In Queensland we pride ourselves on being different.

The Australian States

Compared with Queensland’s southern sisters, this huge state that makes up the entire north-east of the Australian continent has a reputation for extremes.

It’s partly deserved. Queensland’s weather is wilder, our red-necks have redder necks, our greenery is more lush and verdant, beer-guts seem to bulge out further – and the stench of political corruption, when encountered, has a richer, more tropical odour.

Yet Queensland has actually shown remarkable political stability over long periods of time, with only a few big mood swings in the political landscape since Federation. For decades around the middle of the 20th Century Labor ruled the roost. Then power shifted to the right, especially the National Party. By the 1980s it seemed the era of populist National Party leader Bjelke-Petersen would never end. But end it did – and in 1989 Queenslanders were ready to vote the Australian Labor Party back into power with a big majority. With only a brief hiccup in the mid-1990s, Labor has held government ever since.

The right-wing of Queensland politics has always been a multi-party phenomenon and disunity among the ALP’s conservative opponents has been a factor that’s helped Labor retain government. On the left, only two significant parties vied for votes since the 1990s: the ALP and The Greens. The latter have yet to make a breakthrough and win a seat in Parliament, while Labor has often benefited from Greens preferences under the State’s “optional preferential system”. At the last election, which was fairly close, Green preferences were crucial to the re-election of Anna Bligh’s Labor Government.

Now – less than three days before the State election on March 24th, – it seems Queensland is about to undergo one of its rare seismic mood swings. Unless all the polls are way off, there’s about to be a change of Government. The Liberal National Party – a relatively new amalgam, so far limited to Queensland, formed by the merger of what were previously separate Liberal and National parties, is set to win in a landslide. On some polls, Labor’s team in Parliament may be reduced to fewer than football team size. Queenslanders, it seems, have had enough of the ALP.

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh; her leadership during the 2011 Flood Crisis was widely recognized as outstanding

Interestingly, while Labor’s vote base has hit rock bottom, polls indicate the Greens share of the vote is also down. What’s happening is more dramatic than a loss of faith in one party and its leader. If the polls are correct, there’s a broader loss of electoral support for what may loosely be called the “progressive” side of politics.

Does this reflect real attitudinal changes among the mass of voters?

I rather doubt that. I think the values of Queenslanders – taken as one huge, diverse whole – have changed much less than the dramatic poll shift would suggest. That’s social research I’d like to see done. Perhaps when the electoral dust has settled, someone may try to assess any deeper changes in underlying values.

Right now, the only story in town is polls, polls, polls – all of them shocking for Labor state-wide – along with a general sentiment that “Labor has Failed” which merges seamlessly with the “Time for a Change” meme.

The result is akin to an infectious itch for voting Labor out. Nothing seems to alleviate the itch. On Saturday, Queenslanders go to the polls where they can have a good scratch.

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I’m utterly out of sympathy with The Big Scratch.

On Saturday, I shall vote Green 1 (swallowing my contempt for the national Green Party’s pro-imperialist foreign policies). Then I shall vote Labor 2.

For the first time in many elections – I won’t assist at electron stations by handing out Greens “How to Vote” cards, because I cannot bring myself on this occasion to hand out HTVs that don’t recommend a second preference vote to Labor.

Now I’m someone who’s been needling for “change” for years, dissatisfied with state government policies that seem to me grossly unsustainable in the long-term. Yet I’m not keen at all about this massive wave for “Change”. Why not?

For one thing, I appreciate the social, health and educational services provided by the State. I’d like them expanded, not reduced. Labor has done a reasonable job in these basic areas of government service. I think we live in a fairly civilised State in which help is given to the poor, the needy and the unwell. I like it that way. Other levels of government are involved too – especially the Commonwealth – but Queensland has, I think, been run with attention to social justice.

A unique double act visiting Cairns: LNP Leader-in-waiting Campbell Newman (right) with "Interim" Parliamentary Leader Jeff Seeney

Yet even in those policy areas the electorate is in negative mood. There are the usual complaints – too few hospital beds, hospital waiting lists that annoy. What’s missing, it seems to me, is a positive accounting for the real achievements. These are many and usually go unrecorded and un-trumpeted.

I have a personal tale to tell. A few years ago, I contracted an unusual tropical disease and got very sick indeed. I relied on the public health system. It wasn’t perfect; diagnosis was a little slow and I ended up in hospital under intensive care. From that moment I have nothing but the highest praise for the treatment I received, the wonderful multi-ethnic staff who cared for me – and for the governance that made it all possible so I could walk out of hospital soon after, healthy again and without incurring a massive debt for the first class treatment I’d received.

My survival made no news headlines. It was a headline in my life – but if the newspapers, TV channels and radio shock jocks were talking about health-care at all at the time, they were grizzling about alleged malpractice in a handful of hospitals, waiting lists or other negative stories.

To some extent this is simply the media doing its job. One person’s good news isn’t “newsworthy”; rorts and shortcomings do need exposure. But there’s probably a deeper impact on public consciousness. The populace is encouraged to think negatively about the services it does get from government – services that are often of high quality despite budget constraints. This negativity makes it easier for such benefits to be taken away. That, I fear, may be coming soon…

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As an environmentalist, the current Queensland government (along with its predecessors) has disappointed me in a number of policy areas. I could list them. It would be quite a long list.

Yet recent Labor governments have shown real concern for environmental protection. Legislation to protect the State’s remaining Wild Rivers has been a superb initiative – vilified by the mining lobby and its allies and probably about to be undone by an LNP government – but nonetheless a great effort to help save some of what’s left that makes Queensland unique. The National Parks estate has been expanded. Broad-scale native forest logging – an issue that still divides Australians in other states – has been phased out.

Environmentalists’ biggest beef with the Labor Government has been in energy production, notably Coal Seam Gas and most crucial of all to those concerned about climate change, the massive coal export projects that the government has been approving up and down the east coast.

Queensland coal exports: the modern opium trade - making the whole planet sick?

These projects are turning Queensland into something akin to the Saudi Arabia of Coal – at a time when scientists concerned about global warming say we must wind down our use of fossil fuels. It makes the pretence of a climate-wise “smart state” farcical.

Yet this “mining boom” has been what’s pumped much of the recent prosperity into the State. Labor supports it and so do all the parties of the right. The Greens stands alone in their opposition to Big Coal. Most people are persuaded that the mining boom is, on the whole, a good thing. Aster all, it helps pay for the services they like and the infrastructure they want built. No other feasible and better alternative has been sold to the public, so public support isn’t surprising.

I’m on the Greens side in that debate. But I understand why most people are not. Those of us who want a different, greener future for the State have yet to develop an alternative economic program which could deliver prosperity without these vast resource projects. The Greens’ answer to increasing government revenue is largely to increase the imposts on the mining industry. I think that’s a good idea too – the mining industry should pay a lot more of its windfall profits to the community. But this is not a policy for avoiding the big projects Greens find so offensive.

At this election, Green Party anger is being expressed most tangibly in a decision not to recommend a second preference to Labor in all but one of the seats. Individual voters are encouraged to make up their own minds on preferences. It’s a rap over the knuckles for the ALP; in earlier elections there was typically more effort to help Labor get across the line. But most Greens think Labor is about to get thrashed anyway.

My fear is that significant gains environmentalists have won in Queensland in recent decades are about to be wiped out – while there will be no change or things will get worse in those policy areas where environmentalists were already at odds with the Government.

In short, I fear Queensland is about to jump from the environmental frying pan into the fire.

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The State-wide wave of negativity, directed against the government, has been combined with an almost complete failure to scrutinise the LNP team. We know very little about most of the LNP candidates. Mostly they’ve been keeping their heads down and trying to stay out of trouble.

Yes, there has been scrutiny of leader Campbell Newman’s business dealings. Last week he came under a lot of pressure from the media and seemed to be fumbling. But when the Crimes and Misconduct Commission announced it wouldn’t investigate Campbell Newman further at the end of last week, the LNP declared victory. Since then it’s been successful in spinning an impression that Labor ran a dirty campaign throughout, peddling utterly baseless smears. That’s cited as one of the reasons given for Labor’s lack of success in the polls.

To me, whether or not Campbell Newman is corrupt is in some ways a lesser issue than what we already know to be true.

We know the LNP is still withholding its costings three days out from the election (they’ve finally been promised for Thursday – less than 48 hours before polling day!).

We know the LNP has been debate-shy. That seems to be a pattern throughout Queensland and it’s not surprising, either. On the rare occasions the two leaders have squared off, Anna Bligh dominated. She’s a much more substantial politician and a more competent debater. It shows. I suspect the same if often true at local level; it is in my own area.

CanDo Queensland

Brandishing its corny “CanDo” slogan, the LNP has indicated a recklessness about due process that’s deeply alarming. Asked about environmental impact assessment in relation to his proposal to dredge Trinity Inlet in Cairns, Campbell Newman breezily responded “where there is a will, there is a way!” That’s very true, Mr Newman. But what about the Great Barrier Reef? Mr Newman made similar remarks about another proposal to dredge Broadwater on the Gold Coast, so it’s not an aberration.

A lot of LNP candidates fail to impress after a modicum of scrutiny. Mark Boothman is a classic example. Campbell Newman’s defense of Boothman – while he continues to court religious conservatives – is rank opportunism.

There’s no break on a Party with a Parliamentary majority in Queensland – except for the courts and the Federal Government in well-defined policy areas where it has leverage. There’s no Queensland Upper Chamber. If a Government with a solid majority wants to make big changes, there’s not much to stop it.

If these wretched polls are right, evidence-based policy is about to take a back seat to Crash-Through populism.

I, for one, would much prefer this doesn’t happen.

Not in my back yard…

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No article about this election from Far North Queensland would be complete without at least a mention of the LNP’s delightful candidate for Cairns, the ex-NewsCorp personality-hack Gavin King.

Some of Gavin’s more choice remarks have already made national news, but the pithy video displayed below, complied by the local ALP, is worth a look.

It turns out Gavin has a bad word to say about almost everyone. In that sense, he’s perfectly in tune with the current mood of the electorate. No matter Gavin King pours scorn on them too – and even on his own new Party. He’s a petulant man – the man of the moment!

Very high tides have a way of bringing up a range of unusual life-forms and dumping them at high water mark. If Labor loses Cairns for the first time in a century, we’ll know it really is a King Tide.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation is the major publicly-funded broadcaster – TV and radio – in this sprawling southern continent. In recent years it has also become active on-line and consequently does an increasing amount of “narrow-casting” as well.

It’s often said “the ABC is the most trusted media organisation in Australia”.

I think it likely the ABC’s public credibility is higher than most of the privately-owned media – although I also believe the perceived integrity of ALL the mass media is in decline. More and more people with the ability to double-check media spin on-line simply don’t trust mainstream media any more.

On definable news subjects – especially topics of keen interest to the Zionist Lobby and/or the so-called “intelligence agencies” – I don’t consider the ABC trustworthy at all. Many folk have yet to catch on to what dreadful liars they are. But that’s a changing too…

In the media, credibility is power. Power should come with responsibility. But to whom is the ABC really responsible?

The popular notion is the ABC is run by frightfully clever people – a government-appointed board of the best minds and highly professional senior staff – who can be relied upon to do the best job possible on behalf of the broad public interest. That’s more or less what I used to believe. I don’t believe it at all any more. I’ve come to believe this organisation is heavily manipulated by some covert power configurations. It must be.

WTC-7 - not even mentioned in the US Government's initial 9/11 report

Like many people, it was 9/11 that woke me up. Anyone who has spent a significant amount of time considering the matter is aware there are INSOLUBLE problems with the official narrative.

That’s why so many highly-qualified people have taken career risks to demand a new inquiry. Clearly the fairytale of fanatical Muslim hijackers which has been used to sell recurrent wars and to rationalize plummeting civil liberties is bogus. What really did happen and who was responsible is open to legitimate dispute – although even that thorny subject has been persuasively sketched-in over recent years.

That, of course, is to present just one person’s perspective – my perspective. I believe that like everyone else in this country, the public broadcaster should give me a voice – one voice among the many. It should not set out to censor my views. That’s not serving a news function; that’s acting as a control agent.

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Earlier today I happened to post a comment on The Drum, which is the busy ABC blog where selected articles are posted and comments from the public are invited (but not always approved).

The article Journalism education v profession: who has lost touch? was by journalism academic Jenna Price. I read it with interest. After all, I’d blogged about this same issue only yesterday.

Comment sumbitted to Jenna Prrice article in The Drum

I posted a comment under her article. It wasn’t a brilliant comment. In fact it was rather grumpy. But it did open new ground in the discussion and was broadly on topic.

My comment (see right) wasn’t published.

Of course, every blog is free to choose which comments to publish – but my question is this.

Why should Australian citizens – as a whole – pay the wages of ABC staff if they select only those articles and comments of which they approve?

What’s the value these ABC people add to our national debate by exercising that largely covert censorship function with such evident bias? Whose interests are they serving? Whose interests are they completely disregarding?

More and more a key role of publicly-funded media looks to me like social control.

That was a theme in my article Come in No 12! Taking a Megaphone to Australia’s Finkelstein debate, published here yesterday. I’d hoped to be able to point anyone reading through comments at The Drum to the article. But the public censors decided otherwise.

The ABC is an organisation funded by all Australians. It now occupies webspace (such as The Drum) that independent initiatives could take instead. Yet it exercises an inexplicit, unjustified (and in my view wholly unjustifiable) censorship function.

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ABC Canberra 666

Here’s another case of ABC censorship – and a good example of the contempt in which ABC staff often hold people whose views they consider beyond the pale.

This afternoon I happened to come across a tweet from ABC Radio in Canberra. I learnt that a discussion was already underway about “conspiracy theories” (stupid term!) and 9/11. I tuned in to 666 to listen.

The presenter, Genevieve Jacobs, was in the process of interviewing a man who was identified as a (so called) ‘Sceptic’. He was in the mould of the USA’s Michael Shermer, or Australia’s most pompous radio commentator, Philip Adams. Like Shermer and Adams before him, the interviewee enjoyed himself immensely ridiculing “conspiracy theorists” none of whom, needless to say, were on-air and able to talk back. Genevieve asked him occasional soft ball questions. They joked together. Both were clearly having lots of fun.

ABC 666 tweets re "conspiracy theory"

I called in.

I was asked what I wanted to say and put on a call queue.

When asked, I’d decided to be honest and explain that I’m highly critical of the official 9/11 story; apart from anything else I wanted to see how I was treated as someone with those unpopular views.

Would I get to be interviewed on air?

The answer was no. After ten minutes or so, the line went dead.

I called the ABC back, but was told there was no time for more calls from the public. I pointed out the entire conversation had been 100% biased towards the perspective that the official story about 9/11 is correct. All the phone-in callers had concurred on that point. I’d identified myself as holding the opposite view but given no chance to speak. Didn’t they want to treat the subject with any fairness at all?

The voice at the other end of the phone started to sound annoyed. Today’s discussion, she told me, followed another on-air segment the day before, when a real “conspiracy theorist” had been on air. I asked his name and whether I could get a transcript of that interview. She curtly told me to try ‘Media Monitors’ (a paid service) and hung up.

So much for the ABC’s responsiveness to public inquiries.

Genevieve Jacobs; thinks it's a giggle that people still ask questions, a decade after three skyscrapers collapsed at near free-fall acceleration on one "unique" day in NYC

During the parts of the show I heard, Genevieve Jacobs’ discussion about “conspiracy theorists” was more than dismissive. She actually pathologized the people with whose views she disagrees. Listeners were invited to join in and say why anyone might possibly hold such nutty views.

Except we weren’t really invited – not unless we agreed with the Genevieve Jacobs line on 9/11.

Her minder made sure of that.

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Let’s suppose Ms Jacobs actually wanted discussion on the topic of 9/11 on her show.

Let’s suppose , that is, she wanted a serious discussion (which doesn’t mean boring): a discussion which aimed at investigating the truth and exploring the range of cogently-argued positions on the topic – as opposed to merely celebrating the current dominance in the mass media of one view over another.

Ms Jacobs could still invite all her chums to participate as usual – but she’d also need to speak with scholars such as Dr Graeme MacQueen and architect Richard Gage. She’d need to sample the best of the case for and against – not merely ridicule one side.

I challenge her to do this.

I doubt very much she will, because I suspect she’s really a phony “journalist” working for a fake news organisation, aka ”their” ABC.

Genevieve has enough talent to make fun of people who are grappling with the truth – but has she got the inclination or skills to really explore the complexities of the subject of 9/11? I doubt it. Perhaps it touches on one of her cultural blind-spots?

Now… please do go right ahead and prove me wrong Ms Jacobs!

Make my day!

On the subject of 9/11, I think you’re more a propagandist than a journalist. A shill, not a honest commentator.

No wonder you and your chums giggle about “truthers”. You gleefully celebrate the ascendancy of The Lie! 666 indeed!

I bet you won’t get a green light to interview knowledgeable genuine sceptics such as Graeme MacQueen, Richard Gage or David Ray Griffin - even if you wanted to. I doubt your controllers would allow it. You’re not smart enough to best such interviewees. Serious intellectuals like MacQueen, Gage and Griffin would make their points effectively. You couldn’t stop them. So, I doubt your bosses would dare let you take the risk – even if you had the curiosity and nerve to consider taking on such a challenge, which is also highly doubtful.

OK ABC… why not show me I’m wrong?

How about taking up my challenge Genevieve?

Have you got what it takes to discuss 9/11 on a level playing field?

I doubt it.

In a move that stunned critics in the press gallery, Julia Gillard has promoted the well-known blogger Bob Carr – whisking him into Parliament as a Senator and instantly appointing him Minister for Foreign Affairs.

This is the first time in Australian history a blogger has been promoted so fast.

Bob Carr sworn in by a laughing Governor General and smiling Prime Minister

Canberra sources say astonished public servants in the Department of Foreign Affairs are burning midnight oil pouring through every cached version of Bob Carr’s blog to locate opinions that need to be fixed immediately. The organisation has no corporate memory of ministers with their own opinions.

For his part, newly-appointed Minister Carr is understood to be undergoing intense re-education to stamp out any lingering independent ideas. It seems to be working. Carr has disowned his former shocking opinion that attacking Libya was a bad idea. This morning, Senator Carr made acceptably crass remarks about the need for regime change in Syria.

The press gallery are understood to be furious over Carr’s appointment, not only because it made most of them look like prize idiots. They also believe if anyone is to be parachuted directly into Cabinet it should be a member of the media elite.

My submission last year to the Australian Independent Media Inquiry conducted by Ray Finkelstein made 40 points in total.

Perhaps I should have made use of bold text to highlight key phrases in my twelfth point (emphasis added):

12. The public myth is of a fiercely competitive media environment, in which journalists vie to rush out the truth to the public. This process doubtless operates to some extent.

Of equal if not greater importance…. is the tendency of journalists – across institutions and companies and even including paid free-lancers – to form consensus about news value, both positive and negative. Competition drives the news process – but collegiate conformity sets its boundaries… The mass media, en bloc, has utterly failed to provide fair and honest coverage of credible, evidence-based perspectives on very important issues – to an extent that merits the term censorship.

My submission to the inquiry and my attempt to make this point in particular – at least so far – have been about as effective as Cassandra’s efforts during the Siege of Troy.

In all the ”debate” that’s erupted since Finkelstein’s report was published on February 28th, no-one wants to say anything about No 12!

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Various positions have been staked out in the debate that has been in progress.

Greens Leader Bob Brown got on the front foot early, lauding the Finkelstein report and its main proposal – the establishment of a government-funded News Media Council that would administer a complaints process against ALL Australian media, including relatively low-traffic websites (even websites hosted overseas judging by a heavy hint to that effect in the report!)

By contrast, the right wing in Australia, in general, has been dismissive of Finkelstein’s commenations. This is a case in which I agree with much of what they’re saying.

On Lateline last week, Opposition Communications spokesperson Malcolm Turnbull spoke eloquently against the NMC proposal and made it clear the Liberal-National Coalition will not support it. The Coalition can certainly pick up votes on this, especially if the Gillard Government is foolish enough to press ahead and try to legislate Finkelstein’s NMC. For me, Turnbull’s most quotable quote was “we need more freedom, more diversity in news media and we’re not going to get that from this sort of heavy-handed media inquiry.” Well said Mr Turnbull!

As far as I’m aware, Gillard’s Labor Government itself has kept its head down. That’s smart politics. For once it isn’t the widely-distrusted Minister for Communications Senator Conroy who’s copping flac from all sides. He must be enjoying the spectacle of verbal mud pies soaring safely over his head from either side.

As well as right wing commentators such as Gerard Henderson and the Institute for Public Affairs (IPA), the privately-owned mainstream media itself has been hostile. They don’t like the idea of a government-sponsored News Media Council. They’d rather keep the Press Council, more or less in its present form. Julian Disney, Chair of the current Press Council (which is funded by the corporate media), would also like to keep it – but he wants a bigger budget and more extensive powers. Some informed commentators suggest that’s where the ball may eventually land.

Journalism academics have bought into the debate with enthusiasm, including Julie Possetti, Wendy Bacon, Margaret Simons, Mark Pearson and Jason Wilson. Their opinions have been mixed – ranging from broadly supportive to highly critical. Some of them have been stung by taunts from practising “journalists” in the mass media, especially in News Corp. Occasionally the brawling has got rather tawdry.

All – or almost all – of this brouhaha has focused on the proposed News Media Council and the issue of whether a complaints process should be set-up, who should run it, how it should run and so forth.

Yet those issues are not – at least from my perspective – the biggest problem with our media. I’ll say again what I think IS the biggest problem. This time I’ll use a “one-liner” in larger type:

It’s what’s MISSING in the media that’s most in need of remedy!

The issue of “what’s missing” comes down to some deeply ingrained yet unspoken biases – and a most unsavoury tendency for ALL the key players in the media circus to self-censor and blatantly fail to cover all sides of certain important “hot topics”. Any notion that the Government is likely to correct for these deep biases is of course as ludicrous as the idea that the big media groups that currently perpetuate them will tamely change their ways. It wasn’t even on the cards that Finkelstein would explore this subject and he didn’t surprise us. Government, the mass media, the media academic establishment – none of them are keen on mentioning it, to say the least.

To seriously consider Point 12 necessarily entails scrutiny of the real-life forces and powerful behind-the-scenes lobbies that control the media agenda in Australia – within both public and private media. That, apparently, is a subject so uncomfortable that none of the above want to talk about it at all.

The Australian public is poorly served by our highly centralised mass media (private and public) and by media academics and other “insider commentators” who rely on government as well as relationships with mainstream journalists. These “guilds” have THEIR pet issues – but don’t want to talk about anything that might jeopardise their reputations and privileged niches.

Only the blogosphere – the loose network of grassroots citizen-reporters and small groups of genuinely commuted activists – does that. Predictably, this new, dynamic, free, non-parasitic and currently untamed sector of the media is targeted by Finkelstein’s proposal.

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In Australia as elsewhere, bogus media reporting has now underpinned more than ten years of war, vanishing civil liberties and vastly expanded budgets for the military and what I think’s best described as the “Secret State”.

The mass media’s refusal to even discuss the copious and highly credible information that cast doubt on the official narrative of the events of 9/11 is proof positive our mass media is malfunctioning in a very serious way. The Australian media’s de facto blackout on similarly well-founded doubts surrounding the official narrative of the 1996 Port Arthur massacre is another example closer to home.

I could give other examples of bias and blind spots and did so in my media inquiry submission - input to the Inquiry that received not even a listing on the Government’s Independent Media Inquiry consultation webpage let alone any indication it had been read or considered.

Unlike the folk who earn their bread and butter from media corporations or some form of government insitution, I don;t think the public is not much interested in their in-house squabbles and defences of their respective reputations and credentials.

The public is more interested in the TRUTH. Friends tell each other the truth. The mass media is not behaving like our friend.

The video below shows Dr Graeme MacQueen making a presentation at Harvard last year entitled “The Fictional Basis of the War on Terror” (I previously featured Dr MacQueen’s Challenge to the Peace Movement on this website)

The presenter is an eminent academic. His topic - The Fictional Basis of the ‘War on Terror’ - is an absolutely crucial political issue of global importance.

It’s a BLATANT scandal that this man and many like him have been almost completely excluded from Australian mass media, and that academia and parliaments have ignored the perspective he brings to bear for more than a decade. It amounts to a deliberate blind-spot that’s neither justified or justifiable. It shames all involved in the cover-up, which as time goes by amounts to almost all the media establishment in this country.

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The Finkelstein report is the wrong answer to what was started out as a different question.

Egged on by the Greens, the Government established a grossly undemocratic and quite secretive process (the Finkelstein Inquiry). The initial trigger was public concern about an issue half a world away – phone-tapping by The News of The World in Britain. Yet this phenomenon has now morphed into a proposal for an intrusive new mechanism to regulate Australia’s blogosphere! Rather like punters treated to a magician’s trick, we blink and wonder. How on earth did that happen?

Personally I don’t trust politicians, bureaucrats, journalists, academics or lawyers to regulate web content and internet traffic, either singly or in combination. As professions, NONE has promoted discuss honest discussion of the crucial doubts surrounding 9/11. For me, that’s a litmus test. They all fail that test, so why should they be trusted with web regulation? It’s like encouraging proven false witnesses to do jury service.

Here are Finkelstein’s Terms of Reference:

• (a) The effectiveness of the current media codes of practice in Australia, particularly in light of technological change that is leading to the migration of print media to digital and online platforms.
• (b) The impact of this technological change on the business model that has supported the investment by traditional media organisations in quality journalism and the production of news, and how such activities can be supported, and diversity enhanced, in the changed media environment.
• (c) Ways of substantially strengthening the independence and effectiveness of the Australian Press Council, including in relation to online publications, and with particular reference to the handling of complaints.
• (d) Any related issues pertaining to the ability of the media to operate according to regulations and codes of practice, and in the public interest.

The third of these ToRs has not been followed at all. Instead of providing suggestions for reform of the Press Council, Finkelstein proposed the very different model of a Government-funded News Media Council – a body that would intrude into media sectors not alluded to at all in the Terms of Reference, notably the “bottom-up” blogosphere that’s independent of mainstream media.

Apologists for Finkelstein make a case that the NMC is basically a benign idea that would work out in in the end. So far, Bob Brown of the Greens seems wedded to this view; a few media academics make sympathetic mutterings and even if holding back from endorsing the NMC as proposed, they take the “something must be done” line. On the other hand, so far, most of the privately-owned mainstream media appears to favour the status quo.

For once I find myself agreeing with some of the conservative media, not because I particularly like the status quo, but because I prefer to avoid leaping from frying pan to fire. I’d like the Government and its appointees to butt out of regulating the internet. I certainly don’t want more state interference.

At present, when composing articles such as this for my blog, I take into account a few obvious legal requirements such as the laws of defamation and copyright. I do my best to comply. Why should I be regulated more? Why should any privately-run website need be regulated more? No public case has been made that this is necessary; no case has been made it’s a pressing issue. The need to regulate the independent blog sector of the media was not explicit in Finkelstein’s Terms of Reference.

Explaining why the report didn’t look at the appalling centralisation of Australia’s mass media, Wendy Bacon claims ”The Inquiry was discouraged by its terms of reference, which did not mention issues of ownership, from looking at broader solutions to the structure of the media.”

Perhaps so. But Finkelstein didn’t seem bothered about wobbling way off course on the Terms of Reference in other areas, notably with his central recommendation for a new News Media Council.

It’s hard to avoid concluding blogosphere freedom is once again under attack in Australia.

This time the attack comes from Stage Left. It’s aimed at independent media producers more than consumers. Instead of an internet “filter” this is about plugging founts of creativity and independence. The NMC idea is probably defeatable and may well be defeated – but what a waste of energy for us all, yet again!

Am I the only one who smells this rat? I don’t think so. Some of the more perceptive media academics are concerned about potential impacts on the blogosphere too.

Professor Mark Pearson – a Bond University academic who is critical of the Finkelstein report – outlines what could be at stake for bloggers and the grass roots media in his recent article on The Drum: Media inquiry: be careful what you wish for (emphasis added):

I suggested in my personal submission (PDF) to the inquiry and in my appearance at its Melbourne hearings that Australia already has enough of those laws. Hundreds of them. I suggested alternative mechanisms using existing laws. I argued that we did not need more media laws and more expensive legal actions and that a government-funded statutory regulator would send the wrong message to the international community. It is the approach adopted by the world’s most repressive regimes.

Which brings us to the matter of duplication. I have seen few serious ethical breaches that could not be handled by existing laws like defamation, contempt, consumer law, confidentiality, injurious falsehood, trespass and discrimination. There are existing mechanisms to pursue them properly through established legal processes.

All of the serious examples cited at 11.11 of the report could have been addressed using other laws such as defamation, ACMA remedies or breach of confidence (or the proposed privacy tort). But the new regulator would do away with all the normal trappings of natural justice, dealing speedily with matters on the papers only without legal representation a media defendant would expect in a court of law.

Small publishers and bloggers might well be bullied into corrections or apologies because they would not have the time, energy or resources to counter a contempt charge in the courts.

University of Cenberra lecturer James Wilson argues along similar lines in Media inquiry ignores value of diversity (emphasis added):

Isn’t it possible that under these rules, small operations might just decided that it’s easier, more sensible, to not publish risky, challenging material? Or accept the decisions of the regulator even where they disagreed with them in principle, even on occasions where it transpired that they were correct in their disagreement?

This is just one example of how the proposed scheme could actually threaten the one, long-term solution we have to the problems of concentration and media power – the rise of a range of sustainable online alternatives. From a certain point of view, it begins to look like an impost on diversity and media freedom.

Once more, Australian Greens leader Bob Brown (without consulting his party as a whole again?), has adopted a position that will surely jar with many Greens supporters once they wake up to this.

The Greens won new votes at the last Federal election thanks to Communications Spokesperson Senator Ludlam’s spirited and intelligent defense of internet freedom. All that hard work and political gain has now been put at risk by a single, ill-considered announcement by leader Bob Brown. It really is time for him to pass on the ring.

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The British phone-tapping scandal led to a much larger inquiry and ongoing inquiry in the UK, the so-called Leveson Inquiry. It is headed by a Jewish lawyer.

The Australian inquiry prompted by the same event has been headed by Ray Finkelstein. He’s a Jewish lawyer.

Last week Australia’s Communications Minister Stephen Conroy announced an important media appointment: the new Chair of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation will be Jim Spigelman. He’s a Jewish lawyer too.

Is there a pattern here? If we really want media diversity, isn’t the remarkable preponderance of Jewish lawyers involved in the investigation and remoulding of our media a topic worthy of mention?  After all, the Jewish population in both Britain and Australia is only a tiny percentage of the total.

Such a comment no doubt disqualifies this article from re-publication by any mainstream media. Yet surely it’s a legitimate issue for public consideration? After all, “bias’ is close to the centre of this whole debate – even if it’s not the bias I’m most concerned about.

I may well cop complaints for mentioning the ethnicity (or is it religion?) of these gentlemen. But I ask anyone contemplating accusations of “hate speech” or some other such nonsense to reflect on whether there would be public debate had Muslims been appointed to all three of these crucial roles  - or even had all three been practising Christians? Would the media and its conformist commentators be raising eyebrows if both media inquiries had been chaired by people of Arab origins? I think so.

Judeophilic bias, on the other hand, is a bias that’s “impolite” to discuss in the Western world. That’s been the case for so long, few if any of us can remember times when it wasn’t so. The careers of anyone in Australia’s mainstream media or in academia or government would doubtless be in jeopardy if they made such observations in their official output. Likewise – and more importantly –  pervasive Zionist influence within the major media corporations and public broadcasters is considered a “no-go” topic for mainstream debate.

Fortunately, sections of the blogosphere don’t have our begging-bowl out for cosy careers, sinecures and grants. We can and do raise such issues from time to time. We may not win popularity contests or awards, but we do ventilate what must surely be discussed in a democracy worthy of the description. We expand the discourse to encompass all topics of significance – not only those that are hand-picked by conformists

Now another bunch of social engineers want to use public funds to regulate us, weave new rules around us, position themselves to be better able to harass and intimidate us. They continue to keep their Code of Silence on crucial subjects they don’t want to discuss at all – while casting a jealous eye over our little patch of free speech. They all get paid for their various roles in this blood sport of hounding competition that shames them – competition from people who are willing to speak truth to power.

Our media professionals, media academics, media lawyers etc all ride on one big, articulated gravy train. As much as anything else, their collective endeavours can fairly be regarded as self-interested collaboration in social control.

From my perspective, the gravy train riders are welcome to stick their snouts in the meagre troughs of the peoples’ independent media whenever they like. I hope they visit more often. If they do, they’ll certainly encounter plenty of offal – but occasionally they’d come across quality truffles of highly significant information that’s completely unavailable via the mainstream media.

When they start insisting we all serve bland gravy like they do, they push their luck way too far.