GERARD HENDERSON’S MEDIA WATCH DOG – ISSUE NO. 41

12 FEBRUARY 2010

STOP PRESS

In today’s Australian Tom Dusevic, the paper’s national chief reporter, has an alleged scoop titled “Head to head: Queen takes on Bryce in right royal title fight” According to Mr Dusevic:

Following the triumphant tour of Australia by its potential future king, Prince William, the Queen has reasserted her claim on the title “head of state” of Australia by using it in the announcement of her address to the UN in July.

An apparently breathless national chief reporter told readers of The Australian that Canberra’s bureaucratic and political officials were jolted out of the capital’s summer haze on Australia Day “following the receipt of a cable advising that Queen Elizabeth II was calling herself Australia’s head of state”. Apparently, Buckingham Palace put out a statement to this effect on 22 January 2010.

If Tom Dusevic and assorted Canberra bureaucrats had read Gerard Henderson’s column in The Sydney Morning Herald on Tuesday 19 January 2010, they would have noticed the following paragraph:

The British contemporary historian Vernon Bogdanor, in his 1995 book The Monarchy and the Constitution, demonstrated that the Queen, not the Governor-General, is the head of state of nations such as Australia. The Buckingham Palace website made a similar claim. It was withdrawn after a campaign by Australian monarchists, who maintain the myth that the Governor-General, who represents the Queen in Australia, is Australia’s head of state. Now that the heat of the debate has simmered, the palace has restored the initial – and correct – claim on its website.

In other words, the Palace listed the Queen as Australia’s head of state before Prince William’s visit and before the Palace’s statement on 22 January.

Make no mistake, MWD believes that Australia should have an Australian head of state. However, right now, Australia’s head of state is a London based, British resident. That’s just a fact.

NANCY’S “FIVE PAWS” GONG

  • Sassy Savva’s true confessions

At last a former member of the Canberra Press Gallery has revealed all – or almost all – about the Canberra Press Gallery. On Wednesday in Canberra, Laurie Oakes launched Niki Savva’s memoir titled So Greek: Confessions of a Conservative Leftie (Scribe 2010). The front cover contains an undated photo of a gorgeous Ms Savva on the coastline of Paphos, Cyprus along with an endorsement from Laurie Oakes who describes So Greek as “a riveting insider’s account of how politicians, minders and journalists really operate.”

Laurie Oakes should know something about journalists’ behaviour. A veteran of the Canberra Press Gallery, he is currently Channel 9’s political editor and writes a column each Saturday for The Daily Telegraph and the Herald-Sun. Nikki Savva also knows a lot about the Canberra Press Gallery. She worked for The Australian, The Age and the Herald Sun – then for six years as Treasurer Peter Costello’s press secretary and then for three years in Prime Minister John Howard’s Cabinet office.

MWD will be focussing on Ms Savva’s true confessions over the next few weeks. This week she scores Nancy’s (increasingly) prestigious “Five Paws” Gong for her honesty about the left’s prevalence in the Canberra Press Gallery. This is one political story that the Press Gallery has never reported – or almost never.

  • At Page 52 of So Greek, Nikki Savva compared the Canberra Press Gallery

when she arrived there in 1974 with the Gallery today. In so far as political leaning are concerned, little has changed. Writes Savva:

[In 1974] Mungo McCallum wandered round the offices, incessantly dispensing advice with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. I wondered how he managed to stay so thin with all the drinking he did. He reckoned it was because he threw up a lot. [Isn’t this the very same Mungo who used to reckon that it was John Howard who drove him to the Turps bottle? Let’s examine his career next week. – Ed]

The chief characteristic I shared with most of the journalists in the gallery was my politics: left of centre. The overwhelming majority of gallery journalists were Labor supporters. Not much has changed since. The Greens have peeled off some Labor sympathisers, but in the gallery itself conservatives are few, and often reluctant to out themselves. It can be a lonely place for anyone who functions outside the pack.

  • On 8 February Niki Savva appeared on Lateline to discuss So Greek where

the following exchange took place:

Leigh Sales: You also mention in the book that you think that the Press Gallery has an overwhelming left-wing bias. Why do you hold that view?

Niki Savva: I think it’s self-evident. I think if you read a lot of reporting out of the Gallery, a lot of the TV, a lot of the radio commentary is from the left or of the left. I think that’s been the case for a long time and I think diversity comes from outside the Gallery, not really from within the Gallery.

This seemed like a comment worthy of amplification. But Leigh Sales quickly moved on by asking the author about the leadership tension between Peter Costello and John Howard circa 2007. It was as if Ms Savva had uttered a profanity, so profane that the topic had to be changed. Immediately.

Laurie Oakes wrote thoughtfully about So Greek in The Daily Telegraph and Herald-Sun on 30 January 2010 and delivered an insightful analysis when he launched the book this week. However, Oakes’ focus was on Nikki Savva’s criticism of the Press Gallery’s professionalism. It is as if Oakes does not want to talk about the author’s primary critique of the Press Gallery – namely that, for decades, it has been a left-of-centre outfit comprised of Labor and now, increasingly, Green voters.

It is a matter of record that the Canberra based members of the Press Gallery have tended to ignore So Greek’s big story.

Nancy was particularly taken by Ms Savva’s true confessions about how she met her future husband Vincent Woolcock, a long-time Liberal Party official or political staffer. It was 11 November 1975 – just after the Governor-General had dismissed Labor icon Gough Whitlam, who was much loved in the Press Gallery. Savva ran into Woolcock, who was delivering material to the Press Gallery’s boxes in Parliament House. Besotted by Gough, Savva grabbed Woolcock by his suit lapels and warned him: “You won’t get away with this.” In fact, your man Vince did get away with this – and, soon after, he got away with Niki

MICHELLE GRATTAN’S (UNDECLARED) ETS U-TURN

One of the long-standing critiques of the Canberra Press Gallery is that it engages in a form of group think; when the fashions are set by the Gallery leaders – Laurie Oakes, Michelle Grattan and Paul Kelly – and followed by the Gallery rank and file. This sensitive matter is taken up by Tom Switzer in his (unsigned) editorial in today’s issue of The Spectator Australia. Mr Switzer, a former opinion page editor for the Australian Financial Review and The Australian who recently contested Liberal Party pre-selection for the Federal seat of Bradfield, has documented how members of the Gallery have changed their minds on the Rudd Government’s proposed Emissions Trading Scheme. Before the Copenhagen Conference, the Press Gallery was almost unanimous in its view that the Liberal Party would be ruined if it did not support the Prime Minister’s ETS. Now, after Copenhagen, the Gallery is almost unanimous in holding the view that it is Labor which is in political trouble over the ETS.

Let’s go to the library and follow The Thought of Michelle Grattan, The Age’s political editor and a daily commentator on the ABC Radio National Breakfast program.

Michelle Grattan on why the ETS is a problem for the Coalition:

It is in the Liberal Party’s interests to vote for the ETS and get the climate change issue as much off the election agenda as possible. – The Age, 25 November 2009

Michelle Grattan on why the ETS is a problem for the Government

For [Labor] marginal seats holders the ETS is becoming something of a nightmare. It’s one thing to surf along on climate change, as in 2007 when the argument was comfortably vague. It’s quite another when you have to answer all sorts of nitty-gritty queries about fuel costs and family compensation, and know your figures to the dollar. One Labor source says: “A number of Labor backbenchers are very concerned about where the government is going on this. They don’t think the government is selling it correctly, and they are very concerned about what effect it will have on energy prices.” It is also becoming increasingly hard to explain to people why Australia should be moving when things look bleak internationally. – The Age, 7 February 2010

Has Ms Grattan explained her U-turn on the ETS? Not on your nelly. Members of the Canberra Press Gallery are not into self-criticism [Let’s look at what Niki Savva wrote about Ms Grattan and The Age next week – Ed]

NANCY’S PICK OF THE WEEK

  • Michael Brissenden – and all that jazz

MWD has been critical of the inability of the 7.30 Report to break many news stories – apart from those involving 7.30 Report personnel (see The Sydney Institute Quarterly Issues 34 and 35) during Kerry O’Brien’s time in the presenter’s chair.

However, Michael Brissenden was on-the-money on the 7.30 Report this week. There were some big stories around in the United States – involving both the Obama administration and the resurgent conservative forces, including Sarah Palin and the “Tea Party” set. But the 7.30 Report’s North America correspondent knew what the really, truly big story was. He reported on, wait for it, the 75th birthday of the Village Vanguard jazz club in New York’s Greenwich Village.

Perhaps Mr Brissenden’s aiming for a gig on Foreign Correspondent . Or perhaps he wants Kerry O’Brien’s job which requires occasional interviews where Mr O’Brien takes off his tie and channels a “Sunday Arts” style discussion with someone or other on any topic except news and current affairs.

HUNGRY BEAST’S (PREDICTABLY) BEASTLY ATTACK ON ROME

When (taxpayer funded) comedy becomes predictable, it invariably lacks humour.

Nancy bet her favourite bone that the first edition of the new series of Hungry Beast would contain at least one put-down of Catholicism but leave Islam well and truly alone. Needless to say, Nancy still has her bone to pick, so to speak.

Lo and behold, the very first skit on Hungry Beast last Wednesday featured a “joke” about Mary MacKillop (whose name is spelt incorrectly on the ABC Television website). Lewis Hobba acted as a reporter in Sydney interviewing Dan Ilic who acted as the Rome based “Father Anthony Fiori of the Congregation of the Causes of Saints.” Pretty funny, eh?

The Hobba character claimed, incorrectly, that the Vatican believes that Blessed Mary MacKillop had cured a cancer sufferer. Church teaching does not state that saints have such power. And the Ilic character was dressed as a monsignor or bishop or cardinal despite the fact that he was referred to as “Father” – the title of a mere priest. Clearly the Hungry Beast team does not know much about the Catholic Church.

Then it was on to predictable secular sneering about Catholics, along with a joke about “Jesus’ face discovered on burnt toast” – Father Fiori claimed the Vatican received ten such pieces of burnt toast a day. Laugh? Nancy just couldn’t stop.

Where will the Hungry Beast’s comedy go next? What about a joke on Islam – where the Muslim faith is ridiculed and the face of Mohammed is depicted on a piece of toast? That should be good for a laugh – and some resultant throat-cutting. The question is – are the Hungry Beast team (executive producer Andrew Denton and Anita Jacoby) and the ABC’s Head of Arts & Entertainment (Amanda Duthie) up for it? Don’t hold your breath.

HISTORY CORNER

  • Julia Gillard, the late Henry Bournes Higgins and the ghost of

Dennis Glover (speech writer)

This week saw the first clear evidence that Kevin Rudd has not been able to deliver on the promise which he made in the House of Representatives on 20 March 2008 – namely, that “no working families in this country will be worse off as a consequence of the industrial relations laws that we have advanced here in this parliament.” The Prime Minister was referring to the Fair Work Australia legislation which has established the Fair Work Australia national workplace relations tribunal, headed by Justice Geoff Giudice.

No one should doubt the good intentions of Kevin Rudd and Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard (who is also Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) on this matter. It’s just that Rudd and Gillard have presided over the re-regulation of Australia’s industrial relations system. They have substantially reduced the rights of employees and employers who wish to come to agreement about pay and conditions and handed this responsibility over industrial relations judges, commissioners, and public servants. Fair Work Australia has brought down awards which, in certain circumstances, reduce pay rates and impose unwanted conditions on employees.

Those familiar with the literature on unintended consequences will not be surprised by this reality. The idea that industrial tribunals – like Fair Work Australia or its predecessor the Industrial Relations Commission or the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Court or whatever – always know best was discredited a century ago. Unfortunately the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister do not seem to understand the history. Here they have not been assisted by their advisors.

  • Ms Gillard on H B Higgins – or was it Dr Glover?

Dr Dennis Glover, now a fellow at the Per Capita think tank in Melbourne, worked as a political staffer and freelance speech writer for Labor politicians over the past decade or so. His duties included drafting speeches for Julia Gillard – including the time when she was an Opposition frontbencher.

On 8 November 2007 Julia Gillard, in her capacity as Deputy Leader of the Opposition, delivered the opening speech to the “Remembering Harvester: A Centenary Symposium” which was held at the University of Melbourne. The occasion was held to celebrate the centenary of the decision of Justice Henry Bournes Higgins, President of the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration, in the case titled Ex Parte H. V. McKay. This decision, which was delivered on 8 November 1908, became known as the Harvester Judgment.

The Harvester Judgment essentially established what was initially termed the living wage, and later the basic wage, and ushered in Australia’s highly regulated and centralised industrial relations system which was to survive intact until the reforms introduced by Paul Keating’s Labor government in the early 1990s and the subsequent reforms of John Howard and Peter Costello after the Coalition was elected in March 1996.

The Remembering Harvester symposium at the University of Melbourne in November 2007 was typical of the kind of “debate” which is conducted at universities and heard on many ABC programs. In short, everyone agreed with everyone else that the Harvester Judgment was a fine decision and that H. B. Higgins was a wise chap. It was very much a gathering of what was (then) left of the Industrial Relations Club of politicians, judges, lawyers, trade union officials and academics who support industrial relations regulation.

Key speakers included such barrackers for industrial relations regulation as Professor John Rickard, Professor Joe Isaac, Professor Marian Sawer, Professor Marilyn Lake, Professor Judith Brett, Justice Geoffrey Giudice and ACTU President Sharan Burrow. At the end of proceedings, all present drank a toast to the living wage and Henry Bournes Higgins. It was that kind of function.

Dennis Glover has refused to confirm or deny that he drafted Ms Gillard’s talk to the Remembering Harvester symposium. MWD readers can draw their own judgement.

In her Harvester Judgement symposium speech, Julia Gillard heaped praise on both the Harvester Judgment and Justice Higgins. Ms Gillard declared this decision embodied “the birth of one of Australia’s founding values” and became part of “our collective thinking”. She added that Justice Higgins’ decision had resolved that Australia “should be a country where no one who works should need to live in poverty.” She did not comment about the plight of those who do not work on account of being priced out of the market.

According to Julia Gillard, reading what were apparently Dennis Glover’s words, H.B. Higgins “took a lonely stand in rejecting the racism that underpinned the White Australia Policy at the time” and was “a celebrated opponent of conscription – particularly after his son died during the Light Horse’s famous charge at Beersheba in 1917”.

  • The facts … HB Higgins supported White Australia and World

War I

And now for some facts. Contrary to the Glover/Gillard view, H.B. Higgins was a strong supporter of the White Australia Policy. So much so that he argued that Australians should be unequivocal in supporting White Australia and declared: “I prefer to state outright that we do not want yellow and black faces in Australia” (quoted in John Rickard, H.B. Higgins: The Rebel as Judge, Allen & Unwin 1984, page 132).

There is no evidence that H.B. Higgins was a “celebrated opponent of conscription” – or indeed, any kind of opponent of conscription. No such claim is made in John Rickard’s biography or in the entries on Higgins in Australian Dictionary of Biography (by John Rickard) or in The Oxford Companion to the High Court of Australia (by Ian Holloway). It is true that Higgins became disillusioned with World War I following the death of his son on active service in the Middle East. However, as John Rickard makes clear in his biography, “throughout the war Higgins supported the justice of the Allies’ cause”

Mervyn Higgins, the only son of Henry Bournes and Mary Alice Higgins, died on 23 December 1916 when shot by a sniper while leading an infantry advance at Magdhaba, Egypt. The Light Horse’s charge at Beersheba (in Palestine) took place on 31 October 1917 – almost a year after Mervyn Higgins was killed in action.

  • The Harvester Judgement – creating unemployment

And what about Higgins’ Harvester Judgment itself? Well, within a few years it soon became evident that the Harvester Judgement had been a disaster which priced employees out of the workforce.

In Ex Parte H.V. McKay, Justice Higgins specifically rejected what he referred to as the “higgling of the market”. He decided on a wage that was “fair and reasonable” based on “the normal needs of the average employee, regarded as a human being living in a civilised community”. Higgins determined a living wage for an unskilled male worker and his family – defined as a husband and wife and two or three children. Higgins was not interested in the situation of working women – single or married – a fact which was ignored by Glover/Gillard. After all, the Harvester Judgement symposium was not the occasion for such home truths.

The essential problem with the Harvester Judgment turned on Justice Higgins’ belief that employers – rather than governments by means of welfare payments – should be responsible for ensuring that employees received a living wage. Moreover, Higgins could not distinguish between public enterprise (which relied on the taxpayer) and private business (which had to make profits in a competitive market place). In short, the Harvester Judgement took no account of the market place – and, in particular, of the reality that Australia traded goods and services on world markets.

Also, Higgins fudged the truth. As W.M Robbins and Ian Harris pointed out in the November 2007 issue of Labour History, Higgins manipulated the evidence before him in Ex Parte H. V. McKay to come to the conclusion he wanted to reach: “Higgins did not go from the facts to the decision; on the contrary, he seems to have reached for a new principle while making every effort to ensure that the facts sat on the side.”

The flaw in the living wage concept even became evident when, in the 1909 Broken Hill Mines Case, Higgins declared that it was better for an employer to go out of business than to pay employees less than the prevailing basic wage as determined by the taxpayer-funded and tenured judges on the Arbitration Court. As Edward Shann commented in his 1930 book An Economic History of Australia, “the propriety of a wage, the legal award of which would abolish their jobs, was not plain” to some workers at the time. Quite so.

The problems with the Harvester Judgment went beyond Higgins’ refusal to consider the ability of employers to pay. He also declined to acknowledge geographical differences – namely, that it was more expensive for a worker to bring up a family in, say, Sydney than, say, Geraldton. In addition, Higgins overlooked the fact that not all male labourers were married with children and that life was no more expensive for a single man that it was for a single woman.

The economic historian W.K. Hancock, in his book, Australia (Ernest Benn, 1930) maintained that – due to the Harvester Judgment – in 1920 Australian businesses were being forced to support 450,000 non-existent wives and over two million non-existent children. Today it is fashionable, especially in academic circles, to praise – even toast – the living wage. However, Higgins’ contemporaries were more realistic in their assessments – especially during the economic crisis of the 1930s. The basic wage was cut during the Great Depression and only partly restored when prosperity returned. Industrial tribunals began to focus on the capacity of industry to pay – a phenomenon Higgins simply refused to consider.

In time, governments accepted the responsibility of ensuring a social safety net. Initially child endowment payments were a principal means to this end. In more recent times the Hawke, Keating and Howard governments focused on generous payments along with tax concessions to families with dependent children.

  • Recycling Peter Van Onselen’s howlers

The Glover/Gillard speech at Melbourne University contained considerable criticism of John Howard and Peter Costello – after all, it was delivered just over two weeks before the 2007 Federal election. Glover/Gillard focused on the H R Nicholls Society, which had been named after a Tasmanian who had clashed with Higgins, and contained the following comment:

As the recent biography of John Howard by Wayne Errington and Peter Van Onselen points out, the current Prime Minister was initially extremely nervous about getting involved in the H R Nicholls Society, and dithered over whether to attend its inaugural meeting and present a paper on the subject of industrial relations reform, written for him by his then Chief of Staff, Gerard Henderson. There was no such reluctance on the part of Peter Costello, the man who could be Prime Minister within six months if John Howard is re-elected.

In fact, John Howard was not invited to – and did not – attend the inaugural meeting of the H R Nicholls Society which was held in Melbourne in March 1986. Gerard Henderson did present a paper – which was written by himself. Here the Glover/Gillard error was to accept a claim in the book John Winston Howard: The Biography by Wayne Errington and Peter Van Onselen without fact checking. The first edition of John Winston Howard: The Biography contains numerous errors which, in time, will be documented in “History Corner” [I just can’t wait – Ed].

Until next time.