Tch, tch, Shadow Minister,

You're not allowed to call people "liars" on this forum, nor "idiots" - Graham's aiming for parliamentary conduct n'all that.

You're the fellow who keeps on telling me that 90% of the people think this - and 90% of the people think that....and by chance they all seem to hold exactly the same views as Shadow Minister! (whodathunkit?)

And Suse has a good point:

"Shadow Minister, it is your own opinion, not a fact, that the ABC is biased towards Labor, but many would beg to differ.
I can't remember reading or hearing much positive news about Shorten or his party anywhere, for quite some time."

And Fairfax is currently putting the boot into Shorten as well.

'Yous' should all be grinning from ear to ear....

Suseonline, "pilloried Rudd and Julia"

You must have been watching a very different ABC to everyone else if you imagine that it didn't give her a huge free ride. So did everyone else.

NO female leader in Australia has ever received anything but the wholehearted support of the media and community. Even where obvious flaws were in evidence so much extra rope is given it was ridiculous. Consider the support and free runs given to Premier Anna Bligh in Queensland.

If they really were feminists and if feminists meant what they said, Julia, Anna and others would have called out the overwhelming, undeserved support as patronising.

Women politicians have to be decidedly 'accident-prone' to even start wearing a few mild criticisms. Even then and as proved by Julia Gillard, they are easily able to appear as a victim, even while beating someone else up and calling others by undeserved, foul epithets like 'mysognist'. Julia was easily able to flip, Persecutor->(claimed)Victim->Persecutor in a single sentence and her bite and lash were ferocious.

Just as a reminder that there are other women who are leaders in their fields who have come out from time to time to state the obvious, that the affirmative action, unquestioning support and gushing approval given to females generally, detracts from their own hard won accomplishments through years of dedication and effort. Many would agree with that.

Dear Shadow minister,

You said;
“The three main issues that the ABC focuses on are climate change, asylum seekers and gay marriage, all of which deeply reflect greens values to the exclusion of all others.”

Absolute bulldust.

These are not just 'Green' values but they are values held by a vast majority of Australians.

I attended a funeral for a recently departed father of a good mate today. It was held at a very fundamentalist Christian church that he had been a part of. I am on first name basis with quite a number of the congregation and I can tell you the antipathy toward Abbott is palpable. Many I spoke to are embarrassed by his stance on climate change, distressed by the lengths he has gone to on the asylum seeker issue, and only reluctantly with him on the gay marriage debate.

The ABC rightly holds and prosecutes the high moral ground on many of these issues, a space seemingly vacated by our political class. It is vitally important to the public discourse and for you to hold the views you do about it illustrates how little you value the things that make this country Australian rather than the US.

Shame.

SteeleRedux,

Some anecdote, perhaps the embarrassment was directed at you for raising those subjects with mourners at the funeral - of an unrelated person to boot, the father of a friend.

You might show where in the ABC's Charter it is being required as you assert, to hold and prosecutes the high moral ground on 'gay marriage', 'asylum seekers', 'climate change' and other such issues.

You are right to say that the ABC has kept such topics and its political take on them very much alive, ensuring no day goes by without a story or few. That is called 'making the news', hardly ethical one would have thought.

You say that the ABC is and should be political and take the place of the 'political class'. However, that is not what it is there for and unlike politicians, it cannot be held accountable in the Parliament as politicians are.

Get off the grass Onthebeach, you can't be serious, surely?
I have NEVER seen any PM so viciously verbally attacked than Julia Gillard.

I couldn't be bothered proving that fact by going back on many awful comments made about her gender, her hair, her clothes, her body, her lack of religion, her partner, her marital status, her lack of children, and her dead father, just to name a few.

And that was just on this forum....

SOL,
With all due respect, I believe the ABC is biased based on years of observation,
• On the radio and TV left whinge MPs etc. are asked for comment 2 to 3 times as often as conservative MPs
• The ABC is one of the first to publish stories that are damaging to the coalition often with little to no evidence, e.g. the torturing of people smugglers by burning their hands.
• The ABC is one of the last to publish stories that are damaging to labor or the greens, and generally only when there is hard and irrefutable evidence, e.g. the almost complete failure to print anything on Gillard’s involvement wrt AWU corruption scandal or the laggardly response to Thompson's credit card abuse. Notably brought up first by Fairfax. And there are plenty of other examples.

Poirot,

We are all entitled to our opinions and interpretations of the facts. Deliberate falsehoods are lies, and those posting deliberate falsehoods are liars.

For example:

"You're the fellow who keeps on telling me that 90% of the people think this - and 90% of the people think that....and by chance they all seem to hold exactly the same views as Shadow Minister! (whodathunkit?)"

Is false and you know it. Shame on you.

SR,

Please read carefully what I post before attacking me for what you erroneously thought I meant.

The ABC has a disproportionate focus on climate change, asylum seekers and gay marriage, and on those topics reflect almost exclusively the greens point of view.

While agree with you that the ABC's standpoint echos the values of the vast majority wrt gay marriage (incl mine) they don't wrt climate change and only a tiny fraction wrt illegal boats.