Carr In Reverse

OUR soon-to-be foreign minister may be our soon-to-be-ex prime minister's most inspired appointment to date. No training required with this bloke, who already understands the ease with which ugly and inconvenient things can be made to vanish.

Behold! Now nestling in the Gillard gullytrap beside disappeared riot organiser Tony Hodges, Fair Work Australia's probe of Craig Thomson and the Droner From Altona's free frocks from Town Mode, there is this just-deleted post from Bob Carr's little blog. Fortunately, a cached version remains and it is reproduced below:

Don’t Meet This Cunning Monk

The Prime Minister should feel no obligation to meet the Dalai Lama, indeed should feel an obligation not to meet him. He is a religious leader but also a cunning one with a political agenda. His agenda is not in Australia’s interest.

First, his plan for Tibetan autonomy goes well beyond religious affairs and veers close to separatism. Tibet has been part of China since the Manchu dynasty. There is no more reason China would accept a loosening of its ties with Tibet than we would accept West Australian autonomous status within the Australian federation.

Second, his definition of Tibet includes parts of Yunnan and Sichuan provinces – because they have Tibetan minorities. The Chinese cannot see this as anything other than an attack on their territorial integrity, their very sovereignty. It is an outrageous claim. It is designed to antagonize the Chinese.

His strategy is to keep coming here and forcing his presence on Canberra, presumably to generate ill-feeling between us and the Chinese. The Prime Minister is under no obligation to see him, no more than she would to accept a courtesy call from the Archbishop of Canterbury if he insisted on being here every 18 months. No, the case for not seeing the Lama is stronger: behind the self-effacing shuffle and the grins he has a mischievous agenda in pursuit of theocratic power.

Reinstating a theocracy over Tibet in opposition to China – and the UN and the entire world recognize Chinese sovereignty in Tibet – is not remotely a matter of Australian interest. Sorry, but the PM has a full agenda and other priorities.

No doubt about it. Bob Carr fits right in.

(HT: Thanks to reader Josh for sending the link.)

The Finko & Rickety Show

THE FINKO & Rickety Review has has weighed in with lots of observations about Australia's press. At a glance, and reading between the lines, it comes to this:

1/ The ABC will need to get bigger, especially its budget.

2/ Julian Disney would look very nice atop a Press Council-type whopper of an oversight agency
 and

3/ Fairfax should be hooked onto the public teat:
  

Subsidies to investigative and public interest journalism. Subsidies are commonly used to provide transparent targeted assistance to produce a specific output. For example, subsidies are currently provided to the production of Australian films. In that instance producers obtain a tax rebate equal to 40 per cent of eligible production expenditure. Although there would be problems which the Productivity Commission would have to address, a similar approach could be adopted for investigative and public service journalism. The government could establish a specific fund for the purpose and allocate an annual sum for distribution to eligible news organisations. The subsidy could be defined as a percentage of the wage bill of dedicated investigative journalism units established by publishers. It would be paid annually on the basis of eligible payroll cost in the preceding year. All publishers with a dedicated investigative unit would be eligible to receive a subsidy. The rate of subsidy would be determined by dividing the allocated amount of funding received from the government by the total eligible payroll expenditure of recipients. The rate paid is thus inversely proportional to the level of activity. In other words, the greater the gap (and thus the greater the need), the larger is the incentive for news producers to engage in investigative journalism. The subsidy could be in the form of an actual payment to publishers or in the form of a tax rebate of the same value.

Oh, and universities need more money to train a better sort of journalist. Margaret Simons must be delighted.

UPDATE: In other media news, MTR went off the air this afternoon, apparently for good. You can hear its last, sad seconds here.

They're Demented, Says An Old Fool

IN THE past month, Bob Ellis has copulated ten times, according to his announced and long-standing schedule. Over the same period he also has been screwed three times by The Drum's Jonathan Green.

Round midnight my wife will be home and will put up in these columns a piece on the events of Sunday and Monday and Tuesday which I got by agreement to Unleashed by Wednesday afternoon and they rejected because it was ‘several days late’ and ‘added nothing to our understanding of the events of the day’. This is the third piece in a month they have rejected but not told me they had rejected after asking for it or asking to see it and I suspect them of ill feeling or dementia.

That would be right, Bob. Anyone who thinks you are a drooling old fool with nothing relevant, rational or civil to say just has to be "demented" by definition.


Here is the sexed-up sexagenarian relaxing with his pal and onetime generous patron Mike Rann.

 You can bet The Drum would not have rejected one of David Williamson's essays.

Et Tu, Michelle...

WHEN you lose Michelle Grattan, you're cooked.

Too Young, Too Soon

A GOOD man gone and far too soon. Andrew Breitbart, the American New Media entrepreneur who exposed the New Establishment with wit, vigour and bravery, has died at the age of just 43.

This is genuinely distressing news, and it hits all the harder in Australia, where the smug, self-protecting circle of media commentators, academic careerists and nakedly manipulative "public interest" groups hijack and dominate so much of what professional wankers like Robert Manne like to call "the national conversation." Looking at the wounds Breitbart inflicted on Acorn, Planned Parenthood and the hustlers quick to smear the Tea Party as racists because they could not address its objections to state-sponsored waste and hypocrisy, the hope at the Billabong was that his puckish campaigns would inspire something similar on this side of the Pacific.

Hear Breitbart discuss his hatred for leftist witch-hunters with Adam Carolla:

And here is Rush Limbaugh's tribute: "He was a bulldog."

He was. In every respect.

UPDATE: Caring, compassionate leftoids (and a few admirers) discuss Breitbart's death and display some of their defining qualities.

Washed Out

THE tucker box is full, several chickens and a leg of lamb are frozen solid and packed in the Esky, sleeping bags are clean, the gas bottle full and the Bunyipmobile sits in the driveway with rod holder strapped to the pack rack. And unfortunately that is where it is going to stay. Once again, this global warming business is playing havoc with a weary angler’s ambitions to get away from it all, this season’s tally standing at two trips cancelled before they could begin and one aborted after a soggy, leech-plagued sojourn in a forest wetter even than Malcolm Turnbull.

It is very annoying, and someone should be made to pay for raising so many false expectations. As the Flanneries pelt down and all thought of getting away evaporates, this prediction in particular gets a Bunyip’s goat:

Victoria is likely to come under the influence of another El Nino within the next three years, exacerbating the drought and the likelihood of bushfires, a senior Bureau of Meteorology climate scientist says. David Jones, the head of the bureau's National Climate Centre, said there was some risk of a worsening El Nino event this year, but it was more likely to arrive in 2010 or 2011. – Adam Morton of The Age reports the settled science in February, 2009

If there is any satisfaction to be drawn from this moment of contemplating frustrated travel plans it is this: when the next drought comes, the Age will no longer be around to witness it.  

Trans Actions or Hetero Doxies?

MIRANDA DEVINE has Craig Thomson's itemised expenses, which make fascinating reading:

It should be noted that Thomson insists he could not have racked up those charges because he was often elsewhere when they were billed to his union's members. The auditors remain dubious, however:

"We are not satisfied that the mere fact that a service was recorded on the cardholder statement on a date when Thomson was not in New South Wales is conclusive proof that the service was not incurred by him, having regard to the not uncommon practice of credit card transactions being processed on days following the provision of the service to which the transaction relates and the possibility that the payments may have been made remotely."

Does one need to be terminally suspicious to see a possible explanation for ex-wife Crista's apparent determination to accompany her hubby on as many of his trips as possible?