Monthly Archives: November 2013

The Week That Was – November 17 to November 23

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This week has seen quite a bit of insanity.

First, the ABC and The Guardian released information about Australia spying on Indonesia, and more seriously spying on the President, his wife and his inner circle. This may have been in 2009, but they found out this week, and that means that it is Tony Abbott’s responsibility to respond. He didn’t and as of writing this, still hasn’t responded appropriately. Tanya Plibersek spoke to Insiders this morning and said that Abbott is mishandling it. The Indonesians may not specifically want an apology, although they’d like one, instead they want an explanation as to why Australia’s intelligence organisations saw it necessary to tap the phones of Indonesian politicians. Abbott has been saying that the relationship is special and that he is committed to building it and making it better, but the Indonesian government has stopped helping with people smuggling – unless cases were already underway. Hamish Macdonald, sitting on Richard Glover’s chair at 702 ABC Sydney at the start of the week, talked to the Indonesian President’s party deputy.

https://soundcloud.com/702abcsydney/nurhayati-ali-assagaf-sbys

Also this week, came the saga over the ABC payroll leak – you can read my take on it here – and they have solved who leaked it. When a South Australian politician lodged a Freedom of Information (FOI) request about the number of people who worked at the ABC, the payroll information was also sent along. The politician was asked not to disclose the payroll information and presumably, get rid of it. Before that was done, someone passed the payroll information onto News Limited papers, who published them.

This week may have been serious, but there were some amusing bits. A clip has been put online of Gary Gray eating his hair…

Which reminds me of this from 6 years ago…

Here’s hoping we sort out our issues with Indonesia and have a better time next week.

Tweet of the Week

A cartoon from an Indonesian newspaper that is anything but flattering of Tony Abbott.

What I’ve Been Looking At

Annabel Crabb’s look into press freedom (including the publication of her pay packet) – SMH

Western Celebrities and Arabic Culture – Al Jazeera English

The ABC Payroll

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I prefer to get my news from the ABC. Before you start yelling “latte-sipping leftie”, it has nothing to do with my political persuasion, which is none of your business anyway. I watch it because it isn’t full of sensationalist crap about how people are going to be murdered in their beds – that may be a bit extreme, but bear with me.

You see, somehow the salaries of the ABC got leaked to the Australian – who wrote this. It outlines who is paid the most at the ABC, with the highest-paid journalist being Tony Jones, who hosts Q&A. You can read it yourself and see who is paid what. The comments are pretty awful too, calling for the ABC to be privatised. Most media outlets don’t have to show what each specific employee is paid, except for the executives – which the ABC (a Government Business Enterprise or GBE) does, as well as all of the others.

Mark Scott has previously said that they don’t disclose specific salaries because the ABC is a public broadcaster and can’t match the commercial networks – this is true. Unlike the commercial networks, the ABC does not have advertising, and therefore lives off the $1 billion the government gives it – it may sound like a lot, but it has to pay for both news and entertainment production. It makes some extra off the ABC Shop, but as it says on the website: “All profits from the ABC Shop are reinvested into the ABC for program making”.

Let me put some of this into perspective. When Mark Scott said “Today, most private sector media executives looking down that list will not believe the salary rates of the ABC compared to what’s paid in commercial radio and television-land,” on Melbourne’s ABC Radio 774, he meant it.

https://soundcloud.com/774-abc-melbourne/jon-faine-with-mark-scott-on

Take the nightly news for example, Juanita Phillips, the anchor of ABC News NSW earns around $315,000 a year (2011-12) according to the Australian’s piece, while Chris Bath, who hosts 7 News Sydney, earns about $900,000 – at least that’s what news.com.au said. 

Again, using the Australian and news.com.au, I’ll compare the female co-anchors of the breakfast shows. Virginia Trioli, of ABC News Breakfast is paid about $285,000, on Channel 7, Mel Doyle was reportedly being paid about $700,000 while on Sunrise and Lisa Wilkinson is reportedly being paid about $600,000 – but that is rumoured to go up considering the ratings of the Today Show.

Mark Scott also said on Melbourne radio that he was “concerned that this gives people like David Gyngell a list, a target, and it hurts the ABC’s ability to attract and retain talent“. I’m not surprised that he is concerned – now that they know how much Leigh Sales, Juanita Phillips or Mark Colvin earn yearly, if Channel 7 or 9 wanted to lure them, they could offer them quite a lot and they might decide to go. I hope they don’t and that they like their jobs enough to stay on the ABC.

The Australian also made some comments that, if you knew anything about the ABC, would make complete sense. They’ve started a conspiracy simply by saying, “More than $214m of the $453m national wage bill is spent at Ultimo in inner Sydney“. I hate to break it to the conspiracy theorists, but the ABC is headquartered in Sydney. It is where most national current affairs TV and radio programs are produced and presented, and where many heads of department have their offices.

It annoys me that the Australian has done this because contrary to what it believes, it isn’t in the public interest. It’s not really appropriate to ask someone their wage, and even less so to publish it so everyone else knows. General politeness lectures aside, the Australian shouldn’t have done it, even though they dislike the ABC.

The Week That Was – November 10 to November 16

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This week was always going to be interesting, given that Parliament started, but no-one knew how much so until Kevin Rudd decided to quit – but I’ll get to that in a little bit.

The week began with the first day of parliament on Tuesday. Politicians were sworn in and Bronwyn Bishop was elected as Speaker. She’s known to have a well-thumbed copy of the rules and it seems that Labor is not happy about it.

Yep. Tony Burke just likened parliament to Hogwarts after Dumbledore’s Army was discovered and Dumbledore took the blame, escaping arrest, leaving Dolores Umbridge as Headmistress of Hogwarts (the end of chapter 27 and the start of chapter 28 – Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix). I have to admit it was funny.

Tony Abbott said in his speech to parliament that he wanted a Parliament where there would be no character assassinations, which had the Opposition cracking up. Why? Well, when he was in opposition, he did exactly that, particularly when Julia Gillard was PM.

Speaking of those who are no longer Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd decided it was time to retire from politics. He says he wants to spend more time with his family. Here is his speech, and as expected, it’s 15 minutes long.

Tony Abbott says there will be no rush to give Rudd a job, but I think he was staying in parliament until he found one himself. I’d say he probably has one and that is why he’s quitting. Mind you, Antony Green thinks it’ll be a while before a by-election can be held.

There have also been the usual tributes and looking back at Rudd’s political career. This is from the ABC.

And this one, also from the ABC is a look at all his strange gestures (in gif form). They give credit to Annabel Crabb and Mary Hamilton for the idea. Here is one of Annabel Crabb’s pieces from 2009 in the SMH and this is Mary Hamilton’s collection of gifs.

Well, other than that, Tony Abbott has been in Sri Lanka for CHOGM. So that’s this week for you.

Quotes of the Week

“This chamber should always be a place of spirited debate, but it should never be a place where motives are impugned or characters assassinated” – Tony Abbott. (Glass houses and throwing stones?)

“When they all return to Hogwarts, Dumbledore is gone and Dolores Umbridge is now in charge of the school,” Tony Burke, making his Harry Potter reference.

Tweet of the Week

This is in reference to the Sri Lankan asylum seeker saga.

https://twitter.com/natalietran/status/401529441332908032

https://twitter.com/natalietran/status/401530092838346753

Kevin Rudd has resigned from Parliament…

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…I’m about an hour behind everyone else, but who cares. It’s also a bit random because I was making mad notes while they replayed his speech on ABC News 24.

https://twitter.com/ABCNews24/status/400554345692819456

He’s decided it “really is time to zip” and he’s wished Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten good luck – how nice – and wants to spend more time with his family. He got a standing ovation from the Labor MPs and just applause from the Liberals, at least that’s what I saw on ABC News 24.

In his speech, he said that his family has had enough of the politics and that they have been fantastic in public life and for the nation. He feels he needs to give back to them, there has been a lot of soul-searching. He hasn’t taken the decision lightly. So he’s leaving at the end of the week. So he’s telling us now. He thinks the people of Griffith, his electorate, are amazing. And thanks them for electing him. Being PM is a privilege. He wishes Tony and Australia well. The job of PM is hard.

He thanked the Labor Party, Chris Bowen and Anthony Albanese – who he called “Albo”. He also thanked the parliamentary staff, press gallery (that earned him laughs) and the public service. He feels he hasn’t changed since joining parliament, having looked back at his maiden speech. He is proud that he was able to prevent a recession in Australia, that he ratified Kyoto, a paid parental leave scheme and the apology.

It will be interesting to see how this continues….

The Two Weeks that Were – October 27 to November 9

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So, in the last two weeks things have been interesting. Senate ballot papers went missing and we were accused of spying on Indonesia.

Yes, you read correctly. The AEC lost about 1,300 senate ballot papers in WA. They still counted – the Greens and the Sports Party won – but everyone is pretty sure that there will be a High Court challenge from someone, even the AEC itself.

Tasmanian Palmer United Party Senator-Elect Jacqui Lambie wants the Green looked into. She says they are destroying Tasmania’s brand. Ms Lambie wants a Senate inquiry into the Greens.She also thinks that Queensland Premier Campbell Newman’s crackdown on bikies in the Sunshine State will mean that bikies will come south to Tasmania.

Continuing on, Australia has been accused of spying on Indonesia from the Embassy in Jakarta. I’m not sure if it’s true but the Indonesian Government is definitely not amused. Neither were the Germans when they found out that the US has been spying on Angela Merkel. It hasn’t done much good for the relationship between Australia and Indonesia.

Things got a little more strained when asylum seeker boat got into trouble. The boat was in international waters, but in Indonesia’s search and rescue zone. An Australian ship rescued the asylum seekers and then there were two days of discussions over who would take them, after which Australia backed down and took the asylum seekers to Christmas Island.

Quote of the Fortnight

“Now it’s tourists I want coming across that Bass Strait, not outlaw criminal motorcycle gangs.” – Palmer United Party Senator-Elect Jacqui Lambie on bikies coming to Tasmania thanks to Campbell Newman.

Tweet of the Fortnight

Scott Morrison and the Army guy were refusing to answer questions on the boat that we ended up taking:

What I’ve Been Reading

An interesting article about who owns the lolly companies – from TIME Ideas

The Ten Times ABC News Breakfast got Weird – ABC Online