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October 15, 2011
I've become utterly sick of the way that the Canberra Press Gallery comments on public policy. They basically have two issues--- the horse race and leadership tensions--and every policy issue is enframed within, and then reduced to, these issues. Only a few dig beneath the surface of the politics to inform us what is happening behind the wall of mirrors. Mostly the journalists rely on leaks.
This is especially the case when they-- ie., journalists talking to other journalists --- talk about the particular issue of the week ie., --carbon tax or asylum seekers. They very quickly move onto Gillard being destroyed, or Rudd making a comeback, or Abbott winning the next election in 2013. That's their core interest. They'll spin political rumours in the form of journalism to spice it up.
They have no interest in the public policy issue per se---where have they informed us about the implications of the carbon price policies?. They also show little interest in changing their practices in the light of the limitations of their commentary and the criticisms of their understanding of politics.
What they offer us is boring---its pretty much realms of speculation about a Rudd comeback and what Rudd will do when he comes back. It's boring. Boring. Boring. It's even more boring than the embrace of the tedious "he said, she said” reporting around climate science.
After watching Chris Ulhmann interview Greg Combet on The 7.30 Report I came to the conclusion that Uhlmann knew very little of the policy, and that he wasn't interested. Time and time again he showed his ignorance:
CHRIS UHLMANN: If you genuinely believe that a market mechanism is in the end the best way to deal with this problem most cheaply, then why is there a $10 billion package at the heart of this which is about picking winners?
GREG COMBET: Well the market mechanism, which is an emissions trading scheme, will put a price for the first time on every tonne of pollution from the largest polluters in the country. That's a very powerful incentive to cut their pollution levels and to invest in more efficient technology and renewable energy. So that's the main institutional change that's occurring. You're pointing of course to the fact that the Government's also investing in $10 billion in a clean energy finance corporation, and this will be there to try and help bring private finance to technologies, renewable energy technologies, low emissions technologies to get them to the marketplace, because in many respects investors in the community are just like everyone else and they're not necessarily that familiar with some of these technologies and we want to facilitate getting them to market.
CHRIS UHLMANN: But certainly. But this is direct action. This is the stuff you ridicule.
GREG COMBET: No, this is not direct action at all. The Coalition's so-called direct action program is a subsidies-for-polluters program. This is an institution, a commercially oriented organisation that will make investments through providing loans or loan guarantees or equity investments to help get renewable and clean energy technologies to market.
CHRIS UHLMANN: But it's all government money and if - by definition, if something's commercially viable, then a private sector investor will invest in it. This is a government investment and you'll be picking winners.
GREG COMBET: Well, no, it'll be an independent corporation. We've announced today that Ms Jillian Broadbent will chairing the corporation, will be the inaugural chair. She's going to go around in coming months to develop an investment mandate. She's a very experienced person with Reserve Bank board experience. She will work ...
CHRIS UHLMANN: But 100 per cent of money will come from government, won't it?
GREG COMBET: No, in particular projects the idea here is for the finance corporation to step in where perhaps a technology's struggling to get to the marketplace - a proper evaluation will be done of its commerciality of course - but this can be a circuit-breaker to work with private finance from banks and the like to get a technology to the market.
Ulhmann, as the savvy insider, is either pretending ignorance for the sake of asking these low grade questions, or he hasn't bothered to do his research. If it's the latter, then he doesn't care, cos his central concern is to look savvy--- practical, hardheaded, unsentimental, and shrewd. Just like the party operatives and strategists he feels an affinity with.
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Journalism Oz style- Uhlmann's doltishness in the transcript and Moir doing a pinch off Rowson (altho the Abbott childishly striking a match inside an armory of incendiary racial and other social issues, cartoon was good).
I use Sally Neighbour's 4 Corners on human trafficking at it's most gross as a measure against the examples Gary employs, which demonstrate the yawning gap between rare serious current affairs and the lazy trivia that is so dominant.
Was the fairly small crowd that turned up in Adelaide today in solidarity for the Wall St Protests evidence that dumbing down has been devastating?