Foxy,

Alan Austin's reputation is shocking. His journalistic experience stems from his stint running a church rag. Since leaving Aus, he has sat in France writing fact-free polemics for the IA posing as IA's authority on economic issues, which considering that he has zero qualifications in this field made his blogs a running joke with holes in his logic you could drive a bus through.

As for him being award-winning, I can find no record of this.

Linking to this phoney does you no favours.

mhaze,

Austin claimed it was the latest data as of 7th Nov 2022 Dutton's budget reply speech was about 10 days earlier. Therefore Dutton would have had the same data available to him when making his assertion that; "(Australia has) debt lower than any other major advanced economy.” I see three possibilities when making that statement; Dutton had not researched any data and made the claim ignorantly off the top of his head, and Austin is right. Two Dutton had access to more recent date which showed a remarkable turn around in Australia's fortunes and the statement is indeed correct and Austin is wrong. And three Dutton had access to the same data and chose to make a false statement (lying) about it, which would vindicate Austins claim Dutton is a liar.

mhaze the part of Dutton's claim you haven't addressed; "Australia emerged from the [COVID-19] pandemic in an economic position the envy of most nations" Was that simply an inaccurate claim by Dutton as there is no evidence that Australia is the economic envy of "most nations" Dutton didn't even name one such nation. With no references it would seem Dutton was making frivolous claims even promoting falsehoods to gain political advantage.Dressing up opinion to appear as facts when no evidence to support that opinion is lying. Agree?

Dear Paul,

mhaze wrote - "the lack of self reflection is breath-taking."

If mhaze doesn't like what people post about him all he has
to do is improve. He reflects what he is!

__________________________________________________________________

shadowminister,

My image of Alan Austin differs greatly from yours.

You wrote earlier that he'd been sued for libel.

My understanding is that Austin wrote an article for
Independent Australia defending the Australian Human
Rights Commission and its then President Gillian Triggs
from attack.

Austin's colleagues and legal advisers thought that Austin's
article was legally defensible primarily of it being true.

The pursuit of Austin for defamation charges was discontinued.

Here's more of what is known about Alan Austin:

Alan Austin has written for many media outlets and been
published in most Australian newspapers and online publications.
For decades, from the late 1970s Austin focused on
Indigenous Affairs and visited more than 80 Aboriginal
communities by light aircraft.

He wrote an influential Uniting Church report on prisons in
Victoria in the 1980s which led directly to the jailing of
prison officers for drug offences. Austin worked for seven
years for World Vision and for eight years with ABC Radio
and Television's Religious Broadcast Unit.

While at the ABC Austin received several awards including the
Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, the United Nations
Association's Media Peace Award and the prestigious New York
Festival of Radio.

Austin has worked overseas as a journalist in Indonesia, China,
and now France.

His special interests are the news media, religious affairs,
and economic and social interests which impact the disadvantaged.

Paul,

I suspect this is going to get too complicated for you but Austin, in his article, has a link to the site where he got his data. If you follow that link you'll find that it doesn't contain any data on Australia's debt position in 2021. The most recent data it has is 2020. That is the data Austin uses.

Surely even you can understand that using 2020 data to try to disprove what was said about the 2021 situation is at best fraught and at worst an out-and-out lie.

I give the journo the benefit of the doubt and assume he's as innumerate as his readership .... but who knows?

Foxy,

I understand that you reserve the right to smear anyone who doesn't immediately agree with your unresearched ravings while whining when you are similarly treated.

I understand it .... I just won't accede to it.

mhaze,

You can't continue to keep on doing what you're
doing and expect different results.

mhaze,

What data was Dutton using to make his claims? Between 1st January 2022 and 27th October 2022 please name the world leaders who said, their country envied Australia's economic position , there are about 200 nations in the world, I wont ask you to name over 100 so the "most" is correct.

Based on your logic, the information in the 2021 Census is out of date in 2022, but it is the most recent data available, unfortunately being out of date it must also be unreliable, and useless.

BTW, I have done some checking, there is nothing that indicates the 13 advanced countries named by Austin as having, "lower central government debt than Australia’s (in 2020)" in the following period had a miraculous turnaround in their economic fortunes that put their debt beyond Australia's. Do you have evidence to support that possibility.

SM, are you saying Alan Austin is another one like your folk hero 'Beat Up' Bolt? Whose every utterance is seen as "manna from the political heaven" by you, even if its a pack of lies!