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The Forum > Article Comments > Advocacy or analysis? A retrospective on 'The Australian' > Comments

Advocacy or analysis? A retrospective on 'The Australian' : Comments

By Denis Cryle, published 20/2/2008

'The Australian' wears its heart on its sleeve and remains an ideologically-driven publication with a long history of campaigning behind it.

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But what is your point?
Posted by Tom Clark, Wednesday, 20 February 2008 10:04:41 AM
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Creative tension seems a very generous interpretation of the concerted campaign in the history wars, education, social policy, etc which this ideology machine has produced in recent times. Remember we are not just talking about one paper, but a stable of them. The most telling recent event was the promotion of Chris Mitchell from The Courier Mail to The Australian. It's hard to see it as anything other than a reward for the culture wars he instigated in the Brisbane paper.

A right wing newspaper is almost a tautology, since, as has been observed by others, newspapers do not merely favour big business, they ARE big business (though this doesn't necessarily explain the cultural move to the right). The strident radicalism of the right wing rent-a-crowd which has dominated The Australian in recent times is sheer journalistic irresponsibility.
Posted by Godo, Wednesday, 20 February 2008 10:09:56 AM
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Yes, what is the point this article is making? Is it an extract from a longer piece? Will part two be run tomorrow?
Posted by FrankGol, Wednesday, 20 February 2008 10:23:01 AM
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The Australian pushes a particular ideological line. It has been going on about supposedly “powerful” teacher unions and their “provider capture” of education for years.

In “Left in the shade to monument of reform” (28/7/2005), the Mike Nahan of the IPA, a prominent right-wing think tank that helped set the agenda for the Kennett Government, claims that Jeff Kennett ‘rationalised the number of schools, drastically reduced over-manning, made schools accountable to parents, introduced choice and reformed the curriculum’.

I replied (31/7/2005):
‘Not one of Mike Nahan’s claims in support of Jeff Kennett’s government’s changes to Victorian education (28/7) is in fact true, but that of course has never stopped such claims being published ad nauseam, usually with no right of reply by any of the victims…’ [REFUSED PUBLICATION]

In “Educational idiocy” (27-28/8/2005), the editorialist claims that ‘state ministers…are desperate not to annoy the powerful education unions’.

I replied on 28/8/2005:
‘The claim that teacher unions are powerful (27-28/8) is one of the many statements made about education by The Australian that are simply untrue, and it will stay untrue no matter how often it is repeated. The facts show that teacher unions have been losing their battles for decent pay and conditions for almost thirty years now…’ [REFUSED PUBLICATION]

In the second letter under “Labor has no monopoly on social responsibility” (30/10/2006), J. Morrissey claims that in ‘Victoria for seven years it has been snouts in the trough all round’ and asks where are the ‘thousands more nurses, teachers and police’.

I replied on 30/10/2006 in “Primary Focus”:
‘J. Morrissey asks where the thousands of extra teachers appointed by the Bracks Government are (“Labor has no monopoly on social responsibility”, 30/10).

‘They are mostly in primary schools where they have been used to improve the pupil-teacher ratio to 16.1:1 from the 17.2:1 it had been pushed out to by the previous Liberal government. This is not far short of the 15.8:1 it was in 1992 and has enabled primary school classes from Prep to Grade 2 to be set at 21 students…’ [REFUSED PUBLICATION]
Posted by Chris C, Wednesday, 20 February 2008 11:07:33 AM
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In “Last hurrah for the old industrial relations club” (29/6/2006), P. P. McGuinness claims that ‘The unions, especially the public sector unions (most glaringly in the education industry, where consumer interests are continually sacrificed to the employees), are so blinded by their own narrow self-interest that they neglect the interests of the community as a whole.’

I replied on 29/6/2006 in “Last hurrah for the old standards of truth”:
‘You managed to get through a whole week without publishing one of your totally dumb attacks on outcomes-based education, so I am not surprised you had to put one in today (“No place for New Age school syllabus”, 29/6) and to follow up yesterday’s lie that “teacher union officials and their state education minister allies…really wanted to protect…teachers who disguise their poor classroom performance behind edu-speak” (“Horror of happiness”, 28/6) with another one today, this time from P. P. McGuinness (“Last hurrah for the old industrial relations club”, 29/6)….’ [REFUSED PUBLICATION]

In “And another thing…” (15/2/2008) the editorialist claims that there is “provider capture” of education.

I replied on 15/2/2008:
‘I would like an explanation of how a powerful union supposedly in control of education can result in a $34,000 relative drop in Victorian teacher pay since 1975, an almost 2,000-teacher cut to secondary staffing since 1981, a ten per cent increase in teaching loads since 1983 and an explosion in short-term contract employment since 1992.

‘After getting teachers to cave in and accept a worsening of their working lives in the 2004 EBA, the Victorian Labor Government has spent the last year resisting teacher union demands to reverse the substantial worsening of pay, staffing, working conditions and security of employment that the union has been unable to prevent over the last three decades….’ [REFUSED PUBLICATION]

Overall, I sent 71 letters in 2005-06 and had three published, making an overall success rate of 4.2 per cent. Public opinion is formed simply by the number of times a particular claim is made and challenges to it are denied publication.

A comprehensive account is provided at:
http://pub39.bravenet.com/forum/3280197123/show/601755
Posted by Chris C, Wednesday, 20 February 2008 11:08:28 AM
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Good on you Chris C. I admire your tenacity. I'm not at all shocked by the newspapers' unwillingness to publish your lucid and well-argued letters.

I would have intuited that The Australian would be the least willing to publish a challenge to the tired old cliches about punctuation and spelling. If they or OLO recycles one more shoddy article by Kevin Donnelly I'll scream.

I hadn't seen the PLATO site before. It looks like a good alternative resource on education topics. Thanks for drawing it to our attention.
Posted by FrankGol, Wednesday, 20 February 2008 11:54:23 AM
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Yes, Kevin Donnelly's articles are quite painful. There's only so many times you can witness someone attempt to apply such extreme libertarian principles to what is a fundamental element of shaping society, before you just can't stand the gaping holes in his arguments any more.
In his articles, addressing education for the disadvantaged and less able students is never touched upon, or if it is, it's always given a solution which has shown to be a failure overseas.

The Australian's an interesting paper - for my two bob, it's the best paper in Australia. Once upon a time, the fin review could hold its own against it, but recently the fin review's taken quite a beating and isn't what it was. There is of course, an unapologetic bias toward libertarian economic principles, but I'm not so sure there's a bias toward parties. For a long time, Howard was the stalwart economic libertarian (though he had many failings, even in this conservative economic endeavour) though Rudd's an able challenger so was given time and credence. Latham, who admittedly had quite open failings, I suspect wouldn't have been given much kindness even if he hadn't displayed overt shortcomings - largely due to his policy agenda.
Posted by TurnRightThenLeft, Wednesday, 20 February 2008 12:11:35 PM
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Murdoch has made no secret of the fact that governments change when he instructs his editors.

Its sad that the owner has such direct influence over the editorial content of the only national newspaper. Because of the tight media owneership and control over newspaper content I like many younger Australians don't buy or read newspapers. We get our news from other sources. We do not have much better access to unbiased news than a citizen in the old Soviet Union.

Good on you Chris C for fighting the good fight!
Posted by billie, Wednesday, 20 February 2008 2:05:10 PM
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"not so sure there's a bias toward parties"
Oh come on. Maybe Paul Kelly continues that tradition with a slight rightist bias, but ovoerwhelming content of the paper in terms of editorials, editorial content in articles, op-eds, and political analysis of polling was transparently pro-Liberal. Even when they finally realised Rudd was on a winner, and started writing more neutral articles across the board, they tried to run the line that everything positive that could explain or validate Rudd's political success was really a conservative virtue - and a slap on the wrist for the left.

The idea was:

1. Try to preserve a Coalition majority for Howard by making him and Rudd clones - where experience wins;

2. If that fails, try to salvage some form of populist conservative narrative from amongst the wreckage of what should obviously be a paper caught on the wrong side of a decade of shameless partisanship.
Posted by BBoy, Wednesday, 20 February 2008 3:58:13 PM
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Go to a state reference library and read some back issues of "The Australian"; around March 1984 is really good. At that stage they were praising Saddam Hussein. When peace activists were trying to tell the world about Saddam Hussein’s use of poison gas, they ridiculed it as fake.

First they claimed that it was actually the Iranians dressed up as Iraqis. Their key witness being an Iranian refugee in Paris. (26 March, 1984), which didn't work. So then they used an excuse that it was actually not mustard gas but rather the effects of a giant swarm of defecating South-East Asian honey bees (March 30,p7).

I'm not joking. That is the standard of media "The Australian" is prepared to stoop to in order to promote its ideology.
Posted by Lev, Wednesday, 20 February 2008 3:58:48 PM
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As a teenager i thought it worth reading, but now wouldn't pay a cent for its entirely predictable RightThink propaganda. I do still read it occasionally (when found discarded) just to laugh at their halfwitted attempts to spin e.g. 'peace and freedom' in Iraq or the 'wisdom' of deregulated markets.

Incidentally, all biographies of Rupert Murdoch have been superceded by the emerging stink over NDS, see Crikey's wrap @ http://tiny.cc/5OxYl. Will RM have to sell The Australian to pay damages, or will he continue to issue editorial instructions from jail? Stay tuned (but not to News Corp).
Posted by Liam, Wednesday, 20 February 2008 6:20:48 PM
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TurnRightthen Left,

I cannot abide The Australian’s politics, but I agree that it is the best paper in Australia. It is the most comprehensive, has the best international coverage and the greatest focus on real issues. Neither it nor any other newspaper has a captive market today: the internet has given the citizens of the world access to the world, and many of us are using it.

FrankGol and billie,

You have to be tenacious in this environment. When I left teaching, I promised that I would continue to fight for teachers in my Farewell speech: http://pub39.bravenet.com/forum/3280197123/show/618849

The www.platowa.com site is an excellent forum for discussion of education. It is based in WA, but anyone can contribute.

It is appalling that The Australian is so out of touch with reality in our schools. Even worse is its failure to listen to those who know what is real.
Posted by Chris C, Thursday, 21 February 2008 4:02:12 PM
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