Deal With Refugees On Our Turf: Fr Frank Brennan

[the following article is rewritten from a News Ltd story, referenced below. It is designed to show how media write their stories to create a particular opinion]

HUMAN rights intellectual and lawyer Father Frank Brennan says that we should deal with people (refugees by boat arrival) “efficaciously, quickly and on our on terms and on our own turf”. Father Brennan is professor of law in the Institute of Legal Studies at the Australian Catholic University, and professor of human rights and social justice at the University of Notre Dame Australia.
"Given that people will continue to do very desperate things for the most understandable of human reasons, what is the moral bottom line below which we will not descend as a nation in terms of the protection of our borders," he told ABC radio.

Father Brennan, a staunch opponent of the use of Nauru for processing of boat arrivals, acknowledged it worked to some extent in stopping the boats, in conjunction with other measures such as temporary protection visas. However, Fr Brennan went on: "To say that Malaysia is morally reprehensible is not to espouse Nauru. It's to say that yes, Nauru is the lesser moral evil.", but questioned whether it would work a second time around.
The prominent Jesuit priest said people in leaky boats would continue to arrive in Australia. "We should deal with them efficaciously, quickly and on our on terms and on our own turf”, he said.
Under the Malaysia plan, the Government wants to send 800 asylum seekers to Kuala Lumpur in exchange for 4000 already processed refugees. Father Brennan said Labor seemed determined to come up with something even more ruthless than the former government, conveying the message to asylum seekers that they would definitely would never get to Australia.

The Coalition says Australia should reopen the Nauru processing centre. But Fr Brennan said "I think it could well be ineffective. (the second time round)"

Meanwhile, no asylum seekers will be sent to Malaysia until a High Court case has been resolved, Federal Cabinet secretary Mark Dreyfus has confirmed.  Mr Dreyfus said the Federal Government would abide by the letter and the spirit of an interim injunction stopping the transfer of asylum seekers. Lawyers for up to 42 people who the Government intends to send to Malaysia have challenged the people swap arrangement.

The High Court will hear the case later in August."We're going to treat (the injunction) as applying to all the people who were to be transferred to Malaysia, even those who are not participating in this court case," Mr Dreyfus told Sky News today.
----


Here is the News Ltd version, with a promotional slant for the Coalition’s Nauru Solution. Note the first line – designed to reinforce Coalition’s policy on Nauru.
http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/nauru-lesser-evil-than-malaysia-deal-says-father-frank-brennan/story-e6frfku0-1226112194561 

HUMAN rights intellectual and lawyer Father Frank Brennan says the Nauru solution could be considered a lesser moral evil than the asylum-seeker swap deal with Malaysia.

Father Brennan, a staunch opponent of the use of Nauru for processing of boat arrivals, acknowledged it worked to some extent in stopping the boats, in conjunction with other measures such as temporary protection visas.
But he questioned whether it would work a second time around.
"Given that people will continue to do very desperate things for the most understandable of human reasons, what is the moral bottom line below which we will not descend as a nation in terms of the protection of our borders," he told ABC radio.
"To say that Malaysia is morally reprehensible is not to espouse Nauru. It's to say that yes, Nauru is the lesser moral evil."
The prominent Jesuit priest said people in leaky boats would continue to arrive in Australia.

"We should deal with them efficaciously, quickly and on our on terms and on our own turf," he said.
Under the Malaysia plan, the Government wants to send 800 asylum seekers to Kuala Lumpur in exchange for 4000 already processed refugees.
The Coalition says Australia should reopen the Nauru processing centre.
Father Brennan said Labor seemed determined to come up with something even more ruthless than the former government, conveying the message to asylum seekers that they would definitely would never get to Australia.
He said said the Opposition was promising a reopened Nauru processing centre would provide appropriate health and education, prompt processing with proper scrutiny and guaranteed resettlement.
"Then in that situation, the question would be second time round, would it actually work," he said.
"I think it could well be ineffective."
Father Brennan is professor of law in the Institute of Legal Studies at the Australian Catholic University, and professor of human rights and social justice at the University of Notre Dame Australia.
Meanwhile, no asylum seekers will be sent to Malaysia until a High Court case has been resolved, Federal Cabinet secretary Mark Dreyfus has confirmed.
Mr Dreyfus said the Federal Government would abide by the letter and the spirit of an interim injunction stopping the transfer of asylum seekers.
Lawyers for up to 42 people who the Government intends to send to Malaysia have challenged the people swap arrangement.
The High Court will hear the case later in August.
"We're going to treat (the injunction) as applying to all the people who were to be transferred to Malaysia, even those who are not participating in this court case," Mr Dreyfus told Sky News today.
----

Meanwhile Paul Maley, writing in The Australian, wrote:

“Father Brennan … said the Coalition's alternative policy of processing asylum-seekers on Nauru is the more moral option.”

At no stage, ever, did Fr Brennan say, or imply, that the Nauru solution was moral. He did refer to both the Malaysian Solution, and the use of Nauru, as “moral evil”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/jesuit-priest-argues-malaysia-solution-worse-option-than-howards-pacific-solution/story-fn59niix-1226111970896

I believe that both News Ltd pieces from the Internet and from The Australian show sufficient bias and intent to manipulate public opinion that the News Ltd journalists have abrogated their responsibility to report impartially. They have certainly twisted the intent of Fr Frank Brennan’s opinion. Paul Maley, writing in The Australian, is worse, because he attributes the Nauru Solution as moral, when Fr Brennan described it as a “moral evil”. I believe my re-write is a more accurate representation of Fr Frank Brennan's position and arguments in the interview ... and I'm an amateur!

John

Politicians And The Media

Tony Abbott’s higher standing in the polls is a reflection of a number of things.

1. The messages are simplistic slogans, repeated often. When he allows his Shadow Ministers to be interviewed, they are given simple answers to questions, and, almost regardless of the question, trot out the answer robotically.
2. If asked an uncomfortable question, he will stop the journalist, and pick a more “friendly” journalist; or he avoids as much as possible the more probing current affairs programs, opting for the cream-puff shows that ask only soft questions. A straw poll of appearances, taken and reported  by Bruce Hawker in both the Courier-Mail¹ and The National Times²  shows how Tony Abbott has avoided the inquisitorial current affairs shows, and headed for the conservative shock-jocks.  It also shows how Julia Gillard has largely avoided the conservative shock-jocks. (it should be noted that Bruce Hawker is a campaign adviser the Labor Party). The figures show the differences for a range of media up to May 2011:

	Julia Gillard	Tony Abbott
Inquisitorial Current Affairs	12	3
Conservative Shock Jocks	8	42

While these figures are not definitive, they are probably indicative.

Radio Shock-Jocks:
Alan Jones is a Liberal Party supporter, and 3-time candidate at NSW and Federal elections for the Liberal Party. 3 
Other conservative shock-jocks used by Tony Abbott include Ray Hadley, Andrew Bolt, Howard Sattler, Steve Price.

Television:
“Current Affairs” shows generally fall into 2 categories: populist, shallow pulp; and inquisitorial. My own classification of some of them is below. The list is not comprehensive.

Shallow Pulp

Inquisitorial

Name	Channel	Name	Channel
A Current Affair 60 Minutes Today Tonight	Ch9 Ch9 Ch7	The 7:30 Report Agenda Q and A Meet the Press	ABC Sky ABC Ch10

Media Donations:
Lawrence Bull, writing for New Matilda, trawled through the Australian Electoral Commission, and wrote on 1-February this year ⁴

“Six-figure donations (from media companies) are common, and the relationships don’t end there - Labor has several major investments in media companies and the close relationship between former Fairfax CEO Ron Walker and the Liberals is well known.”

A Summary of his findings is below:

Donations 2000 - 2007

Media Group / Significant Person	Donations to  Liberal	Donations to Labor
News Corp (Murdoch)	$88,500	$15,000
Dame Elizabeth Murdoch	$120,000	-
Fairfax Media	$90,000	$20,000
PBL Entities (Packer)	$800,000	$700,000
TEN Network	$650,000	$400,000
Austereo	$100,000 (2007 Election, as advertising)	$100,000 (2007 Election, as advertising)
Paul Ramsey Holdings (Prime TV & Private Hospitals)	$250,000	-
Prime	$75,000	$58,000
Seven Network	$35,000	$35,000

With the exception of Austereo and the Seven Network, the other media have significantly favoured the Liberal Party. I would expect a rigorous investigation to show that the funding bias reflects their editorial policies.

Summary and  Conclusion:
In short, there would appear to be a financial & editorial bias from many media organisations towards the Liberal Party. Furthermore, Tony Abbott’s use of soft, populist media, and supportive shock-jocks, is effective use of the media from a politician reported to to have said to the Independent MP’s that he’d “do anything” to be Prime Minister. He remains, however, evasive of more discerning questions, especially about his lack of policy detail.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s poor polling results reflect her lack of attendance on the shallow, populist current affairs shows, and the aggressive pro-Liberal stance taken by popular shock-jocks. She is lighter on simplistic slogans, being more inclined to rational explanations.

In preparing this post, I looked at:

1. http://www.thecourier.com.au/blogs/national-comment/abbott-avoids-the-tough-questions/2176910.aspx
2. http://www.nationaltimes.com.au/opinion/politics/abbott-cherrypicks-easy-interviews-to-avoid-tough-questions-20110526-1f692.html 
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Jones_(radio_broadcaster)
4. http://newmatilda.com/2011/02/01/hold-front-page
5. http://www.aec.gov.au/ 

John

End Of The World – To Save Money

Rupert Murdoch’s son, James, has announced that this Sunday, 10-July-2011, will be last edition of The News of the World (NOTW). NOTW is a British tabloid newspaper which has a prior history of making up the news, and most recently, allegedly hacking phones of up to 4000 people, including: public identities (‘celebrities’ and politicians), actors & actresses, families of men and women killed while serving in the military forces, and murder victims. James Murdoch indicated that closing NOTW was ‘the right thing to do’.

Murdoch is staying loyal to Rebekah Brooks, the Editor of NOTW at the time of many of the alleged phone hacks. She has reportedly said she was “sickened” when told of the phone hack of a young murdered girls phone, including the deletion of voice mail messages so more could be left for the paper to report. As Editor, you would expect that she would have known what her journalists were doing (criminal), or incompetent, if she did not know. Rupert and James Murdoch must believe they have much to lose if she were to lose her job in their empire. Her inside knowledge would be priceless to another media organisation, and invaluable to police or a public inquiry.


But, why close the paper? There are a number of possible explanations:

1. public anger, which might lead to a drop in sales revenue
2. loss of advertising revenue, as companies express their anger
3. Murdoch is ruthless in his business, and his use of journalism. In 2007, Bill Moyers, writing on http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/07/02/the_problem_with_murdoch.php  wrote:
   (Murdoch’s) accustomed to using journalism as a personal spittoon. In the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq, he turned the dogs of war loose in the newsrooms of his empire and they howled for blood. … he’s not the first to use journalism to promote his own interests.  …  His tabloids sell babes and breasts, gossip and celebrities.”
4. closing the paper, and transferring as many assets as possible from News International (the publishing company) to other parts of News Corp, so that any more people who sue NOTW, will be suing a company with insufficient assets to pay. With up to 4000 people/families who might sue, for say, £500,000 it would face a bill of hundreds of millions of ponds, even if News ‘settled’ out of court.

Given Rupert Murdoch’s ruthless business acumen, my money is on option 4.
I believe that closing NOTW is a business decision only, driven by money considerations and the desire to remove a problem. That is, the closure is designed to limit exposure to compensation and punitive damages claims. I believe it has nothing to do with “the right thing”, as James Murdoch expressed it.

John



In researching this article, I also looked at:
1) http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xjsavv_news-of-the-world-closes-amid-hacking-scandal_news
2) http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/07/02/the_problem_with_murdoch.php
3) http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/press/behind-ruperts-throne-the-story-of-rebekah-brooks-2307512.html

Federal Politicians Work Too Hard

Do they? Last weekend, Federal Liberal MP, Dr Mal Washer, said that the longer working hours for current MP's and Senators are "unsustainable". The argument is that the tight numbers in the House of Representatives mean that MP's have to be available to rush to the House if required by their Party.

Previously a number of MP's from either side of politics could mostly absent themselves from the House or Senate without any great consequence. there was also a "pairing" arrangement, which meant that if a member were absent on Parliamentary or government business, a member of the other side would either absent themselves, or abstain from voting. (Liberal) Opposition Leader tony Abbott refused this practice as a routine matter, and has only decided on a "case-by-case basis". this increases the uncertainty, and the requirement for members to at least attend Parliament House.

The second thing that has increased over the last 10 years is the amount of time politicians spend on "party-political" duties. That is, using work time, and taxpayer-funded advisers, to perform work for their political party.

Thirdly, the time spent on seeking advice about, preparing, rehearsing, and finally presenting the 3/5/10 second media grab has increased exponentially. These mostly consist of untested political assertions, short slogans (remember, I discussed 'sloganeering' during the recent election) designed to get attention, but contribute nothing to any debate on issues. While there is undoubted pressure from sections of the media for a media grab, politicians are not bound by duty to be media tarts. And rather too many of them are. 'The media' is seen as something to be managed, to be used for party political advantage, and for self-promotion. Too often whether a story will look good in local news, News Ltd papers, Sky News, or other media is more important than working towards good policy and contributing to sensible, rational debate.

I don't doubt that politicians work long hours. I just question how many of all the hours, and taxpayer dollars, are spent on the job we employ them to do, and how many are spent on party work, and self-promotional work. I do think that, if the thoughts of Dr Mal Washer are valid, politicians need to restructure their work, to focus on their work as representatives (of either voters, or states), and to have better defined times when they are available to the media.

John