Federal Opposition frontbencher Malcolm Turnbull has used his personal blog to defend comments he made this week about the Coalition's climate policy.

The Government seized on Mr Turnbull's appearance on ABC1's Lateline on Wednesday night, where he described the Coalition's direct action climate plan as inefficient and expensive.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard said he "let the cat out of the bag" and revealed Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's plan will not work.

But Mr Turnbull denies he was criticising the initiative. He says he only "explained it fairly".

Despite earlier saying he would not be drawn on how many billions the Coalition's policy would cost, Mr Turnbull now says the Coalition's climate change policy could cost taxpayers $18 billion a year by 2050.

"The point I made on Lateline was looking forward to mid century, when scientists contend we will need to cut our emissions by up to 80 per cent from 2000 levels to stabilise the climate," he wrote on the blog.

"Making any assumptions that far out is always speculative, but if you assume that Australia's business as usual emissions continue to grow at the current rate, which reflects increasing population and energy use, then our business as usual emissions in 2050 would be something in the order of 1.3 billion tonnes.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/05/20/3223002.htm?section=justin

Direct Action proposes to spend $10.5 billion over the next decade to reach the 2020 target by buying emission reductions from farmers and industry - but Mr Turnbull's explanation pinpoints one of the biggest criticisms made of it - even if it achieves the 5 per cent reduction it does not prepare the economy for further cuts, which become exponentially more expensive.

Mr Abbott said he was only focused on the 2020 target.

''We're not talking about massive cuts by mid-century. What we're talking about is a 5 per cent emissions reduction target by 2020 and that's more than achievable with the Coalition's Direct Action policy.''

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/energy-smart/turnbulls-climate-defence-falls-short-20110520-1ewlr.html#ixzz1MyBLpHOb

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Abbott is a short-sighted clown... His Coalition Direct Action Policy will achieve nothing — not a ton of CO2 reduction worth talking about...

The ALP conference ended in high farce this afternoon when too few members returned to the conference floor after lunch.

It meant organisers were forced to close proceedings before debate on substantial policies, including gay marriage and asylum seekers.

They were poised to be the most contentious debates of the day.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/national/prime-minister-julia-gillard-warns-we-dont-have-time-to-waste-on-carbon-tax-debate/story-e6frfkw9-1226060168889#ixzz1MyZap5WD
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Gus: the planet is warming dangerously and all the Murdoch media report ends up with is a snide comment about Labor... Good on old uncle Rupe's troops... see toon at top.

Former US vice president, Al Gore, has launched an unusually forthright attack on Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, saying the company has an "ideological agenda" and "seeks political power in every nation" where it operates.

Gore's fury was provoked by the announcement that Sky Italia, a News Corp subsidiary, would no longer carry his factual TV channel, Current TV. Gore says he was told privately that Current TV has been dropped because it hired left-wing US political pundit Keith Olbermann.

Olbermann styles himself as a left-wing version of the conservative shock jocks who dominate Fox News. His Countdown with Keith Olbermann, which airs on MSNBC, was set up in opposition to the likes of Bill O'Reilly and other Fox stars.

Olbermann announced in February this year that he would be joining Current TV as chief news officer and would continue to host a one-hour show there in the same time slot as MSNBC's Countdown.

Speaking to the Guardian yesterday, Gore said he was in no doubt that the decision by News Corp to drop Current TV in Italy was ideologically motivated.

Read more: http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/79222,people,news,al-gore-blasts-news-corp-for-ideological-agenda#ixzz1MyfEXMCj

ON THE Canberra political battlefield, the media are in the gunsights and, rather surprisingly, it's Greens leader Bob Brown firing some of the biggest bullets.

Brown has had serious provocation from parts of the Murdoch press. The attacks on him are trenchant and constant. For a while he has singled out The Australian for mention at his news conferences; on Thursday he lashed out at the Murdoch ''hate media''.

He is also aiming more generally at the glass jaws of the Canberra press gallery. The man caught in the spotlight as the carbon package reaches the tough end of negotiation, Brown is also feeling the heat from journalists generally - answers are legitimately being demanded and he, equally legitimately, doesn't always want to give them.

The Greens leader is a man of strong opinion and mild manner, not an aggressor but never afraid of a fight. Often when politicians are being assaulted, they shy away from hitting back, fearing that will bring worse. Brown presumably thinks the harshest of his critics can't throw much more at him and it's time to throw a few things in return.

It is true the media doesn't expect, and is often surprised by, bite back from politicians. But when coverage is unfair, inaccurate or both, it's a reasonable response. It's one thing to robustly disagree with the line that a party is taking - when the issue is seen to require it, that's good journalism. It's another to distort and insult. It's also worth remembering that at the heart of democratic values is respect for the fact that the views of people will often be at odds. Mind you, politicians need to be on solid ground when they challenge the media. Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey came under deserved criticism last week for suggesting, wrongly, that a journalist's question had been supplied by the government.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/pushed-to-the-limit-bob-goes-in-guns-blazing-20110521-1exil.html#ixzz1N512AYlu
see toon at top...

Could an editors' meeting in California explain the spring in Tony Abbott's step?

WAS it any real surprise that last week's polls indicated the Gillard government got little or no bounce out of its latest budget? After all, if you relied on the biggest-selling daily newspapers for your reporting and analysis, the budget was a direct assault on the Australian way of life and family unit.

''Work hard, pay more,'' screamed the Herald Sun's post-budget special edition. Its Sydney counterpart, The Daily Telegraph, maintained the theme with ''It's a bit rich - Swan pickpockets families on $150,000''.

They were certainly livelier than the traditional ''Beer, cigs up'' headlines, but they were also a long way from the truth.

The budget didn't attack family benefits in the manner the two papers suggested. At most, there were a few minor tweaks that by some estimates would cost recipients $30 a year, tops.

The attacks didn't stop there though, with Labor's carbon tax and flood levy both singled out for criticism. No wonder most voters thought they'd be worse off, with only 11 per cent saying they'd be better off and 41 per cent saying they'd go backwards, according to Newspoll.

Budgets are pretty dull affairs for mass-market tabloids, used to selling on the back of strong emotions such as anger, envy and greed. While accountants, economists and masochists might find the budget papers attractive, they're devoid of emotion, which is why tabloid editors try to inject as much as they can.

So it's not entirely surprising the country's biggest-selling dailies would seek to portray it as a heartless document that disadvantaged families, even those earning $150,000 a year.

That's one explanation for the approach taken by the News Limited papers. The other is much more politically significant: that Rupert Murdoch has let it be known within his organisation that Australia needs change in Canberra and his editors were simply doing his bidding.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/mogul-in-the-corner-20110521-1exun.html#ixzz1N5J0La5U

Gus says: piss-off, Mr Murdoch... you stink... And I am polite... see toon at top...

From Paula Matthewson, Unleashed:

...

Which brings me to John Howard. During his first and second stints as Opposition Leader and then as Prime Minister, Howard rarely enjoyed the support of the media, particularly the Parliamentary Press Gallery. Some analysts such as Derek Parker say the Gallery actively participated in his first leadership loss in 1989.

It might be edifying for those offended by the descriptions of Senator Brown in some media outlets this week to revisit how PM Howard was described during his tenure as Prime Minister:

 

He was called a “fool” (Michael Leunig), an “unflushable turd” (Mungo MacCallum), a “scheming, mendacious little man” (Alan Ramsey), who silenced dissent (Clive Hamilton), corrupted the public debate (David Marr) and used right-wing religious activists to indoctrinate the nation (Marion Maddox). He was also “far and away the worst prime minister in living memory” (Phillip Adams) who had a “pre-fascist fetish to attack minorities” (Margo Kingston). Under his government, Australia headed towards an “increasingly authoritarian trajectory of the political culture” (Robert Manne), became “a backwater, a racist and inward-looking country” (Greg Barns) and was “condemned at the court of world opinion as callous and inhumane” (Sun-Herald, Sydney).

 

Whether you agree with these descriptions or not, my point is that they were publicly and continually made about Howard by the news media as well as what is now known as the broader commentariat.

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Yes Paula, CRAP... The point is not so much that a few journalists and cartoonists bag whichever government, in this case John Howard, but on the "balance of the private media outlets" that usually supports right wing governments to the tune of about 75 per cent or more, even if some journalists in their stables will bag, say, a John Howard... Cherry picking is not an indication of the media as a whole that also includes the "popular" infotainment. People like the Greens and Bob Brown are actually more virulently and more often targetted because they threaten the cosy crap and lies of the said "media" voices (presently giving a far bigger voice to denialists of global warming, for example). How often can you hear a Mungo in comparison to an ever blahblahing Alan Jones? In terms of tentacular reach, Jones will have a thousand more effect points on the psyche of the nation... And Jones only supports the crap of the right, While a Mungo will also shoot at the left as well...

What runs underhandedly here is the Byzantine equation applied to media spruik designed to support right wing position while appearing to also give an alternative point of view — in a far much weaker voice...

As a very important rigorous scientific paper on global warming has been released in Australia, a media outlet like News.com.au has not a peep about it, some twelve hours later. Not even a comment about the political debate in the house of representative, in which Bronwyn Bishop was show the door for an hour... The main picture of the news.com.au is that of a nude "planker'... It's says it all...

From Crikey

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/purepoison/2010/12/23/chris-kenny-released-from-news-ltd-paywall-featured-as-a-quote-on-somebodys-blog/

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but according to an article in The Weekend Australian by a former Liberal staffer named Chris Kenny (now released from the News Ltd paywall* and without dignity reduced to a slab of quoted text on someone else’s blog), the Canberra press pack are A BUNCH OF STUPID LEFTISTS who miss important stories BECAUSE THEY’RE LEFTISTS like the time that Kevin Rudd was about to be overthrown because Labor couldn’t outspend the mining industry in an advertising campaign and the journos didn’t know ahead of Labor MPs what was going to happen WHAT A BUNCH OF IDIOTS.

from Michelle Grattan...

We haven't had similar dramatic scandals here, although the ''cash for comment'' revelations involving high-profile radio presenters raised serious issues.

There's no doubt the Australian public is critical of and cynical about the media and there are important questions about the high concentration of ownership that's worsened in the wake of a liberalised cross-media law.

Politically, the media have great power; they can, in certain circumstances, make and break governments. Sometimes they use their clout in the public interest - there's nothing wrong with running hard on the faults of a bad administration. Other times media campaigns are more dubious. On some occasions, it will be a matter of legitimate debate whether the media have gone too far.

Former minister Lindsay Tanner argues today's media trivialise the political process and force the politicians into the same game. The media's ability to shape the way politics is played is partly a product of the sheer volume and pervasiveness of the 24-hour news cycle. Politicians have to feed the monster, to say nothing of constantly finding appropriate props to accompany their message (a coal mine, a hospital, a school).

Multiple media platforms have expanded the opportunity for ''voices'' but the mega voices are still in just a few organisations. These have rationalised and streamlined their operations, actually or potentially reducing diversity. There can be endless blogs but what's crucial is news gathering resources and, in relative terms, those aren't keeping up.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/making-sausages-and-feeding-the-media-machine-20110716-1hitq.html#ixzz1SKgejeVj
We are doing our best, Michelle... but unless you let the world know that we exist, there not much else we can do...

Blah blah blah...

Thirdly, the engagement of politicians in the world of entertainment is not necessarily and automatically a bad thing.  If it makes politics more accessible and human, that can help make our democracy more vigorous. The reality is that most politicians are not very good as entertainers – they would not be on television on the strength of their jokes alone. But if engaging with popular media requires politicians to think about how to explain the issues of the day, or the policies they are advocating, in a way which resonates with a wider number of people – that can be a useful discipline.

Lindsay is right – the coverage of politics by the media is often shallow, patchy, and focussed on the trivial. But it is not always.  The picture in my view is not as black as he argues – and in some important ways things are better today than 20 years ago. 

Paul Fletcher is a Liberal Member of Parliament

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2824612.html

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Paul Fletcher would say that, black is not so black, wouldn't he?

The media has been giving freebies to the Liberals (conservatives) ever since the media discovered it depends on money from advertising conservative thingies... So the politics as promoted in the media is going to show a strong bias (black or not so black — who would argue on a shade of black) towards the Liberal (conservative) side of politics not so much because it has better policies or knowledge, but for greed. Seeing Joe Hockey's flab on one of the "entertainment" shows on Channel Ten recently was enough to indicate Joe has lost his marbles...

Lindsay Tanner is right.

see toon at top...