The pond realises that keen herpetology students will have already been over the Graudian story How the Coalition collaborated with ‘friendly media’ to silence robodebt victims, or Alan Tudge’s office planned to use sympathetic outlets such as News Corp to counter reporting on scheme, royal commission report reveals.
It's just one of many disgraces uncovered, but at the risk of boring advanced students, please allow the pond to repeat it for the slow coaches, or at least a bit of it ...
The royal commission report into the robodebt scheme paints a grim picture of a minister keen to use “more friendly media” to counter reporting on the scheme, and a “particularly mean-spirited” strategy to attempt to silence victims speaking out that was labelled as an abuse of the power of his office.
In early 2017, victims of the robodebt scheme began speaking to media, including Guardian Australia, about the debt notices they were receiving and the devastating impact it was having on their lives.
The commissioner, Catherine Holmes, said in her report that Tudge’s then media adviser, Rachelle Miller, developed a media strategy to introduce a “counter narrative” in “more friendly media” that was focused on “cracking down” on welfare cheats.
The strategy included finding case studies of “legitimate” debts detected by the robodebt system and placing stories about convicted “welfare fraudsters”.
A media officer in the Department of Human Services noted in an email in January 2017 that “News Corp isn’t interested in the line being run by left-leaning media – but is keen on the alternative view. As such, the focus will be on working with News to achieve this.”
The minister’s office then requested information on cases that had appeared in the media, as well as cases supposedly demonstrating the success of the system.
The report found Tudge had “personally involved himself in responding to media”.
Tudge told the commission in his evidence his “focus was on addressing the implementation issues with the scheme, rather than engaging in a strategy of deflection”.
The report found Tudge had approved the release of information about case studies sent to the national affairs editor of the Australian, Simon Benson, in early January 2017.
Benson went on to write an “exclusive” that appeared on the front page of the paper on 26 January 2017, claiming Labor had made an “embarrassing blunder” and referring to people who had spoken publicly about their experiences with robodebt as “so-called victims”.
Tudge was then interviewed on the conservative talkback station 2GB, where the host said Tudge “must be quite happy” with Benson’s article.
“It’s a very significant story that he’s written,” Tudge said, but did not disclose that his office was the source of the information.
In early 2017, victims of the robodebt scheme began speaking to media, including Guardian Australia, about the debt notices they were receiving and the devastating impact it was having on their lives.
The commissioner, Catherine Holmes, said in her report that Tudge’s then media adviser, Rachelle Miller, developed a media strategy to introduce a “counter narrative” in “more friendly media” that was focused on “cracking down” on welfare cheats.
The strategy included finding case studies of “legitimate” debts detected by the robodebt system and placing stories about convicted “welfare fraudsters”.
A media officer in the Department of Human Services noted in an email in January 2017 that “News Corp isn’t interested in the line being run by left-leaning media – but is keen on the alternative view. As such, the focus will be on working with News to achieve this.”
The minister’s office then requested information on cases that had appeared in the media, as well as cases supposedly demonstrating the success of the system.
The report found Tudge had “personally involved himself in responding to media”.
Tudge told the commission in his evidence his “focus was on addressing the implementation issues with the scheme, rather than engaging in a strategy of deflection”.
The report found Tudge had approved the release of information about case studies sent to the national affairs editor of the Australian, Simon Benson, in early January 2017.
Benson went on to write an “exclusive” that appeared on the front page of the paper on 26 January 2017, claiming Labor had made an “embarrassing blunder” and referring to people who had spoken publicly about their experiences with robodebt as “so-called victims”.
Tudge was then interviewed on the conservative talkback station 2GB, where the host said Tudge “must be quite happy” with Benson’s article.
“It’s a very significant story that he’s written,” Tudge said, but did not disclose that his office was the source of the information.
So far so shocking, and the Graudian also tweeted the evidence...
Amazingly and despite the fetid musky smell, and the pond's resolve never to go there again, the pond was able to retrieve the evidence the tweet provided ...
Why is the pond carrying on about this?
Well today the barefaced reptiles actually let the lickspittle lackey, the shameless water carrier, the appalling toadie and fellow traveller out to cover the story ...
There he was, the very same simplistic "here no conflicts" Simon, shamelessly parading, flaunting himself, and also, the pond will note, featured in the tree killer edition coverage ...
Having noted the reprehensible shamelessness, the pond turned to the lizard Oz editorialist to read the abject apology for the reptiles' betrayal of every journalistic standard ...
No wonder simpleton Simon had no shame, because his lizard Oz editorialist overlord has no idea of the word ...
More than equally disheartening was the lizard Oz's determination that News Corp could carry on with its "dole bludger" mythology and relentless tarnishing of people down on their luck, as if life on the dole was roughly equivalent to life in one of chairman Rupert's abodes ...
It's no excuse to note that demagogue radio of the 2GB kind, and the Nine papers were just as compromised, and now just as hypocritical ...
What an appalling newspaper the lizard Oz is - the pond uses the word "newspaper" loosely, when propaganda sheet is more accurate - but as for the rest an infallible Pope will suffice ...
Well Frank ain't at the lizard Oz, and fearless has long been on holiday ...
What else for this weekend?
And there was Polonius, still deep in his monomania, still with his bizarre obsessive compulsive fixation, but save him for the morrow, and look, there's the oscillating fan braying for another royal commission, but to what avail, given the reptiles' shameless response to the current findings...
Still, duty calls, options are limited, and while usually the pond doesn't bother with politicians hiding behind the Murdochian paywall, the lesser Leeser was a novelty item, the sort of gimcrack candle-powered toy boat or other dollar item you find lurking at the bottom of the Xmas stocking ...
Scott Morrison rejects robodebt royal commission findings but won’t say if he was referred for prosecution
Where was the lesser Leeser when that smug and contemptible alleged Xian was on the loose? People driven to suicide and put under great stress, financially and emotionally, hounded by debt collectors in the name of punitive righteousness...
Beyond the valley of the pathetic, though it could have been worse ... the pond could have gone there ...
And so to settle the nerves and quiet down a bit. Whenever the reptiles get the pond agitated, there's a sure remedy ... a little exercise, best done byclimbing the Everest known as "Ned". It always results in stupefaction and a slumping into the couch for a well-earned rest ...
Old hands at reptile studies will know the trick. The point is simply to get to the end, to be able to say "I climbed the 'Ned' Everest this day and survived" ...
The faint-hearted, still stuck at base camp, or likely to have returned home to pursue more productive lives, will know that this jawboner is just hitting his stride, and much will need to be endured before the flag can be planted at the peak ...
What's even more notable is the way that what was left of the lizard Oz graphics department just gave away the game, gave up the ghost. Sure there were a few media links which the pond steadfastly ignores, but only a single snap, and that very late in the piece.
Oops, sorry, feeling a little impending heat, perhaps the mouth a little parched? Why not another serve of desiccated coconut? It's sure to help with the climb ...
There is some good news. After the next relatively short gobbet there is the visual distraction offered up by what's left of the lizard Oz graphics department ...
Oh dear ... sorry, but it does sort of fit the general style of the piece, even when severely downsized ...
... and with that there was just a short gobbet of jawboning to go and talk of Robodebt and the simplistic sell-out Simon and the propaganda sheet might all be swept away by the power of "Ned's" verbal neuralyzer ...
Indeed, indeed, and where is the shameless pandering to CEO's and the big end of town making out like bandits ... why at the lizard Oz, and in any "Ned" piece, that's where ...
Where was the lesser Leeser when that smug and contemptible alleged Xian was on the loose? People driven to suicide and put under great stress, financially and emotionally, hounded by debt collectors in the name of punitive righteousness...
What's that you say, the best he's got is yet another tiresome and tedious bleat about Calvary Hospital ... haven't the reptiles got the Angelic one for that? Isn't she enough?
The pond knows it's just a rhetorical device, but the level of feigned ignorance is astonishing and stupefying. It calls for an act of contrition, though the pond suspects that redemption and salvation will be hard to find, and there's little chance of a rapture ...
Thank the long absent lord the pond is never visited by teenage boys expecting a rapturing ...
Maybe explore the Catholic Boys' Daily a little more on the meditative Sunday, but for now, a last gobbet from the sanctimonious lesser Leeser ...
Moral calamity? Tell that to a Robodebt victim. Better still, brother, go pray for rain ...
Expert peckers, a bit like chooks looking for a stray morsel of wheat, might find the odd nugget along the way. Like "Ned's" use of "jawbones."
Always with the projection, and the lack of reflection, because "Ned" is a jawboner of the first water, and his only interest is jawboning the Labour government to death, and lordy lordy, does he know how to jawbone, or what ... that "what" intending to cover the way he's also an expert recycler, always recycling the thoughts of others ...
Without any visual distractions, how did they expect anyone to make it through this guff? Here, have some visual refreshment, before resuming the trudge to the peak ...
Oops, sorry, feeling a little impending heat, perhaps the mouth a little parched? Why not another serve of desiccated coconut? It's sure to help with the climb ...
Hear echoes of Robodebt in that? In order to save the workers, they must live in abject poverty ... (here)
Still, the jawboner carries on about the suffering of the rich, and the pond was increasingly fatigued ...was this a Mission Improbable, a bit like Tom Cruise on a motorbike on the edge of a cliff, but no parachute to hand?
And where are the journalists? Long gone ... and only indignant robots left to blog ...
The Reptiles know no shame.
ReplyDeleteYes, we all already know this. But their sickening though predictable reaction to the RC findings is a reminder of just how vile, hypocritical and sanctimonious they can be. Sorry, not “can be”; that should be “are”. It’s their standard method of operation; do their bit to push lies, division, hatred and prejudice whenever it serves the whims of the Chairman. Then, on the rare occasion such as this when the fraud they so eagerly supported is revealed, ignore their own role and condescendingly pass judge judgement on the outcome.
I’d call them the News Corp minions a pack of arseholes, but the arsehole performs a valuable function. Perhaps “Tapeworms” might be a better descriptor than “Reptiles”.
And we thought we were badly done by in the old days of the Daily Tele in Sydney and the Herald Sun (after the marriage of the Herald and the Sun) in Melbourne. Little did we even suspect what was to come.
DeleteThe Herald Sun was once owned by Herald and Weekly Times (which is still going, I believe, but I haven't seen or read a copy in at least 40 years), but got taken up back in 1986/7: "By 1986 Queensland Press was the largest shareholder of HWT which was targeted for a takeover by the media tycoon Rupert Murdoch in the course of the big media shake-up of 1986/87, which was enabled by the Australian Federal Government under Prime Minister Bob Hawke to curry favour with the nation's major media and their owners in order to foster its re-election chances in the 1987 Australian federal election."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Herald_and_Weekly_Times
Yep, Hawke really does belong to the 'Right' after all.
Bernard Salt may have been raised a Catholic, but he can’t have been a very knowledgeable one. If he thinks the concept of “The Rapture” as commonly used by Evangelicals, which developed in the 19th Century USA (where else?), has any place in Catholicism then he mustn’t have been paying attention at school during RE. He clearly didn’t receive enough raps on the knuckles from ruler-wielding, wimple-wearing nuns.
ReplyDeleteYeah, well actually Catholics do believe in a kind of 'rapture' (aka 'caught up'):
DeletePremillennialists often give much attention to the doctrine of the “rapture.” According to this doctrine, when Christ returns, all of the elect who have died will be raised and transformed into a glorious state, along with the living elect, and then be caught up to be with Christ. The key text referring to the rapture is 1 Thessalonians 4:16–17, which states, 'For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord.'"
https://www.catholic.com/tract/the-rapture
Near enough is good enough, ennit ? The bit about 'we who are alive' just rising up into the clouds ? But clearly on that basis, souls don't just buzz straight off to Heaven when the body dies, do they. They just hang around with their slowly disintegrating body until Trinity Part 2 deigns to return and finish his job. Some very, very long time in the future - maybe about when the universe reaches its 'heat death'.
I'll wager the earth will meet its 'heat death' long before the universe does, GB.
DeleteTrue, Merc, it will. But not from the gentle heat of climate heating - good ol' Terra has been at least 5degC hotter than it is now in the distant past and life thrived - but from the 'red giant' expansion of the Sun in about a billion or so years. The universal heat death - which is actually the death of heat as the universe freezes to nearly 0degK - is a few hundred billions of years away yet; in fact about 1.7x10**106 years apparently.
Deletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphical_timeline_from_Big_Bang_to_Heat_Death
But hey, to any eternal and omniscient creature, all time is the same so that the Trinity - who eternally and unchangingly know everything that is, has been and will be - simply live in one eternal frozen moment. And they'll still be around when the universal heat death is much more than 10**106 years in the past.
So here's a puzzle for the day: did God arrive before or after the laws of physics ? Or did they simply come into existence simultaneously ? And what does the Omphalos Hypothesis tell us ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omphalos_hypothesis
First, we sheet ourselves, then we point, then we spin, then we move, then we point again, then we spin again, then we drop up, then we grow, then we become heavy, then we become light, then we become heavy again, then we go back, or we go on, depending on whether we're under or over the 'fold.
DeleteWhatever that means, Anony, I'll go with it.
DeleteApparently, it meant nothing, and so it goes.
DeleteAs the monstrous robodebt monster with a Stunt-mo head approaches the elderly lady unawares, you can almost imagine it saying, "She's lucky we're not a NSW policeman with a taser. Things could be worse."
ReplyDeleteYes, that was my first take on Pope. But it is actually an image of a rotting, decaying Robodebt hulk; notice the bird nesting on top, the moss growing on various parts, the damaged and broken fuselage. Pope is showing a dead monster in a field overlooking a grave site of a victim, mourned by a relative or friend. As often occurs, there is subtlety in some of the cartoons. Indeed we can only mourn the outcomes, and hope that there is some retribution for those who built the monster; Pope is not so subtle on this aspect. AG.
DeleteDP said "More than equally disheartening was the lizard Oz's determination that News Corp could carry on with its "dole bludger" mythology and relentless tarnishing of people down on their luck, as if life on the dole was roughly equivalent to life in one of chairman Rupert's abodes ..."
ReplyDeleteWe minimize - you burdened.
Editorial corpse CalvinisticAI writes:
"The Weekend Australian believes welfare is a stopgap measure for those in real need, to be overseen carefully to minimize the burden on taxpayers."
Breakdown with subsonic and supersonic dog whistles alerts on. (Beta version, needs work.)
- "The Weekend Australian
! Just on the weekend? And you didn't notice did you. The subsonic dogwhistle alert blew like a steam whistle at
"The Australian"! Those who are immune to the Koolaid are almost deafened by The Australian.
"believes"
Nuf said. The whistles were mute as subjective 'belief' is a cosmic ray direct dendrite interference energy, weighted toward wowserism, after ingestion of Kool-aid. Exceptionally effective for those who believe whatever bile is written to be "gospel".
- "welfare is a stopgap measure" - we have control of the stopper and ability to widen or narrow gaps. Welfare is our plaything. Whistles silent to believers, as "stopgap" relives dissonance of profits assiting poor. We Loonies hear the whistles loud and long.
- "for those in real need" - both whistles blew. Self explanatory via CalvinisticAI belief weights. Triggers both sub and super sonic dog whistles as "we decide need".
- "to be overseen carefully" - tricky one. Suoersonic dog whistle evident yet listen carefully and you hear the subsonic reverberations of the (self perceived) ruling class - believers or Koolaid kronies only. Self management only for management, journo -opinion writers and Lords.
- "to minimize the burden on taxpayers.".
Again both whistles blew, indicating them with the gold makes the rules - we minimize - you burdened.
Yes, lots of dog whistles. I liked (well, didn't like) this one in the editorial:
Delete"We hope she is correct when she says the evidence before the commission was that fraud in the welfare system was miniscule."
So Holmes comments from evidence, but the editorial casts doubt by saying 'we hope', yet where is the evidence to cast doubt?
I hope the previous federal government gets carpeted over Robodebt, and that News Corp goes broke for supporting it, but I have my doubts. AG.
Yes, that “we hope” struck me as a particularly condescending and gaslighting use of words.
DeleteAfter all, what sort of expertise does a former Supreme Court judge have when compared to the Great and Powerful Oz Editorialist?
It's much more the gaslighting than the condescending, Anony: anything they can say or do to invalidate the Commission findings and, for reptiles and their kin, that's never required actual 'objective' evidence.
DeleteAnd then there's this one from Mr Ed: "Apart from the odd slice of emotionalism..." Now that's just downright and outright 'condescending'.
DeleteNote the use of 'overseen' as opposed to 'managed'; the poor and their lives must be 'overseen' by the rich, at all costs.
DeleteIt shows just how far down the reactionary rabbit hole Ned has gone when he blithely refers to the Government’s very mild industrial relations reforms as “radical and pro-union”.
ReplyDeleteOf course, the peasants need to be more productive - just like those hard-working CEOs who valiantly improve productivity by sacking staff.
BTW, just what the fuck is the “Judo Bank”, whose chief economic adviser Martin Hogan (no, never heard of him either) is quoted at length by Ned at length? I’m tempted to make some feeble crack about the need to also consult the Kung Fu, Ju Jitsu and Karate Banks, but I expect that it’s probably just another merchant bank with a spokesman trying to big-note himself, happy to help Ned pad out his sermon by an additional couple of hundred words.
Ah Anon, Those CEOs have been productive. Back when, I remember having to maintain the Personnel system of a very large Au company. The CEO salary breached the $99,999 limit. At the time this was approx 7 times the salary of the front line workers. But of course there were perks for all those toiling, cabs home for the women working late, actual full time jobs not a Gig, and a board that was concerned about the impact of technology downgrading the level of complexity of tasks, leading to disinterest.
DeleteGood guess Anon, out of the mouths of marketing babes ...
DeleteAustralia’s only challenger bank purpose-built for small and medium businesses.
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And so on ... the pond decided to tap out ...
https://www.judo.bank/
Ah, judo: now there's a word (meaning 'gentle way') that I haven't encountered for a goodly few years. Used to be all the rage around 50 to 60 years ago. And jiu jitsu too. Both apparently originated from jujitsu as an ancient form of Japanese unarmed combat.
DeleteProbably much too gentle for these depraved days of fully armed combat.
Mr Ed: "The Weekend Australian believes welfare is a stopgap measure for those in real need..." Jeez, I'm real glad for my welfare - the Age Pension - because without it I'd be in fatally real need. "...to be overseen carefully to minimise the burden on taxpaters." Now that is just so bad: in what does this "burden on taxpayers" consist: just some money or what ? And is it only the tax taken for "welfare" - as opposed to the tax taken for politician's salaries and allowances and for AUKUS nuclear submarines ?
ReplyDeleteAnd just how far does the 'careful oversee' go ? The Age Pension could be reduced, for instance, to the point that I could no longer afford to pay for the electricity that adds a few degrees of warmth to cold winter's days - would that be 'careful oversee' ? And what else ? Not enough for me to occasionally eat lunch out ? Just how far does this minimising the burden on taxpayers go, and who decides what to 'minimise'?
Chapman Cohen re the phrase "Dealing with Lesser Xians"
ReplyDelete"Human society is born in the shadow of religious fear, and in that stage the suppression of heresy is a sacred social duty.
"Then comes the rise of a priesthood, and the independent thinker is met with punishment in this world and the threat of eternal damnation hereafter.
"Even today it is from the religious side [of nuzcorpse] that the greatest danger to freedom of thought comes.
"Religion is the last thing that man will civilise."
Quoted in The Freethinker, Vol. 84 (G.W. Foote, 1964), p. 215.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Chapman_Cohen
So, Neddles: "The Reserve Bank of Australia under governor Philip Lowe has paused - briefly - it upward march on interest rates..." Oh yes, well he would, wouldn't he; but Alan Kohler thinks its permanent:
ReplyDeleteAlan Kohler: Rate hikes are over, or should be; 4.1 per cent is the peak
https://thenewdaily.com.au/opinion/2023/07/07/alan-kohler-rate-hikes-over-or-should-be/
So who do we believe ? Alan or Phil ? And how long will we have to wait to find out.
"The point is simply to get to the end, to be able to say 'I climbed the 'Ned' Everest this day and survived'...". Usually, DP, usually, but oh dear how it's so very close to "sufficient unto the day" - which I seem to remember originated with one of those 'religious groups' so beloved of the Lesser Leeser and his mates like Andrew Hastie who sadly worships a non-existent Trinity.
And anyway, today is Westacott's day: "At a time when people are struggling with the cost of living ... ... Why would we try to lock in old industry structures when we should have the economy as dynamic as we can have it ?" Yeah, why indeed, Jenni - we can just have industrial and economic paradise for the asking, can't we.
So Neddles tells us: "The issue is whether the IR system will generate or retard productivity..." No, it isn't: the issue is whether the IR system will promote fairness and justice or whether it will continue with the exploitation and worker suppression that is our inheritance from the LNP government and the likes of Jennifer Westacott. Oh, and the likes of Mike Henry: what's his salary again ? [It was Au$19.7million in 2021 according to The Australian. A mere pittance by world standards, but a lifetime fortune to the average Aussie worker].
But truly, sufficient unto the day ... so you can just go and read this, instead:
Australia’s top CEOs earn 132 times average wage
https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/finance-news/2022/07/13/ceos-pay-2021/
Well, we have had fun pointing up ‘Ned’s’ inevitable internal contradictions on how this economy works, but it is a little more disturbing when Ms Westacott blithely chants ‘But at the same time we’re not doing anything to address our investment drought;’
ReplyDeleteIn fact, those brilliant CEOs had several years of virtually free money, to channel into investment that would improve productivity in each of the firms that they purport to manage. At least a couple of them could have demonstrated how they are worth those mighty multiples of average salary that they have persuaded their boards to pay them, by actually expanding their businesses, or bringing in new methods, hardware, and, so importantly - software.
But they didn’t. I give you the performance of the firm supposedly managing the stock market in this country - that mighty engine of investment - and its dismal performance so far to replace the almost 30-year-old CHESS system for clearing and settlements (the system that should confirm that shares you thought you had bought had, in fact, lodged in your account).
Reminder - ASX effed around with something that supposedly included the magic term ‘blockchain’, and just plain lost its way, and a very large slab of money, and seems not to have any clear idea of which direction it might take.
Return of serve to you, Ms Westacott.
There's just a pile of crap everywhere you look, isn't there. Including that unquestionably sacred belief in "2 to 3 per cent". Now where did that come from and what is it really supposed to achieve ?
DeleteAnyway, I did think that it was really important to emphasize the wise words of a very famous Australia, one Mathias Cormann by name who according to Neddles said: "economic growth in Australia was still projected to run above the OECD average and Australia's monetary tightening had been more gradual, with rates still lower than in peer nations such as the USA, Britain and Canada". Ned called this a "critical message". Oh really ? Critical of or to what, exactly ?
The really ridiculous thing is that interest rate rises have a lag effect, ie it takes up to 12 months from a rise for it to have any noticeable impact. So put very simply, hardly any of the Reserve Bank's interest rate increases have had any effect yet, but somehow we're expected to just accept whatever increasing effect they might have over the next 2 years or so and just keep on doing more of them.
It really is just a children's playground, isn't it.
But just one last word: Neddy asks, but doesn't deign to answer, this question: "And where will the Coalition be left if Labor gets through the inflation crisis with hardly any political damage ?"
ReplyDeleteSo let me answer it for you, Ned: the Coalition will be left on the decreasing number of opposition 'benches' for at least one and maybe even two (or more ?) elections. Tragedy unlimited, yes ?