MWD Issue 51

GERARD HENDERSON’S MEDIA WATCH DOG – ISSUE NO. 51

30 APRIL 2010

IN THIS ISSUE

● Guy Rundle’s Self Indulgent Take on the British General Election

● Mike Carlton’s Failed Attempt to Channel Janet Albrechtsen on ABC Board

● A Night to Remember – Germaine Greer’s Taxi-Driver and Q&A

● Michael Leunig Bashes First Anzacs – And Supports the Kaiser

● Maurice Newman Defied – ABC Group-Think Continues Apace on Mornings with Deborah Cameron

● History Corner – Two Decades After Publication of A Secret Country – John Pilger’s Factual Howlers Remain

● The Cliché In the Room (An Elephant’s Perspective) – Fran Kelly’s Contribution

STOP PRESS

Argggghhhhhhhhhh – It’s Guy Rundle Calling

The British general election just cannot come quickly enough. It’s not only that the leaders’ debates have become increasingly boring. But something has to be done to stop comedian/commentator – or is it commentator/comedian? – Guy Rundle writing about British politics in Crikey.

Last Tuesday, in an excruciatingly long 1800 word piece, Rundle wrote about two middle aged potential lovers in the pub at Leeds Central Station. That went on – and on – for over a page. There were words such as “wohhhhhhhhhh”, a reference to Kenny Rogers, a claim that New Labour rebuilt Britain’s “social infrastructure” over the past 13 years and an assertion that all New Labour needs is Paul Keating. Go on. There was also criticism of Tony Blair. And then there was such sludge as this:

Where’s the love, that’s what I want to know? Where’s the love? Politics is love, even of your enemies, whom you must destroy. This hustings, in its impeccable, municipal, hooperish way, was a measure of politics of the super ego, of nothing from the id, the guts. Where was the love? Where the roaring passion?

Have another one, Guy. Next Thursday just can’t come soon enough. [Why does Crikey run such enema-in-reverse material? – Ed].

NANCY’S PICKS OF THE WEEK

Mike Carlton’s Bored Attempt

It seems that the former highly paid, but lowly-rating, Radio 2UE presenter Mike Carlton has become bored in his semi-retirement. How else to explain Mr Carlton’s decision to channel the likes of Janet Albrechtsen and Christopher Pearson and attempt to become a member of both the ABC and SBS boards? Dr Albrechtsen recently ended a five year gig on the ABC Board and her replacement is soon to be announced by Communications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy.

Your man Carlton put in an application – but did not make the final cut of names which go from a panel to the Minister for his decision. MC received a “Dear Michael” letter from Amanda O’Rourke, general manager of Talent Partners, Hansen & Searson advising him of the bad news. In his column last Saturday’s Sydney Morning Herald, MC declared that he was not heartbroken by this rejection or even mildly miffed. It was, of course, just “one of those things that seemed like a good idea at the time”. Which is just as well when you think about it, since MC devoted the first third of his column banging on about his rejection by Ms O’Rourke and others. MC finished off his whinge by looking at the bright side of life:

In a way, it’s a relief. It would have meant putting on a suit and tie once a month, for not very much fun. I don’t know about SBS, but the ABC board is largely run by the chairman and the managing director, with others just turning up for tea and scones.

Okay. But MC failed to mention that members of the ABC Board are paid a generous honorarium and travel business class around the country where clever ABC types fawn over them and tell them how brilliant they are, what you-beaut ideas they have, etc – before resuming to do precisely what they were doing before the ABC Board rocked up.

John Howard appointed the likes of Janet Albrechtsen and Keith Windschuttle to the ABC Board, under the old system. Kevin Rudd has appointed Julianne Schultz AM (no less) and Michael Lynch CBE, AM (no less), under the new system. It was no surprise that the likes of Albrechtsen and Windschuttle were appointed by the Coalition. And it was no surprise that the likes of Dr Schultz and Lynch have been appointed by Labor.

MWD hopes that it is not long before Mike Carlton receives a taxpayer funded seat on some board or other. Perhaps the “Latrines Commission” board under the Building the Education Revolution scheme.

Germaine Greer’s Night In

Last Monday’s Q&A was lotsa fun. Highlights included presenter Tony Jones’ claim that Aborigines “were allowed to march [on Anzac Day] only ten years ago”, Germaine Greer’s assertion that “our prisons are full of ex-servicemen” and Q&A’s executive producer Peter McEvoy’s decision to put on the screen a twitter’s disparaging comment about Brigadier Alison Creagh’s perfectly fine hair style. It read: “What does her hairdresser think???”. [Did any Twitterer comment on Tony Jones follicular state? =- Ed]

The star of the night was not, as expected, Dr Greer – but, rather, her taxi driver. Australia’s best known thespian made no fewer than three references to this person. Here we go:

▪ “My taxi driver tonight is Lebanese and feels very confused about the whole issue of Britishness because of what Britain did to Lebanon.”

▪ “My poor taxi driver was a Muslim. Now you see the jam he’s in.”

▪ “I can’t help thinking about my poor old taxi driver. He had some opinions about Cronulla ….”

So Germaine Greer found a Sydney taxi driver who had some opinions. Fancy that.

MICHAEL LEUNIG BAGS FIRST ANZACS

While on the topic of Anzac Day, The Sunday Age ran a feature titled “Images of war in all its hell and dark humour” – in which Age cartoonists were asked to “look again at the legacy of this most solemn, brutal yet celebrated of all encounters”.

So what did Michael Leunig, “The Guardian-on-the-Yarra’s in-house leftie, come up with? He draw a tomb stone which contained the terms: “The Great War” And “Roll of Honour” followed by such words as “burn”, “decapitate”, “disembowel”, “destroy”, “hack”, “impale”, “kill”, “maim”, “poison”, “rape”, “shatter”, “torture” and “wound” – followed by “Lest We Forget”.

This suggests that Michael Leunig believes that the best outcome in August 1914 would have been to let the Kaiser’s Army successfully invade Belgium and France, occupy Russia and so on. In short, the pacifist’s agenda. Or the Kaiser’s agenda.

Thanks to reader Tony Thomas for drawing MWD’s attention to Michael Leunig’s personal story as told to Socialist Review in February 2005. Leunig reflected that his old man was a member of the Communist Party of Australia in the 1950s – when Joe Stalin and then Stalin’s heirs ruled the Soviet Union’s communist dictatorship.

Leunig claimed that “the Communist Party was illegal in Australia” in the 1950s. Totally false, of course. The Communist Party was only illegal during the early stages of the Second World War. This was the period of the Nazi-Soviet Pact when the likes of Leunig’s old man were supporting Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime because Joe Stalin told them to.

At the time, with Old Man Leunig’s acquiescence, Nazi Germany’s Army was busy in Europe burning, killing, maiming, raping and the like. But don’t expect this to be acknowledged in a Leunig cartoon in “The Guardian-on-the-Yarra” any time soon.

MAURICE NEWMAN SEGMENT: GROUP-THINK IN THE ABC

Most ABC presenters don’t like mentioning commercial products on air. Last month, for example, MWD heard an ABC sports reporter deliberately avoiding the use of the term “NAB Cup” – instead he referred to the ALF’s “pre-season competition”. However, ABC types have no qualms about citing the publisher of an author’s book. And then there is the “Spin Doctors” on ABC metropolitan radio 702 in Sydney – where PR types are invited on air each Thursday morning to pitch for themselves while such potentially commercial activity is presented as mere analysis.

On Thursday 22 April it was the occasion for Cato Council’s principal Sue Cato to get together with Ogelby PR’s media director Sam North – with presenter Deborah Cameron in the chair. First up, the conversation turned to politics. Health, in particular – with a focus on how Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott were handling the issue.

It was one of those ABC group-think discussions where everyone agrees with everyone else and a fine ideological time is had by all. Sue Cato agreed with Sam North who agreed with Deborah Cameron who agreed with Sue Cato that Rudd had prevailed against Abbott and the State premiers in the health debate. And so on.

The initial exchange set the tone of the “I’ll-agree-with-you-if-you’ll-agree-with-me” exchange. Let’s go to the audio tape:

Deborah Cameron : Thanks very much for coming in. Now, Sue, how fascinating to see that this – for many of us – the issue of health is now fixed.

Sue Cato : Absolutely… The fact is, to your point, totally agree. The big headlines were earlier in the week, most people have moved on. And to your point, Rudd has had the box on health reform ticked. So for people to be able to say that Kevin Rudd, you know, “What has he done?” and-you-know that was getting some traction. He’s made big promises, what’s been delivered? I think it’s sorted on that one.

Sam North: Well if you have a look at The [Daily] Telegraph today… The Telegraph’s moved on and that means they’ve said: “Our readers have moved on.”

Deborah Cameron: This short attention span issue, Sam. That’s something that prime-ministers can use to their advantage.

Sam North: Oh, anyone can use it to their advantage – that’s right. And it’ll just be the big issues they talk about now. And “We’ve solved health and Tony Abbott had X number of years to do it as health minister and X number of years in government and wanted to do it and didn’t do it and we’ve done it two and a half years into our term.”

And so it went on – and on. Even the decision of Western Australian premier Colin Barnett not to immediately sign on to the health agreement was presented as a victory for Kevin Rudd. Ms Cato said that Colin Bennett would be pressured to sign an agreement. Mr North declared that Barnett was “not travelling all that well in the West” – which might surprise commentators who follow Western Australian politics. Then Sue Cato evoked the wisdom of an (anonymous) wit when agreeing with North:

Sam, a good friend of mine, who’s a bit of a political wit, described it as a political colonoscopy for all the people in WA if it fails.

Funny, eh? Certainly Deborah Cameron giggled loudly. Then Ms Cameron invited her fellow panelists to talk about the Opposition leader. North declared that Abbott’s “in trouble on health”. Cato added: “Yeah – and Sam and I actually said, you know, we agree on this.” Yes, we know. Then Ms Cameron decided it was time to focus on Tony Abbott’s suggestion that young people in receipt of unemployment benefits should be required to work in areas where there are job vacancies. Cameron, having previously accused Abbott of playing the populist card, continued:

Deborah Cameron: What I meant by the populist card was Mr Abbott going strong on asylum seekers, which you would expect. And now going after dole bludgers. And you wonder whether single mothers will be next. You know, like it’s like “tick some boxes here”. These are subjects that, that inflame people’s, you know, the bit inside you that says it feels, you know, something he’s tapped into something I didn’t know was there.

Needless to say, Sue agreed with Deborah. And Deborah agreed with Sam. Ms Cato then declared that when hearing the ABC News she had experienced a LOL moment – at Tony Abbott’s expense, of course. Then Sam North rationalised Labor’s case against the Opposition leader. Then Ms Cato prophecised that Tony Abbott’s “going to have lots of time and practice being in Opposition, I suspect”. Then all agreed that the Opposition leader was really an entity called “Sarah Palin Abbott” – followed by much laughter. Then Deborah Cameron wound up the segment by commenting: “The Opposition shadow cabinet is actually meeting in Sydney today, I wonder if they’re tuned in.” Why would they bother? Tony Abbott and his colleagues already know the Labor line and doesn’t need Deborah Cameron’s spin-doctors to remind them.

HISTORY CORNER

On Wednesday 21 April 2010, Phillip Adams interviewed Australian expatriate [Do you mean ex-patriot? – Ed] John Pilger. The ABC’s Man-In-Black welcomed Pilger to the Radio National Late Night Live program on the occasion of the 20^th anniversary of the publication of his book A Secret Country – which, alas, Adams early in the interview referred to as “A Second Country”. A mis-speak? Or a recognition that the author lives in Britain, perhaps?

Adams began the program by, once again, talking about himself. You see, that very morning he had had “a little surgical procedure”. How about that? Soon after Adams introduced Pilger – and acknowledged that “we’ve been chatting now for decades”. Quite so. Adams then praised A Secret Country – and Pilger described the book as “something of a landmark”. Pilger then re-stated his familiar claim that there are “great silences” in Australian history.

The initial question and answer was as follows:

Phillip Adams: To what extent, do you think, A Secret Country would need to be re-written 20 years later? Let’s look at indigenous issues, in particular.

John Pilger: I don’t think it needs really, in its big themes, to be re-written at all…

History Corner begs to differ. John Pilger and his publisher would be well advised to correct the numerous factual errors in A Secret Country. Here are John Pilger’s Top Ten Howlers in A Secret Country – which were initially cited in somewhat greater form in Gerard Henderson’s Media Watch, Issue 16, February-March, 1991.

No 1. A 93 Per Cent Error Rate in Analysing Election Results

Page 141 of A Secret Country contains the following assertion:

In all the elections for the Australian House of Representatives during the Menzies’ reign – from 1949 to 1966 – support for his own misnamed Liberal Party was never more than 34 per cent of the popular vote, and for his conservative coalition 42 per cent.

This claim is hopelessly wrong – as a quick reference to the basic text by Colin A Hughes and B D Graham entitled A Handbook of Australian Government and Politics: 1890-1964 would indicate. In seven Federal elections from 1949 to 1963, the Menzies Liberal Party only once polled less than 34 per cent of the primary vote. Moreover at these elections the combined Coalition (i.e. Liberal Party plus Country Party) vote was always above 42 per cent.

It is difficult to estimate the total vote (i.e. the vote after the distribution of preferences) in the Menzies period since not all seats were contested and not all preferences were counted out. Malcolm Mackerras has estimated what he terms the two party preferred vote in this period as follows:

No 2. A Blind Spot On Evatt’s Civil Libertarian Past

At page 118 of A Secret Country Pilger writes:

A shy man of intellect and dignity, “Bert” Evatt was a central figure in every civil rights struggle in Australia for a generation.

This is just not so. To be sure Bert Evatt was in the forefront of some civil liberties campaigns during his careers in law and politics. But as Attorney General from October 1941 through to the end of World War II, he was responsible for the manifestly unfair internment of many Australians of Italian and German origin and for the unjustified witch hunt against the members of the Australia First Movement.

No 3. Perpetuating The Petrov Myth

At pages 125-126 of A Secret Country Pilger writes:

On the second to last day of the parliamentary session, with Evatt absent, Menzies announced that Vladimir Petrov, Third Secretary of the Soviet Embassy in Canberra, had defected to ASIO, and that a Royal Commission would enquire into “espionage activities” in Australia. Ten days before the election the three Royal Commissioners sat in a concert hall in Canberra attended by maximum publicity and rumours about “nests of communists close to Evatt”. The “Petrov affair” consumed the rest of the election campaign.

This is manifestly false. As Robert Manne has demonstrated in his definitive work The Petrov Affair: Politics and Espionage (1987), there was no public mention whatsoever of any links between some members of Evatt’s personal staff and the USSR Embassy in Canberra until after the 1954 election. It should also be noted that the Hawke Government’s 1984 decision to release the Petrov papers had the effect of totally demolishing the Petrov conspiracy myth – even among those whose background is of the left (see in particular John Waterford “A Labor Myth” in Anne Curthoys and John Merritt eds. Better Red than Dead, 1986). Apparently Pilger has yet to catch up with this important literature.

The fact that Petrov’s defection was not a factor in the 1954 Federal election, Labor’s failure to win the eminently winnable election in that year was due primarily to poor leadership, a flawed campaign resulting directly from Evatt’s uncosted lavish promises and internal brawling. Also, the economy was recovering and Robert Menzies benefited from the good will initiated by the Royal Visit.

No 4. Getting 11 November 1975 Wrong (Again)

A pages 167-168 of A Secret Country Pilger writes:

On November 11, the very day Whitlam was to inform Parliament fully about the CIA and American bases in Australia, he was summoned by Kerr from Parliament House and, without warning, sacked…Whitlam returned immediately to Parliament and moved a motion “that this house expresses its want of confidence in the Prime Minister…”.

Now any one who knows anything at all about the dismissal of the Whitlam Government will recognise that this account is completely at odds with the documented facts.

Following his dismissal at Government House at around 1 pm on 11 November 1975, Gough Whitlam did not return immediately to Parliament House. Rather he went to his residence at the Lodge where, according to Graham Freudenberg’s book A Certain Grandeur: Gough Whitlam in Politics (1977), he ate a steak. Whitlam summoned some of his personal staff and Cabinet colleagues to join him at the Lodge – but neglected to advise the ALP Senate leadership about the dismissal of his government.

No 5. Distorting The History of White Australia

At page 119 of A Secret Country Pilger writes:

The Chifley Government was also Anglo-centric and racist in its conduct of the White Australia Policy; yet paradoxically it was the Chifley Government that initiated an immigration policy which was to put an end to an exclusively white Australia.

This is simplistic in the extreme. The White Australia Policy was effectively abolished by Harold Holt’s Coalition Government in March 1966. The Chifley Labor Government did initiate an expansive immigration policy in the late 1940s – but it never wavered one bit from a strict adherence to the White Australia Policy.

No 6. Now Hear This – Poverty As A Secret

On Page 242 of A Secret Country Pilger writes:

…the Australian Bonanza Class are now wealthier than the rich in the most advanced industrial nations, the poor are worse off. The phenomenal growth of poverty is one of Australia’s contemporary secrets. Indeed, modern Australian poverty is distinguished by its concealment.

This suggests that expatriate John Pilger has spent too much time away from Australia and is completely out of touch. The fact is that, far from being a “contemporary secret”, the issue of poverty has had a prominent place on the Australian political agenda for around four decades – and certainly since the first report of the Henderson Royal Commission into Poverty in 1972.

No 7. Confusing Arthur and Harry Goldberg

At page 141 of A Secret Country Pilger makes a reference to “the famous CIA man, Harry Goldberg”. At page 186 he is subsequently described as “Arthur J. (“Harry”) Goldberg, a senior official of the Free Trade Union Committee of the American Federation of Labor” and reference is made to a visit to Australia in 1960. At page 188 there is an additional reference to a Harry Goldberg coming to Australia in 1969.

If Pilger is going to go into CIA related conspiracies in a big way he should at least properly identify people. In this instance he has confused the late Arthur J. Goldberg (an American labor lawyer who became US Secretary of Labor, a justice of the US Supreme Court and US Ambassador to the United Nations) with Harry Goldberg (a former school teacher who went on to hold a senior position in the US trade union peak organisation AFL-CIO and visited Australia twice in the 1960s). If Pilger does not know who Arthur J. Goldberg was – then he obviously knows little of contemporary American politics. By the way, Arthur J. Goldberg was never called “Harry”. And Harry Goldberg was never called “Arthur J.”.

No 8. Factual Accuracy 0; Conspiracy Analysis 5

Never one to knock back the opportunity of beating up a conspiracy theory of one kind or another, at page 175 of A Secret Country Pilger writes about a 1987 conference, which was held in Washington DC, in the following terms:

In 1987 [Gerard] Henderson attended a seminar in Washington entitled “The Red Orchestra in the South West Pacific”. Speakers described the “left network and the Australian media” and Moscow’s “penetration” of the Australian press (most of which is controlled by Rupert Murdoch). Henderson spoke on the subject “How Fertile The Ground?”. The conference was organised by the Russians-are-coming Hoover Institution with the help of Owen Harries of the Association for Cultural Freedom which, wrote Jonathan Kwitny, “was exposed in the US Congress as founded, funded and generally run by the CIA”.

This is (yet another) pilgerism:

▪ John Pilger did not attend this conference. His account is based on a report written by Tim Colebatch in The Age. Colebatch, likewise, did not attend the meeting in question and, apparently, wrote his report on what he thought went on there. He later personally apologised to Gerard Henderson for the numerous factual errors contained in his piece in The Age. Yet this same flawed article forms the basis for Pilger’s account in A Secret Country.

▪ Contrary to Pilger’s claim, the overwhelming majority of Australian delegates at the conference (which included a former member of the Whitlam Labor Cabinet, several senior trade union officials, supporters of both the ALP and the Liberal Party and leading academics) emphatically rejected any suggestion that there was any “penetration” whatsoever of the Australian media – by Moscow, the Vatican, or any other institution. Moreover the Australian delegates objected strongly to the decision to call the conference proceedings “The Red Orchestra” since this was felt to be a quite meaningless term.

▪ Contrary to Pilger’s claims, Gerard Henderson spoke on Soviet influence in the South Pacific, and the conference had no connection whatever to the Association for Cultural Freedom.

No 9. A Magician’s View Of The “Deeply Wounded” Dollar

At page 203 of A Secret Country Pilger writes:

As farm, commodity and mineral prices began to fall in 1983, Keating suddenly lifted all banking controls and floated the currency in a highly unstable speculators’ market. This has left a deeply wounded Australian dollar – sometimes known as the “Pacific peso” – and world record interest rates, as testified by the frequent evictions of farmers unable to pay up to 34 per cent on their loans.

This is economically illiterate – and factually wrong as well. The Australian dollar did not fall after the floating of the currency. The drop in the value of the $A occurred over 12 months later for quite unrelated reasons. Moreover Mr Keating did not “suddenly” lift banking controls – the financial deregulation of the Australian banking system took place over three years (1982-1985).

No 10. A Little Bit of (Distorted) History Is A Dangerous Thing

Australia’s involvement in the First World War remains a controversial issue in Australian history. But Pilger’s analysis of World War I in A Secret Country goes beyond mere opposition to Australia’s involvement (along with its allies) and contains comments which are erroneous.

▪ At page 76 Pilger described the Australian Imperial Force of 1914-1918 as a “vassal’s army”. This comment demeans the enormous contribution of the First AIF on the Western Front from 1916 on and, in particular, the role played by Australian forces during the Allied offensive in the northern autumn of 1918. It is a matter of record that the AIF played an important part in some of the greatest military victories achieved by any army in any war.

▪ At page 108 Pilger maintains that “imperial chroniclers were able to obscure the scandalous truth of Gallipoli whose victims were exploited as shock troops, in an engagement of no military or strategic worth…”.

This is manifestly false. The military tragedy that was Gallipoli has been engraved in the Australian psyche almost since the news reached Australia of Keith Murdoch’s “Gallipoli letter” of September 1915. It is but a myth to maintain otherwise.

▪ At page 110 Pilger asserts that, following the 1916 Easter Uprising in Dublin, “Irish Australians were in no mood to die for King and Country” and “nor were those in the Australian labor movement, who remained unmoved by (Prime Minister) Hughes’ desperate invocation of the “threat” of the “Yellow Peril”.

Once again this is but a myth. Sure some prominent Catholics (e.g. Archbishop Daniel Mannix) opposed conscription in 1916 and 1917 but other leading Catholics (e.g. Archbishop Patrick Clune) supported it. In other words, during the conscription controversy of World War I the Catholic Church was divided. But this had little effect on Catholic (or Irish) Australians who continued to enlist in the AIF at around the same rate as other religious believers (re which see L L Robson The First AIF: A Study in its Recruitment 1914-1918, 1970).

Pilger also overlooks the fact that the ALP never disassociated itself from the war effort – its opposition to the Hughes Government was motivated by anti-conscription, not by opposition to the Allied war effort.

▪ At page 111 Pilger asserts, on the basis of his own schooling, that there was no “historical record” in Australia of the anti-conscription campaigns of World War I and that “contemporary history” did not exist. This may be Pilger’s experience. But it is facile to extend one individual’s limited experience across the entire country. There is substantial literature on the conscription debates during the First World War.

▪ Pilger’s historical understanding of the 20^th Century Europe is also alarmingly superficial. At pages 107, he refers to World War I as being “generated by a family squabble between Kaiser Wilhelm II and his cousin, George Saxe-Coburg; the latter, in the course of events, wisely changing his name to Windsor”.

This analysis (for want of a better word) is staggeringly superficial. We have it on the evidence of German historians that in 1914 Germany was led by a ruling elite hell-bent on territorial expansion by aggression – see, in particular, H W Koch ed. The Origins of the First World War: Great Power Rivalry and German War Aims, 1972. To maintain that the First World War was generated by a mere “family squabble” is to reveal extraordinary and inexcusable ignorance.

THE CLICHÉ IN THE ROOM (CONTINUED)

Fran Kelly, Matthew Paris and Lotsa Elephants

There was many an elephant in the Radio National Breakfast room this morning as Fran Kelly interviewed Matthew Paris about the British election in general – and the third and final leaders’ debate which had just concluded:

Matthew Paris: ….no one seems to have talked about – I hate to use the term “elephant in the room”. But our national deficit is the elephant in the room.

Fran Kelly: Is the elephant in the room now, though – especially for the business sector I suppose – the prospect of a hung parliament? Because the polls seem to suggest that’s almost a certainty now.

Hang on a moment. This (elephant in the room) cliché is supposed to refer to something obvious that no one wants to acknowledge. But now Fran Kelly seems to be suggesting that the elephant in the room notion denotes a phenomenon which almost everyone has acknowledged and is talking about. We’ll keep you posted about this (apparent) development.

Until next time.