Noel Turnbull

Sometimes PR campaigns to address problems cause even bigger PR problems. For instance the aged care industry is planning a major campaign to ‘change the conversation’ and ‘win the hearts and minds of middle Australia’ according to The Age (2 September 2020). (more…)

When asked during one of his long, long media conferences about speculation on whether he was planning to stand down as Victorian Premier, Daniel Andrews, replied “I’m not going anywhere”. (more…)

The Morrison Government’s hypocrisy ranges across many areas but one of the most galling is the disparity between the protestations about thanking veterans for their service and how they allocate veteran related budgets. (more…)

The British decision to put Rosalind Franklin’s famous Photograph 51 on the new 50p coin is a reminder that the controversy over her DNA X-ray diffusion work is but one part of a much larger scientific career. (more…)

For decades there has been a relentless chorus – rather like Orwell’s four legs good two legs bad – conditioning us to believe that private is good and public is bad. (more…)

The Eden-Monaro by-election status quo ante result raises two questions: why isn’t the Prime Minister’s high approval rating translating into an improved rating for the government; and, why do the media keep up the same old tired approaches to covering political events? (more…)

Modern Australian political parties are more likely to be corrupted by ideological or religious fanatics and power-seekers than by disputes about policy and how to get into government. (more…)

Right wingers are better at framing policies than progressive parties. (more…)

Recently the New Daily ran two Michael Pascoe pieces exposing a $2.5 billion regional grants program rort 25 times bigger than the sports rorts. Forwarding it on to someone elicited the surprising response: “Who cares?” (more…)

While the number of inequality indices and ratios is proliferating there has been less sustained attention to the social costs associated with it. (more…)

The phrase ‘only in America’ is one which is deep in possible meanings. In particular it lays itself open to the deconstruction demonstrated in the old Jewish joke about Stalin and Trotsky. (more…)

It is frequently asserted that if you change the government you change the country. But perhaps the assertion that if you change the government you also change the way the media – particularly the Murdoch media – reports on a government’s policies might be more apposite in Australia. (more…)

As consumers fight over toilet rolls and marauding bus-loads of city dwellers pillage local country stores of products,  the PM says we will get through it all because we are Australians. This is probably a good time to ask the question – what are Australians really like? (more…)