from the crack about "7.30 Report land" from an obviously annoyed Rudd, I didn't see anything. As late as this morning the ABC was insisting it was a "fiery exchange".

Meltdown? Fiery exchange? What, have you lot gone soft or something? If you want meltdowns, go watch a few old Richard Carleton interviews -- back before he had his credibility removed tick by tick at 60 Minutes. Watch his "blood on your hands" interview with Bob Hawke, which kicked off the 1983 election campaign, where it's impossible to know what's more bizarre, Hawke's yellow jacket or his visceral reaction to Carleton.

In fact, it was reassuring to see the normally bloodless Rudd, who treats interviews as opportunities to recite his talking points regardless of any actual question he is asked, getting animated about something, suggesting some faint trace of his humanity remains beneath that cold cyborg shell. He needs some sort of circuit breaker given his performance in recent weeks. His exasperation might have been in part prompted by the fact that, having gone on The 7.30 Report the day after the Budget, he wasn't asked a single question about it. "I'll get to the Budget shortly," O'Brien assured him halfway through, but we never quite got there, because O'Brien was more interested in revisiting the CPRS and spruiking Rio Tinto's hysterical campaign against the RSPT, something the ABC seems to have been quite keen to do.

Incidentally, despite the ABC's claim that an "axe hangs over Rio projects", you'll still look in vain for any such advice from Rio to its investors. The most recent ASX announcement from Rio is a week old. The big mining companies might continue to be guilty of lying about the impact of the RSPT and telling the media one thing and investors another, but the media is culpable here as well, failing to undertake the most basic reality check on any claims advanced by patently self-interested parties.

The ABC also did some nice work on The 7.30 Report transcript of the Rudd interview. It left in every single "um" and "ah" from the Prime Minister. It renders even a bloke who talks not merely in paragraphs but in pages or Proustian density hopelessly inarticulate. "Well, um, as I said before, Kerry, um, some of the large mining companies and some other companies are going to say all sorts of things as we sort out, um, the detail of this. But, um, again... Ah, Kerry, ah if, um, you'd come down the Queensland coast with me and the New South Wales coast to practically all the major centres, um, in those, ah, regions ..."

O'Brien's questions remain blissfully free of any verbal hiccups.

Funny that because they're all normally omitted from the ABC transcript. When Rudd spoke to O'Brien after the COAG health summit, there was nary an "um" or "ah" in sight. When O'Brien interviewed Tony Abbott in April, they were all left out. Abbott's a very good, authentic-sounding public speaker but terribly prone to half-stutters and ums and ahhs, and if you left all of those in a transcript it'd go for dozens of pages.

The ABC wouldn't have decided to leave them in just to fit the "Rudd meltdown" theme would they?

 

An Election that highlights abuse of MSM power.

I remember the media persecution of Gough Whitlam and his Wife in 1975 - it was relentless and so obviously untrue or exaggerated that supporters of the "Lucky Country" should have seen through it.

The attacks on our "occa" dinkum Aus, Mark Latham was so personal and so orchestrated that it even followed him and his family AFTER he had retired from politics. Gross abuse of decensy and unnecessary.

Shortly after Abbott's accidental "election" as leader of the Coalition rabble, the Mad Monk had a very interesting meeting with Rupert Murdoch.  A more confident and outspoken Abbott emerged with the surprising claim that "he and his party" would give Kevin Rudd "the fight of his life".

At the time IMHO, very few would have taken this statement seriously, given that it was coming from a person who has a habit of not knowing what he is talking about. This is the ex-health Minister of the Rattus "New Order" who ripped a total of $1 billion dollars out of health spending.  This was the same Minister who made the infamous "rock solid and iron clad" promise on the safety net.

Since his "elevation" to the dizzy heights, he has contradicted or diametrically changed his opinions on almost everything.

Now, with the help of a Murdochracy which seems to live by paraphrasing the famous crap of Howard in that "we will decide who governs this country and the methods by which they will govern".

To encapsulate - can any fair dinkum Australian understand what it means to be hunted; misquoted; persecuted and generally lampooned by the National Media?  The obvious bias of the ABC in all of its various presentations is a disgrace to the thought of it being the "people's voice".

It is supposedly even-thinking since it is paid for by our taxes but - ever since the Howard "New Order" changed the controlling body, the stigma of bias has been established - and continues with Barry Cassidy and Fran Kelly et al.

Now we may have a slight turnaround in the MSM, not for any thought of fairness or truth, but to create a situation where "bad news" sells newspapers but, there is a limit.

Have "they" realized that they have gone too far and need to back off - for profit and credibility reasons?

I enjoyed the article by Bernard Keane very much.  Fair and balanced.

God Bless Australia and force the Corporations to accept good government and to err is human (as they should well know).  NE OUBLIE.

 

 

Think, reason and be logical.

When Kevin Rudd became leader of the Labor Opposition, the Howard "New Order" government's Corporation media sieved through his entire life with the express purpose of making him a lame duck.

Many accusations were made, even against his Mother, who had kept her family together after the loss of her Husband.  When I look back, I was very offended as an Australian, that a foreign owned media Corporation would have the gall to attack the Opposition leader in the most typical Conservative methods which are better left in their gutter.

The Opposition has no power I wrote - why would you attack them when what they say or try to do is merely a future hope? They do not control the House of Representatives nor the Senate and as a matter of fact, I suggested at that time that the Labor Party were less likely to abuse power because they didn't control the Senate.

As it turned out, we thankfully got rid of Howard and some of his "New Order" jackboots.

Now we have a government which Lindsay Tanner rightly said had an extended honeymoon due to the Rudd Government's positive action on Stimulus which avoided the recession for ALL Australians and is the envy of all Treasurers in the advanced economies.

This is true.  Think of it - the Liberals wanted to stop the stimulus as did some other nervous nellies in other economies - the result was the opposite of the Conservative's platform of "do nothing" and we are the beneficiaries of that courageous and positive action.

The Abbott mob have tried to discredit Kevin Rudd in every conceivable way - including trying to deny him and his party the kudos for protecting the Australian working families from a nasty recession.

When Kevin Rudd was receiving media exposure for his determined attitude of meeting with the Australian people personally - and it was resonating with ordinary Australians - they claimed that he was the biggest camera exposed politician - not the mincing poodle of the Liberal front bench?

If he had not been constrained to do so by his own policies when he was elected - the Corporation's representatives would have claimed that he was too aloof to be a people's Prime Minister.

However, in the situation we Australians find ourselves in, we have a tried and true government whose reform legislations have been completely blocked by the Conservatives and their Green co-conspirators.

The tragic and un-Australian foreign media campaign can only be described as unwarranted interference in the domestic politics of the Australian people and does any mildly educated person sincerely deny that?

We have become a more and more multi-cultural society and I believe that the Rudd government has treated the asylum seekers with more compassion than did Howard in his infamous decision to stop our Navy from saving 365 of these people from drowning.  The infamous SIVEX - remember?

The irony is that the people who want more for the desperate Afghans etc., are against Rudd and are willingly or not supporting the foreign media Corporation's campaign against any sign of humanity.

How must Rudd himself feel personally?  I believe that this person is fair dinkum and I will trust him and his excellent front bench against any conservative opportunist like Abbott, Dutton and Hockey.

Indeed, we have a choice which, by Abbott's own negative policies has confirmed, this election is between the Corporation interests of foreigners, media or business, and the Australian people and their interests.

Deep down, with all of the dishonest media claims - this is possibly the last chance that Australians can "Take back our country and its assets" - at least in a fair way - and isn't that the shame about the entire policies of the Rudd Labor government? To conciliate and mediate with all stakeholders?

If we continue to slide down the scale of independence, our future generations, even the young girl who challenged Rudd's veracity - will have lost forever the right to have a say in their future.

God Bless Australia and may our people objectively consider the policies of the Rudd Labor Government and - on a business basis - compare the success rate with the failures.  NE OUBLIE.