MWD Issue 46

GERARD HENDERSON’S MEDIA WATCH DOG – ISSUE NO. 46

19 MARCH 2010

STOP PRESS

Ticky Fullerton – The Anorak’s Enemy

For those who do not know the complete life story of occasional ABC 1 Lateline presenter Ticky Fullerton, last night’s interview with Australia’s chief scientist Professor Penny Sackett was more than useful. In an otherwise lively discussion, Ms Fullerton felt the need to tell viewers all about her life and times, declaring:

And what are we going to do about pulling people into science? We’ve got a maths crisis. Last month the Prime Minister launched Inspiring Australia. I mean, I went up to university on zoology. I met a whole lot of kids in fluorescent anoraks with fur around the edge – trainspotters. I flicked to law as soon as I possibly could. How do you change the sexiness of science, if you like?

What a loss. Young Ticky Fullerton might have been a zoologist – maybe, in time, as famous as Richard Dawkins, the world’s most famous zoologist. However, science, wasn’t sexy enough – being inhabited by a whole lot of kids in fluorescent anoraks with fur around the edges. What a shame. What a loss to zoology. But what a gain to law – and to Lateline. [Nancy says – what’s wrong with fur?].

BORN AGAIN ATHEISTS – A REPORT

Reports from the Global Atheists Convention in Melbourne last weekend indicate that the get-together resembled a revivalist meeting where all attending were absolutely convinced that they possessed the one, true (secular) faith and knew where they were going – or, rather, not going.

Without question, the stars of the gathering were two sneering secularists – namely British scientist Richard Dawkins and Melbourne stand-up comedian Catherine Deveny. Ms Deveny is quite a MWD favourite – all due to her weekly offerings as a columnist for the “Guardian-on-the-Yarra” where she sneers at both believers and the poorly educated in the suburbs. See MWD passim.

▪ Richard Dawkins Nails The Pope – Pity About The Facts

On Monday the Sydney Morning Herald carried a page one story of the Global Atheist Convention by Jacqueline Murphy. She found one secular heretic who was actually willing to criticise the get-together and quoted Melbourne University philosopher Tamas Pataki as commenting that the atheist movement has “begun taking on the conventions of a religion with its priests and apostles and followers”.

One of the teachings of the atheist movement is that the intellectually meek shall not inherit the earth. Not on your nelly. Ms Murphy quoted Dr Dawkins as describing Family First Senator Steve Fielding as more stupid than an earthworm. [What’s wrong with earthworms? – Ed.] She also reported that Dawkins had referred to Pope Benedict XVI as “Pope Nazi”.

Here Professor Dawkins demonstrated that he knows as much about 20^th Century history as Lateline presenter Leigh Sales knows about the Reformation (See Issues 14 and 15). Not much at all, really.

Joseph Aloysius Ratzinger (who became Pope Benedict XVI) was born in Bavaria, Germany, on 16 April 1927. The Nazi Party came to power in Germany in 1933 and Adolf Hitler soon set up a totalitarian regime. As Roderick Stackelberg points out in The Routledge Companion to Nazi Germany, the Hitler Youth was founded in 1922 and encompassed all Germany boys’ organisations by law in 1936. Membership of the Hitler Youth was made compulsory in 1940.

Joseph Ratzinger turned 13 in April 1940 and, consequently, was required by law to be a member of the Hitler Youth. The Nazi regime was defeated in May 1945 – by which time Ratzinger had just turned 18. As John L. Allen Jr documents in Pope Benedict XVI: A Biography of Joseph Ratzinger, Ratzinger entered a seminary in 1939 and remained there until it was closed by the Nazi regime in 1942. Ratzinger did not go to Hitler Youth meetings. Allen commented that the future pope “was only briefly a member of the Hitler Youth and not an enthusiastic one”. Ratzinger was conscripted into the Germany Army in 1943 and joined an anti air-craft corps. He was subsequently posted to other areas of the German military – always at a low rank. Ratzinger deserted in April 1945, was sent to a prisoner-of-war camp by the US Army and was released on 19 June 1945.

This hardly qualifies Ratzinger for the title of “Nazi Pope” – which is yet another Dawkins sneer. If Richard Dawkins had been born in Germany in 1927 he, too, would have been compelled to join the Hitler Youth in 1940.

▪ Catherine Deveny’s False Conception

On the day that Richard Dawkins’ comments appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald, Catherine Deveny made an appearance on the ABC 1 Q&A program. Early on the Guardian-on-the-Yarra star columnist declared:

I think we should tax alcohol and Bibles, because that’s the reason that most children are born and conceived.

Hang on a minute. The world’s birth rate is rising most rapidly in the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa – among Muslims. Muslims don’t consume alcohol and they are not regular readers of the Bible. In other words, even massive taxes on liquor and the Bible in Muslim nations would do nothing to reduce the birth rate. If Ms Deveny can’t make it to North Africa any time soon to do some field work, she might take a train to Lakemba when next in Sydney for a Q&A gig. [Doesn’t Ms Deveny constantly write about the fact that she is the mother of three children? How many were due to the influence of the Holy Book or the Communion wine? – Ed.]

GREAT U-TURNS OF OUR TIME (CONTINUED)

When not commenting on population increases on Q&A, Ms Deveny put in a bid to secure MWD’s “Biggest U-turn in 2010” award – and it took place within one piece-to-camera on Q&A last Monday. Here we go:

▪ Catherine Deveny On Why She Opposes Paid Paternity Leave

I’ve always been very outspoken about the fact that I don’t believe in paid parenting leave.

(Q&A, 15 March 2010)

▪ Catherine Deveny On Why She Supports Paid Paternity Leave

I say get it in, get it up. It is too little too late. About bloody time. We’re miles and miles behind. I mean the Republic of Congo gives 20 weeks paid parental leave and it’s so important that we get it up and it’s not just a money thing and it’s not just a fairness thing. It’s about men and women having an opportunity to raise their children together and enjoy those things together and for the children to see mums and dads in different roles and mums and mums in different roles and dads and dads in different roles if we’re talking about same sex parents.

(Q&A, 15 March 2010)

Which raises the deep philosophical question. Should the paternity allowance be paid to parents who drink alcohol and read the Bible? Perhaps this is a question for Ms Deveny’s next Q&A appearance.

NANCY’S PICK OF THE WEEK

Tony Jones And A Bit of Eye Candy

Nancy is quite a fan of that bit in the New Testament which suggests that things were done so that a prophecy (in the old Testament) might be fulfilled. Tricky, eh?

But the phenomenon has its modern applications. In The Spectator Australia on 6 March 2010, John Styles analysed how the political “balance” on Q&A invariably consisted of three left-of-centre types balanced by two right-of-centre types. And how on issues of climate change the balance could be four to one – in favour of climate change true believers, of course.

On Monday’s Q&A, presenter Tony Jones introduced the panel as follows – according to the transcript:

Good evening and welcome to Q&A. Answering your questions tonight: the Shadow Minister for Health, Peter Dutton; columnist and self-confessed atheist eye candy Catherine Deveny; journalist and conservative columnist Miranda Devine; politics lecturer Waleed Aly, who believes conservatives have lost their way; and the parliamentary secretary for disabilities, Bill Shorten. Please welcome our panel.

Wow. What a way to commence a panel discussion on conservatism – among other issues. There’s the Liberal Party’s Peter Dutton and Miranda Devine. And then there is Labor’s Bill Shorten plus self-declared leftist Catherine Deveny plus Walheed Aly whom Tony Jones declared believes that “conservatives have lost their way”.

The score was 3-2, before the ball had even bounced.

FIVE PAWS AWARD

MICHAEL SEXTON ON MARGARET “ROSE COLOURED SPECS” SIMONS

This week’s Five Paws Award goes to Michael Sexton for his review of Malcolm Fraser: The Political Memoirs by Malcolm Fraser and Margaret Simons. It commenced like this:

Margaret Simons is a modern-day version of Pollyanna. She has written what is essentially a third-person biography of Malcolm Fraser, although it is styled as his memoirs. And she has looked at his political life through the softest of rose-coloured spectacles.

Mr Sexton, who once worked as a staffer to one of the Whitlam Government ministers, concluded his review as follows:

Over recent years Fraser has become something of a darling of the chattering classes because of his attacks on American foreign policy and Israel’s role in the Middle East. The book sets out these views as yet another example of Fraser’s nobility. But this is really the problem with the whole work. Biography or autobiography – whichever this book is – needs a mixture of light and shade. There is too much rose-coloured light in this account of what was in fact a very chequered career.

Five Paws. For more on Mr Fraser and Ms Simons see “History Corner”.

[By the way, has Margaret Simons or Malcolm Fraser clarified their claim that George H. W. Bush phoned the National Security Council in Washington DC from the Lodge at 7 pm Canberra time on 30 April 1982 – when it happened to be 5 am in Washington? See Issue 44. Let’s hope that the Fraser/Simons’ boast that Mr Fraser rescued the Falkland Islands, preserved the Anglo-American Alliance and saved the NATO Treaty is not just a product of one man’s faulty memory and one woman’s political naivety – Ed.]

HISTORY CORNER

Due to popular demand, MWD continues its analyses of Malcolm Fraser: The Political Memoirs by Malcolm Fraser and Margaret Simons (The Miegunyah Press, 2010).

But, first, a clarification. In launching the book in Melbourne on 4 March 2010, The Hon. Michael Kirby AC CMG said that Malcolm Fraser’s only request to him was that he (Kirby) “should acknowledge the work of Margaret Simons in writing this book on the basis of conversations with” Malcolm Fraser and “with access to his huge collection of official and private papers”.

This makes it clear that Malcolm Fraser: The Political Memoirs is history recorded by Ms Simons as told by Mr Fraser. At Page 425, Margaret Simons repeated the claim previously made by Malcolm Fraser that John Howard had opposed Indo-Chinese (mainly Vietnamese) refugees coming to Australia in 1977. Let’s go to the memoirs:

Fears about settling Asian refugees were not confined to the general public; there were people inside the government who were worried as well. Fraser remembers that at one of the first cabinet meetings at which the commitment to take large numbers of Indochinese refugees was discussed, John Howard sat silently through the debate, but ‘sidled up to me afterwards in the corridor and said, “We’re not going to take too many of these people, are we?”

‘And I just looked at him and said, “John, we have just had a debate in cabinet”. ‘And he said, “Yes, but we’re not going to take too-many of them are we? It is just for show, isn’t it?” ‘I said, “Look, what you say to me in the corridor is meaningless, If you want to say something, you can say it in cabinet. If you want to re-open the debate, you can say it in cabinet”. But he never did’.

Fraser’s recollection of this encounter was first aired in January 2008, when the 1977 cabinet records were released to the public under the thirty-year rule. Howard denied that he had ever said these words, protesting that at the time of the key decisions on refugees he hadn’t even been in cabinet. This is true. He was Minister for Consumer and Business Affairs, and in the outer ministry. However, junior ministers often sat in on cabinet meetings. The attendance register for the main cabinet meeting at which refugee policy was discussed, on 3 May 1977, shows that Howard was there.

Once again, Margaret “Rose-Coloured specs” Simons has completely relied on Malcolm Fraser’s memory. There are quite a few problems with the Fraser/Simons analysis.

▪ The claim that Fraser’s recollection of his (alleged) corridor encounter with Howard over Indo-Chinese refugees was not “first aired in January 2008”. In fact, Mr Fraser had been talking about this issue for years and his views had been reported in the mainstream media.

For example, writing in The Weekend Australian on 16-17 November 2002, Phillip Adams wrote about a function in Australia which was addressed by Nelson Mandela and attended by Malcolm Fraser and Adams – among others. Let the Man-In-Black take up the story about the Mandela function:

Fraser was telling anyone who’d listen how Howard had opposed his decision to grant asylum to a number of Vietnamese refugees. There was no argument from the Opposition and none from anyone else in Cabinet, Fraser boomed. Only from him.

• • Phillip Adams, “The best of a bad lot”, The Weekend Australian, 16-17 November 2002.

▪ Malcolm Fraser used – or, rather, misused – the occasion of the release of the 1977 Cabinet Papers to publicly claim that John Howard had opposed Vietnamese refugees coming to Australia in 1977. The occasion was misused because there was not one document in the entire 1977 Cabinet Papers to support Fraser’s assertion. (See The Australian, 1 January 2008 and The Australian, 2 January 2008). Not one. In other words, the only evidence for Malcolm Fraser’s assertion is Mr Fraser’s memory, which was first reported some three decades after the event.

▪ In January 2008 Doug Anthony and Ian Sinclair – both of whom were Cabinet ministers in the Fraser Government – doubted Mr Fraser’s recollection of these events which took place in the first half of 1977. Anthony and Sinclair are supporters of Howard.

▪ On the 7.30 Report on 1 January 2010, Ian Macphee was interviewed about the release of the 1979 Cabinet Papers. Asked about Mr Howard’s attitude to Vietnamese asylum seekers during the Fraser Government, Mr Macphee replied:

I don’t remember Howard ever arguing in Cabinet about it. He [Howard] did it when he got into Opposition and when be became prime minister. But at that time, no.

Like Howard, Ian Macphee was a junior member of the Fraser Government in early 1977. Unlike Anthony and Sinclair, McPhee is a critic of Howard and has no interest in making the statement which he did.

It is true that John Howard called for a reduction in Asian migration to Australia when Opposition leader in 1988 and that he was unsympathetic to asylum seekers when Prime Minister in 2001 and thereafter. But, as Ian Macphee has confirmed, there is no evidence that Howard opposed Vietnamese refugees coming to Australia when he was a junior minister in the early years of the Fraser Government.

▪ If Howard had made the comments Fraser claims that he made in early 1977 about Vietnamese refugees, it is most unlikely that Fraser would have rewarded such comments with a promotion. In early May 1977, John Howard held the relatively low-ranking position of Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs in the ministry. At the end of May 1977, Howard was appointed to the additional role of Minister Assisting the Prime Minister. And on 19 November 1977 Fraser promoted Howard to the key Cabinet position of Treasurer. Clearly in 1977 Howard was very well regarded by Fraser – in spite of what Fraser and Simons now allege.

▪ There are slight differences in the alleged Fraser/Howard conversation – as told by Fraser at the release of the 1977 Cabinet Papers when compared to what he told Simons. This suggests that Fraser has no record of the (alleged) conversation.

You would not hang a dog on the evidence put forward by Malcolm Fraser and Margaret Simons in support of Fraser’s claim that Howard openly opposed Vietnamese refugees in 1977. Yet this myth has been accepted by quite a few commentators. The fact is that the most prominent politician to oppose refugees coming to Australia in 1977 was none other than the luvvie’s hero and Malcolm Fraser’s current bestie. Step forward Gough Whitlam. This will be the subject of a future “History Corner”.

CORRESPONDENCE A “GROUP THINK” CASE STUDY – THE NATIONAL HISTORY CURRICULUM DEBATE ON RN BREAKFAST

MWD was delighted by ABC Chairman Maurice Newman’s condemnation of media group-think during his address to lotsa ABC managers in Sydney on Wednesday 10 March 2010. ABC types are much practised at dishing out criticism but not much good at receiving it. So it was not surprising that some ABC staff – led by Media Watch presenter Jonathan Holmes – got very upset at the implied suggestion that the ABC might have more diversity and hear more conflicting views.

In MWD Issue 44 attention was drawn to (yet another) ABC Radio National “discussion” where everyone agreed with everyone else and a fine ideological time was had by all. This upset a certain Mr Kiem, the president of the impressively sounding History Teachers’ Association of Australia. The following correspondence sets out Mr Kiem’s position – and MWD’s response:

Paul Kiem to Gerard Henderson – 13 March 2010

Dear Mr Henderson

I have just come across Issue 44 of Media Watch Dog, where it is suggested that I participated in an ‘intellectual love in’ on Fran Kelly’s radio national program.

Did the author of this puerile nonsense actually listen to the interview or have access to the transcript?

The argument seems to be based on the view that Stuart Macintyre and I must be biased because we were both critical of Christopher Pyne. Could it be that what Pyne said was actually stupid, ill-informed, mischievous and a complete mis-reading of what is happening with the development of a national history curriculum? Talk about the ‘history wars’ is an irrelevant distraction from some very practical challenges. An Age editorial and a Telegraph article came to the same conclusion in that week.

Just as irrelevant is the obsession with Stuart as a ‘former communist leftist’. I have worked closely with Stuart, along with the ‘arch-conservative’ John Hirst, for eighteen months now and have seen no evidence of anything other than a desire to produce a feasible and engaging course.

For the record, I do not recall Chris Sarra being critical of anyone. I do recall myself being critical of both Pyne’s idiotic comments and the Labor government’s failure to address issues that will affect implementation.

It is a concern when a ‘media watch dog’ promotes such lazy, jaundiced comment.

Sincerely

Paul Kiem

President

History Teachers’ Association of Australia

Gerard Henderson to Paul Kiem – 18 March 2010

Dear Mr Kiem

I refer to your email of 13 March 2010. Apologies for the delay in responding but The Sydney Institute’s Annual Dinner – with Professor Simon Schama as guest speaker – was held on Tuesday and life has been somewhat busy of late.

If you read carefully what I wrote in Media Watch Dog Issue 44 (March 2010), you would note that – contrary to your claim – I did not say that you and Professor Stuart Macintyre are “biased”. Indeed, the word “biased” is not used in any part of MWD Issue 44. Nor – contrary to your assertion – was any reference made to the “history wars”. Nor did I refer to Stuart Macintyre as a “former communist leftist”. You just manufactured all these quotes. As president of the History Teachers Association of Australia, you should be able to do better than verballing commentators with whom you disagree.

My criticism was not of you, or Professor Macintyre or Dr Chris Sarra. As MWD made clear, the essential criticism was that the Radio National Breakfast panel, in which you participated, was not involved in a “discussion” – when what really took place resembled a chorus, where everyone on the panel essentially agreed with everyone else. This was most evident when every member of the panel criticised Opposition shadow spokesman Christopher Pyne.

I note that in your email you referred to Christopher Pyne’s comments as “stupid”, “ill-informed”, “mischievous” and “idiotic”. In my view, the president of the History Association of Australia should use more considered – and less emotive – language.

In your penultimate paragraph you wrote: “For the record, I do not recall Chris Sarra being critical of anyone” during the RN Breakfast panel on 2 March 2010. If you bothered to do any research you would be aware that Dr Sarra made the following comment:

I’ve been very disappointed, I think, with the Opposition’s attack and the reference to the number of times “indigenous” has appeared in the documents. I just find this a kind of petulance – and unconstructive dog whistling – if you like.

Since Christopher Pyne spoke for the Opposition on this issue, Dr Sarra’s comments were directed at Mr Pyne. Clearly, contrary to your email, Chris Sarra did criticise Mr Pyne. Check the podcast. So did Stuart Macintyre. And so did you.

As to Professor Macintyre, all I wrote was that Fran Kelly did not tell RN Breakfast listeners that Stuart Macintyre was a former member of the Communist Party, or that he addressed the 1994 ALP national conference, or that he fawned over the late Manning Clark, or that his The Oxford History of Australia Volume 4 1901-1942 did not contain one mention of the Nazi Soviet Pact. That’s all. This comment is neither “lazy” or “jaundiced” – just true.

Best wishes

Gerard Henderson

Peter Kiem to Gerard Henderson – 18 March 2010 – 4.53 pm

Hello Gerard

I had assumed that someone else wrote the piece, not you. I was actually trying to be helpful!

But as you have taken credit for it, I will stay with lazy and jaundiced.

If you are going to be the pedant and play word games, then I think you could be a lot more thorough. For someone who works with language, you are very loose with words:

– Re-read the sentence about bias – you have ignored important qualifiers such as ‘the argument seems to be based on…’

– I did not assert that you had referred to the ‘history wars’, you inferred that.

– I did not ‘manufacture quotes’ (I’d take that to heart if it were not so silly). In the par about Pyne I quoted him. Other words in quotation marks were not attributed to you and, for the informed/objective reader, obviously referred to clichéd usages. I notice that in your own articles you employ quotation marks not just for direct quotes but for a variety of reasons. I am also putting you in the category of informed reader. That just leaves questions about objectivity. We do tend to focus on that in history.

– In my penultimate par I wrote ‘I do not recall’, clearly indicating that I did not have access to the transcript. In any case, there was no significant misrepresentation of Chris Sarra’s attitude.

– ‘Mischievous’ etc was a considered comment and probably close to the mark. More considered and accurate, I would suggest, than ‘intellectual love in’ and what it implies. (So there is no confusion here, the last was a direct quote from MWD).

I still don’t get why when three people agree it must be a chorus rather than a discussion?

And why overlook my criticisms of the government’s failure to address implementation? At the very least, the chorus had some nuance that you have filtered out.

Anyhow, thank you for taking the time to get back to me. This has been interesting and given me some good insight.

For your interest, the discussion/chorus on radio national has had a lot of quite positive feedback. Coincidentally, I was in contact with a teacher last night who picked it up in the Simpson Desert.

You should have let us know about Schama – we would have been interested.

Best wishes

Paul

Paul Kiem

Publisher

History Teachers’ Association of NSW

Gerard Henderson to Paul Kiem 19 March 2010

Dear Mr Kiem

Thanks for your note.

I was interested in your opening point. Since the comment to which you objected appeared under the title Gerard Henderson’s Media Watch Dog, I assumed that readers would believe that it was written by me. You, however, are surprised by this. Fancy that.

Your note does not make much sense. You seem to be arguing that you did not write what, in fact, you wrote. I am also surprised that you regard a panel “when three people agree” as a discussion rather than a chorus. Perhaps this is the way the History Teachers’ Association operates.

Professor Simon Schama’s annual lecture was listed on the Institute’s forthcoming program for months. The event was booked out – with over 850 people attending.

I note that you have changed your designation from President, History Teachers’ Association of Australia (your email of 13 March refers) to Publisher, History Teachers’ Association of NSW (your email of 18 March refers.)

Best wishes

Gerard Henderson

* * * * *

Until next time.