For a fleeting moment, it looked as if 2015 might be the year in which prophecy attained credibility. After all, in September Malcolm Turnbull became Prime Minister of Australia — in accordance with the 2011 prediction of the Palm Beach-based seer Bob Ellis. On checking, however, the False Prophet of Palm Beach foresaw that Turnbull [...]
GERARD HENDERSON’S MEDIA WATCH DOG – ISSUE NO. 300 18 DECEMBER 2015 The inaugural issue of “Gerard Henderson’s Media Watch” was published in April 1988 – over a year before the first edition of the ABC TV Media Watch program went to air. Since November 1997 “Gerard Henderson’s Media Watch” has been published as [...]
Clover Moore, the Lord Mayor of Sydney, reckons that modern-day cities need resilience. So much so that she has appointed a chief resilience officer to help Sydney respond to “future stresses and shocks” and things like that. Despite her concern for climate change, Moore increased her carbon footprint by flying to Paris to attend the [...]
GERARD HENDERSON’S MEDIA WATCH DOG – ISSUE NO. 299 11 DECEMBER 2015 The inaugural issue of “Gerard Henderson’s Media Watch” was published in April 1988 – over a year before the first edition of the ABC TV Media Watch program went to air. Since November 1997 “Gerard Henderson’s Media Watch” has been published as [...]
The word disruption has become so common a usage it seems destined for cliche status. Yet real disruptions do happen. Most recently, it seems, under the Coalition. After succeeding Tony Abbott as Prime Minister in September, Malcolm Turnbull made two decisions that had unintended consequences of the disruptive kind. He sacked northern Queensland Liberal [...]
As far as I am aware, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse had not previously flagged a date for the expected appearance of any witness. But last week it issued a witness list for its latest case study. Only one expected appearance date was specified, namely “Cardinal George Pell (from 16 [...]
As far as the insular Canberra parliamentary press gallery stories go, this surely takes the cake. For 2015 at least. In The Sydney Morning Herald on Wednesday, James Massola reported that Liberal Party MPs are “increasingly frustrated by a ‘resistance movement’ that has sprung up around former prime minister Tony Abbott”. Massola named the members [...]
It has to be the most facile comment on Australian television this year. The reference is to Andrew MacLeod, a visiting professor at Kings College, London. On the ABC’s Q&A last Monday, MacLeod initially played to his audience by bagging Tony Abbott as being “too emotional” with respect to terrorism and for engaging in “slogans”. [...]
GERARD HENDERSON’S MEDIA WATCH DOG – ISSUE NO. 295 13 NOVEMBER 2015 The inaugural issue of “Gerard Henderson’s Media Watch” was published in April 1988 – over a year before the first edition of the ABC TV Media Watch program went to air. Since November 1997 “Gerard Henderson’s Media Watch” has been published as part [...]
Could it be that the rage that subsumed so many Australians following governor-general John Kerr’s sacking of Gough Whitlam’s Labor government on November 11, 1975, is finally abating? Perhaps so, if Bill Shorten’s attitude is indicative. During an interview with Fran Kelly on the ABC’s RN Breakfast on Wednesday, the Opposition Leader was asked whether, [...]
