There is an old legal adage, ‘Silence gives consent.’
If true it means, must mean that O’Shannessy’s two-day silence is an admission that my charge is true: that he concealed some Newspolls showing Bob Katter’s party was doing well; or else he sent them in, and Murdoch’s people concealed them, hid them from public view.
Like a lot of what Murdoch does it is not illegal; but, like most of what he does, it is cheating. If Katter was on ten percent in mid-February, and it was widely known that he was on ten percent, he would have been on twenty percent by mid-March, and LNP voters peeling off and joining him in such numbers that Campbell Newman may not have won his seat, and his new party may not have won government outright.
This, if true, is not illegal. But it is cheating. In a one-newspaper state, it is cheating.
People as respectable as Kim Williams, Gough Whitlam’s son-in-law, will deny Murdoch cheats, but his people admitted it yesterday in London. Sometimes they hacked, they said, ‘in a good cause’. It is known they bugged the then Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, and by beating up what he said put his rival in Downing Street. It is known they hacked the messages of hundreds of celebrities, and sought to destabilise the ruling family of the United Kingdom by bugging its future King and with ‘Squidgiegate’, they hoped, shaming him into abdication. It is known they rorted their candidate, Bush, into the White House by an early call of the result and Fox News reports that Gore, who got the most votes, was ‘trying to steal the election’.
But it is said they would never suppress a poll result and thus keep a foe in impotence. They would never do that. Sure we bug and bring down our enemies; but we would never stifle a poll that favours them. At that we draw the line.
O’Shannessy speaks of ‘good manners’ in his response to me. I ask him now to show good manners by telling us, his literate customers, if and why he did not print a particular poll, and who asked him to do this. It is good democratic manners, good manners in freedom’s cause, in the high cause of freedom of information, to do this. Why conceal it? It is not illegal. If nothing wrong was done why hide it?
We have a right to know.
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Great post Bob. My prediction- this will blow up in their faces. Being a small party means cohesion and if the ALP keep chipping away Campbell will be the one with 7 people, this sort if stuff is what might lead to an early election.
Dream on.
Interesting point here. Is it ‘cheating’ for a private polling company NOT to release data? I mean Murdoch is scum and a piece of oily shit, no question there; but the problem we have in Australia is that there is no legislation or laws governing polling – except that they cannot call mobile telephones.
I’m sure the poll is dodgy, but so is there news, opinions, sub-editors and ethics .. if they had any. News Ltd are a canker on society.
These pricks can do what they like in regards to polling and the only way to beat them is to have other polling mechanisms and organisations.
I would like to see Labor (and Libs, Greens etc) release their polling data, or even for the ABC’s Antony Green to be funded to conduct independent polling.
An independent polling authority, if truly independent and scientifically based, would be a good idea. But experience shows that any government funded authority is susceptible to political influence eg the whiteboard fiasco, Australian Wheat Board etc. If it could be done, great.
As for your suggestion about party polling, I would not trust Labor, the Libs or the Greens any more than I trust Murdoch or Essential
As for you
It would be the work of a moment too enact a law financing a fortnightly poll by a company run by Antony Green of voting intentions, politicians’ ratings and policy options, in offices owned by the ABC.
I recommend this to Bob Katter, Bob Brown, John McTernan and John Faulkner.
Honestly Bob, as a first-class Labor Luvvy, isn’t it a more pressing concern to examine why Labor is tanking every which way, and heading for federal oblivion come the next election?
Surely NOW is the time for navel gazing – at last!
As a Liberal, Simon, isn’t it time to examine why the Liberal Party ethos is so shallow, hollow, grasping and meaningless? Labor are expected to be better and then disappoint from that perspective. Everyone knows the Liberal way is shit and some even celebrate it. No reasons given just the triumph of shitness over all that is good in this world. What’s up with that?
This is another argument, Reader – but I’ll indulger you.
I’m not a Liberal yet, but in the last five minutes decided to spend some of the Carbon Dioxide Tax ponzi bribe to pay my $90 membership fee. It was earmarked entirely for my electricity bill, but Energy Australia can wait another week for full payment.
Not being an apologist for the far from perfect Liberal party, I can only offer the following:
The unbreakable law of human nature is that we want the most for the least, regardless of
politics, philosophy, musical tastes, sex or footy code.
Whether it’s (in no particular order) a cancer-cure researcher, corporate raider, a playwright/writer/director/reviewer, a brilliant brain surgeon, welfare recipient, a newly-promoted middle manager with an eye on buying her first boat, a supermarket deli worker saving up to holiday in Thailand next year, a self-employed tradesman, a University professor, blog
frequenter, media magnate, Union “consultant”, drug dealer, nurse, park wino grabbing a two-thirds empty moselle flagon from a passed-out acquaintance, a coddled toddler eating from the dog’s bowl when mum is watching Dr Phil…
We all want as much as possible, including (but not limited to): money, fame, pleasure,
leisure, satisfaction, happiness, bass guitar funk vibrations, roller skating, macrame
twiddling, looking at clouds, time alone, time with loved ones – we want as much as possible
for the least possible outlay, according to desired level of boat floatage.
Nothing’s free. Value for value trade at some stage will have to be made – time, money,
boiled sweets, labour, intellect, cocaine for the bimbo you want to shag, bribery for your
vote – all a type of currency.
Are you with me so far?
Conservative/Non-left politics usually are honest – if the economic and social climate are
conducive in favour of business, business will thrive and gainfully employ people. They’ll all
pay tax, and if that revenue is reasonably managed we can pay for Medicare, welfare for the
disadvantaged, roads, secure borders etc. If people (employers AND employees) are successful they should enjoy the rewards and pay a level of tax that does not kill incentive to succeed.
Ask Michael Moore who says – “at least the Republicans are honest”!
Leftist politics are usually less than honest – “only we can look after the little bloke,
the underdog, you can have an atmosphere free of dirty carbon DIOXIDE pollution, $900
cheques, superduper fast broadband (well it will cost you $3000 to dig a trench from the
street, good luck getting your landlord to pay for that), appoint my hubby head of the department of climate change – no nepotism here, never mind HSU members that your dues have been shagged away on prostitutes and frittered from ATM cash advances – look away nothing
to see here!”
The power-hungy are naturally more attracted to the Left of politics (notice the more stridently political types at Uni). They are attracted by and trained in Soviet-style politics. Some grow out of it. Some practice and finely hone these dark arts well into
middle age and beyond, probably carrying Orwell’s 1984 as a convenient instruction manual
(not as the intended warning about socialism by – fancy that – a socialist).
The non-left side are mostly those who have achieved something for themselves in the REAL WORLD of investment, consquences, sacrifice, hard graft – then decide to enter politics to
serve the country in a different way… why someone like Malcolm Turnbull.
The left side occasionally reveal leaders who have (mostly) done good things for the country
(Hawke and the first half of Keating in my lifetime). Credit where due – generous of me eh?
The conservatives occasionally have leaders who can be truly woeful (Fraser).
Sorry, I digress.
You speak of ethos, but every value has to be held up to both sides of political philosophy,
and their consequences examined in the same harsh light.
You think the Liberal way is “shit”, and that’s fine. You probably think Cuba and North
Korea are fabulous paradises, and believe that doves flew out of Kim Jong Il’s arse most of the time.
How many people are DYING, DYING to “escape” into these countries? My guess is approximately somewhere in the range between zero and none.
Give me your comparative “shallow, hollow, grasping and meaningless” any day of the week boyo.
And direct your anger towards the ALP for neglecting their constituency, pandering to the Greens purely for power, being dishonest, incompetent, profligate, and above all inviting their own electoral extinction.
Life is about abundance, not survival. You want the most and what it costs, it costs. You don’t even notice yourself giving it. But if you don’t give it, you lose all.
A lot of sick Americans, as Michael Moore showed, would like to be treated in Cuba where all treatment is free. A lot of young Australians would like to live a couple of years in Vietnam and China which hundreds of thousands of Australian tourists have come in the last two decades to love. Middle Easterners and North Africans in their tens of millions yearn to live in the semi-socialist paradises of Sweden, Holland, Austria and France.
Your strange idea that Labor politicians are ‘nepotistic’ and the Packers, Murdochs and Rhinehart-Hancocks aren’t raises questions of your prejudice and sanity.
You seem to be troubled in your mind by matters other than politics. Keep writing, though. What you reveal of one fevered, muttering conservative mind in its midnight mastications is troubling and absorbing.
Merry crucifixion, and out.