It’s surely not just me who has noticed the mainstream media losing their shit this week. It’s like the very sight of Kevin Rudd is crack cocaine – sending journalists into a frenzied, chest beating fit of prediction and smear. It’s not like we can’t explain why this happens. We can. It’s because Kevin Rudd is a stick to beat Gillard’s government with. But mark my words, if it wasn’t Kevin fucking Kevin, or Telstra’s asbestos, or Joel unhinged-Fitzgibbons or Labor backbenchers with their overnight suitcases being reported as having packed up their offices, it wouldn’t make any difference. I’m not going to waste any more time trying to find blame for this situation with the Labor Party, because surely this job has been done, and done and done and re-done many times with many more words than I could write in a hundred years. Let’s be honest. The axis of self-interests – the Murdoch, Rinehart, Abbott triangle is running the show. And they’re winning. This is a war, and the wrong side is winning. It’s a sad, humiliating fact for this great country. But it’s true. The 1% is kicking the 99%’s arse.
Labor does have a communication problem. I would like to see the best communicator in the world cut through a Murdoch smear campaign when his profits are threatened, but still, Labor does have a communication problem. But if you, like me, think it’s more important to judge someone by what they do, instead of what they say, it’s quite clear the Labor party is an incredibly successful outfit. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you’re rusted on to. This is fact. Policies, economic credentials and Labor party values intact – the Gillard Labor government is hugely successful. But this is the dagger in the heart of people like me who have been watching politics for the last three years, and have been reading mainstream news, and been incredulously reviewing the poll results. It’s becoming clear that it wouldn’t matter what the Gillard government did. Gillard could walk on water and it would be reported that she failed to swim. It’s as if we need to find a new word to outdo frustrating because it’s just getting too much to accept. The Labor government’s policies are popular. The budget is economically responsible. The economy is outperforming all expectations compared to all other developed nations in regards to growth, unemployment, inflation and interest rates. Gillard’s renewable energy policies are restructuring the economy for future challenges. The Labor Party is doing exactly what they promised us they would do – they’re being progressive. NDIS, Gonski, a nation building NBN, a Carbon Price, the mining tax, Paid Parental Leave. But it wouldn’t matter how many successes they have – in fact the more successful they are the more the Murdoch, Rinehart, Abbott triangle ramps up their opposition. And depressingly, it would appear that the interests of the mega-rich trump public interest hands down.
How have we come to this point in our nation where we would prefer to shrink back into a bigoted, mean, selfish, stop the boats, cancel the Carbon Price, kill the NBN, scrap Gonski’s education funding, boost Gina Rinehart’s fortune, prop up Murdoch’s out of date business model instead of being brave, bold and committed to a better future for our children? A nation who hates unions and public services, but who turn a blind eye to capitalist corruption. For what purpose would anyone in their right mind behave like a irrational Iain Hall (please stop commenting on my blog) troll and think that it’s a good idea to eat shit and whip on the handbrake with a vote for Tony Abbott?
If you’re waiting for the mainstream media to wake up and realise they’re failing the country by waging a political campaign to destroy the Labor government, you’ll be waiting forever. They’re all in Murdoch and Rinehart’s pocket. When the ABC is as bad as the rest of them, you know all hope is lost. All it takes is for one bad poll for Labor and every political journalist in the country shows their true colours by waving their poms poms in the face of every Labor MP they can find. And when I say true colours, I mean the colours of their bosses. Just as one example of the priority of our journalists and the news they choose to focus on – this week Greg Combet told Parliament the Carbon Price is working – emissions have reduced by 7.4%. This is big news, I would have thought. But the radio report on ABC’s Radio National did not mention this important fact. No. Instead, their report was on Combet’s response to a question from them about what he will do if Labor loses the election. I rest my case. If this country wants Murdoch, Rinehart and Abbott’s 1% to decide their futures, they deserve everything they get.
Media Inequality 
Don’t give up hope Victoria. The battle is not won until it is. We cannot afford to be despondent – i have to remind myself of this all the time too. There might be more people out there in voterland who think similarly to you and me. And we might still win against all the odds, but only if we do not give in to despair. By all means get angry but let’s use the energy of our anger to achieve our goal of returning a progressive government to office.
I agree. We must never give up.
Here, Here We can’t be the silent minority as MSM portray.. Go Girl!! Victoria
Keep dreaming loser.
The MSM in this country is putrid,and has been putrid for a long time. I do not mind them holding the Government to account but I want them to seriously question the LNP just as ferociously. That they have not done that is despicable to all people if this country. An Abbott Government is a serious danger to our democracy but what is most sinister is that the MSM has been in on the fix. The current biased and partisan media is as dangerous a threat to our democracy as the rabble of an Opposition. Abbott does not give a toss about ordinary hard working Australians and we might just find that out to our peril. But I am not giving up. Go get ’em Labor.
Well said Saaq Madiq.
Thanks Victoria you have eloquently stated what I too have been feeling for a long time now. I also agree with hilderombout but it is very hard not to be despondent. I am just amazed by the resilience, and strength of character displayed by our Prime Minister in the face of the endless assault by the opposition and the main stream media. This does give some hope. I too would like to see the end of Iain Hall trolling your blog. His comments are a waste of space.
I agree Victoria, although you could tone your language down. I think the polls, if they are correct, reflect more on the voters than the Government. If Abbott wins by a landslide, that reflects more on the electorate. In short, we (collectively) deserve the Government we get. Just Queenslanders deserve Campbell Newman, and now regret it.
But 14 weeks is a long time in politics!
It isn’t over. It is not over.
A further comment. There is a letter on this very subject in today’s Sydney Morning Herald. I quote from part of this letter:
“That people will vote to discard: education reforms essential for their children, a network infrastructure that is overdue and necessary to keep Australia competitive and the only viable attempt proposed so far to tackle climate change that is already starting to impact on our country is so mind boggling that I cannot get my head around it.”
David – why tone down language when it is necessary to express what is such a complex and distressing situation as currently exists in politics in this country….labor will continually be punished forever for actually being in power, for Gough, who showed despite it all, to be so loved for his true compassion and for Paul Keating (who saw through them so easily,and for ‘ doing’ them so well – Paul we all miss you) for overcoming a brilliant but megalomaniac in Kevin Rudd, for seeing how Julia has had the courage and conviction to stand up to what has been dished out to her – our first female prime minister, she has been a sheer joy to watch…..it goes on and on…..bring on the circus. I wonder if any of them will be smirking the way Peter Costello did, and if it will haunt them the way it did him.
Thanks for this article Victoria. Have left my comment over at TIA.
http://theaimn.com/2013/06/08/labor-bashing/
Repeat Combet NPC ABC 24
Victoria, I had a read of the article on the journalist survey. I think the survey may have missed the point about political influence. I am an avid reader of the Australian & the Brisbane Times (Fairfax) The Guardian & several blogs including yours (I so admire your determination).
The main & I believe only journalistic influence in those publications is held by a very tight circle of senior opinion writers who are basically disciples of the IPA & their dark masters Murdoch & Reinhart.
I don’t think that “run of the mill” journalists are part of the inner circle of influence at these publications & that they have no say in what is printed in opinion columns where the main editorial line is prosecuted. This means that their particular political leanings are irrelevant to the main debate.
Particularly in the Oz the opinion writers have their little bands of supporters who every day post the same litany of complaints against Labor, no matter what the subject matter of the days column, the posts are always the same, list the same host of Labor failures & the same hateful comments on the character of the PM etc. It is so boring that it becomes mind numbing after a while.
Anybody (myself included) who tries to raise a moderate alternate view is quickly shouted down in the harshest terms & branded with the usual hate terms “Labor luvvie, rusted on, your mob etc” as if you are some sort of lesser human being or an enemy of the state. No alternate debate is tolerated by the posters or the column writers. No dissent from the LNP party line of the Oz is tolerated. There is no use trying to debate in those circumstances.
Here in Queensland we voted out a tired & incompetent Labor government (yes I voted LNP on that occasion because I was so sick of Labor by then) Unfortunately the LNP won in an absolute landslide of frustration & now we are stuck with not only a very poor LNP government intent on settling old scores but we are left with a totally emasculated ineffective opposition. This has led to very poor governance which will continue for the foreseeable future. So many of us now regret what we did. I don’t think Queenslanders thought about the consequences of handing one party unfettered power and people are frustrated with themselves that we can do nothing about it in the short term.
So the message that I now try to promote is that voters should try to cut through the noise of the MSM & look at the details of the alternative policies & above all else, given our Queensland experience “be careful what you wish for”
Combet. We should not forget that Abbott is a first class opportunist.
Was not on or mentioned on ABC 24 when first shown.
Good on you Victoria, and please keep going. You articulate so clearly what I, and obviously very many others, are so enraged about.
Absolutely fantastic Victoria. Keep it up mate. I’ve written this before and keep writing these words. Tony Abbott will never be able to Stop the Boats. Far too much has changed since John Howard Pacific Solution that now rests on the bottom of the ocean. Last year 23rd February 2012, a decision was handed down about the violation of the Convention Standard by the Italian Government regarding refugees in the Hirsi Jamaa case. The other is, there is a lot of International Waters between Australia and Indonesia where it is illegal for the Australian Navy and Customs to take control by force any floating vessel that has refugees onboard and interfere with their rights of passage. The Australian Navy can only board and inspect any vessel that enters Australia’s 24 kilometre immigration and customs zone and search if it or isn’t flying the flag of registration. Outside this zone, the answer is NO.
There is more under the 1951 Geneva Convention Status of Refugees and the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea that Mr Abbott has failed to tell the Australian Public. Moreover the MSM has also failed to investigate the outcomes of the Hirsi Jamaa Court Ruling. It is easy enough to do just Google it.
I know we are fighting a rear guard gorilla warfare with Abbott and his mob. But then Aussies are good at this type of combat under the right leader Julia.
My last is the biggest lie the world was told that is that Sadaam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction. Nukes in other words. Now that lie beats anything Julia said about the Carbon Tax. That is for sure.
But why would he want to stop refugees being safe. When the bogan slogan is stop the boats it can be screamed out and ignore all the children on board.
But Gillard is just as vile and racist as Abbott, more so in many cases.
So for god’s sake short of shooting people at the coast line how the hell could Abbott be worse.
“My last is the biggest lie the world was told that is that Sadaam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction. Nukes in other words. Now that lie beats anything Julia said about the Carbon Tax. That is for sure.”
Not nukes. Chemical weapons. And it was always suspected they were hidden over the Syrian border. And this week it comes out that Syria now has chemical weapons and has used the on their own people. Seems that it wasn’t a lie after all.
The world had always known about Sadaam Hussein having Chemical Weapons as they had used them on the Kurdish villages long before the Second Iraq you silly fool LordAzarel. They were looking for Nuclear weapons that could be used in the Scuds, so go and check your history.
I guess if LordArael goes and has a listen on Youtube to George: Saddam Hussein has Weapons of Mass Destruction. While you there have a listen to Bush admits that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.
Weapons of Mass Destruction are included in the correct acronym CBRN’s, standing for the meaning Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear used on mass that has to impregnate a very large area. The chemical weapons that Saddam had were old carrier type shells used in artillery and other ground force mechanisms such as tanks. There is a big difference between these limited distance of 25 kilometres weaponry than Scud Missiles, that do have larger carrying capacity payloads and that would infect a very large area than that of a few shells from howitzers, guns or planes.
Been there done that as a ex gunner,
Then where is your rationale to support that Julia Gillard is vile and racist Marilyn. Three word’s doesn’t hold legal ground. Give us some facts.
There is the right way and the wrong way. When those refugee boats arrive at this present time in our history in regards to the refugee situation at hand. They are intercepted by Australian Navy and Customs vessels which are recognised under the Australian flag as being part of Australia and in almost all cases they have been intercepted outside our territorial water sanction of the 24 Ks. They either escort the boats or take the refugees on board our ships to off shore processing for screening and medical checks, to make sure they are true refugees and not free loaders economic seekers they are held in detention. Big difference Marilyn between Abbott’s and what is in place now. Julia is within the law while Abbotts is differently outside the law.
Like I have written go and do some real research on the subject and don’t jump to the Green extrasensory left side of the discussion.
I was talking to my brother in Queensland last night and he was saying that up here ‘they hate can do newman’ (which I doubt) however he said in a way that you would think Newman and Abbott were fighting for the Prime Ministership, no one up here is going to vote for Gillard. What a confusing electorate – it appears their saviour from Newman is to vote for Abbott ???
It is really disgusting that ex Labor MPs are stoking the fire against Julia Gillard as well. Tonight on 7.30 Report Rod Cameron was blaming our PM for the presumed Labor wipe out come 14th September. He was saying that no one would vote for Labor and it is all our PM’s fault. Of course is she handed the leadership back to Rudd all would be sweet and good. Yeah right!!!! Rudd the Saviour would you believe? I had to stop myself from throwing my shoes at the screen, i was that angry! Thank goodness there is sanity in your articles, Victoria and those of other bloggers. Thank you so much for that. Did anyone read Fair Media Alliance where Kate Ahern is writing about a Julia Day and asking for other ideas to support our PM. Well worthwhile visiting this site too.
One believes in fairies too, I believe.
Why does he not lay the blame at Rudd’s door. He is the one that has spent three years undermining the PM.
Rudd will not and cannot unite the party.
In fact, I thought the identified discontents number 10. Not a great divide, one would think in any party.
I feel exactly the same Fedup Hilderombout. This all started when Barry Casidy mooted his speculative assumption scenario that Rudd was plotting to topple Julia. Fair dinkum what a joke and all the MSM’s of this country jump on the bandwagon and beating their tiny drum again and again.
And I will still keep on saying Abbott can never Stop the Boats from coming to Australia.
The PM had done a shocking thing. For the last three years, she has proven Abbott and the MSM wrong on every occasion.]
She has nit lie down, and I think they will soon discover, she is not a dead woman walking.
The PM is still in the game, and fighting fit.
Notice with all the media frantic behaviour over the last few days, there has has been no one from Labor that has broken ranks. Not even from those handful of discontents.
The media has been talking to themselves. Most of the Opposition has also gone to ground.
The PM has spent the weekend, quietly getting on with her job.
It is often darkest and coldest just before the dawn. Don’t despair just yet. I was somewhat that way at the weekend but now feel that there is a chance, despite the extraordinary position of the whole mainstream media, even including our ABC, seemingly committed to defeating the government. The most heartening thing is that with the opposition so committed to ousting this minority government by any means (and failing) …they have given no public attention to what they would do in government.
While it is true that governments lose rather than oppositions win, an opposition still needs to have SOME policies and plans, even if not all details are there. This one does not have any, at least none they’ve been prepared to release publicly. In all probability they expected this government to collapse and the incurred divisions would lead to an automatic transition without much thought beyond replacing these divided hordes.
Despite the continued treacherous presence of Rudd forces who had never accepted their defeat, the government and its minority supporters have held together, and almost against the odds, accumulated a series of major reforms while still being a world leader in economic performance throughout the GFC. Despite the precariousness of its position, it has been a remarkably stable government. Fitzgibbon is the only Minister in seven years losing his position to impropriety. A few others have retired, or been casualties of the leadership challenges.
It is a travesty that the government and its leader have been successfully portrayed as almost exactly the opposite of what they are. Of course the caucus is riven with rivalry and power struggles as Latham has described, but that is almost the only charge that can be sustained. And even then, Gillard seems to have found a way to hold it together and to achieve. The troubles only surface with the frequency of polling and leaking/speculating with the media.
I have been encouraged that despite all the concerted media hysteria they have been unable to break Gillard or her ministry. Of course, many know that it is a bleak outlook, but they also know that they have achievements and values worth defending.
The accidental sexist revelation is overall probably just a small crack in the coalition impetus, but it takes on an importance in helping bring them to centre stage, in contrast to the way the media agenda has been until now. The circus will move on, and Brough will probably survive, but it is a warning sign. It is really a house of cards on the opposition side, as we have seen with the way their only policy releases have been such lemons.
Ultimately, the MSM will not be able to shield them completely from scrutiny. As the curtain is gradually raised emotional reaction to Gillard will matter far less than rational reaction to what the parties are offering and likely to deliver, along with self-interest.
The hatred and contempt for our PM is felt strongly by many, but … just as the popularity of Rudd lasted so long … in each case it is a media bubble. When burst, the situation can change suddenly as we saw with Rudd. The hostility towards Gillard (which is essentially a media creation) will be abated somewhat by the realisation that the other side is so hollow.
Thanks gargeousdunny1 well written. My concern is when will this huge media bubble pop its thin surface brainwashing that has impregnate the vast majority of the Australian voters may come far too late to save Labor minority government. Moreover, this government has introduced lots of improved legislation for all Australians to live by and helped them survive the terrible situation of the Global Financial collapsed.
Excellent Article..
House of cards is failry accurate. liberal politics is really that slimey, I would never vote for the liberals.