Wikileaks starts to fill Gillard's inbox

First Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard received this letter taking her to task over the matter of Australian citizen Julian Assange and then the Walkley Foundation weighed in with this:

13 December 2010

The Hon Julia Gillard MP
Prime Minister
Parliament House
CANBERRA ACT 2600

Dear Prime Minister,

STATEMENT FROM AUSTRALIAN NEWSPAPER EDITORS, TELEVISION AND RADIO DIRECTORS AND ONLINE MEDIA EDITORS

The leaking of 250,000 confidential American diplomatic cables is the most astonishing leak of official information in recent history, and its full implications are yet to emerge. But some things are clear. In essence, WikiLeaks, an organisation that aims to expose official secrets, is doing what the media have always done: bringing to light material that governments would prefer to keep secret.

In this case, WikiLeaks, founded by Australian Julian Assange, worked with five major newspapers around the world, which published and analysed the embassy cables. Diplomatic correspondence relating to Australia has begun to be published here.

The volume of the leaks is unprecedented, yet the leaking and publication of diplomatic correspondence is not new. We, as editors and news directors of major media organisations, believe the reaction of the US and Australian governments to date has been deeply troubling. We will strongly resist any attempts to make the publication of these or similar documents illegal. Any such action would impact not only on WikiLeaks, but every media organisation in the world that aims to inform the public about decisions made on their behalf. WikiLeaks, just four years old, is part of the media and deserves our support.

Already, the chairman of the US Senate homeland security committee, Joe Lieberman, is suggesting The New York Times should face investigation for publishing some of the documents. The newspaper told its readers that it had ‘‘taken care to exclude, in its articles and in supplementary material, in print and online, information that would endanger confidential informants or compromise national security.’’ Such an approach is responsible — we do not support the publication of material that threatens national security or anything which would put individual lives in danger. Those judgements are never easy, but there has been no evidence to date that the WikiLeaks material has done either.

There is no evidence, either, that Julian Assange and WikiLeaks have broken any Australian law. The Australian government is investigating whether Mr Assange has committed an offence, and the Prime Minister has condemned WikiLeaks’ actions as ‘‘illegal’’. So far, it has been able to point to no Australian law that has been breached.

To prosecute a media organisation for publishing a leak would be unprecedented in the US, breaching the First Amendment protecting a free press. In Australia, it would seriously curtail Australian media organisations reporting on subjects the government decides are against its interests.

WikiLeaks has no doubt made errors. But many of its revelations have been significant. It has given citizens an insight into US thinking about some of the most complex foreign policy issues of our age, including North Korea, Iran and China.

It is the media’s duty to responsibly report such material if it comes into their possession. To aggressively attempt to shut WikiLeaks down, to threaten to prosecute those who publish official leaks, and to pressure companies to cease doing commercial business with WikiLeaks, is a serious threat to democracy, which relies on a free and fearless press.

Yours faithfully

Clinton Maynard, news director, 2UE
David Penberthy, editor-in-chief, news.com.au
Eric Beecher, chairman, Crikey, Smart Company, Business Spectator, The Eureka Report
Gay Alcorn, editor, The Sunday Age
Garry Bailey, editor, The Mercury (Hobart)
Garry Linnell, editor, The Daily Telegraph Ian Ferguson, director of news and programs, Sky News Australia/New Zealand
Jim Carroll, network director of news and public affairs, Ten Network
Julian Ricci, editor, Northern Territory News
Kate Torney, director of news, ABC
Mark Calvert, director of news and current affairs, Nine Network
Melvin Mansell, editor, The Advertiser (Adelaide)
Megan Lloyd, editor, Sunday Mail (Adelaide)
Michael Crutcher, editor, The Courier Mail,
Mike van Niekerk, editor in chief, Fairfax online
Paul Cutler, news director, SBS
Paul Ramadge, editor-in-chief, The Age
Peter Fray, editor-in-chief, The Sydney Morning Herald
Peter Meakin, director of news and public affairs, Seven Network
Rick Feneley, editor, The Sun-Herald
Rob Curtain, news director, 3AW
Rod Quinn, editor, The Canberra Times
Sam Weir, editor, The Sunday Times
Scott Thompson, The Sunday Mail (Queensland)
Simon Pristel, editor, Herald SunTory Maguire, editor, The Punch
Walkley Advisory Board
Gay Alcorn
Mike Carlton
Helen Dalley
John Donegan
Peter Meakin
Laurie Oakes
Jeni O'Dowd
Alan Kennedy
Malcolm Schmidtke
Fenella Souter

The full letter sent to Prime Minister Julia Gillard can be viewed here.

You can also read statements made earlier this month by the Media, Arts and Entertainment Alliance (MEAA) and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) concerning WikiLeaks here.

Now which drongo said that? Abbott?

Granny Herald tattled on this week about a November 2009 US diplomatic cable:
"A cable obtained by WikiLeaks and provided exclusively to the Herald says an unnamed "key Liberal Party strategist'' told US diplomats in November last year that the issue of asylum seekers was ''fantastic'' for the Coalition and ''the more boats that come the better''.
Methinks this member of the diplomatic service was being a bit coy in the description of his informant.
Notice how often the current Leader of the Opposition Tony Mad Monk Abbott uses the word "fantastic"?
Hmmmm...........

"Yep, again, I accept that but what we, what we do here has got to be affordable and I might want a really fantastic car, but I’ve got to buy the car that I can afford, not necessarily the car that in a perfect world I would like…"

"Oh, okay. Oh fantastic. Oh great. Okay."

"He might be a fantastic author of children's books. The fact is he is my opponent so I am not in the business of looking at his good personal qualities. I am in the business of exposing his poor political qualities."

"Do they now? Fantastic."

"Well that's, that's fantastic and look it's very important for our democracy that we have a good contest and I think it is a good contest but it's now coming down to the wire. This is decision time."

"She’s smiling in response to that and look, Lou Lou, our eldest daughter has been with us for the least couple of days as well and it’s been fantastic to have her on the campaign trail."

Is there an annual award for foot-in-mouth journalism?

Mr Whale also advised the inquiry the Clarence catchment area was responsible for approximately 20 per cent of the state’s agricultural produce – the value of which exceeded $70 million per annum – and the commercial fishing fleets of Yamba and Iluka were the largest in New South Wales. [The Daily Examiner, 14 December 2010,Clarence groups fight river plan]

Nothing in life is certain, but there is one thing which can almost be guaranteed – any article by one particular regional journalist is highly likely to use language which leaves the reader open to doubt about what the person allegedly quoted actually said.

Who could forget ( :-D) the chagrin created by one recent example of quote confusion which upset both a sitting and a former shire councillor?

This time it is a spokesperson for a Clarence Valley community group who found himself the subject of outright misquotation, as an exchange in online comments below the relevant story in The Daily Examiner highlights:

Posted by indefatigable from Maclean, New South Wales

14 December 2010 11:13 a.m.

In my books this is just an inflated fairy tale, a norm amongst the greenie. As a point, the Clarence 20% of the states agri production, who the heck pulled this one out of la la land. The building of the Jackadgery Dam was mooted about the time the elder of this mob was born, and had the government of the day woken up to the hype and carried on we would now have a complete dam able to help people in the south, north AND the west and our river would be intact. This is a very serious and extremely selfish attitude of Brown's Bunch.

Posted by bertson from Yamba, New South Wales

15 December 2010 10:22 a.m.

You'll be pleased to know, indefatigable of maclean, that the Valley Watch submission does not make the claim attributed to it by the journalist Graham Orams.

What it actually said was “most of the Clarence catchment falls within the 100 km wide coastal strip of New South Wales, an area which supplies approximately 20% of the state’s agricultural produce”. This can be checked online, with all the other submissions, at http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee...

In response to Sensible from Tenterfield, the Valley Watch submission also challenges the idea that water is ‘wasted’ if it flows out to sea. The river’s natural rise and fall is never wasteful.

Their submission includes the statement "Floods rejuvenate ecosystems, especially the floodplains and wetlands, ‘freshes’ expand habitat and provide food sources vital for breeding, and the low flows are needed to prevent those species which do best in stable conditions from dominating and creating an imbalance".

Let's get some clear thinking into this debate instead of name-calling and sloganeering.

The Queen B#tch and her court of balfastards

Queen Kristina and her court held a fire sale in the middle of the night and yesterday we woke to find that vital NSW state infrastructure had gone for a peppercorn.
From Nine MSN Money:
"Origin Energy Ltd and Hong Kong-owned TRUenergy have emerged as the winning bidders in the NSW government's $5.3 billion power sell-off......
Origin says it paid a "fair price" for its $3.25 billion share of the state's electricity assets......
More scorn was heaped on the privatisation on Wednesday after directors of state-owned electricity generators quit in protest at the sale.
Investors clearly favoured Origin Energy as the overall winner, with shares rising 30cents, or 1.79 per cent, to $17.10......
Under the deal, signed at midnight on Tuesday, Origin will spend $2.3 billion to acquire the retail arms of Integral Energy and Country Energy.
Origin will pay a further $950 million to secure the output from Eraring Energy, which operates a coal-fired power station near Newcastle, and the Shoalhaven hydro-electric power scheme south of Sydney.
TRUenergy is spending $2.035 billion to pick up EnergyAustralia's retail business, electricity trading rights from Delta Electricity and three power station development sites.
Several Delta and Eraring board members quit in protest overnight, forcing NSW Treasurer Eric Roozendaal to hastily replace them so the transaction could proceed.
One departing director, Tony Maher, from the Eraring board, told ABC Radio the $5.3 billion sale was a "dud deal" and a "mad dash for cash"...."

Antony Green does the sums on NSW MPs

Antony Green’s calculations show that this avalanche of political ‘retirements’ is getting to the point of being ridiculous.
The next NSW Government will be run on training wheels.......
“2011 NSW election is set to see a record number of MPs retire from the Legislative Assembly, and depending on the result, could also see a record number of new MPs.
So far 24 MPs have announced they will not re-contest their seats at the 2011 election, 17 Labor MPs, 5 Liberals and 2 Nationals. There are also 3 Upper House Labor's MPs retiring, and a 25th lower house MP seems certain to pull the plug. Labor has announced it will not re-endorse the sitting Labor MP for Drummoyne, Angela D'Amore, who has recently had an adverse finding made against her by the ICAC. More than a third of Labor's lower house MPs will not be contesting the election.
This is the highest rate of retirement since 1901, when 25 MPs also did not re-contest election. The high rate in 1901 was due to 18 MPs having been elected to the first Commonwealth Parliament earlier in the year.
There were 125 members of the Legislative Assembly in 1901 compared to 93 today, so proportionally the rate of retiring MPs is much higher at the 2011 election.”

Graphic from Funky Motors

Update on the Inquiry into the impact of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in Regional Australia

From A Clarence Valley Protest on 11 December 2010:

Bravo, Clarence Environment Centre and Valley Watch!

To date there have been only eighty-seven submissions to the Australian Parliament House of Representatives Inquiry into the impact of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in Regional Australia.

Ever mindful of the reported remarks of various vested interests and those of the Inquiry's Chair, the Clarence Valley community responded.

Clarence Environment Centre (CEC) made one of the earliest submissions pointing out valid reasons why the Clarence River catchment was not for the raiding.
The complete CEC 33 page submission in PDF file can be viewed and downloaded here.

Valley Watch also made a succinct formal submission which is found here.

I have to say that these submissions were part of only a handful which attempted reasoned argument supported by data. Most submissions simply registered opposition to the Murray Darling Basin Plan on the basis of emotion and supposition.

Unfortunately it would appear that at least twenty-seven of the eighty-seven submissions supported the idea of investigating interbasin water transfers and/or new dams, although only four of these made specific mention of possible water diversion from the Clarence River and/or NSW coastal rivers generally.

What was evident in the bulk of these submissions is that many of those individuals who live in the Murray-Darling Basin would apparently rather kill off that river system entirely before they will concede one litre of the water entitlements they currently possess.

Possum and others all a-Twitter in December

A brief Twitter round-up of tweets which informed, confused or amused my tiny mind over the last 7 days or so.


Pollytics

Tim Wilson thinks that "Climate change treaty is a waste of energy" http://bit.ly/f8rv2R I know! Bet that shocked the shite out of you!

..such as principle component/factor analysis. Pair-wise based state-space distance is a polling noise sponge

If you understood a word of that - drink more, or go to bed

Dear Julia Gillard - protect Julian Assange or your fucked 3%. Signed - Mr Obvious

NewtonMark

Pfizer used dirty tricks to avoid compensation payout over meningitis drug clinical trials in Nigeria. http://arseh.at/2mc #cablegate


DarrylMason

The Celtic War Helmet Man http://tinyurl.com/2uyh5tn and other b&w images from Sydney's #Wikileaks rally http://tinyurl.com/2u3bbrn

Interesting that @KevinRuddMP looks more feisty, opinionated & less subservient to the Americans with every Australian #CableGate release.

Journalists might like to ask Clive Palmer & other mining magnates how many meetings they had with US diplomats before RuddCoup. #Wikileaks

LeslieCannold

The next time someone insists your taxes aren't paying for chaplains to evangelise in gov schools, send 'em here http://tinyurl.com/26swoxf

BernardKeane

better hope they don't come for you like you're urging them to come for your fellow media outlet, @TheEconomist

Jeff_Sparrow

Nice piece by @jayrosen_nyu on media shark-jumping http://bit.ly/f3qXOf

Is it dark enough to sleep?

Rally for Equal Pay at Lismore on 15 December 2010 - Noon

The Australian Services Union rallying call:

The ASU's Equal Pay Case is the most important case for the rights of women in the last 20 years.
We need the support of all ASU members to give women the equal pay they been denied up to now.
This case is about justice and equal rights. With your help we'll win...........

The fight for Equal Pay continues. In recent years the gap between the pay of men and women has actually increased. The ASU is currently running the first case of its kind under the Fair Work Act to argue equal pay for work of equal value.

This Wednesday, 15 December at midday, there will be rallies held across Australia to send the message it is time for equal pay. These rallies will be on the same day as submissions will be made in the case by those employer groups that have fought every pay increase for our sector. We need to make a noise and show them that Australians are willing to fight for Equal Pay

The Lismore rally will be held on the corner of Magellan and Carrington Streets. We encourage everyone to come out in support of Equal Pay. Our local Member of Parliament Janelle Saffin and our Mayor Jenny Dowell will both be speaking and there will be cupcakes.

Support your community. Support equal pay.

Many Australian journalists appear to think their work is below par

The recently released LIFE IN THE CLICKSTREAM: THE FUTURE OF JOURNALISM (December 2010) makes some interesting observations concerning mainstream media.

Including this chart based on an Essential Media survey question asked of the profession: How do you rate the quality of Australian journalism compared with 5 years ago?

An assessment from within the profession which is harsher than that of readers when asked a similar question about news journalism:

Asked whether the quality of news journalism had improved or deteriorated over the past five years, 30 per cent of people said they thought it was better or much better, while 33 per cent thought it was worse or much worse.

Unsurprisingly Life in the Clickstream additionally observes that readers remain unwillingly to pay for news online and notes a disparity in how journalists and readers view the same profession:

Not surprisingly, journalists overwhelmingly believe that what they are doing provides a public good and that without their work, society would be worse off. Our survey of journalists found that 93 per cent agreed with that statement, 66 per cent of them strongly.
But when we asked the same question in a survey of the general public about their attitudes to journalism and their news consumption habits, only 63 per cent agreed, only 16 per cent saying they “strongly agree”. Some 8 per cent either “disagree” or “strongly disagree”.

The report also helps explains why APN newspapers on the NSW North Coast sometimes publish shocking bloopers when reporting on local identities and well-known Northern Rivers families:

Similarly, APN formed a centralised subbing unit known as Centro in late 2008, with subbing of their 14 daily papers in NSW and Queensland being centralised on the Sunshine Coast….

Local sub-editing based on local knowledge is apparently a thing of the past for this newspaper group.

* Media Alliance commissioned Essential Media to conduct two surveys. One was a public poll of attitudes towards journalism in Australia and examined how and why people access news, their levels of trust in various platforms and their willingness to pay for news content online.
The other survey was of journalist members of the Media Alliance and asked about working conditions, pay, levels of training and morale.
[LIFE IN THE CLICKSTREAM: THE FUTURE OF JOURNALISM,Introduction,p4]