Life, Sundries

Saturday salon 28/6

20 Comments

voltaire_230

An open thread where, at your leisure, you can discuss anything you like, well, within reason and the Comments Policy. Include here news and views, plus any notable personal experiences from the week and the weekend.

For climate topics please use the most recent Climate clippings.

The gentleman in the image is Voltaire, who for a time graced the court of Frederick II of Prussia, known as Frederick the Great. King Fred loved to talk about the universe and everything at the end of a day’s work. He also used the salons of Berlin to get feedback in the development of public policy.

Fred would only talk in French; he regarded German as barbaric. Here we’ll use English.

The thread will be a stoush-free zone. The Comments Policy says:

The aim [of this site] is to provide a venue for people to contribute and to engage in a civil and respectful manner.

I’ve added a few items here in the post which impinged on my consciousness during the week. The main links, if any are in the headings.

1. The ABC will be just fine

Do the highlights of the federal government-commissioned report outlined in the Fairfax Media tabloids, sorry, compacts, this morning really “gut” the ABC, as claimed in the headline? Or are they a mixture of current practice in TV around the world (including Australia) that haven’t been fully explained by selective leaking?

It’s more of the latter. The report, written by former Seven West Media chief financial officer Peter Lewis, could save the ABC a lot of money and deliver it far more production flexibility and control.

On the other hand Quentin Dempster says “It’s what Murdoch wants”.

2. Newspapers underestimate readership

Readership figures released today from Roy Morgan Research reveal the publisher-backed figures from Enhanced Media Metrics Australia (emma) actually undervalue 75% of newspaper brands by a combined shortfall in audience of over 4.8 million.

When compared with Roy Morgan’s ‘last four weeks’ figures, emma’s underestimate the print readership of 11 out of 12 major metro newspapers by up to 43%. When online and app audiences are included, 9 of the 12 masthead brand lose out with emma’s scoring.

Roy Morgan counts the Sydney Morning Herald’s combined print, online and app audience at 5,653,000 in an average month, compared with emma’s March published figure of 5,311,000.

At 4,227,000, Roy Morgan’s total audience for The Age is 875,000 greater than what emma tells Fairfax.

According to emma, the audience for News Corp’s The Australian is 3,213,000, while Roy Morgan’s count is 20% higher at 4,020,000.

But the biggest loser under emma is the Financial Review, which gets a monthly masthead audience of only 1,306,000—a massive 37% below Roy Morgan’s figure of 2,086,000.

3. ALP review: election loss ‘self-inflicted’

Rudd and advisers partly to blame, but the buck stops with the campaign director. This is not about assigning blame, according to Milton Dick, report co-author.

Well we’ve analysed the successful electoral results, particularly in western Sydney, in seats like Greenway, Parramatta, in places like Queensland where we weren’t expected to win any seats, in places like Lilley, Rankin and Moreton where we defied the trends, the one common theme out of those electoral results demonstrated in the evidence was that where those members are continually engaging with the community. If you want continuous campaigning, we going to adopt some of those models and some of those successful strategies, and roll them out.

I’m currently reading Troy Bramston’s book and he pretty much fingers Rudd and Bruce Hawker. Not helped by the fact that HQ was populated by Gillard loyalists.

4. Asylum seekers already in Australia face harder visa rules

The charming Scott Morrison has introduced new rules, including:

  • People arriving without travel documents will be refused protection visas unless they can provide a “reasonable explanation” for not having identification.
  • A lower threshold for assessing harm to returning asylum seekers who have sought complementary protection, where the chance of harm is more than 50%.
  • Asylum seekers who have arrived by boat will be refused visas unless the minister determines “it is in the public interest to allow them to do so”.

Appalling!

20 thoughts on “Saturday salon 28/6”

  1. So the ALP lost the last federal election? That’s hardly surprising in a party that nowadays openly despises its supporters was chucked out. Nor is it surprising that a party that squanders its time, opportunities and efforts having lots of fun brawling with The Other Pack Of Scoundrels rather than giving us good government or effective opposition will never be re-elected so long as the sun continues to rise in the east and set in the west.. The sooner the ALP disbands and allows a genuine progressive and visionary party, one interested in the ordinary citizenry, to emerge in its place.

    I’ve been busy this week, with thousands and thousands of others, trying to find ways of getting the hostages, Peter Greste and his al Jazeera colleagues, freed. If nothing else, please go to http://www.change.com and sign Mahoud Hegazy’s petition – and please bear in mind that many Egyptian journalists are also imprisoned.

  2. So the ALP lost the last federal election? That’s hardly surprising in a party that nowadays openly despises its supporters was chucked out. Nor is it surprising that a party that squanders its time, opportunities and efforts having lots of fun brawling with The Other Pack Of Scoundrels rather than giving us good government or effective opposition will never be re-elected so long as the sun continues to rise in the east and set in the west.. The sooner the ALP disbands and allows a genuine progressive and visionary party, one interested in the ordinary citizenry, to emerge in its place, the better.

    I’ve been busy this week, with thousands and thousands of others, trying to find ways of getting the hostages, Peter Greste and his al Jazeera colleagues, freed. If nothing else, please go to http://www.change.com and sign Mahoud Hegazy’s petition – and please bear in mind that many Egyptian journalists are also imprisoned.

  5. We’ve just seen my beloved sister and her husband off on the long journey back to Toronto after 7 weeks in these parts. Sad, but they’ll be glad to be home.

    In case you didn’t notice I put some possible discussion points in the post this time, in the manner of Climate clippings. Not sure whether I’ll do that regularly, but perhaps as time permits.

  6. Seems Abbott is not really stopping the boats after all, if this craft from southern India is any indication. he can’t send it back to Indonesia because it didn’t come from there. One report I read somewhere said the Government might just let it sink.
    Most intriguing of course is the question how many boats have come soth we haven’t been told about. More Abbott lies?

  7. Amazing what being blinded by hatred makes people say/see/believe.
    A very unhealthy position to be in and so common.
    For all the advancements in medicine we can’t find a cure for hatred.
    Or if we have it’s been made illegal.
    Sad as. 🙁

  9. zoot, all sorts bud.
    Hate’s a form of mental cancer.
    Fear is the cause of most of it I recon.
    If the mood takes me I’ll do a flow chart on it some time.

  10. Glad to agree with you jumpy. Until you draw up that flow chart, this is from “South Pacific”:

    You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear,
    You’ve got to be taught from year to year,
    It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear,
    You’ve got to be carefully taught.

    You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
    Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
    And people whose skin is a diff’rent shade,
    You’ve got to be carefully taught.

    You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,
    Before you are six or seven or eight,
    To hate all the people your relatives hate,
    You’ve got to be carefully taught!

  11. Tony Abbott has asked new senators to respect his government’s mandate. When has the Senate ever respected the “mandate” of the government formed in the House of Reps.

    Surely, the point of the 1975 Constitution Crisis is the Senate has co-equal powers, including supply and other financial questions, with the House of Reps. Secondly, if issues have not been publicly debated and known prior to election, such as the federalism proposals, not to mention outright categorical misrepresentations, such as funding for the ABC or the other austerity budget shocks, does a democratic mandate even exist in general terms?

    Fundamentally, it is a question of truthfulness and trust. Perhaps, the Prime Minister has other values, and if so, he should have been telling us about them.

    Given the non-democratic framing of their election, do Senators, particularly from micro-parties have a mandate? By contrast, the independents in the House of Reps do.

  14. No, no wmmbb @ 11, you’ve got it all wrong …. it’s not a Mandate, it’s a Moneydate.

  16. I don’t know about the rest of you but I vote on the basis of how I expect a party (or leader) to react when something new comes up. It about core beliefs. attitudes and ability to talk sense and work through problems. Election policies have had little effect on how I vote.
    My assessment of the Tea party was that it was the Welfare for the rich and blatant lies party. So why am I not surprised about what has happened since the election. (OK, moment of honesty, I was surprised at how blatant they have been. )

  17. Your assessment was more astute than mine. I believed, and still do to some extent, that the branch members of the Liberal Party adhered to the consensus of the fair go. I had not comprehended the corporate ideology of neoliberalism, along with the dog whistle electioneering had taken over.

    It turns out that parties are more important democratic institutions in a democratic system of government that was generally credited. If they do not robust internal democratic processes they are more susceptible to external control. Should this be true of both major parties, as I suspect, it is not a good prognosis.

    So what can be done?

  18. Bill Shorten has to continue with ALP party reform and democratisation if he’s fair dinkum. The other lot are beyond saving, but minor parties do provide an alternative with preference voting.

    I had an internet outage from about midday Saturday until Sunday morning. Was going to write some posts Sat PM and night, so output will be down.

  19. Part of the problem with the health of political parties is that very few Australians belong to a political party. It makes it easy for crazies like the tea party faction to take over. Even when people do join some parties it is often very difficult for most party members to have any say on what goes on.
    Then there is the toxic influence of money and an ageing press baron who thinks he is the one who should decide who governs Australia.
    It will be interesting to see what impact a Green grassroots party that is increasingly using relatively low cost grassroots campaigning achieves. Both the Adam Bandt and Scott Ludlam campaigns are encouraging.

  20. Bill Shorten has to continue with ALP party reform and democratisation if he’s fair dinkum.

    Being able to cross the floor without expulsion from the party would be a good move.
    But him being all ” I don’t know what she said but I agree 100% “, doesn’t sound promising.
    That said; Pop Quiz.

    How many years since a Federal ALP MP crossed the floor ?

    ( Cheat if you wan’t, that’s on you )

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