The media’s focus on divisive figures like Craig Kelly simply excuses the equally dangerous views of his less vocal, climate change denying colleagues. It is on these politicians that the media should focus.
Craig Kelly’s presence in the media the past week has been spectacularly successful. His corpulence has been on display especially in the more elevated print media and the digital media such as Crikey. Words such as “maverick” have been consistently used to describe him.
His encounter with Tanya Plibersek, providing wonderful contrasting pictures of Liberal Party masculinity against her feminine nuances, has apparently not harmed her chances of one day being leader of the ALP. Equally it has seemingly forced the Prime Minister to rein in one of his party’s most outspoken parliamentarians.
The media are entranced by Kelly’s activities as it enables them to focus on what they do so well: treating politics as a conflict between ambitious individuals, and between parties as warring organizations, when in truth they are very similar in policy and conduct. Journalists are now focusing on the leadership implications of Plibersek and what Morrison’s reluctance to pull Kelly into line bespeaks of the power he holds as Prime Minister against his extreme right colleagues.
For instance James Massola opines that: “Plibersek insists her focus is 100 per cent on holding the government to account and won’t even accept the premise of the question when asked about the leadership of the Labor party.” Why even raise this question, unless it is to further the ongoing drama surrounding the ALP leadership of Anthony Albanese?
Equally, Jaqueline Maley argues that Kelly is a problem for the government because he is undermining its message on Covid “which has been successful because it has been orderly, centrist and unified. Kelly is also a dangerous reminder to voters that the Coalition has often been at the mercy of its conservative right wing,…”
This is, of course, predicated on the assumption that Australian politics is dominated by factional politics as well as by conflict between parties and ambitious individuals within this party. While this is certainly true, it enables journalists to evade the deeper questions about ideas of national importance that seem so lacking in contemporary Australian politics.
Kelly holds cranky, if not conspiratorial views, on Covid-19 and is a climate change denier. But are not most other members of the LNP effectively climate change deniers, irrespective if they make solemn professions on believing in what climate scientists have been telling us for decade about the dangerous increase in carbon emissions into the atmosphere? Their absolute reluctance to take any meaningful steps to begin the process of cutting back on carbon emissions by transitioning out of fossil fuels and encouraging investment in renewable energy effectively means they are the same as Kelly. He at least has the honesty to express his opinion in unequivocal terms.
From the media perspective a focus on people like Kelly or George Christensen means they do not have to focus on the great majority of Coalition members who in their legislative action are as bad as Kelly. It is true that some mention is occasionally made of Matt Canavan and Angus Taylor as obstructing real efforts to tackle climate change, but little else. Equally Joel Fitzgibbon’s apparent reticence about climate change and his preference for coal miners’ jobs receives much attention as defining a possible split in the ALP. Yet the more muted attitudes of most other ALP parliamentarians – notwithstanding the Gillard government’s important introduction of a carbon price in 2011 – is scarcely reported.
The Kelly-Plibersek encounter has been brilliantly depicted in pictorial terms in the media, with Kelly being especially amenable to pictorial representation and the contrast between the two in gender terms and belligerence impossible to avoid. Above all, this is treated as a human interest story between one figure who the media portrays as being on the outer in his own party, and the other who is projected as being on the rise in a party less substantially dominated by men. It is easy to conflate the statements of Kelly with his bullish appearance, and of Plibersek’s reasonableness with her more elegant countenance, but this wonderfully conceals the validity or otherwise of the ideas their parties are more broadly projecting.
Australian political parties need to be covered as much for their ideas – and whether their policies are evidenced based and long-term – as for their capacity to be organizations constantly in conflict within and between themselves. A focus on figures like Kelly simply excuses the equally dangerous views of his more vocally moderate colleagues and it is these upon whom media focus should be placed.
Greg Bailey is Adjunct Associate Professor of Linguistics, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, La Trobe University. His main field of interest is ancient India literature and history.
Comments
11 responses to “Tunnel vision: the media’s love affair with Craig Kelly and conflict”
Maybe Craig Kelly might use the tapeworm cure for his corpulence. In Victorian times, people were known to swallow tapeworm eggs so that when they hatch in the gut, they would begin to ingest the food that the host takes in, thus relieving him of some of the food load. This cure for corpulence is said to be still in practice today. Disgusting as it may seem, it definitely has greater efficacy than malaria medicine as a cure for Covid19. What the cockwombles that Ken Dyer mention need is a vaccine for naivety.
The reason the media give so much attention to Kelly is that he is controversial and it stirs up emotions. It is exactly what they did with Trump, and they still will keep doing it with him at every opportunity possible. Tony Abbott is another one they parade frequently who also stirs the pot.
I read earlier this year from several sources that when Trump was voted out of office, the same media sources lamented the loss of income they would be facing. Once again it is our economically rational world the reduces everything to dollars and profits – the only seemingly important common denominator. Ethics? What ethics?
This is a problem deeply inherent in commercial media, it will always be tempted by sensation and controversy as a fuel to drive profits. Truth is the casualty very time. It even gets worse as most of the press drinks from a very limited source of clone-like stories, and they are all sharing them around.
With people like Kelly we also have to accept that we are now living in a era of kakistocracy. That means many governments are corrupt and run by some of the most ignorant and prejudiced people that exist in any society. In Australia because of our preferential system of voting we have seen many people rise to power who fit the definition of kakistocrats. Look and you will find them.
It is also quite observable that the efforts of the anti-science brigade who in turn employ pseudo-science and false information as pseudo-arguments, is on the rise. Conspiracy theories are on the increase and most come from anonymous sources that are never identified.
We saw this first with big tobacco where they employed teams of compromised individuals to dispel the knowledge that cigarettes are toxic and a cause of early death.
We have seen the same methods used with climate change and the power of fossil fuel and mining industries to spread fake news.
In the US we saw how Trump denied the science behind Covid-19, and millions followed and accepted his views. Many people went to hospital after drinking bleach.
Meanwhile with climate change we have some of the most highly respected scientists in the world in Australia, but they rarely get a chance to say a word. They have received death threats, vicious emails, and are talked down to by people far less qualified than they are.
Scientists at this level spend years studying to reach postdoctoral qualifications, then they spend years on research supplemented by other studies. By about forty they have reached a point where they may be head of a research team if they are lucky, and after that it still takes many years to be considered an expert in their fields. That ‘s after having written sometimes hundreds of peer reviewed research papers.
Yet someone like Craig Kelly who worked in furniture sales and football knows far better on climate change.
Agree, and reflects the weird 24/7 political media entertaintment content that is used strategically; Kelly is sometimes presented as a lone rebel or ‘battler’ vs. ‘elites’ while suffering from urban living and working……
We may find Kelly’s views unacceptable, but there is a cross over between global Covid sceptics and climate science denial (well explained in DeSmog), both issues linked by a need for obstruction or avoidance of constraints on business e.g. environmental science and analysis; promoted by deep pocketed adherents of libertarian socioeconomic ideology via think tanks, compliant media outlets etc. to maintain the status quo.
Maintenance is through such entertainment side shows that deflect media, citizens and grounded analysis from real issues of the day including media that does not inform or hold power to account. This includes our terrible inertia on climate warming, water management, rorting/an ICAC, paring away of social security benefits and the state, avoiding digital society (in favour of legacy media), ignoring our own front yard i.e. Asia etc.
Kelly and all his mates are cockwombles.
How about having a look at what Kelly is saying rather than how he is saying it in his abrasive manner, then have a look at the processes of the last year. I missed the Pilbersek incident but saw Kelly being remarkably patient with Labor’s Mark Butler As I understand him, Kelly is saying we have put all the eggs in the vaccine basket and neglected the traditional treatment part of the story where doctors strive to maintain the health of their patients as they have done for centuries.
In the early days of the pandemic doctors were reporting good results if they treated patients early in the diagnosis with a commonly available anti-malarial medication called hydroxychloroquine in combination with zinc and an antibiotic such as azithromycin. More recently the treatment of choice is another readily available medication called ivermectin, discovered in Japan in 1975. It would be my treatment of choice if I copped the virus. In critical cases where patients are battling to stay alive doctors are using corticosteroids to calm down the immune system. Lung specialist Negin Halizadeh in New York reports enhanced value from steroids with a drug called tocilizumbufen.
Then look at the way governments guaranteed huge payouts to pharmaceutical companies to rush vaccines into production while granting them immunity from legal action if they kill us instead of curing us. Look at Israel where the roll-out of vaccine is most advanced and results are not encouraging. Indeed they are troubling. For an expert view on the virus and vaccine risk that is comparatively comprehensible to the lay person watch husband and wife biologists Bret and Heather on Bret Weinstein’s Dark Horse Podcast.
Back home former Victorian Treasury economist Sanjeev Sabhlok has written a book called “The Great Hysteria and the Broken State” and can be watched in an explosive interview with economists John Adams and financial analyst Martin North on their You Tube channel, In the Interest of the People. Having done the above, I find my favouorite Australian politicians are Craig Kelly and West Australian Health Minister Roger Cook, a dapper, unflappable political professional who has said on several occasions that the vaccines will not be compulsory. I will hold him to it.
Jerry you are a champion gaslighter.
“Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which a person or a group covertly sows seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or group, making them question their own memory, perception, or judgment.”
Your quote:
“In the early days of the pandemic doctors were reporting good results if they treated patients early in the diagnosis with a commonly available anti-malarial medication called hydroxychloroquine in combination with zinc and an antibiotic such as azithromycin.”
” Early days” is the operative word here, and most reports on this only ever said it “may help”. It was researched and suggested at the time because there were no vaccines and not many other effective treatments. There was not a whole lot of time either to get the answer. Big financial decisions also had to be made on the part of vaccine companies for research and planning for production.
Hydroxychloroquine doesn’t stop people dying from COVID-19, that is well established – it’s what Kelly was pushing. This has been over researched by many scientific sources simply because of Trump’s effect on claiming it to be effective. I wonder how many put shares on the drug company in the hope of making profits?
https://scitechdaily.com/new-scientific-analysis-of-hydroxychloroquine-and-azithromycin-for-covid-19-patients/
Craig Kelly also said Daniel Andrews should be jailed for not promoting Hydroxychloroquine. What level of scientific expertise does Kelly have to make such absurd comments. And of course his motivations were never political.
Ivermectin doesn’t work either:
‘The initial studies seem to suggest you need a very high level of ivermectin to be able to reduce replication of the virus, and those levels in those initial studies are very difficult or impossible to achieve in a person..’
https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/insufficient-evidence-to-currently-support-ivermec
Tocilizumbufen:
“Many questions remain open. The generalisability of the results must be considered in relation to different epidemiological settings, particularly regarding the tocilizumab dose and use at the appropriate time point of the disease course. Other drugs that act directly in the inflammatory response pathway triggered in COVID-19 are being tested. Tocilizumab use in severe COVID-19 pneumonia is still in its infancy, and the best treatment strategies have yet to be developed. For instance, our experience also described subcutaneous tocilizumab use, which warrants future studies in out-patient settings.”
https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/insufficient-evidence-to-currently-support-ivermec
Your comment: “More recently the treatment of choice is another readily available medication called ivermectin, discovered in Japan in 1975. It would be my treatment of choice if I copped the virus.”
What gives you any more expertise than Craig Kelly on such choices, obviously scientists, medical doctors and immunologists don’t know what they are talking about once again. Do you frequently override your doctors opinions? How is it that you know better?
And while you claim the vaccines industry is the choice of governments for huge payouts, you forget the medications you propose as remedies for Covid-19 are part of the same pharmaceutical industries.
Vaccines have been used for a very long time, it is why the research focus goes there. The rest is neoliberal capitalism which in any area of the pharmaceutical industry and its relations with governments is the same, and what ever remedy that is proposed will be subjected to the same rotten control over governments through lobbying and political donations.
Giliad Atzmon is writing on the Israeli situation, as he often does. Another comment which I encountered today is from Brian Hooker PhD on Children’s Health Defence. Not sure whether that is a journal or a site. The title is “In our rush to create a magic bullet Covid vaccine have we made matters worse?” Bret Weinstein and his bride should be watched. Not hard to find on the internet, free of charge. This has not been a normal process in developing a vaccine. That’s the point. I have heard the Russian Sputnik vaccine described as the “safest” because it is “the least ambitious.” I listened to an interview with one of the scientists who developed one of the vaccines. The last question was would she take her own vaccine? Before she had time to think of the usual double-speak she answered No, not for a year or so. There’s a bad smell about the place George? Would you take it?
I am not that happy to take some of vaccines on offer like AstraZeneca, and I think I make it clear that whatever medication is on offer, vaccine or other, it cannot be separated from any government that engages in secret deals, cronyism, and corruption. But that has nothing to do with supporting Craig Kelly on his alternatives as Jerry easily does. Check them out, and you’ll find they are just as subject to uncertainties surrounding efficacy and safety as many of the now accepted vaccines. I’ve supplied links.
Jerry also does not venture into other territory in Kelly’s claims such as climate change is a hoax. For me Kelly has no credibility and is dangerous, and does not have the credentials needed to hold expert opinions on such matters.
Another source you might read in your spare time, George, is Paul Frijters, a professor at the London School of Economics and previously at Brisbane who was my sparring partner when I first wrote about political ideology a few years ago on Pearls and Irritations. He has had a lot to say on Covid-19 on the Club Troppo Blog where he spars with Nicholas Gruen, a famous name in Australian economics. Today Paul quotes a doctor’s letter to the British Medical Journal. I have ordered the Sanjeev Sabhlok book. It is print on demand. Since we have gone to so much trouble in Australia to isolate ourselves, especially where I am in WA, we have no need to rush into the vaccine stage.
You are welcome to discuss any medication, as far as I feel I have some expertise as someone trained in science, and can read scientific reports, but I do not think you should use that to justify Craig Kelly’s politicised ramblings given he has no expertise in the matter, and that he clearly is by all manner of behaviours a Trump supporter. He even denied the election results.
If anything is responsible for the deaths in America, it is Trump’s similar behaviour and inability to listen to science on the matter. That’s pretty obvious.
Since Trump left office, this has been accompanied by a reduction in daily cases and reversal of the curve since they have had the vaccines. There have been more deaths but that is what rolled on from the high level of cases before.
308,441 registered new cases on January 8, 2021
96,004 registered new cases on February 10, 2021
Here see for yourself: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
The only reason we are rushing the vaccine here is that many people hope that will allow them immunity and bring business back to usual. For that Morrison is deeply concerned since it affects his reputation and new found persona of the caring guy, in turn how many votes he’ll get at the next election.
Even without vaccines we get constant commentary from the government about vaccines being on the way, just to keep many feeling secure.
Personally it may surprise you to know that I’m in no rush either, mainly because I live in a place as well where the virus has had little effect and there is no community transfer. Other countries in the world have had far more serious infection rates and far more deaths, so I think they should be served first. Its a bit like a parent putting on an oxygen mask first in order to save their children in an aircraft that has lost its oxygen rich environment. And we cannot open up any faster than the rate at which we can stop the virus coming here from other countries.
There are a number of reasons we have been able to contain the virus here, and that has to do with the fact that living on an island makes us already a natural quarantine, people have generally complied with lockdowns and social distancing, and the states have worked reasonably well in containing outbreaks. Australians have also accepted the science because the government did too, apart for Kelly and others, and generally Australia is a country with very little high density living.