The Week That Was – March 16 to March 22

This week was definitely crazier.

Sunday saw the “March in March”, an anti-Liberal protest that took place in all major cities, with the slogan “a vote of no confidence” – essentially, these people are not happy with the way the country is being run. There was a good turn out, with Melbourne having the largest protest, and Sydney had pretty high numbers too. Tony Abbott was in Sydney and was either poking fun or being a complete idiot when he replied to a reporter asking about the protests, saying “I thought the only rally today was the St. Patrick’s Parade,” with a grin. So I’m more inclined to think that maybe he was trying to be funny as opposed to being an idiot.

Tony Abbott was in Sydney to help announce a new roads project called the North Connex – a motorway and tunnel project to be built in north-western Sydney to help with congestion on Pennant Hills Road. The NRMA seems positive about it, mainly because the tunnel in this project is going to be high enough to clear large trucks (a problem we’ve been having for a while) and will cut travel time for many in the Hills District.

Moving on, the Royal Commission into the Insulation Scheme revealed that only two bureaucrats costed the scheme over one long weekend without much help and that the public servants and government knew about the risks and similar deaths New Zealand. While that probably is a pretty big thing to come out of the hearings this week, some are still calling it a witch hunt on Tony Abbott’s part to get back at Labor.

Keeping with Commissions, the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) revealed the Liberal Senator Arthur Sinodinos stood to make $20 million from some dodgy deals that Sydney Water Holdings made while he was in charge of the board. Tony Abbott and the Liberal Party have been standing by him, but Labor wanted him to quit. He hasn’t – but he “stood aside” from his ministerial position (he may come back when and if he is cleared) of Assistant Treasurer, which could make life difficult the closer the Budget gets.

Manus Island has been in the news this week, with a judge in Papua New Guinea opening an inquiry into the conditions at the detention centre. The aim is to see whether or not the PNG Government is treating the asylum seekers in their care as they should be. A couple of the asylum seekers testified, saying they felt like they were in jail and the feel like humans for once, because this inquiry is letting them talk. They’ve also said that on a visit to the centre, Scott Morrison told the asylum seekers “don’t even dream of coming to Australia” because they weren’t going to be settled. The judge leading the inquiry travelled to the detention centre and allowed the media to come along – as if they would decline that opportunity. The ABC reported that there are still scars of the riots with broken windows and bullet holes in places. The dorms are packed and the bathrooms look pretty bad. According to the ABC journalist the asylum seekers kept asking the media to help them.

Still on Papua New Guinea, Tony Abbott has paid a visit to Port Moresby to discuss the deal with the asylum seekers, as the PNG Government is yet to process any of them. In return for speeding up, the Papua New Guineans will have more say in where the aid money they’re getting for taking the asylum seekers. Not only that, but Australia has to see if other nations will take our asylum seekers, because PNG can’t possible take all of them in. Tony Abbott did say something about the nations shouldering “their fair share of the burden” of the asylum seekers coming into the region, but that is a bit unfair – most countries have their own issues.

MH370 is still missing, and now an area around 2500km off the Western Australian coast is the main area for looking for the plane. They’ve found some chunks using satellites – and they’ve had ships and planes looking for them, but they can’t be found. There has been some great international co-operation though, so hopefully with some hard work they might find something.

Also this week, with the RBA considering changes to the Australian notes, the vision impaired are calling for tactile markings on the notes (like Canada does) to make it easier to tell whether they’re handing over $10 or $50.

Tweet of the Week

While the world was looking at Crimea, seems Indonesia quietly annexed Kuala Lumpur. http://t.co/mzURmnOUo7—
Adam Todd (@_AdamTodd) March 20, 2014

What I’ve Been Reading/Watching/Listening etc

A car crashes into the concrete fence/wall surrounding the Lodge – ABC Online

The US Media has trouble with Australian facts – News.com.au

The ABC Payroll

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.