Category: Media

  • Foxing with the News, Japan style. Guest blogger: Walter Hamilton

     

    On Wednesday 7 August 2013, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe acknowledged that the clean up of the devastated Fukushima nuclear power reactors was beyond the capacity of the operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO). It followed the revelation that heavily contaminated groundwater is flowing into the Pacific Ocean at an estimated rate of 300 tonnes a day because of the failure of a perimeter barrier installed by TEPCO. By any measure this was a major news story. So where did it run in that night’s one hour, mid-evening news on the national broadcaster NHK? Buried 40 minutes down in the program as a brief RVO (reader voiceover). Had the story broken a year ago, during the tenure of the former government, I have no doubt it would have led the program – accompanied by complaints of incompetence. If there had been any doubt that Abe was receiving a dream run from Japan’s mainstream media, this episode laid it to rest.

    For six months or more the government ignored calls for it to take over management of the nuclear crisis from a secretive and bumbling TEPCO. Abe did nothing, unwilling to infringe on the prerogatives of a private enterprise. The delay deserved to be marked down as a failure of leadership, and yet NHK’s story offered no such analysis. Nor did it contain the information – available on the New York Times and BBC websites – that taxpayers will pick up the estimated US$400 million dollar tab for a new containment strategy. Reportedly the plan envisages freezing the ground around the crippled reactors to a depth of 30 metres. Some commentators suggest the government has been reluctant to take over control for fear of being blamed should the unproven strategy fail to hold back the radioactive groundwater. (One assumes some of these details were aired in other NHK news broadcasts; my focus is on how this story was presented in its prestigious News Watch 9 program on the day in question.)

    The uncritical coverage NHK and others are giving to decisions by the conservative Liberal Democratic Party government contrasts with the media’s hostile treatment of the former centre-left administration led by the Democratic Party of Japan. The nuclear issue is just one example. Another is the issue of the controversial deployment of Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft by the US Marines on Okinawa. When the deployment began in July last year Japanese media outlets, including NHK, suggested that public safety and national sovereignty were being sacrificed to the US-Japan alliance. Night after night, NHK television bulletins devoted extensive coverage to anti-government protests. In recent weeks the number of Ospreys deployed on Okinawa was doubled, while on Monday the crash of a helicopter from the Kadena Air Base further underlined the safety concerns of residents of the heavily militarized islands. And yet NHK’s coverage of both developments was subdued and matter-of-fact, particularly in comparison with its coverage of the same issue during the time of the Noda government.

    Why the change in temper?

    When the DPJ came to power in 2009 one of its first acts was to end the LDP’s preferred method of governing through background briefings to a coterie of captive journalists. This attack on the kisha club system – under which media outlets attach journalists to ministries in return for exclusive access to information – threatened the drip feed media organisations relied upon. Once-privileged journalists now had to take their chances in the open forum of televised news conferences. They hated it – and seemed bent on revenge. Some proved incapable of adjusting to the fact there had been a change of government and continued to treat the LDP as if it were the ruling party.

    As time went by, particularly after the earthquake and tsunami in Tohoku, simmering resentment built to a wave of criticism against Prime Minister Naoto Kan and his successor Yoshihiko Noda. While the DPJ government undoubtedly contributed to its loss of popular support, the media played a big hand in it. Conspicuous in this campaign was the mass circulation Yomiuri newspaper (one of the main backers of Abe’s plans for constitutional change). Journalists conveniently overlooked that the nuclear crisis was due, in large part, to a flawed safety and regulatory regime put in place by the LDP. The commercial television networks clamored to outdo each other in pillorying the government. During a March 2011 news conference by Prime Minister Kan, audiences of Fuji-TV’s broadcast heard background voices mocking the proceedings: ‘The nuclear story again, you’ve got to be kidding’, ‘Now I can start laughing’. (This insight into the mentality of some in the profession is no longer viewable on YouTube: Fuji-TV has had it removed ‘for copyright reasons’.)

    Back at NHK, if Fukushima wasn’t the big story last Wednesday night, what was? A summer heat wave and the price of petrol led News Watch 9. The story immediately preceding the brief mention of Fukushima was a long item about the recovery of Japanese flags and other military paraphernalia taken from Pacific battlefields by American soldiers during the Second World War. Honoring the country’s war dead and comforting bereaved families are worthy causes, but they hardly rank above a current and out-of-control nuclear accident.

    Walter Hamilton reported from Japan for the ABC for 11 years. 

  • One Minus One Equals Nothing – Also True in Journalism. Guest blogger: Walter Hamilton

     

    As an executive journalist at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation I was concerned on a daily basis with balance and fairness in news and current affairs coverage. I often heard it said, ‘if both sides of politics are criticising us, we’re probably doing a good job’, though I never embraced this mantra. In journalism, as in diplomacy, one does not ensure neutrality by being equally offensive to everyone. Similarly the counting of lines of copy and broadcast minutes, which is standard practice at the ABC during election campaigns to give ‘equal time’ to the opposing political parties, to me smacked of tokenism.

    The tone, language and angle of a story, together with its running order within a bulletin or positioning on a web page, are more important factors in determining fairness and balance. The quality of the editorial conversation that accompanies a story’s preparation – its relative freedom from preconceived ideas – and what might be termed the ‘ideological culture’ of the newsroom are also crucial. Indeed, since both these aspects elude easy measurement and sit out of sight of the final audience, it may be they have the greatest significance.

    I do not intend to offer an opinion here on how well the ABC discharges its responsibility to achieve fairness and balance, though I know for a fact there exists a corporate consciousness of the need to do so and surveys suggest most consumers of ABC programs believe it is being achieved. I withhold my opinion not because I am complacent about the current state of affairs but because the subject deserves more than a few hundred words.  

    What I wish to do is to highlight some aspects of the media environment in which the current election is being fought. Prime Minister Rudd has made it an agenda item by accusing News Corporation outlets of running a campaign to unseat Labor. Rudd has implied that News’ critical reporting of over-runs in spending and under-performance in delivery of the NBN is motivated by a desire to protect its investment in Foxtel. Under the previous Labor administration, Julia Gillard effectively boycotted certain commercial radio presenters because of their hostility to her and her government. On the other hand, in my opinion, the Fairfax press has generally tended to portray Tony Abbott in a negative light.

    Partisanship is nothing new in the media business. Those who remember opinions being confined to the editorial pages of newspapers ‘once upon a time’ are kidding themselves. I refer back to what I said earlier about the less obvious determinants of fairness and balance in news presentation. What seems to have changed lately is the intensity and relentlessness of news ‘campaigns’ – by which I mean one-sided criticism of a policy or action or personality with the predetermined aim of having it (or him or her) overturned. A corollary of this is the recourse to more extreme partisanship in opinion pieces.

    ABC managing director Mark Scott has described the corporation’s role as filling gaps, in programming terms, which result from ‘market failure’. In one sense he is restating the obvious: the ABC has always offered a place for high culture, in-depth analysis and coverage of non-mainstream Australia. A newer manifestation of this role, however, is the appearance of opinion forums, such as The Drum, which seem to operate on the principle that two extreme and opposite views equal balance and fairness. Even if this were the case – and I contend that it isn’t – encouraging a form of debate whose medium is half-truths is not a sound way of informing the public or cultivating an intellectual climate of tolerance and fair-mindedness. Take a look at the online feedback to this and similar forums elsewhere and you may understand what I mean.

    On ABC News 24, as well, lobbyists are filling the airwaves with so-called informed comment that in currency trading rooms and racetrack betting rings – poor company for news programs to keep – is commonly referred to as ‘talking your book’.

    Another worrying aspect of Mark Scott’s ‘market failure’ concept is that it might signal to staff that their journalism should seek to counteract some perceived bias in the commercial media. In other words, if the ABC is to compete in an increasingly shrill and partisan news environment then absolute balance and fairness could represent a ‘market failure’, i.e. a failure to ‘balance’ the market.

    The Insiders program is an earlier ABC venture into what some in the television industry call the ‘Sabbatical rant’. Each Sunday morning a panel of journalists discusses the week’s political affairs. In the interests of a good argument, journalists of known opposing political persuasions are pitted against each other. (As such, it might be argued, they cannot be much use as journalists – but, for the moment, let’s put this consideration to one side). In my last ABC role I had direct management responsibility for Insiders, even though I admit I was never completely comfortable with the program concept. I worried that by relying on the same ‘proven performers’ it did not tap into a sufficiently wide range of opinion. I have never thought journalists should put themselves in the position of articulating political party lines, and, as already stated, I do not accept that journalistic balance is equivalent to a zero-sum game.

    The ABC is a vital institution for our democracy, and yet it has powerful enemies. Rupert Murdoch, for one, sees no place for a public broadcaster in a free market economy. It is forever open season on the ABC at The Australian newspaper. Election campaigns are a challenging time for the corporation, needing to deliver quality journalism and be seen to be doing so. There is no better time, therefore, to contemplate the true meaning of balance and fairness. They are the professional values that will sustain the ABC, while other media players rush to mount the barricades of partisanship.

               

    Walter Hamilton worked at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation for 32 years.

     

     

     

     

  • Galahs and princes. Guest blogger: Walter Hamilton

    What was that about Australia and the Asian Century? The umbilical cords still tie us to the past. John Menadue

     From Walter Hamilton:

    I had a choice today on the ABC Online News website of reading a story about a galah plague in a Queensland outback town or viewing the ‘first pictures’ (breathless pause) of a certain baby born in London the other night. I chose the galahs. Earlier in the day, sitting in the waiting room of a doctor’s surgery, I kept my head down and read my Kindle book as Channel Seven’s breakfast show replayed a clip of London crowd noise at least three times. Shamefully, the television station ignored the galahs – though no less melodious and far more relevant to an Australian audience.

     Am I the grouch who stole Christmas for considering Australian media coverage of the so-called ‘royal birth’ (I thought we all came into this world naked of any pretentions) excessive, fawning and puerile? My irritation turned to annoyance – in cockatoo-terms, my yellow crest shot up – when I heard the ABC leading a radio news bulletin the other evening with a story about a certain young lady in London going into labour (I don’t mean Labor – that might be more in keeping). News? The most important news? Escapism as news? No wonder the galahs are massing Hitchcock-like. The noble profession of journalism – so finely represented by reporters embedded at a private hospital and gushing out ‘live crosses’ – has become the playground exercise frame on which the birds are perching. Galahs all.

    Now I am told I must join the guessing game about the likely name for this London infant: George or Philip or Bruce or whatever. As if it makes the slightest difference, except to tabloid magazine editors (joined now, it seems, by every other news organisation that, once upon a time, would have shown more editorial discrimination and balance) who glory in selling this cheap pap. I can already imagine the ‘Boom in George [fill in alternative] Baby Name’ stories being prepared for trotting out three months hence.

     Yes, I am a republican. I don’t wish Queen Elizabeth and her progeny anything but health and happiness, but they mean nothing to me and I wish they meant much less than they apparently do to my fellow Australians (though our Anglo-Saxon-dominated media may have seriously miscalculated the interest of the majority of Australians who aren’t). But I do not despair. The fact that the Windsors (the ‘royals’) are fodder for the celebrity circuit underscores their irrelevance for the serious business of defining Australian sovereignty and polity. Yes, the goings-on of the rich and would-be famous are a handy place to escape from the complex and trying issues that really command our attention and really shape our lives. No great harm in that. The mistake would be to think that any of this ‘Will he be George’ stuff carries any weight for Australia or its future. Let the British have their monarchy; but, please, let’s not humiliate ourselves by pressing our noses against the shop window, moon-eyed, because it is a closed shop ­– as anyone who has lived in the UK knows – and we long ago forfeited the price of entry.

     Listen to the galahs. They are screaming for us to wake up.

     

    Walter Hamilton is a former ABC correspondent and author of “Children of the Occupation: Japan’s Untold Story.”

     

       

  • Joining the dots on Asia. John Menadue

    The advocates of stronger ties with Asia spend a great deal of time with seminars and press statements about the importance of the region to our future. They are correct but they refuse to join the dots and advocate the changes on the really important issues impeding our relations with our region. Some of those impediments are symbolic and some are real. They include:

    • How can we expect our region to take us seriously when we have an English Queen as our head of state? Many Asians that I have spoken to are polite but shake their head with bemusement that we have a foreign head of state living in London.
    • Many in Asia are sceptical about our dependence on the US and allowing our foreign affairs and defence policies to be determined very largely by our relationship with the US at the expense of relations with regional countries. They have not forgotten John Howard’s reference to Australia as being the US’s ‘deputy sheriff’ in the region. Regional countries do place importance on the continuing role of the US in our region, but not in the slavish way that we do.
    • We have a clubbish Anglo-Celtic business sector that espouses better relations with the region but closes its ranks against persons with serious Asian experience or competence in the language.
    • The continuous demonization of asylum seekers is a disingenuous re-run of White Australia – appealing to our fear of the foreigner which was the key driver of White Australia in the past. Malaysia is continually bashed by the Greens, the Coalition and NGOs when it offered the prospect of building a regional arrangement for asylum seekers.
    • Our media reflects our overwhelming ties to the UK and the US.  Just look at the inflated coverage of the Boston bombings compared with the civil war broken out in Iraq with thousands of bombing deaths. By our own involvement in the Iraq war we have contributed to this catastrophe. But three deaths in Boston is much easier and cheaper TV footage.
    • We give lip service to the importance of Asian languages, but we are not prepared to fund it.
    • Working holiday programs with countries in our region which provide opportunities for young Australians to live and work in the region have been largely stalled for the past twenty years.

    So much of the public debate about our relations with the region is froth and bubble. We avoid the hard issues. If we address them we would really show a genuine determination to build our future in our own region.

    John Menadue

  • The Miners’ Lament. John Menadue

    It is only a matter of time before the miners start lamenting that they did not seriously negotiate with Kevin Rudd over his Resources Super Profits Tax (RSPT).

    The mining industry has always favoured rent/profit taxes instead of royalties. What the mining industry really disagreed with was the rate of the Resources Super Profits Tax.

    The GST Distribution Review Report of October 2012 said the following.

    “Well designed rent-based taxes are likely to be more economically efficient than royalties, particularly in periods of low commodity prices or high costs. . .Other factors, such as the size, variability and timing of the return received by government, as well as administration and compliance costs, are also important considerations when choosing between alternative resource charging regimes. .. The commonwealth’s design of the Mineral Resources Rent Tax [MRRT] and the Petroleum Resources Rent Tax [PRRT] has created an opportunity for states to seek to increase their revenues at the expense of the commonwealth – an undesirable and unsustainable situation, which needs to be resolved.”

    Consider the ways that the mining industry now faces problems because of its failure to embrace the RSPT.

    • As the world economy and particularly China slows, export prices for Australian minerals are falling. The GST Review report mentioned above notes that since May 2012 “the spot prices for iron ore and … coal have fallen between 15% and 33%.” This trend has continued. There will be an increase in the production volume because of the increased capacity that the miners have installed. Because of this the miners are caught in a double whammy- export prices are falling which which will reduce income, but through an increased volume and value of sales there will be increases in royalties.
    • With the states squeezed for revenue, they will look increasingly to mining royalties to help their budgets. These increases in royalties are well under way. The royalty take of the states has increased five-fold from about $2 billion p.a. in the early 2000s. These royalty increases are likely to continue.
    • A lot of the recent high profits of the mining companies have ended up in dubious investments that are now being written off. Rio Tinto alone has written off $US35 billion since 2007 with more to come. BHP has also written off substantial investments. The high profits of the miners that were not effectively taxed also resulted in wage and cost blow outs that the miners will now have to wind back. Many of the large resource projects are de unionized. Yet that is where the big wages/cost blowouts have occurred. Managers must bear the responsibility. If they had been paying a super profits tax in the boom years, they may have been much more prudent. Some must have thought they were dealing in monopoly money.
    • An important part of the Henry RSPT package was that in return for the super profits tax on miners in boom times, there would be a reduction in the company tax rate to 25%. All businesses, including the miners, have missed out on this and continue to pay at the rate of 30%.

    The miner’s “victory” is likely to prove pyrrhic. At some point, they will have to return to   the table and negotiate tax changes.  Hopefully the federal government will handle it much better next time. All the key players will need to be involved.

    • The commonwealth government, which has a pre-eminent role in revenue raising on behalf of the community.
    • The state governments who depend heavily on mining royalties.
    • The mining industry that supplies the capital and expertise, and
    • The community which is the owner of the minerals and has a legitimate interest in ensuring that the whole community benefits over the long term from the extraction of its resources.

    .

    A recent Deloittes-Access report to the Mining Council of Australia which can be found online pointed out that because of falling commodity prices the mining sector would have done better under Kevin Rudd’s RSPT than under the present bowdlerised tax, the MRRT. The report said

    “Our analysis finds that the first two quarters of 2012-13 were indeed ‘bad times’. A slow-down in China hit commodity prices for six. That’s why the MRRT raised only $126 million over this period. However, had the RSPT been in operation, we estimate it would have generated negative net revenue of the order of $0.9 billion.”

    The miners seem to have already kicked an ‘own goal’. In the period mentioned by Deloittes they would have been better off under Kevin Rudd’s Resources Super Profits Tax.

    If commodity prices keep falling and the ineffient state royalties keep rising the miners may need to start praying for the Resource Super Profits Tax. What a tasty dish!

  • Truth, Trust and the Media. John Menadue

    Our mainstream media is in a downward spiral. Its decline is driven by new technology and a growing sense by readers that we can no longer trust the media.  We have a lot of spin, but very little well-informed debate. Ken Henry has commented that he can’t recall a time when public debate was so bad.

     An Australian election study 1997/2010 rated trust in the following institutions as follows:

    • Armed forces – 91%
    • Universities – 80%
    • Police – 79%
    • Banks and financial institutions – 56%
    • Major Australian companies – 54%
    • Political system – 53%
    • Public service – 41%
    • Trade unions – 29%
    • Television and newspapers – 17%.

    The survey found that the least trusted in the media was talk-back radio.

    In June last year, Essential Research reported as follows.

    “The ABC retains its undisputed title as Australia’s most trusted media. Trust in ABC television news and current affairs grew two points to 74%, its fourth straight rise, and ABC radio lifted two points to 69%. … The Age (76%) and the SMH (69%) are the most trusted of the major newspapers. … The Australian suffered a 9% fall in trust, down to 60%. The Herald Sun in Melbourne fell to 51% as did the Courier Mail in Brisbane which fell 14 points to 51%. The Daily Telegraph is the least trusted at 59%.”

    Nothing surprising there.

    In March this year, Essential Research found that only 30% of Australians trust TV news and newspapers. The High Court, Reserve Bank and the ABC were trusted by over 60% of respondents.

    Reading our media this week about the budget, one could not possibly avoid the conclusion that we are on the verge of economic and financial collapse. Yet we have one of the best performing economies in the world – solid growth, low inflation, low unemployment, low debt and a AAA credit rating by the three world rating agencies. John Howard commented only a few days later that “our resilient economy is in better shape than most… We are still fortunate with our unemployment rate…and that the Australian economy was better than Japan, US and Europe”.

    The Australian Financial Review has become a barracker for business rather than a reporter about business.  The headlines on two successive days this week were ‘End Budget chaos – business’ and then ‘Labor, business at war’.

    Supported by business commentators, the BCA has been conducting an incoherent and partisan campaign against the government. If it tried it could not do more to damage business and consumer confidence. But perhaps as a proxy for Tony Abbott, damaged confidence is just inevitable collateral damage.

    Crikey reported Paddy Manning a business reporter on the AFR as saying that there was a “contract” between the AFR and business for “high level access in return for soft coverage” He was sacked for saying what many people  would regard as  obvious.

    The Minerals Council with the aid of business journalists helped corrupt the debate about a profit tax on large mining companies. How ironic it is that the Minerals Council with its obsession with the Labor Government didn’t keep its eye on the inefficient state mining royalties that have increased five-fold since the early 2000s. A real own-goal kicked by the Mining Council.

    The media and particularly News Corporation which lost its moral bearings long ago have been campaigning to get rid of the ‘hung parliament’. But the parliament will see out its three years and with a considerable legislative program to its credit.

    The media and again, particularly News Corporation, has been part of a misinformation campaign about asylum seekers. Obsessed with boats and pictures of boats, the media has continually misinformed us about the small number of asylum seekers coming to Australia compared with other countries and that more asylum seekers come to Australia by air than by boat. The Australian Press Council drew attention to the misinformation by News Corporation publications, over use of the term ‘illegals’ and its inflammatory language.

    The media, including notably the ABC facilitated the dog whistling over the miniscule problem of boat arrivals. The dog whistling in the run up to the next election will be about deficits and debt despite Australia having one of the lowest net debt ratios in the world. Where will the media be in ensuring an informed debate? I will not be holding my breath.

    With its whimpish attempts to curtail abuse of power by the media, the government was subject to an extraordinary tirade of abuse dressed up by the media as the public interest. Minister Conroy was depicted in News publications as a new Stalin or Pol Pot.

    Filled with revenge that he was not made Prime Minister after the 2010 election, Tony Abbott decided that if he couldn’t get his own way he would do his best to wreck everything. The media let him do it and in the case of News Corporation, encouraged him to do so.

    There is public concern about truth in public life as surveys show. The delicate fabric of our society depends on trust and telling the truth. Our society will break down without a general acceptance of what is honest, fair and reasonable.

    Truth is a bedrock issue and the media is not helping us to know the truth or is particularly trustworthy itself. No-one should be surprised that so many readers, viewers and listeners are losing trust in the “old media’ and going online.

    Truth is being eclipsed in public life. The media is a major contributor to that eclipse. It is getting quite dark.

  • What the Subtitles Say. Guest blogger Greg from Cottesloe

    Here’s a popular generalisation. Subtitles or dubbing? Americans prefer dubbing of foreign films because it demonstrates that even Shaolin monks can speak English with a Bronx accent if they try hard enough. The fact that the lips keep on moving seconds after the voice stops merely adds to the mystery and allure of these foreigners. The smart set however likes subtitles because they add to the je ne sais quoi of the foreign experience of going to a film festival at the Cinema Paradiso.
    Dubbing or subtitles, they provide both access to foreign films and to foreign news and opinion, albeit that the latter is observed more in the breach on Australian TV.
    But our TV stations, including the ABC and SBS, have found another use for subtitles; helping us understand English that they believe we might find hard to understand in the middle of mainstream English programmes. The subtitles seem to be there to deal with strange accents, speech defects and loud ambient noise.
    Ostensibly this helps migrants, the elderly and the deaf better enjoy their TV – all worthy stuff if it stopped there. But it doesn’t stop there; not only foreigners with thick accents but even our own aborigines get subtitled, have their version of our common language branded as inferior and barely intelligible to the rest of us. On the other hand, regional UK accents seem to be OK for migrants, the elderly and the deaf. Some of these brogues are so thick you could cut them with a knife but they nevertheless escape the sneer of the subtitle. Some are even heard from announcers on the ABC.
    So what’s going on here? Is this an honest attempt to improve communication in a multicultural Australia? If so, let’s see more subtitles to help the migrants and others understand what’s being said by some non – Australian but native speakers of English with a rich syrupy accent. And I for one would strongly prefer to listen really, really closely and directly to what aborigines are saying without the patronising help of subtitles.
    There’s another explanation of course, the idea that subtitles are a quiet assertion of white Anglo superiority. All white and Anglo speakers of English are by definition correct while a dark skin automatically puts you under the neon sign of subtitles.
    Would this idea be news to aborigines and many migrants, I wonder?
    Greg from Cottesloe

     

  • The asylum seekers that we don’t talk about

    In the last ten years, 65,000 asylum seekers have come to Australia. 47,000 or 72% of those came by air. Only 28% came by boat. In the last five years, we received 47,000 asylum seekers, of whom 28,000 or 62% came by air. Only 38% came by boat. In only one year, in the last ten years, 2011-12, did we have more boat arrivals (7,379) than air arrivals (7,036). Air arrivals are fairly steady at about 5,000 to 7,000 p.a. whilst boat arrivals fluctuate more.

    Yet for years our whole debate is about boats, boats and more boats. As Fran Kelly on the ABC put it recently, ‘boats are coming thick and fast’. The fact is that many more asylum seekers come by air then by boat.

    Why does our public discussion focus overwhelmingly on boat arrivals? I suggest two reasons. The first is that the media is overwhelmingly focussed on the toxic politics of asylum seekers, rather than the facts and the policy implications. It is so easy to play to the latent fear in all of us and in our community about boats arriving on our doorstep. The media has little interest or understanding of the critical issues and features of the world wide flows of asylum seekers and refugees. It is domestic politics from beginning to end.

    The second is that stories about boat arrivals with scruffy looking asylum seekers in yellow vests are much easier to illustrate. Pictures are always available, often old file pictures. But asylum seekers coming by air through our international airports between 6am and 10pm at the rate of about 100  every day of the year are more difficult to locate  and even harder to get pictures about. But they are trickling through all the time with little public or media interest. The lazy media works on the proposition that if there are no easy pictures there cannot be a story.

    How do asylum seekers come to Australia by air? In 2011-12, 40% came on student visas and 35% on visitor or working holiday visas. Some had genuine plans as students and visitors. Many did not. With the help of ‘agents’ they are persuaded to make false claims about their intentions in coming to Australia and are issued with visas. That is how they get into the country. Once here they then apply for refugee status.

    Where do most of these air arrivals seeking asylum come from? In 2011-12, 17% came from China which is always top of the list, 13% from India and 10% from Pakistan. Southern China has a particularly active people-smuggling network.

    How do air and boat arrivals compare in refugee determination? In the last 4 years the final refugee determination rate for air arrivals was 46%. For boat arrivals it was 89%. That is not to say that there are not many deserving asylum seekers amongst air arrivals. But we focus our attention and hostility towards boat arrivals who have double the ‘success rate’ of air arrivals in refugee determination.

    Our politicians and our media have a lot to answer for in the way that public debate is skewed in this country against boat arrivals.

    John Menadue

  • Federal Election bits and pieces

    There was nothing new in the timing of the next election announced by Julia Gillard. There wasn’t much doubt that it would be some time in August or September. There may be a marginal benefit for the government in the early announcement. It has some major policy issues to outline – Gonski reforms, national disability and how they are to be funded. Having the resources of the bureaucracy in outlining these issues will be a considerable advantage. Furthermore, oppositions have been inclined to make themselves small targets and hide policy until late in the day. That will now be much harder for the Coalition.

    I suspect that one issue in Julia Gillard’s mind is the timing of the interim report by the ICAC in NSW on mining leases and Eddie Obeid. The ICAC evidence is extremely damaging to the ALP although it’s hard to imagine that the ALP vote can fall much further after it was almost wiped out at the last state election. The best way to make a new start in NSW would be for the federal executive to dismiss the NSW ALP state office.

    The Liberal Party has obviously been trying to remake and reposition Tony Abbott. At the moment he doesn’t seem to know if he is coming or going as he struggles with his new image.

    In the lead up to the election, Sportsbet in the SMH and perhaps other papers, carried a full page advertisement of Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard. There was the thought bubble from Tony Abbott ‘I am going to win big on election day’. The thought bubble over Julia Gillard said ‘only if you back me at sportsbet.com.au’. I wonder if Sportsbet had permission from either Tony Abbott or Julia Gillard to use them in this advertisement? If they gave their approval I would be disappointed. I recall many years ago that a major car manufacturer used Arthur Calwell’s face and name to advertise its product. He took his hat around and got some major financial settlements.

    Whoever wins the election, many must hope for a rejuvenation of the Canberra Press Gallery. It is badly out of touch with the Australian community as Julia Gillard’s misogyny speech indicated. In its group-think, it is all about politics and personality. Policy comes a sad last.

    John Menadue

  • Australian media and President Park Geun-Hye of ROK

    If we want to be serious about our future in the ‘Asian Century’ we will need to start with our media. The election of President Park Geun-Hye in ROK in December last year was a very significant event, but it passed in the Australian media with only the briefest of mentions. (The same could be said of the election of Prime Minister Abe in Japan in the same month.)

    Contrast that with the overwhelming coverage we had last year of the US Republican primary, the US Presidential election and now the inauguration of President Obama. The media coverage of the Chinese National People’s Congress last year also paled into insignificance compared with the morning sickness problems of a British royal. Looking at our media, an outside observer would conclude that Australia is a large island moored off London and New York.

    The new ROK President and her country are important for many reasons. The ROK is a great success story. It is a world leader in the digital economy. It is our fourth largest trading partner and our third largest export market in areas as diverse as minerals, energy, travel and education services. With ROK we have vital shared interests in resolving the tensions on the Korean peninsula. When the North Korean regime collapses there will be large numbers of refugees. We will be called on to cooperate particularly with the ROK. Like us, the ROK sent peacekeepers to Afghanistan, Iraq and Timor. Australian servicemen fought and died in Korea in the 1950s. We are fellow members of the G20.

    Against that background the election of President Park Geun-Hye was very newsworthy. Personally, she has a very interesting and colourful background.

    The election of a woman as President in a traditional patriarchal and Confusion society is a major breakthrough.  As the daughter of former strongman, Park Chung-Hee, she symbolises the ROK’s translation from a ruthless dictatorship to a maturing democracy. As the ‘daughter of a dictator’ she experienced the assassination of her father by his intelligence chief. Her mother was killed by a North Korean assassin.

    But all that significant and colourful history and more raised little interest in the Australian media. It was much easier to recycle UK and US material. Our media exert a stultifying cultural and information grip which is more about our past that our future – in Asia.

    John Menadue