The ABC is a Left-wing mouthpiece

For nine years Coalition governments have tolerated the national broadcaster’s defiant indifference to its charter and editorial policies. For nine whole years they have turned blind eyes to its partisan and divisive agenda, grudging apologies and defamation payouts.

Nothing the ABC collective does seems to spur the people’s representatives into action which makes them equally complicit in the contempt the ABC holds for those who pay its bills.

Indeed, rather than censure, the government has just restored full funding, even putting to an end a temporary, minor, ‘highly contentious, freeze on indexation’.

When the ‘freeze’ was announced we were told it would ‘rip the heart out of the ABC, and our democracy’. Neither was true. First the broadcaster is not known for its defence of democracy and second, the corporation was forced to reveal that it had 120 more employees in the 2020-21 financial year than it had in 2019-20.

Yet when chief executive David Anderson was asked at a Senate hearing last year about staff numbers, instead of admitting there were no cuts, he said he didn’t believe the organisation’s headcount had increased over the past year. Dissembling runs deep within the ABC.

When announcing the latest triennial funding, Communications Minister Paul Fletcher meekly reminded the broadcaster to ‘avoid either the reality or, the perception of political bias’, adding defensively, ‘that is not attacking the ABC’.

Australian content was his focus, ‘be it news or drama or documentary’. Each year the broadcaster will be asked to provide a report detailing staff numbers in regional and remote Australia, as well as hours of programming tailored to those audiences.

Clearly the minister would rather use the ABC as a make-work scheme for outback Australia than hold it accountable for editorial integrity. While that remains unattended, it matters little where programmes are made or, whether the head office is in Ultimo or Parramatta.

Indeed, how many apologies and defamation payouts must there be, how many biased stories like the reports on live cattle exports, NSW Racing, greyhound racing, climate change and the Dondale Detention Centre, to name a few, must there be, before someone in government grasps there is a deep cultural disdain for the ABC’s mission?

The corporation employs more than 26 in-house lawyers and has outlaid $26.5 million in legal expenses over four years. Perhaps when only around six per cent of all investigated complaints are fully or, partially upheld, explains why?

Some dissatisfied complainants like Chinese-Australian businessman Chau Chak Wing go to court.

He received $590,000 in damages when a Four Corners episode wrongly portrayed him as a Communist party member. Costs, believed to have been another $1 million, were also awarded.

Taxpayers also picked up the $200,000 tab for the damages and costs awarded to former Coalition MP, Andrew Laming, after ABC journalist Louise Milligan wrongly accused him, on her private Twitter account, of ‘up skirting’ a woman. This is the same Louise Milligan who relentlessly pursued Cardinal George Pell, leaving no doubt in viewers’ minds that he was a pedophile. Even when the High Court’s full bench unanimously found ‘the evidence did not establish guilt to the requisite standard of proof’, Ms Milligan and the broadcaster were unrepentant.

But the ABC cares little for evidentiary proof or for damaged reputations. Former Coalition senator Cory Bernardi and former attorney-general, Christian Porter, will attest to that. They were both effective rightwing politicians ABC journalists thought should be targetted.

Even the dead, like former NSW Labor premier Neville Wran, aren’t spared. In 1983 Wran sued the ABC for defamation for linking him to crime boss Abe Saffron. If he were alive today he would sue them again. Seeking vindication forty years on, a new documentary linked him to the ghost train fire at Sydney’s Luna Park, with claims Saffron was behind the fire and only escaped prosecution because of Wran. An independent review of Exposed: The Ghost Train Fire, found it was misleading and wrongly implied a relationship.

It’s this lack of professionalism that produced the bungled documentary series which looked into the disappearance of journalist Juanita Nielsen. The ABC conceded there was a ‘serious editorial lapse’ and that they had failed to go through a stringent due diligence process.

It seems ABC journalists work in a ‘believe what you want to believe’ culture. It’s how, on the flimsy word of an unnamed US marine who heard ‘a pop on the radio’ and assumed it was a gunshot, they framed soldiers from the 2nd Commando Regiment’s November platoon of executing an Afghan prisoner.

This story conveniently fitted the narrative of ABC journalist Marc Willacy’s latest book which seeks to tarnish the reputation of Australia’s serving men and women; a common practice within the ABC. A qualified apology over sloppy journalism and breach of standards was issued but not reported. Pity about the members of November platoon who had lived with unproven allegations they were war criminals.

Yet these are the standards successive communications ministers, and the chairs, boards and management of the ABC have walked past. There are no consequences and there is no accountability. When $1.1 billion a year rolls in regardless, why change?

It is a national scandal. Former host of the broadcaster’s Media Watch programme, now chair of the ABC Alumni, Jonathon Holmes, in a ‘first ever’ election campaign, (really?) informs us, it is still ‘official Liberal party policy’ to privatise the ABC (it isn’t) and that the staff must vote Left. No bias there.

It is time to accept that while the ABC comprehensively fails to meet even its statutory obligations, multiple private media organisations regularly attain higher standards and provide better quality programmes in areas once considered the national broadcaster’s preserve, including services to regional and remote Australia.

In such a media market and, given the ABC’s institutionalised contempt for its mission, it is reasonable to conclude it has surrendered all claims for taxpayer support.

https://spectator.com.au/2022/04/a-national-scandal/

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Protecting women not a priority for Leftists

Steggall is an "independent" Leftist.

It was a mistake for Zali Steggall to refer to the protection of women, girls, and children as a ‘dead cat strategy’.

In one breath, she dismissed the rights of women to make way for the desires of biological men. Steggall may as well have lashed the history of feminism to the stake. This is not progressive thought – it is a regression back to a Medieval era where women were forced to shut up and put up with the dominance of men.

‘We were basically told to, “suck it up”,’ said one of transgender swimmer Lia Thomas’ teammates. The woman, who was too frightened to be identified, said that they felt uncomfortable and upset being exposed to a naked man in their locker room.

The Member for Warringah uttered her ‘dead cat’ line during a recent interview with Laura Jayes on Sky News Australia. It was not a poorly worded error. When pushed on the subject, Steggall doubled-down, accusing parents that raised concerns about the safety of young girls competing against boys in contact sport of being ‘transphobic’.

Steggall’s callous attitude toward the genuine fears of women confirms speculation that when it comes to the Culture Wars, the Left are prepared to sacrifice women, their rights, and their safety in order to appease biological men. So-called ‘moderate’ Liberal MP and New South Wales Treasurer Matt Kean said that this wasn’t the 1950s – no. Quite right. In the 1950s no self-respecting man would take a medal from a woman and describe it as an ‘act of bravery’.

Matt Kean went on to immediately tweet that, ‘Gender balance on treasury boards will rise from an impressive 40 per cent to a balanced 50 per cent! Chris Minns attacked the policy this morning. He really does stand for nothing. He won’t stand for a fair go for women.’

Kean didn’t clarify if his 50 per cent female quota target was made up of women or men.

The message is not getting through to men in positions of power like Kean. Women do not want men in their bathrooms, change rooms, sports, or other female-specific spaces. Individual groups of women make exceptions on a case-by-case basis – such as a desperate dad taking his female toddler to a public women’s bathroom – but the idea of legal power being used by the State to force the issue is unacceptable.

Shove a woman in front of a camera on national TV surrounded by a thrall of press and she might begrudgingly go along with the ‘tolerance’ line, but that answer is usually coerced out of fear that she may lose her job if she does not comply with the activist line. Shame on society for threatening women into accepting an unsafe situation. The Left are keen to point out the existence of ‘toxic masculinity’, paint every young boy as a potential abuser, and talk at length about women as victims of male violence, but they outright refuse to accept that this biological imbalance remains regardless of modern ‘gender-fluid’ theory.

When a woman says that she feels unsafe with a naked man occupying a change room, is it the woman who is banned from the gym or told to stop complaining. When a woman says that it is unfair for a man to set unattainable records in competitive sport, they are told that sport is meant to be about ‘inclusion’, not winning. When a woman loses her career to man, she is forgotten and left to watch a man take her scholarship, money, and future.

This paradox of political correctness ensures that women who stand up and bravely demand equality are labelled as bigots.

Virtue signalling is a currency best measured in ‘clicks’ and Australia’s media core attack conservative women like seagulls on a chip. These are the sorts of journalists who like to remind us that Warringah is ‘an electorate that voted 70 per cent in favour of same-sex marriage’ as if there is a genuine comparison between two consenting adults entering a marriage and the side-lining of women or surgical mutilation of a child’s body. There is not.

When Deves said that the behaviour of militant activists reminded her of the Nazi regime’s habit of ruthlessly silencing those who opposed it, she was describing the intolerant, hate-fuelled landscape of social media that women are subjected to if they dare to defend their biological rights.

Besides, no one throws the ‘Nazi’ accusation around more liberally than the radical left, who use it as a daily slur against anyone and everyone who stands slightly to the right of Stalin. Trump is a Nazi. Scott Morrison is a Nazi. The Liberal Party are Nazis. Anti-vaxxers are Nazis. J.K. Rowling is a Nazi. Murdoch is a Nazi. Jewish people who support Israel are Nazis. Free speech supporters are Nazis. Anyone who has refused to actively ‘affirm’ the LGBTQ movement has been accused of being a Nazi by someone with pronouns in their bio. Last year in Melbourne, Union members were called Nazis by none other than ex-Labor Leader Bill Shorten. Everyone is a Nazi to the rabid mob.

What we are witnessing is an ideological movement that has become so corrupted by the cheap thrill of outrage that they cannot stand to look at themselves in a mirror. The level of festering violence sitting beneath anonymous social media accounts is astonishing and speaks to a deeper psychological problem rampant in the last few generations who manage their emotions by abusing strangers on the internet. Is social media desensitising people or are these kids being radicalised to hate by a State-sanctioned education program that demonises conservatives and traditional family values?

Matt Kean correctly stated that, ‘This is not an intolerant society.’ Unfortunately, Kean can’t tell the difference between tolerance and cheating, something he has experience with when it comes to women’s issues. No, he wasn’t cancelled. Male privilege, perhaps? Australia has a reputation for fairness, and that is what Katherine Deves campaigns on. The Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins stated that the ‘practical guidance [of the re-interpreted Sex Discrimination Act in 2013] on how sporting organisations, their staff, and volunteers can promote the inclusion of transgender and gender diverse people in line with human rights-based principles.’

And therein lies the problem. Sport is not about ‘inclusion’ and it is not a human right. Sport is a competition divided by gender to promote fairness where contestants are selected based upon merit. It is about finding the limits and peak performance of that gender. If, as of 2013, sport is about ‘inclusion’ then fine – let’s forget the whole gender division thing and throw everyone into the unisex category. We’ll see how long it takes for professional female athletes to tear apart the sporting world when they find themselves losing to teenage boys and excluded from multi-million dollar prizes.

Katherine Deves isn’t being set upon by activist wolves because she’s wrong. Deves is hounded by every able-bodied member of the left because she’s right. The majority of men and women know that there is a fundamental difference between the sexes that cannot be erased by wishful thinking and medical intervention. Deves stated reality and the electorate pulled toward her.

Steggall felt it. Albanese felt it. The activists draining millions out of the taxpayer purse felt it.

At some point, society has to sit down and choose.

Do we honour the biological rights and safety of women – or do we bow to the demands of Labor, the Greens, the ‘moderate’ Liberals, and the so-called Independents who want us to cast women back to the Dark Ages?

Choose.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/04/protecting-women-is-not-a-dead-cat-strategy/

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Anthony Albanese’s lies get bigger and more dangerous

TERRY MCCRANN

What renders him more unfit to be prime minister and the party he purportedly leads more broadly unfit to be the government of Australia?

Anthony Albanese’s sheer incompetence and ineptitude, shown on day one with the ‘gaffes’ which were absolutely not gaffes but revelations that he hadn’t a clue about was happening in the economy, before you even get to the ‘tough stuff’ – how to actually manage the economy?

Or the fact that he lies straight through, seamlessly, shamelessly and repeatedly, those clenched teeth?

He delivers small lies: I was an economic Adviser to the Hawke Government.

Yeah, sure; like I – and a thousand, maybe a million others – were also ‘economic advisers’ to the Hawke Government.

For as The Australian and Sky News’s Sharri Markson revealed, Albanese was just another “research officer” for a very minor minister in that government, with both the minister and his ‘Adviser’ opposing everything that Bob Hawke and Paul Keating did. He tells spineless lies: like “I didn’t hear half the question” after his answer had shown he didn’t even understand the most basic aspects of Labor’s own policy on boat people and offshore processing.

He delivers big lies: that the Morrison government would extend the ‘Debit Card’ to pensioners – over an express statement in writing from minister Anne Ruston in July last year categorically ruling out doing so and that “we will never have such a plan”. Indeed, the government actually supported an amendment in the legislation that “no recipient of the Age, Veterans or Services Pension will be placed on the Debit Cashless Card”.

Further, that was an amendment that Albanese actually led Labor to vote against! Who wants to put pensioners on the Debit Card? Look in the mirror Anthony.

But most potently and dangerously – as he goes out of his way to confirm the ‘Each-way Albo’ nailing of him by Sky New’s Paul Murray – his biggest lie of all is about supporting new coal mines. That’s supporting them, provided they got environment approvals.

That’s both a statement of the obvious: of course coal mines – like everything else – have to get environmental approval. It’s also a statement, to the left, that we will make damn sure there won’t be another coal mine as we throttle any proposed one in red, green and black tape; just like Annastacia Palaszczuk came so close to doing with the Adani mine and would have succeeded but for its private family ownership. This is the biggest lie of all; it is quite literally a threat - yes, of course also an unknowing threat because Albanese is just so utterly clueless - to destroy Australia’s future.

Without coal mines – and iron ore mines and LNG export projects – Australia would be an Argentina if we were lucky and more likely an Albania.

In the month of February we got $44bn in export income. Nearly $30bn came from those three things, including $9bn from coal.

Another $6bn came from the bush and after that you are talking petty change in economic terms. Right now we are getting record or near-record prices for anything to do with energy – that’s to say, real energy, the sort that actually works like coal and LNG.

We are also getting very high prices on a billion-tonnes-a year of iron ore thanks to China.

The really big issues for our future are what happens to these exports; try surviving – both the country and families and individuals – on what we get from the other exports.

Our future prosperity, indeed survival, will rely on two things: the world continuing to want and use real energy and China, our biggest and most dangerous enemy, continuing to ‘work’ and shower us with money.

Could we survive even just three years of a PM Albo?

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/anthony-albaneses-lies-get-bigger-and-more-dangerous/news-story/6c56d6f942b633905a0d7718aec380d0

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‘Cold comfort’: Nearly 7000 Brisbane, Ipswich flood victims’ to receive compensation payouts

A $440m payout will at last be divvied up to the 2011 flood victims who say it comes as “cold comfort” more than a decade after the event inundated 23,000 homes and businesses.

Almost 7000 Queenslanders have won a class action over the state's devastating 2011 floods, with a judge finding they were victims of negligence. (AAP Video)
QLD News

A $440m payout will at last be divvied up to the 2011 flood victims who say it comes as “cold comfort” more than a decade after the event inundated 23,000 homes and businesses.

Nearly 7000 Brisbane and Ipswich victims last week lost an appeal bid in the High Court to overturn a court decision that found Seqwater was not liable for half of the damages caused by the flood.

Only half of the original $880m class action payout will now be divided up to the 6800 victims, some who are still reeling from the 2022 floods in February.

Maurice Blackburn Lawyers principal Rebecca Gilsenan confirmed the first interim payments would start to flow towards the end of the month or in May.

Ms Gilsenan said it was a “deeply disappointing” ruling for the victims after the application was rejected following a 20-minute hearing.

She said it was the “end of the road” for the victims following an 11-year legal battle.

“The settlement with Sunwater and the State of Queensland stands and we will continue working hard to distribute the settlement proceeds as quickly as possible,” Ms Gilsenan said.

“We know that this is a deeply disappointing outcome after an extraordinarily long journey for everyone affected by the floods.”

In 2019, the NSW supreme court found Seqwater to be one of three parties, including Sunwater and the State Government, to have failed nearly 7000 residents during the floods.

The court found that engineers in control of the Wivenhoe and Somerset dams failed resulting in more than 23,000 homes and businesses being inundated.

Seqwater successfully appealed the decision while Sunwater and the State Government agreed to pay out $440m in compensation.

Ms Gilsenan said the payout process was complex given the volume of claims and how they varied from vehicle, property or industrial losses.

“These claims can vary from thousands to millions of dollars, so it’s a huge job to assess and have all the claimants accept,” Ms Gilsenan said.

“We do expect it to be completed within 12 months.”

Ipswich Councillor and flood victim Paul Tully said he and thousands of fellow victims were crushed after the judgement was handed down.

He said there had been an “air of expectation” of a successful outcome. “It come as a bolt out of the blue. It really hit me when the news came through,” Cr Tully said.

Cr Tully said the judgement was “cold comfort” for many residents who were still assessing the damages from the floods in February. “It was 3.5m lower than 2011 and not quite as bad, but when you still haven’t been paid from floods a decade ago it hits hard,” he said.

“It’s been heartbreaking. We lost everything (in 2011), so many priceless things and we really lived and breathed what the community felt.

“The floods ended marriages, people left the area, some renters just never came back.

“The fact we are still waiting raises the issue whether there should be a better system, people needed it (their payout) straight away.”

https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/cold-comfort-nearly-7000-brisbane-ipswich-flood-victims-to-receive-compensation-payouts/news-story/cc3eaf5081fd8f0cb88efdf540552d9f

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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