Mickey and Minnie, Laura and Phil

A FORMER Fairfax hand and friend of the Billabong, recently paid to go away, writes:

Professor,
apologies for not writing but I'm out of the madhouse and don't have as much gossip to relay. You know Coorey is going to the Fin, right? Will Stutch let him wear the official Fairfax thinking cap in the office, do you reckon?
Sincerely,
etc etc etc

That's it, on the shelf behind the great man. Notice the absence of a peak, which seasoned Canberra stenographers value for allowing easier soft-palate access to the sphincters of the great and left.

There is no fair reason Phil should not be allowed to disport himself in customary garb, so Billabong visitors concerned that his new AFR editors be made at least as aware of the man's worth as are former Silly readers might want to contact  the newspaper and urge that he be allowed to continue dressing the part of a quality Fairfax journalist.

Drop a line and tell the AFR brass how much they and Coorey deserve each other. The address is: afreditor@afr.com.au

Victorians Pay, Ted Slumbers, Labor Rises

THE relentless Jo Nova has a post on Victoria's extraordinarily large and preposterously expensive desalination plant, which will add some $300 every year to the water bills of individual home owners until around 2036 or so. Apart from serving as a reminder that the same people now quoting the Doha junketeers should never be heeded, it is also an invitation to consider the sweetheart deals and waste of public monies which characterised the Bracks and Brumby years -- a profligacy any conservative premier worth his rising salinity levels would have pounded and pounded and pounded again as a reminder to voters that Labor cannot be allowed a return to the government benches.

Victoria does not have a conservative Premier, unfortunately; we have One Term Ted instead, so all the hay to be made from his predecessors' maladministration is left unscythed. With barely two years until the next election there is still time to pack Baillieu off to London, the Labor Party or some other congenial environment where fecklessness, a lack of core beliefs, and the absolute absence of backbone are appreciated. There is a lot of time and many quiet moments over a slow summer for the disaffected to discuss things likes coups, so perhaps the new year will see an end to the man before he sees an end to his own government. One lives in hope.

If (when?) we do get a new Premier, the first briefing paper he or she should read is this HR Nichols Society examination of the desalination plant and the wink-wink, we're-all-mates-here terms under which it was constructed. Here are some samples:

The consortium AquaSure made up of Degremont, Macquarie Capital and Thiess was the winning bidder with construction of the desalination plant to commence in late 2009. John Holland was the losing short-listed bidder. There were six other tenderers. John Holland’s price was lower than TD-JV...

I know of one worker who receives $3,200 per week in cash. This includes the $700 LAFA (living away from home allowance) which is tax free but is after pay-tax and before super and other add on’s which would probably bring the package to about $250,000 per annum. So my best estimate is that
most workers at the plant would receive between $200,000 and $300,000 per annum by the time they receive their redundancy payments.

There is provision for overtime at the rate of time and a half for the first two hours and double time thereafter. Supervisors on site are now being paid in excess of $1,500 per day. Union delegates are paid at the top pay rates by TD-JV plus the LAFHA but are not required to do any work....

...[management] knew when a stop work meeting would be taking place as the workers brought their boats on the back of trailers to work that day. So much for the ‘bona fides and positive relationships between the parties.

There is more of the same in the HR Nichols paper and every word is worth reading. Also worth the effort would be a quick google to find the name and contact details of your local or nearest Liberal MLA. Give them a call and insist that Ted has to go. It might just help to transform those backbench mutterings into a party room spill.


 

That "Parched" Stuff? It's Water

THAT Fairfax reporters are incompetent when not actively biased has been known and widely recognised for some time, especially by those who no longer buy or read the Silly and Phage. A young and naive lawyer shacks up with a crook, helps him via a concocted power attorney to conceal a significant property investment from his abandoned wife, and then gets fired when her malfeasance comes to light. To most, that would represent a prima facie case that the crook had been hanging his trousers on the bedpost of an arrogant and devious slut, but by the reckoning of Michelle, Lenore, Katharine, Phillip and all the other Fairfax girls it is glowing evidence of a strong, confident and admirably independent modern woman.

Perception is , of course, an entirely subjective thing, and sympathy must come easy to reporters who long ago sold their own honour for the privelege of parroting press releases and talking points from those whose approval and warm regards they value more highly than truth. So perhaps, on that score alone, the refusal by all but Mark Baker to take a closer look at the crook in The Lodge can by explained, if not endorsed.

But what about those moments when there is absolutely no room to grant the benefit of the doubt,  when those papers prove so blind to impartial reason that the visual evidence they provide directly contradicts the assertions of their own words? Here is a recent example (emphasis added at the Billabong):

WHEN is logging not logging? When it is ''ecological thinning'' in national parks, according to the governments of New South Wales and Victoria.

The two states are conducting trials in national parks on both sides of the Murray River. Under the project, trees will be cut down at 22 sites over about 400 hectares of the Barmah National Park in Victoria and the Murray Valley National Park in NSW. Most of the timber will be burnt as firewood.

The study will examine whether felling smaller trees gives more established trees a better chance of surviving in the parched environment.

Parched environment, eh? Here's the picture that appears just  a centimetre or so above that description.

It isn't just moral and political corruption that is laying Fairfax low. It's that the company has elevated blind stupidity to a prime virtue.

A NOTE: Anyone genuinely interested in the health of the Murray, particularly around Barmah (where the Professor once hooked a Murray Cod so large it could not have been landed without the assistance of a Land Rover's PTO winch), needs to read this. It will explain why those red gums need thinning, why the myth of their timeless presence is so oft and loudly repeated, and why Fairfax's green legion of environment writers should never, ever be believed, slack and lazy bastards that they are.)

Nurse Grattan With the Happy Pills

From a Michelle Grattan column of a few days ago, the latest example of Blair's Law:

MANY readers will recall Margo Kingston, a deft hand at investigative reporting and a pioneer of interactive journalism through her Webdiary. Margo left the trade a while ago and is studying nursing, interested in specialising in palliative care.

But last week, watching from afar the AWU affair unfolding, she leapt back into the fray with an online article. She remembered what many of us, in the heat of this slush fund battle, had forgotten. Tony Abbott has had his own slush fund experience, not all of it happy.

Is it too late for Grattan to take up a career in hospice nursing? All the bent words she peddles on behalf of our PM suggest she has a genuine gift for bringing comfort to those on their way out.

New Idea 1, Holmes 0

WHAT a pity Jonathan Holmes and Media Watch will not be with us again until well into next year.

It would warm the heart to hear an old queen congratulate the queen-to-be on her happy news, and perhaps to say something nice about New Idea.

These Things Can Be Checked, Phillip

IN THE Silly this morning, quality journalist Phillip Coorey writes of our Prime Minister's indomitable spirit and strength of character. That was to be expected, of course. He is, after all, working for Fairfax, where history is as those who record its first draft wish it to be, and nobody on staff knows anyone who votes Liberal, doubts global warming or doesn't appreciate the insistent pressure of a bicycle seat on the back passage.

What comes as somewhat more of a surprise is Coorey's inability to read and comprehend a simple paragraph, which is the charitable interpretation of what he has committed to paper this morning. The less sanguine view would be that Coorey is a shill who places misquotation at the service of his political sympathies.

Let readers decide. Here is Coorey today (with added emphasis):

Senator Brandis argued that because Ms Gillard knew all along the association was to help finance the re-election of union officials Bruce Wilson, who was then Ms Gillard's boyfriend, and his sidekick, Ralph Blewitt, on a platform of workplace safety, she had deliberately misled. He claimed authorities would not have incorporated the association had this been mentioned.

''The document she represented to be true was false,'' he said.

But only two days before, in a speech to the Senate, Senator Brandis said it could be argued that the objects of the association could be interpreted as supporting the election of union officials. ''There might be room for argument about the vagueness of the objects,'' he said.

Well, here is what Brandis actually told the Senate:

Furthermore, the certification provision, section 5 of the Western Australian Associations Incorporation Act, also requires the applicant to verify that the Association has more than five members. Ms Gillard did so. However, the Association, as Ms Gillard well knew, only had two members—Wilson and Blewitt. While there might be room for argument about the vagueness of the objects, there is no vagary about this: Ms Gillard falsely certified the Association to be compliant in respect of its number of members. She knew it was not and, once again, appears to have breached section 170 of the Western Australian Criminal Code.

Notice how Coorey has taken the fragment of a much larger thought, re-punctuated it to form a stand-alone sentence and then deep-sixed everything else.

Is it any wonder Coorey finds so much to admire in Gillard? Neither is capable of telling the truth.

UPDATE: As the Walkley Awards were presented last night, it is timely to consider Article I of your professional journalist's Code of Ethics:

1.  Report and interpret honestly, striving for accuracy, fairness and disclosure of all essential facts.  Do not suppress relevant available facts, or give distorting emphasis.  Do your utmost  to give a fair opportunity for reply.

Anyone inclined to file a complaint about Coorey's liberties with the record (and punctuation)  might want to quote that.

MEA CULPA: Due to an outbreak on mental infirmity this item went up with the author of the Silly piece mis-identified. It would be nice to think the Silly had the wrong byline on the column and subsequently changed it, as happened the other day with a Mark Baker article, but there is no proof of that. The appropriate proper nouns have now been changed.

Thanks to Deadman for noting the error.

One Term Ted's Latest Coup

BELATED congratulations to Victoria's new Chief Magistrate Peter Lauritsen, whose appointment exemplifies Premier Ted Baillieu's approach to power.

Lauritsen, a good Labor man, is the former law partner of John Cain.

Soon-to-be Premier Daniel Andrews -- two years to go and he is counting the days -- is thought to be delighted at the announcement.