“Scrutiny”
Two articles from the last few days about the Greens; one from Fairfax, one from News. Which one actually made you think about Greens policy? Which one added to your understanding of them?
- “Jack The Insider” whinges that the Greens don’t invite the media into their conferences;
- John Birmingham explores the mindset of the Greens and notes some of their more controversial policies that are never debated. (The stupid headline is not his fault.)
I did love how in JTI’s piece he completely dismissed Rhiannon effectively agreeing with him, that it’s something they should consider revising. It doesn’t matter if the a prominent Green seems to agree with me! That doesn’t suit my attack at all! I’m going to pretend that they never said that (even directly after quoting it)!
Also, it’s funny that those calling for more “scrutiny” of the Greens are also those who oppose their participating in election debates, isn’t it?
ELSEWHERE: Lee might’ve been willing to agree with Uhlmann and JTI, but I’m not convinced she should have.
JTI is right. The media should be allowed to access Greens’ conferences. If they did, then maybe (just maybe) we might see more substantive reporting on Greens policies.
Doubt it. The media ignore what the Greens actually announce in terms of policy and what they actually argue for in Parliament already. What makes you think they’d pay more attention to policy if they attended conferences?
On reflection, I don’t think they should be invited. (At least not until the Labor Right and Labor Left and the various Liberal Party groupings invite the media to their meetings.)
The media is obsessed with the Greens, complaining that they are radicals and the rest of that rubbish.
The Greens do good politics.
Birmingham says:
I’ll say, very wordy, looks like a good read though.. It will have to wait until later.
Exactly. After Penberthy’s bull about Green preferences I do not blame the Greens. The media don’t need access to conferences to do their job, that is to report factually on Green’s policies.
confessions, as uniquerhys pointed out at Lefty’s the Greens policies are online for all to see:
http://greens.org.au/policies
Their policies are available for scrutiny, it’s the media’s fault that there is no substantive scrutiny of their policies. My theory is if the media did start scrutinising green Policies your average, decent Aussie would start voting for them.
Sorry that would be your average Aussie who possesses above average intelligence.
Jack The Insider’s column is in The Australian – a journal whose editorial policy is to obliterate the Greens. Why on earth would he get an invitation to their meetings? Why would The Australian give their ideas any coverage? Jack, like his journal, needs to grow up.
Rob:
Yes, the Green policies are online, and yes, our hopeless media don’t report them.
But what is wrong with opening up conferences to the media? Simply saying ‘the msm will treat us unfairly’ isn’t compelling enough for me.
Confessions, did you read my post linked to above about why opening up conferences isn’t just unnecessary, or inconsistent – since the groups within the “broad based” parties don’t invite the media to their meetings, either – it’d be more of a distraction from policy than the status quo?
Are you going to update this post to defend the Greens from First Dog on the Moon’s scandalous and baseless attack today, too?
What’s the point? The national Crikey hate media and its attack-dog, uh, dog, are beyond redemption.
I don’t even want to give them the hits. Don’t click on this link.
If you don’t like the fact that the Greens won’t allow the media into their conferences then don’t vote for them.
For the first time in the last couple of weeks, I’m in complete with mondo. There is no need for a party to open the doors to their internal deliberations to the media. What next, a transcript of all phone calls made between Greens members relating or pertaining to their policies? Online recordings of conversations in the corridor? Reporters at weekend BBQ’s where the week’s issues get discussed? After all, they too are part of the process in which parliamentarians decide policy.
Their importance to the Australian public is in what they do in parliament. If you don’t like what they do there, don’t vote for them. If you happen to support the policies they do fight for in parliament, consider them worthy of your vote.
The media are bleating about this because elements of the major parties are leaking dirty laundry to the “journalists” in attempts to sway faction dealings in the party. By comparison, the Greens appear to be the strong, unified, and outward looking party the Libs & Labs wish they looked like.
And I’m someone that believes, without Bob Brown’s influence, a few of the personalities in the Greens would cause major problems for them. Passion without experience and all that.
(for when it comes out of moderation)… in complete agreement with mondo…
No, haven’t read it yet Jeremy. But I will.
Ok, having read your post – I would comment there, but can’t remember my login and password. I think your argument is based on too many assumptions: the media will focus on personalities, the Greens will end up just like Labor/Liberal, the Greens will end up a closed shop. Why should the Greens end up just like the parties they tell voters they are so different from?
But in any case, I don’t see any of these reasons being of themselves sufficient to justify banning the media from party conferences – any party btw, not just the Greens.
I completely disagree with you confessions. The justification should start with “Why should the media get access to any party’s internal deliberations?”
The fact that the Labor & Liberal Parties allow some access to their meetings is their prerogative, but it doesn’t imply that anyone else (or even they) should and more than my donating to one particular charity means I should donate to all. A significant reason why the media gets access to the Labor/Liberal machinations is because people within the party believe they’ll get mileage for their particular cause/faction from it; not from any viewpoint that the deliberations should be public.
Look at how quick the media was to make any hay out of the minor disagreement between Bandt & Brown in regards to whether they might or categorically wouldn’t support Liberals in power. Everyone knew that the Liberals could offer nothing to interest the Greens but the MSM still raised the fact that Bandt ruled out support for a Liberal Govt whereas Brown issued a statement less likely to have News Ltd score political points. That’s in something simple and so predictable as to make asking the question in the first place ridiculous. Imagine the stuff they’d use from a healthy internal discussion/debate about policy!
Remember, the internal disagreements of Cabinet & Shadow Cabinet are only revealed when someone leaks them as the media is not invited in. And nor should they be. Even for the Coalition, the shallowness of political “reporting” in this country would only be detrimental to their cause should their meetings be open to any hack that wants to play games.
imo – this is a reason to stir up more suspicion against the Greens. “What do they have to hide????” – you can hear the commentariat Over There shrieking it from here.
B.Tolputt:
Meetings of Cabinet (much like those of company Boards) are a completely different and separate argument. There is no equivalence with party conferences. Executive government, like company executives and boards do need an environment in which frank discussion and debate can take place.
But JTI’s claim is that no media is permitted inside Greens’ conferences at all. That a spokesperson holds a press conference at the end of the day/event/whatever to announce what has been agreed to. I am assuming this is true, because nobody has refuted it. I think political parties can do better than this at providing transparency to the public.