GERARD HENDERSON’S MEDIA WATCH DOG - ISSUE NO. 11

22 MAY 2009

Underlined sections of the text are for stylistic purposes only.  If there are any links they will be identified and coloured blue.

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NANCY‘S PICK OF THE WEEK

RED KERRY AND THE HOLY GRAIL

Sure, Nancy’s deaf.  But she can smell a tequila poured in, say, Canberra from as far away as Sydney.  And so it came to pass that Nancy was briefed this week about the Budget night (or was it morning?) behaviour of ABC 7.30 Report presenter Kerry O’Brien.  What a hoot.

It seems that your man “Red Kerry” (or so he is called by his mates) put in a blinder on Budget night.  Mr O’Brien was once a senior staffer for former Labor prime minister Gough Whitlam - although you would never know this from reading Red Kerry’s CV [what about the ABC's commitment to the public's right-to-know? - Editor]. These days Mr O’Brien is frequently seen musing about his past life on ABC TV as part of the ABC’s on-air promotions for the 7.30 Report.  However, Red Kerry never muses about his time as a Whitlam staffer or his attitude to the Labor governments headed by Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating.

How fortunate, then, that Red Kerry let his (red) hair down somewhat on Budget night on Tuesday 12 May - according to stories which have been reaching Nancy in her kennel.

On Friday 15 May the on-line Business Spectator newsletter ran an interview with Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner. The interviewing panel consisted of Stephen Bartholomeusz, Robert Gottliebsen and Alan Kohler.  At one point in the (long) conversation, Alan Kohler reflected: “On Budget night Bob [Gottliebsen] and Kerry O’Brien and I were yarning about the quality of the Hawke/Keating cabinet during the 80s and I think we ended up concluding that it was probably the best cabinet in history in Australia, certainly close to it.”

All fair and balanced commentators would acknowledge that the Labor government headed by Bob Hawke and Paul Keating between March 1983 and March 1996 performed extremely well - especially in the area of economic reform.  It’s just that fair and balanced commentators would also acknowledge that Australia was well governed - and economic reforms continued - between March 1996 and November 2007 when John Howard was prime minister and Peter Costello treasurer.  But this is not Red Kerry’s view.

How do we know?  Well, Nancy has come across the notes of a conversation of a Coalition staffer who happened to be shouted a tequila by Red Kerry in the Holy Grail restaurant in fashionable Kingston.  The time was 2.30 am - give or take a couple of tequilas.  The date was the morning after the Budget night before.

The Coalition staffer’s note of the conversation - which was witnessed by another Coalition staffer - is as follows:

O’Brien was visibly…[delete this word - let's go with "tired and emotional" instead,  Editor]  but was friendly and candid.  He was aware that he was talking to Coalition staffers….

Coalition Staffer: “Kerry , you realise…I respect Peter [Costello] a lot.”

O’Brien: “Well good luck to you then - I don’t. He doesn’t like politics; he has always been the first one out of here (Canberra) on Thursday. Peter Costello does not have the nation’s interests at heart.  He is only in it for himself, always has been, always will be. He needs to get out.”

Coalition Staffer: “I actually really respect some of the reforms of the Hawke-Keating era.”

O’Brien:  ”Howard and Costello never recognised the importance of their reforms. Costello simply rode on the consequences of the Keating and Hawke wave of economic reform.”

Now, normally Nancy would not publish the note of a conversation conducted in private on a dark Canberra night or morning.  But this is what the 7.30 Report’s political editor Michael Brissenden did concerning a conversation he and two others had with Peter Costello in 2005.  Mr Brissenden’s release of the details of this off-the-record conversation a couple of years later was specifically approved by Kerry O’Brien.  [For the full details of the saga see "Dining Out With The ABC: A Warning", The Sydney Institute Quarterly, Issue 34, December 2008 - which is on The Sydney Institute's website.]  So, clearly, Mr O’Brien can have no legitimate complaint if someone records, and someone else releases, the record of a conversation held with him.

In reporting this “Red Kerry at the Holy Grail” at-the-bar conversation, it should be noted that:

▪ Unlike Mr Brissenden - who had no idea whether his conversation with Peter Costello was in March 2005 (his first version) or some other time (his second version) or even whether there was more than one dinner - Nancy knows what day it is or, rather, was.  The date of Red Kerry’s performance at the Holy Grail was the (early) morning of Wednesday 13 May 2009.  [By the way the date of the Brissenden/Costello dinner was 2 June 2005 - such is the Canberra lifestyle that some journalists cannot distinguish between a cold Canberra winter and a mild Canberra early autumn].

▪ Unlike Mr Brissenden - who (falsely) claimed that he had his notes of the dinner when in fact there was only a collective note which was drafted by someone else - Nancy is in the possession of a true one and only copy of the record of “Red Kerry at the Holy Grail” conversation.

Nancy has revealed the details of Kerry O’Brien’s (private) thoughts in the interests of the public’s right-to-know, of course.  She believes that Mr and Ms Citizen have a right to know that Kerry O’Brien’s line on the Howard/Costello administration is a standard Labor line - namely: “Hawke/Keating “Good”; Howard/Costello “Hopeless”.  In other words, praise the Labor Party; damn the political conservatives; and pass the tequila.

BOB ELLIS, Q&A AND DEBTOR’S CORNER

First an update on the False Prophet-cum-Debtor.  The good news is that - via an intermediary - Bob Ellis has paid a further $250 of the $1000 he owes Gerard Henderson for failed wagers.  Also - over what is now almost a decade - it seems that memories are fading as to who paid what. The evidence indicates that the False Prophet paid another $250 along the way which got lost in the fog-of-wager.  So it seems that there is only $250 to be paid.

Meanwhile how about Bob Ellis’ performance on the ABC1 Q&A program last night?  First up Ellis made wild - and undocumented - personal allegations against Liberal Party leader Malcolm Turnbull and Liberal frontbencher Tony Abbott. Then Ellis turned on fellow panelist - Climate Change and Water Minister Penny Wong and bagged Prime Minister Kevin Rudd for not doing enough, quickly enough, on climate change declaring: “There isn’t time; there isn’t time.”

In a truly remarkable performance the False Prophet of Palm Beach:

▪ Proclaimed that “everyone agrees…John Button is a fine fellow”.  In fact, sadly, the former Hawke Government minister died on 8 April 2008.  This howler was not corrected.

▪  Alleged that the woman who had made complaints about the behaviour of the Cronulla Sharks rugby league team had waited seven years to register her complaint.  In fact, she had reported the incident to New Zealand police within less than a week of the incident occurring.  This howler was corrected.

▪  Then Bob Ellis directed the following leading question to Senator Wong:

Are you aware of a device which is being is being trialed in Queensland where coal smoke goes into a bloody great pipe and then into a shallow lake, which is 30 hectares, in which grows a weed which eats 90 per cent of the filth and it dies and it’s compressed into bricks which then feeds the non-coal power. Are you aware of this one?

Talk about barking mad.  When the Climate Change Minister responded that she was not aware of such a weed your man Ellis responded: “Well, why not?”  The answer may well be that Senator Wong does not smoke the stuff.

Then Bob Ellis came up with his solution to resolve Australia’s water crisis in the wake of the (alleged) procrastination of the Rudd Labor Government. Here is the False Prophet’s suggestion:

You need a bloody great pipe…that takes the Fly River into the Darling River.

Wow. What a proposal.  Especially since the Fly River is located in Papua New Guinea while the source of the Darling River is northern New South Wales.

Which raises the question.  Was there some weed, or perhaps some tequila, in the ABC Green Room last night before Bob Ellis went live to air?

THE MEDIA’S RIGHT-TO-SAY-”NO”

Coming back to the subject of the right-to-know, MWD admits total and absolute failure in its attempts to elicit information from media managers and journalists who work for organisations which have signed up to the Right-to- Know Coalition.  Some examples of MWD’s continuing battles on this front are set out below:

Kerry-Anne Walsh’s No Show

▪ Request. On 6 May 2009 MWD wrote to Fairfax Media’s Kerry-Anne Walsh in the following terms:

Kerry-Anne

It’s encouraging that so many media outlets have signed-on to the Right-To-Know Coalition. So I’m encouraged to ask you the following question. When you wrote in to the Sun-Herald on 14 December 2008 that Peter Costello was a “little read” author - how many copies of The Costello Memoirs did you believe had been sold?  Could a “little read” book imply sales of 10 or 100 or 1000 or what? It would be great to know this. Looking forward to your reply.

Best wishes

Gerard Henderson

▪ Response. Absolutely zip.  By the way, MUP says that it has sold 40,000 copies of The Costello Memoirs so far.  We’ll keep you posted if Ms Walsh comes to the conclusion that her readers have a right to know just what she is on about.  Could it be that she was into hyperbole in order to ridicule the Liberal Party backbencher? Surely not.

ABC Legal Services and its Chaser Double Standard

“The Guide”, published in the Sydney Morning Herald each Monday, keeps readers and listeners up with what is going on in television and radio.  The 18 May 2009 issue of “The Guide” features a photo of The Chaser Boys (average age circa 35) in facial masks over the heading:

Highly infectious: The Chaser boys are back and this time no country’s safe.

This heading is, obviously, just another prank.  Sure The Chaser Boys have been doing ABC-approved stunts in such democracies as Britain, Italy, Japan, Poland and the United States for their new series which commences on ABC 1 next Wednesday.  But the ABC’s Legal Services department appears not to have approved stunts in such places as China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria or Zimbabwe.

Fancy that. So, in fact, some countries are safe from The Chaser’s stunts. After all, it’s easier to laugh at Christ’s representative on earth in Vatican City than mock a follower of The Prophet in Mecca. It’s just a lot safer.  The Chaser Boys seem determined to avoid the life-threatening outcome which has affected the Danish cartoonists who participated in the competition to draw cartoons of Muhammad for publication in Jyllands-Posten.

What a strange place the ABC’s Legal Services department appears to be. It is headed by Rob Simpson, who carries the impressive title “Director of Legal”.  In the current ABC Annual Report 2008, Mr Simpson lists the achievements of his team in the past year as follows:

During 2007-08, Legal Services challenged applications to restrain broadcasts, managed the defence of The Chaser team arising out of the APEC motorcade incident; and formulated submissions on law reform….

It’s quite a job - especially if you think about what the Director of Legal has been up to.  In recent times Mr Simpson and his team have given (legal) sanction to Chas Licciardello’s “try-before-you-buy” stunt inside a Texas toilet department store and to Julian Morrow’s actions in flying a blimp  (containing a rude message for the Pope) in restricted airspace over Vatican City.

Alas, it seems that Mr Simpson has been so busy approving such pranks that he has not been able to provide the ABC managing director with a quick answer to the following question, which has been put to Mark Scott by MWD. Namely:

How is it that ABC Legal Services requires individuals who are willing to be filmed for ABC programs to sign a participant release form - but no such form is necessary when participants are filmed against their will by The Chaser?

MWD has suggested that Mr Scott should answer this question - consistent with his commitment to the right-to-know, of course. Stay posted.

SBS - First with the News; Last with the Answers

Shaun Brown, SBS Managing Director, is also a public advocate of the right-to-know. Even so, he has yet to approve MWD’s request to know what information SBS World News has to support its claim (on 10 May 2009) that Pope Pius XII was reviled for alleged anti-Semitism.  See last week.

SBS tried the you-beaut trick of deflecting MWD’s request to the SBS Ombudsman - who just happened to be on annual leave without a temporary replacement.  Clever, don’t you think?  But MWD is still on the job.  See next week.

That’s all for now.