The Morrison government has a Minister for Women. She has made no comment on the matter of Ms Higgins, and nobody in the press gallery appears to be seeking comment from her
Samantha Maiden sneering at Chalmers' qualifications and claiming Labor was soft on pedophilia shows this govt isn't leaking to her. Another reason why Insiders is a busted flush: nobody in the press gallery is really inside the incumbents but they are inside the former govt
Never forget, Victorians, that nobody pushed harder against
#COVID19au
restrictions than the Herald Sun. Next time you need accurate and relevant information, go somewhere else
🧵🚨
Plenty of good journalists at NewsCorp eh? Let's compare two about the same age.
Samantha Maiden is a member of the press gallery, but for a few years pretty much a NewsCorp lifer. Rick Morton left the company a few years ago, not in the gallery.
1/n
6/ Samantha Maiden is a hack and Rick Morton is journalism at its best. Years from now journalists will follow Morton rather than Maiden for a significant and substantial career. Yes I will fight you on this, the opposite conclusion deserves the scorn I give it.
/End
Now, press gallery, is the time to investigate Dutton's police record, and the federal government kickbacks to his wife's childcare business. Now. Not after it's too late, and ignore your press gallery who want to cosy up to him. Now
The Tehan-Andrews spat has worked against Tehan in their home state of Victoria. In the rest of Australia, where Andrews is not a factor, Tehan looks like a loser. He has become the lightning rod for this government's overreach
Facing a resumption of Parliament where aged care failings are likely to dominate… the PM was keen to convey a message of hope as a COVID reality sets in.
#SpeersTake
@David_Speers
#Insiders
#auspol
The more Josh Frydenberg tries to look serious and start lecturing people, the funnier he is. He has Christopher Pyne's problem, an impressive-sounding job title with zero gravitas to bring to it
Make no mistake. When real elites want their relatives off a cruise ship, they make it happen. Thousands of people can become infected and some might die, but hey at least me and mine got ours because we're the real elite, baby. Wouldn't be caught dead at the *league*
Make no mistake. What this faux elitist outrage is about is that a Liberal PM goes to the footy & has a beer on a Saturday night, because he enjoys the footy & supports his local team. These same “outraged” elites hate the footy and hate the people that go every week. Full stop.
There's a story in the relationship between Sri Lanka's Rajapaksa regime and leading Australian political figures like Scott Morrison and Julie Bishop. Time to re-examine the message behind all those curries
2/ Morton got across the complex policy and politics behind Robodebt and communicated them simply and powerfully, obviously sympathetic to recipients but also understanding the politics of "dole bludgers".
Maiden didn't. Parroted the Coalition line but largely left it alone
@simonahac
@ICAN_Vic
@ajamesbragg
@climate200
I was an active NSW Liberal 1986-2000. I knew Trent Zimmerman, Marise Payne, Jason Falinski, Gladys Berejiklian well during that time. Unlike them, I recognise Australian politics needs to be remade: Voices/Climate200 are part of that effort, wasters like Bragg aren't
3/ Morton stepped through the details, including tough instances like suicides.
Maiden covered the difficult politics for Poor Scott (on top of everything else!) and Poor Alan and Poor Stuie, and seemed overwhelmed and confused in covering one allegation of sexual assault
@vanbadham
@MagdaSzubanski
Also, Magda played a significant role in persuading people that Australia would not collapse if same sex couples could marry, which should have made political operatives at least reconsider how smart* it might be to drag her into a political kerfuffle
* not very, just don't
It's time to write off Phil Coorey. He has demonstrated both the strengths and weaknesses of being close to the government, and he still can't read a poll. Time for press gallery veterans to start bowing out gracefully
ABC24 normally mutes journo questions at press conferences because they are so inane. Not this time, the questions are pertinent and persistent. They can do it when they want to, when we push them, the bastards
5/ while it's a different opinion to the one I hold, I struggle to respect the idea that Maiden is a titan of the profession while Morton is a fringe-dweller. When you give a NewsCorp person an award that should go to a journalist, they bask rather than build on it.
4/ And yet, there are people who will tell you that Maiden is a substantial journalist while Morton is a hack with a bee in his bonnet, that Maiden is even-handed while Morton a crusader. This is a position held by many in
#ausmedia
#walkleys
land, and
This is a regular thing with Morrison, which he adopted from Howard. He frames all opposition as emotional and his own position as reasonable, which is also how it is reported because reporters lack the ability to understand the framing
NOW | On the Tamil family, Mr Morrison says he understands why Australians feel so passionate, but “to have a fair immigration system you don’t apply special rules just because Twitter says to do so”.
#auspol
Koala has cut ties with Alan Jones. We’re a significant buyer in the medium, and it’s something we should have done earlier. Climate change is real, violence against women starts with words and the bloke has had too many chances.
@2GB873
time to wake up.
Political parties and academics have been wringing their hands for decades on How Do We Get Young People Engaged With Politics? Well, here's your answer. It might not be what you wanted, but here it is regardless
One day soon, Morrison will insist that he stood side by side with fire-fighters and fire-ravaged communities, and the press gallery will take him at his word
Just so you know, everyone in the press gallery who laments that Tim Wilson is not a minister is receiving leaks from Wilson and citing him as a Senior Source
@RonniSalt
@abcnews
This is true of any policy issue. You aren't balanced when you have interviewed Liberal and Labor, you're balanced when you have fairly examined an often complex issue. Nervous
#ausmedia
don't get this and can't be made to understand it
ABC TV's Joe Obrien just said if Dutton does a few more soft interviews in the coming week that may change Australian's view of him. Really - he said that!
#auspol
#libspill
@aimeeclarke
Everyone who has ever said to me "I don't drink" has had a good reason for not doing so. It's not like people don't know what alcohol is or where to get it. I take the phrase as a red flag and don't go there
@bairdjulia
Louise Milligan and others have pointed out that it was Joyce's harassment of a number of Nats women, including Catherine Marriott, that caused his downfall last time. Those women have not received restitution, which bodes ill for Brittany Higgins among others
Think about all those open agricultural canals in Australia, campaigned for by generations of Country/Nat MPs, where the water evaporates so fast they're agriculturally pointless
It's truly idiotic that a journalist simply and uncritically quoted Barnaby Joyce on keeping marriages together. Not balanced or impartial, just idiotic
Labor figures like Shorten and Bowen have explained this over and over, perhaps if the press gallery don't get it, they are just thick or lack the necessary financial literacy/numeracy skills
@albericie
So Clive Palmer spent $70m and will double his wealth when the Coalition opens the Galilee Basin. His performance in parliament 2013-16 shows he doesn't care about seats. You've missed the story
The hissing and snarling about the NSW ICAC is setting the stage for the coming debate over a federal ICAC. The Coalition will oppose it tooth and nail and there will be no
#ausmedia
support
And you've been doing it for years. It took someone who has not spent his life in a newsroom, and who knows how to write and meet a deadline, to school the press gallery on what its job is
It is easy to shrug off the use of public cash for private gain in politics but remember this, by Stephen Charles in
@theage
today:
“Pork-barrelling is not only political corruption, it is a breach of the rule of law and an assault on our democracy.”
@mrseankelly
@spinproofau
Also, what is the point of press gallery intimacy with government when they miss, and/or can't report, big stories like this?
@_roryturnbull
Look, I'm a movie bartender. I am prematurely middle aged, muscle running to fat, and maybe I have a back story or maybe I don't. I'm just a plot device, so what'll it be? If you're a detective I might offhandedly tell you something that blows the case wide open...
The whole idea of the press gallery is to get across issues like this. They even had a show called Insiders that focused on the big stories. That's why
@barriecassidy
blew this story wide open in 2016 rather than wondering years afterwards how this happened
Why did it take a royal commission to expose
#robodebt
?
Where was mainstream media over those years of mounting horror stories from community advocates on social media?
As with so much of MSM's agenda - seems low income people don't matter.
#RobodebtRC
This is where PvO goes from being blandly acceptable to all media (ABC, Oz, ch10, etc), to being a niche player on angry media (Sky, 2gb), without realising the long-term impact of his doubling down
The end of spin:
- Morrison says women's equality has gone far enough
- Cormann says wage stagnation is a deliberate strategy
This is like the period after Gillard's misogyny speech: a truth just has to sit there while journos dance around it
The journos who were slow to pick up on Barnaby Joyce's affair (and who still regard it as a peccadillo) have no excuse for not investigating Joyce and Taylor over the the water licences issue
#watergate
#ausmedia
#journofail
imagine your credibility, your jobs are on the line
This man was in parliament for a quarter of a century. He worked with our country's leaders in all fields and was advised by the best and the brightest. All that was wasted on him. He has no perspective on our country: what it is, what it could be, what it needs. What a shithead
Tony Abbott has described coronavirus restrictions as ‘hysteria’ in a video statement. Australia has had only 28,000 COVID-19 cases compared to 100 million worldwide.
@naomirwolf
In Australia, having these records is a condition of those businesses being open. It probably is a data catastrophe waiting to happen, but if we had the death rates of your country then who cares where I ate last Thursday?
The IPA is not "one side of the spectrum". It is a small and decreasingly relevant part of, well, a spectrum. The coverage it gets from the ABC is out of proportion to its role in Australian politics and society, which is the objection: it is not intolerance of different views
Thanks for all the feedback on our chat with Daniel Wild from
@TheIPA
this morning. It’s our role at the ABC to accommodate, and test, all viewpoints in Australian society, not just from one side of the spectrum. Thanks for watching!
@BreakfastNews
@abcnews
#yourAbc
The value of journalism lies in the checking. There is no value in passing on what was said, not in an information age. So from now on, if you haven't checked what a politician has said, don't fling it at us until you have
I learnt about this on social media. Traditional media covered this as Albanese meeting a celebrity cook, didn't link it to previous coverage of retirement home food. Negligence on the part of
#AusMedia
, lift your game please
.
@AlboMP
has met up with Maggie Beer at the Adelaide Central Markets pledging $5 million for the
@mbeerfoundation
if elected. The money will aim to achieve better food and nutrition in aged care.
@9NewsAdel
This time last year, Gigi Foster was one of Australia's most promising young economists. Now she's the poster child for Reopen Everything Particularly Cemeteries and it will be interesting to see how her career recovers from this triumph
Dick Smith wasn't obliged to tell everyone about his franking tax windfall: not today, not two months ago, not ever. By contrast, journos had significant
#resources
to do more and better than merely simper about "controversy" or
#balance
Michael Clarke vs Karl Stefanovic
James Packer vs David Gyngell
Normie Rowe vs Ron Casey
Common denominator: Channel 9. Obviously a toxic workplace culture, needs investigation
@tudorgrrrl
She has missed all the big stories in recent years and goes missing when there's clearly An Agenda. As with much of the press gallery it's an accident when she gets it right. After Probyn, it would be no pity if she was reallocated to other duties. Agree on Morton 💯
PJ O'Rourke was writing this 30 years ago. Articles like this show why you are better off turning away from traditional media, because they are prisoners of their own cliches and would rather go out of business than change their ways of working
@abcnews
It has not been under the spotlight, it has been under the limelight. This is not left-vs-right panto.
You have identified 51 people who died at the hands of the alt-right. If
#balance
is what you thirst for, find 51 victims of this phantom you call alt-left
@gavmorris
I can cope with Morrison cutting back on staged appearances. What I can't believe is that the press gallery has no Insider information on what he's up to. Is he weeping? Is he getting drunk? Insiders should be getting all that, and clearly they aren't
@manjusrii
She is, as ever, the exemplar of all that's bad about political journalism. If she can take the smooth bits (Midwinter balls! Dinner with Pyne and Marles!) she can also cop the crunchy bits too
Their journalism failed to address those issues, thus the criticism. You will have to learn that not all criticism is trolling, and indeed learning to identify sound criticism is the only hope for your profession
Journalists went to the press club today to hold an influential public figure and former prime minister to account. They should hold their heads high. Personal attacks on reporters don’t address the highly consequential questions our nation is facing
#npc
Senator Jim Molan withdraws from scheduled appearance on
@QandA
, saying he can no longer defend the Liberals after being placed in an unwinnable position on his NSW Senate ticket
Credlin is one of the big league players in the Liberal Party, and Andrews toys with her for shits and giggles. The only other Labor figure who owns Coalition stalwarts so consistently is Penny Wong
Tracy Grimshaw is, when she chooses to be, one of
#ausmedia
's great interviewers. Better than Leigh Sales going her absolute hardest, as good as Sarah Ferguson before her fash phase if not better
Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese has confirmed to The West Australian that Labor will throw its support behind Mathias Cormann’s bid for one of the world’s top economic jobs. 🔒
#auspol
#wanews
#perthnews
It's a tactical move, you muppet. This guy never saw an inquiry he didn't want to hobble or shut down. You're doing the worst thing any journo can do: taking a politician at his word
Translation: Porter leaked to Probyn. Go back through Probyn's work and look for "senior Liberal sources" or similar - it's Porter. Porter used Probyn to advance his career, and now Probyn has a case of ashes in the mouth
@noplaceforsheep
@darylgibson
It was when he lost the internal political tussle for 7:30 to Leigh Sales. *deep draw on a cigarette* Something inside Chris died that day, he began to witter about wind farms...
The worst, dumbest journalism is to ask a politician from Party A what they think about a talking point from Party B. Karvelas is paying a high price for this but if she never does that shit ever again, Australian politics and journalism will be better off
For all those people distressed that you don't know where Morrison is: when he is present, we are hardly better governed than we are now, and it isn't like the lions of the press gallery are holding him to account
The idea that we're all going to jump on board with this brand new invention, the electric car is false, entirely false... You have rural areas and regional areas where you drive long distances where electric cars are just not practical.
@overingtonc
on electric cars
#TheDrum
Federal Industry Minister Karen Andrews says the government was “disappointed” it was alerted to the
#Holden
shutdown only a short time before the announcement was made. “I don’t think that’s acceptable.” She’ll be calling Ford to ask them about their plans.
@10NewsFirst
@JamesMcGrathLNP
70,000 jobs on the Reef, coupla hundred on the mines at best. Jobs for Queenslanders, not just your own. Make a choice or others will make it for you
OK, so there are 4 pentacostal Christians in Cabinet, including Morrison. Various tweets confusing ministers with MPs, or lumping all avowed Christian MPs with Hillsong, are veering close to religious bigotry
Vale Bruce Haigh. You weren't just a nostalgist, you drew on your experience to see the world as it is and to look forward: important and rare qualities, greatly missed
All those press gallery pieces on Can Scott Morrison Completely Reinvent Himself With A Speech To The Press Club look pretty silly today, but there will be more pieces like that so long as the composition of the press gallery remains pretty much the same