579, The vote has been taken in Australia, well not actually in Australia, as most of the voters were overseas at the time and Abbott and his Coalition cronies have been elected the new government,a return to normality, the natural way of things etc. The trouble is Gillard and her cronies wont vacate the premises. The vote was unanimous 3 nil Big Mining, Big Club and Big Business all voted for Tony and his bunch. All the right wing media is doing at the moment is passing on the 'good news' to the rest of us. That's how democracy in Australia works. If universal suffrage made a real difference as to who runs the show, we wouldn't have it, the born to rule class would soon make sure of that. Every now and then the voters, all 3 of them, allow the Labor Party to take hold of the reins, as Labor are normally a compliant mob who don't rock the boat, its not much of a problem, besides its good PR. However, they soon grow tied of Labor running things as deep down some of them, just a few, still have a bit of a social conscience, which the voters thought had been completely snuffed out. We can't have people like that making decisions, next thing you know they will do things for the benefit of the other 22 million Australians, at the detriment of the voters, all 3 of them, and we can't have that, can we?

579,

Please name one country with a higher carbon tax.

SM You can watch the replay of parliament and find out for yourself. Freedom of the press, Does that mean it's ok to tell lies to the public without question.
The innuendo and lies have gone on long enough, it's time all noalition supporters took a good look at the real coalition and seen it for what it is. It consists of negativity and talk down the economy. That is not the role of opposition, that is the role of terrorists.
Joe Hocky's budget has a 70 billion dollar black hole, and he admits he made a mistake. I hope that was in the paper also. You can't have treasurers making mistakes.
Tony says 3 days ago the economy won't be in surplus for 5 years, and now he says it will be in surplus in one year.
What sort of a leader is that, one that can-not make up his mind apparently.

For 5 cents, Lock in Botswana Eddie. SM do I get the bickies? Who cares we must have a carbon tax, for all the right reasons. Its all pandering to vested interest like Big Coal and the big polluters. Help save the planet SM before its to late.

This is a seriously problematic article.

Despite the headline: 'Explaining Australia’s fall in the RSF World Press Freedom Index', there is no valid explanation offered at all, is there?

Yes, we get this: "there were five simultaneous government inquiries into news media regulation at the time it was being compiled [which] sent a message to the international community that ... the Australian government and its agencies were entertaining tougher regulatory measures."

So what will be the findings of those inquiries? What "tougher regulatory measures"? We do not know. Until we do, it is unfair to pre-empt them.

So, some questions for Mark Pearson:

1. What submissions did you make to the RSF to assist them in downgrading Australia’s ranking?

2. Can we see them please?

3. Who else from Australia made submissions to assist the RSF's “expert qualitative judgment when making the final determinations of a country’s comparative ranking”? This is vital information in the interests of freedom of information. It should not be hard for you, Mark – Australian correspondent for the past six years – to provide these.

4. Mark, why do you write: "The Federal Court’s ruling that hate speech laws should trump free expression was of concern when a judge ruled Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt breached the Racial Discrimination Act in his criticisms of fair-skinned indigenous people”?

Did the judge really say that? At what paragraphs in the judgment?

5. Have you actually read the judgment?

6. Do you agree that the judge found that Mr Bolt's articles were riddled with accusations that were “erroneous”, “factually inaccurate”, “without factual basis”, “factually incorrect” and “grossly incorrect”?

7. Do you accept that the judge actually ruled that expressions of opinion are perfectly valid, but that blatant falsehoods should not be published?

8. Did the judge say “Untruths are at the heart of racial prejudice and intolerance” or not?

9. Do you actually teach this appalling misrepresentation of the Federal Court judgment at the university?

10. And finally, who funds your position at Bond University?

Thanks, Mark.

More questions when we have answers to these.

Cheers, AA

Alan you ask

8. Did the judge say “Untruths are at the heart of racial prejudice and intolerance” or not?

Of course lies are part of the equation but there is evidence - see link below - that conservative ideology is at the heart of racial prejudice and intolerance, and this evidence is backed up by the ignorance and prejudice of the right wing commenters on this site.

http://pss.sagepub.com/content/23/2/187

The authors of this research, "found that lower general intelligence (g) in childhood predicts greater racism in adulthood, and this effect was largely mediated via conservative ideology.

A secondary analysis of a U.S. data set confirmed a predictive effect of poor abstract-reasoning skills on antihomosexual prejudice, a relation partially mediated by both authoritarianism and low levels of intergroup contact."

So it probably isn't worth the effort to point out the logical inconsistencies that constitute the emotive and irrational basis of the nonsense that the right continue to provide as support for their opinions; they just don't have the cognitive ability to understand reality.

The emotive basis for their deluded ideas is explained by research - link below - published in Current Biology, which using MRI brain scans shows that Liberals - that's US liberals not our own not-so-liberal party - have more grey matter in a part of the brain associated with understanding complexity, while the conservative brain is bigger in the section related to processing fear.

So much fear out there in bogan land!

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2011/04/08/3186006.htm?topic=