Canberra Times caught out in historical error

This was the Canberra Times boast on 22 November 2013:

Canberra learned of the assassination of US president John F. Kennedy exactly 50 years ago - after a whole edition of The Canberra Times was overhauled and reprinted in the early hours of what otherwise would have been an unremarkable Saturday.

It was the only newspaper in Australia to report the story on November 23, 1963. Journalists and printers were called back to work when a taxi driver happened to ask editor David Bowman for news of the 46-year-old leader's possible assassination in Texas.

The boast was duly reported in the December 2013 Australian Newspaper History Group [ANHG] newsletter:

75.4.11 Reporting the assassination of JFK

A whole edition of the Canberra Times was overhauled and reprinted in the early hours of Saturday, 23 November 1963. The Canberra Times has claimed (22 November 2013) it was the only newspaper in Australia to report that day the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy. Journalists and printers were called back to work at the Canberra Times when a taxi driver happened to ask editor David Bowman for news of the 46-year-old leader’s possible assassination in Texas. Just hours before, Kennedy’s motorcade had flashed past huge crowds in downtown Dallas and into the range of assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, perched on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.

Ian Mathews, a subeditor at the newspaper in 1963 and later the editor-in-chief, said: “The print run at the Mort Street office and printery would have been about 2am or 3am … The main body of printers, apart from those who had headed home, gathered in the bindery for their ritual Friday night-Saturday morning poker game.” The news was reported just after 4.30am, prompting only momentary shock from Bowman and chief subeditor Frank Hamilton who snapped to action. ‘‘The radio was switched on; AAP, who supplied the newspaper with foreign news, was called; the single teleprinter was turned on again. And the news began to flow,’’ Mathews said. ‘‘To print a new edition Bowman needed printers and he found them playing poker. On any other night it would have been different.’’

Returning for a shift on the subeditors’ desk on Sunday afternoon, Mathews helped fit news of the tragedy into a Monday edition, alongside weekly fixtures including local sport results and the television guide. ‘‘As usual we ran late. This was fortunate because just after 3.30am Canberra time, [nightclub owner] Jack Ruby shot Harvey Oswald – and once again we rushed to produce a second edition,’’ he said. [Trove does not have the second edition of the Canberra Times of 23 November 1963.]

Then the letters began to arrive at ANHG and according to Rod Kirkpatrick the boast was shot down in flames:

Ken Sanz wrote: 

I am glad you used the word “claimed” in the Canberra Times article on the death of JF Kennedy, and being the only paper printed with this news on Saturday.

It may have been the only morning newspaper to print this, but it was not the only paper to print this news on the Saturday 23 November 1963. Both the Daily Mirror and The Sun usually went out at 10am each Saturday. Admittedly they were only 16 pages tabloid, but on this day they produced their first editions at 9 a.m. and followed this during the day!

My source for this is my memory because I was there as an apprentice for the Sun-Herald and when I arrived at 8 a.m. the Sun compositors and editorial were already on duty and rushing about to get the paper out early to beat The Daily Mirror. I checked this with Gavin Souter’s “Company of Heralds” page 523.

I also suspect that the Saturday early editions of the Saturday night and Sunday newspapers also printed on Saturday from before 6 pm of this news for country readers.

Kim Lockwood wrote: 

Meanwhile, the Canberra Times cannot be allowed to get away with its claim that it was "the only newspaper in Australia to report that day [22/11/63] the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy".

I know for a fact the Melbourne Sun News-Pictorial put out a late edition, having recalled several staff from home. And what does the Times have to say about the afternoon papers across the country (Saturday afternoon papers were still printed in the capitals)? The Herald, Melbourne, splashed with two decks on the front:

PRES KENNEDY

ASSASSINATED

Others did something similar.

To Metgasco Limited and all State & Federal NSW North Coast National Party MPs - Merry Christmas!

The Northern Star  20 December 2013:

USING knitting as a "tool for non-violent form of political activism", the Knitting Nannas Against Gas are now regulars at anti-coal seam gas protests throughout the region.

One of their favourite haunts is the office of Lismore MP Thomas George.

The ladies said their knitting skills were "less important than the act of bearing witness while we knit".....

@Mayorjd

Deputy Leader of the House Hartsuyker's latest parliamentary entitlements record

In October this year Federal Nationals MP for Cowper Luke Hartsuyker was caught stretching his 2012 overseas study tour to include what looked suspiciously like a visit to family and friends in The Netherlands.

Or as he put it to the APN Newsdesk on 12 October; On the Netherlands leg of the trip, he said he went to Amsterdam to see cycling infrastructure, but was unable to secure official meetings.

The latest Expenditure on Entitlements paid by the Department of Finance record (1 January to 30 June 2013) carefully notes Mr. Hartsuyker’s reimbursed expenses totalling $141,039.21 over that six month period.

This is not one of the biggest bills presented to the Australian taxpayer by a federal politician, but it does contain at least one puzzling entry.

In the December-January break after Parliament dissolved Mr. Hartsuyker did not claim to be on official political business again until 21 January 2013 when he claimed travel allowance.

Yet he is popping down to Sydney and back to Coffs Harbour with a family member on 3 January 2013 and charging the taxpayer $1,306.48 in combined airfares for this trip of unspecified purpose, plus $62.30 in Comcar travel and $47.73 in taxi fares.

If whatever took him south actually was part of his duties as the Member for Cowper, one still has to wonder why a day trip to Sydney required the presence of a family member.

Hmmmmm..........

Note: 2nd Test Match Cricket Australia vs Sri Lanka Thursday 3rd January 2013 at the SCG and various other Sydney sporting events on that date.

PACIFIC HIGHWAY: Nationals MP Kevin Hogan and his November 2013 electorate newsletter

The Northern Star: Federal and State MPs Kevin Hogan and Don Page hard at work allegedly turning “the first sod”

Complete with a colourfully festive holly sprig graphic, Nationals MP Kevin Hogan’s glossy November 2013 newsletter led off with this opening paragraph: Within weeks of being sworn in as the Federal Member for Page, Kevin was turning the first sod for the Pimlico to Teven upgrade on the Woolgoolga to Ballina section of the Pacific Highway. “The political squabbling is over. We are getting on with the job of saving lives,”.......

I can breathe a sigh of relief – Kevin has donned his superman costume and taken to the air.

He has turned the sod on a section of the Pacific Highway approximately 2.3 kilometres long, being built by Leightons Constructions Pty Ltd and, funded as part of the joint former Labor Federal Government and current NSW Government commitment to the upgrade with preliminary ‘soft soil’ work begun in January and project tenders invited in April 2013.

Kevin of course was not elected to the 44^th Australian Parliament until 7 September 2013.

However, these few kilometres may be the only road work done for a long time (if they are done at all), as Kevin and his colleagues have withdrawn $70 million of Commonwealth road funding from NSW this year.

The Sydney Morning Herald 15 December 2013:

Despite promises the Pacific Highway upgrade would be delivered sooner under an Abbott government, projects at Maclean and Ballina will be delayed and funding cut, the O'Farrell government has revealed.....

A NSW Budget document revealed last week that project planning on the Pacific Highway had been delayed, and Commonwealth roads funding would be reduced by $70 million this year.

A spokesman for NSW Roads Minister Duncan Gay said the Commonwealth funding had been ''rephased'', and would be paid in coming years.

Pacific Highway construction that was due to take place this year that will now be delayed includes ''priority three'' projects for dual carriageway upgrades between Woolgoolga and Ballina.

''Both the Australian and NSW governments share the goal of completing the Pacific Highway upgrade by 2020,'' the spokesman said.....

All of which leaves one wondering just how much of the $2.5 billion the Abbott Government promised NSW voters to upgrade the Pacific Highway over the next two and a half years, the North Coast will actually see as new dual road on the ground.

Kevin Hogan has some explaining to do.

A beleaguered Tony Abbott pulls the daughter card

It started as a joke suggesting that Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott needed to trot his daughters out to bolster his flagging opinion poll numbers only 92 days after he took office, but this dishonest and manipulative faux leader actually did it.

Tony Abbott: Family Secrets Revealed

December 19, 2013, 7:43 am Emma Martin | WHO Magazine

Ladies and gentlemen, your new "Freedom Commissioner" Tim Wilson

The Abbott Government lurches from one bad ideological decision to another.

This time it is Australian Attorney-General George Brandis’ appointment of Tim Wilson as a new Human Rights Commissioner aka Freedom Commissioner - reportedly a $325,000-a-year position.

Mr. Wilson will be joining the Human Rights Commission as its seventh commissioner and, is already known to be particularly concerned to support Liberal approaches to freedom of speech.

It is reported that he resigned from the IPA and also from the Liberal Party in the wake of his appointment this week by Attorney-General George Brandis.

This controversial stance hints at stormy waters ahead.

The Australian 18 December 2013:

The commission's president Gillian Triggs today warned Mr Wilson, who was hand-picked by Attorney-General George Brandis, that the commission must speak with one voice and be independent of government.

She said Mr Wilson, a former Liberal Party member and Institute of Public Affairs chief, would bring "fresh air'' to the body as one of seven human rights commissioners.

"But I think it must be stressed that ultimately ... we have ultimately to agree on a single policy,'' she told ABC radio.

Mr Wilson believes section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, which prevents people from being offended or insulted on the grounds of race, should be "unambiguously repealed''.

"I have been appointed to the role with the full knowledge of my view and I expect a reasonable accommodation of those views with respect to what the commission's position is,'' he told The Australian.

But Professor Triggs said section 18C of the Act should be "tweaked'' rather than abolished.

"We have a legal obligation internationally and under the treaties to implement legislation that protects people from racial vilification in public. That is all 18C purports to do,'' she said.

"Of course it is possible to tweak it, to amend it, to take language out and to put new language in that strengthens it - all of that we of course fully support as a matter of law.''

She said the Human Rights Commission "isn't a place for party political rhetoric'', and must be independent of government.

"We are not here to give effect to government policy as such, we are here to monitor compliance by Australia with its international obligations to human rights,'' Professor Triggs said.

Senator Brandis has promised to repeal or amend Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act so speech that is found to be offensive and insulting is no longer defined as racial vilification.

The move will change the definition of racial vilification to eliminate at least two of the grounds that were used in a court ruling against Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt over articles about light-skinned Aboriginal people.

Professor Triggs said: "My understanding is that the Attorney is consulting and he will make up his own mind whether he decides to keep the provision and amend it, which we think is probably the better outcome.''

But Mr Wilson said the section represented an unjustifiable limit on free speech and should be struck out entirely.

"Obviously I have a very strong and different view, and I am planning to prosecute that within the commission,'' he said....

Then there is this previous anti-free speech/anti-political comment stance by Mr. Wilson on his own Twitter account in October 2011.

Click on all images to enlarge

As well as the fact he appears to be a stalking horse for the Institute of Public Affairs in its efforts to completely abolish the Human Rights Commission.

Freedom Watch IPA 17 December 2013:

The Executive Director of the Institute of Public Affairs, John Roskam, welcomed today’s announcement by the Commonwealth Attorney-General, George Brandis that Tim Wilson, Policy Director at the IPA, will be Australia’s next Human Rights Commissioner.

“Tim Wilson is a proud, passionate, and uncompromising voice for a classical liberal approach to human rights. Australia needs his voice in public debate now more than ever,” John Roskam said.

“Tim Wilson’s appointment offers the Australian Human Rights Commission an opportunity to prove it can do something which it has so far failed to do, namely defend the human rights of individuals against attacks on those rights by the state.”

“Fundamental human rights like freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of association have been under attack in Australia by federal and state governments and the Human Rights Commission has stood silent. The Gillard government’s so-called ‘anti-discrimination’ law is an example of how instead of defending human rights the Commission was a willing accessory in attempts to expand government control over what Australians can say and hear and do.”

“The Gillard government’s ‘anti-discrimination’ law would have made it unlawful to express a political opinion that offended someone. That law also reversed the onus of proof, and removed the right to legal representation of people accused of breaking the law. Instead of condemning the law, the Human Rights Commission said this assault on human rights didn’t go far enough.

“The Commission has also said nothing about the erosion of farmers’ property rights by native vegetation laws. Likewise the Commission was missing in action when Stephen Conroy proposed to take away freedom of the press and when he tried to censor the internet.”

“The IPA has called for the Commission to be abolished, or at the very least, for Freedom Commissioners to be appointed to balance the four existing Anti-Discrimination Commissioners.”

“Tim has been an outstanding advocate for freedom in the seven years he has been at the IPA. The Board and staff congratulate him on his appointment and wish him well on taking up this important role at a time when human rights need to be defended,” said Mr Roskam.

The IPA will soon release a major report on those provisions in Commonwealth laws which undermine fundamental legal rights such as the right to silence, the presumption of innocence, and the right to natural justice.

For further information and comment: John Roskam, Executive Director, Institute of Public Affairs, 0415 475 673, jroskam@ipa.org.au

- See more at: http://freedomwatch.ipa.org.au/#sthash.bOxWeSlu.dpuf

Our new Human Rights Commissioner is also not backward in flaunting to the world his liking for liquor and his apparent penchant for drinking alone........

UPDATE

The Sydney Morning Herald 21 December 2013:

Alone among the seven commissioners of the Australian Human Rights Commission, Tim Wilson never had to apply for the job. He never had to sit for an interview, be screened by an expert panel, or undergo the rigorous weeks-long selection process that applied to the others.

Instead, Attorney-General George Brandis rang him up a couple of weeks ago and asked if he was interested. He took 24 hours to think about it and consult his partner Ryan, (a Melbourne primary school teacher) before saying yes. By Monday it was official, and the twitterverse went into meltdown. So hasty was the cabinet appointment, the formalities of submitting it to the Governor-General will not be conducted until early next year.

Wilson, 33, says he was shocked to discover what he'll earn in his new job - more than $320,000 a year, close to the $340,000 paid to a federal court judge. Even John Roskam, head of the right-wing think tank the Institute of Public Affairs - from which Wilson was plucked - finds the amount ''obscene'', though he extols the virtues of his former employee.

''I think it's most appropriate that Tim is there,'' Roskam said this week. ''[The IPA] still think the Human Rights Commission should be abolished, but if it is going to exist, you want people with a range of life and political experiences.''....

The Sydney Morning Herald 23 December 2013:

Tim Wilson's appointment as human rights commissioner could lead to cuts to a program on school bullying as the Australian Human Rights Commission accommodates his six-figure salary without any extra funding from the government.

The incoming human rights commissioner, who is due to take up his position in February, will be paid about $320,000 - a sum equal to that of his fellow commissioners, though less than the commission's president, Gillian Triggs.

On Sunday, Professor Triggs said Mr Wilson's salary would have to come out of the commission's annual budget of about $25 million.

''This really does squeeze the commission,'' she said.

Professor Triggs said she and the other commissioners would meet in January to decide where cuts would come from to make room for Mr Wilson's salary but suggested an anti-bullying program and a program on education for older Australians might be in the firing line.

She said that an inquiry into asylum seeker children held in detention would still go ahead.
The commission had not anticipated it would have to pay Mr Wilson's salary as new appointees usually came with extra federal government funding, a spokesman said. The commission also had no funding set aside for the position as it has recently been filled by commissioners also performing another role.