63/37 off the back of primaries running 52.5/31.5

The announcement of the closure of the Ford engine plant is major too. Mitsubishi closed its Adelaide engine plant about 18 months before closing local production entirely. it is valid to ask if Ford is headed the same way. Ford are going to assemble their econmical four cylinder Focus model here from next year, which is good. However note that is assemble (from imported components) not manufacture. The amount of heavy engineering, let alone development, is very little.

Maybe in the current economic climate its not such a bad thing; any skilled employees should easily get new jobs. However once again, its shows the previous gvoernment’s car industry policy was $6 billion wasted. It works out at around $200,000 each for every job protected, only as this shows the jobs are no mroe secure anyway. Wouldn’t it just be cheaper to give every single worker $100,000 to pay off their debts and some retraining? I don’t entirely believe the productivity commission report, which is a bit economic-rationalist in its assumptions, but the current strategy must change.

There are still some great journos at the ABC. Posters above mentioned Allie Moore and Mark Colvin. I’d throw in Heather Hewitt (sic) and Quentin Dempster. You might add in George Negus too, and Chris Masters (just abotu anyone at Four Corners). That young Economics reporter is fabulous too (Lateline, Fridays). They don’t always say things I agree with but they’re willing to have a go and get stuck into both sides. I can’t ask for more than that.

I’m also willing to concede that government speakers may be less willing to come on shows for interviews than Opposition speakers. This had occurred to me, and could well explain some of the apparent deficit. I’m reminded of La Trioli who once famously said on her now defunct Sydney radio show (to Malcolm Fraser) that her job was to present both sides of an argument. Well, Virginia, if the then government wanted to have their say, you should have got them to turn up at the studio, like Fraser did. Your job is not to do their spruiking for them. Likewise, if Labor ministers won’t turn up then it’s their own fault the Opposition gets a continual free-kick.

As to Dolly: the man’s a has-been with nothing to sustain him but an ill-concealed personal hatred of Rudd that sticks out like a stallion’s dick in a paddock. If he was an Opposition shadow spokesman, you could forgive his constant presence on ABC radio and TV, but he’s not. He’s just someone who articulates a particularly spiteful line against Labor and rudd in particular. It seems the powers that be and Downer himself can’t get used to the fact that he’s officially a nobody, with nothing useful to offer.

Perhaps the ABC doesn’t use its own correspondents more because for a correspondent to offer criticism of a politician or a policy therefrom would be classed as “bias”. This is the downside of the politically “neutral” mantra at the ABC. Whatever the government does that’s good has to be balanced against a carping, whingeing Oppo spokesman crying crocodile tears about Taragos and wheelchairs, or giving a “MasterClass” in economics/foreign policy/industrial relations/parliamentary protocols/pi$$ing-up-agaist-a-wall or whatever to an allegedly “L-Plate” government minister. It’s not so much that these are factual or serious criticisms of the government, it’s just that they are played dead-pan to the mug punters here in Listener Land, as if they were the words of a philosopher king, totally above politics, not some weasel from the back benches. The ABC isn’t allowed to have an opinion, except when they do have one, and then it’s usually against the government (Uhlmann is a case in point… how did he get to his vaulted position?).

I can’t help thinking that this is because there’s a cadre of Howard appointees (or appointees of appointees) pulling the strings and making sure that although the Howard government is dead, it’s fetid memory and the putrid consequences of its standover tactics against the ABC live on.

What ever happened to the ABC deciding on issues worthy of pursuit, investigating them, presenting the facts as they find them, and allowing the Government to respond to objective factual situations as distinct to having to defend itself against pejorative spin generated from Liberal Party headquarters?

You have only confirmed how pathetically compromised the ABC has become.

Bushfire Bill, I actually agree with you completely on the two points you raise, re newspaper journalists on the ABC, and Alex Downer getting over-exposed at the moment.

I have actually fought a largely unsuccessful battle within the organisation for the ABC to use its own correspondents more. One of the problems with the ABC’s political reporters is that they tend to operate to hourly deadlines, and can’t guarantee (in advance) to be able to talk to programs at particular times. Hence some of the local radio programs take the easy option and talk to a newspaper correspondent, who’s more available. I disagree with this approach. And I also think there’s no excuse for Radio National (or ABC-TV) to resort to as many newspaper columnist interviews as it does. It dilutes the ABC’s role as an independent news service.

As for the Opposition getting over-exposed at this moment…there’s some truth in this, in all the media. But the government is actually making it rather difficult for all media to get access to ministers at the times they want. There is as much manipulation and spin going on with the current government than the previous one (if not more), and it’s a straight out fact that Howard was more available to the media than Rudd.

Sometimes the only way you can get the government to comment on an issue is by going to the Opposition first. But I’m thoroughly sick of hearing Dolly rabbiting on.

“I … said what my views are as a parent, I don’t budge from that. But I’m not about to go around and start dictating to the legal authorities what they should or should not do,” Mr Rudd told Channel 9.

“Organisations like that are at arms length from politicians. It’s a matter for those bodies independently, including the legal authorities, to evaluate these matters and reach their own determination.”

A better response than last time, but a no comment originally, followed up by a simple explanation of the difference between ‘governing’ and ‘ruling’ the land, and why his personal view was meaningless, would have been better.

Let’s copy Kevin
“The media have missed an event of real significance: the Australian decision to withdraw its forces from Iraq. Kevin Rudd, the Australian prime minister explained his decision in a wide-ranging statement (pdf) in parliament which deserves to be read.

Why doesn’t Gordon Brown invite his new Australian colleague, a Labour prime minister who has just ended umpteen years of Conservative misrule, to come to Britain and – celebrating our historic links with Australia as the military have done so eloquently – give an address to parliament?
His subject could be “how to get out of Iraq”.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/05/iraq.australia