Whose ABC?

It’s their ABC according to conservative punters, politicians and commentators. The suggestion is that the ABC is become just another Australian media outlet that’s sympathetic to the progressive cause, promoting ALP politicians and policies over those of the Coalition Government, that it's not supportive of the Government or the 'home team'.

It's a matter of perspective. Any consumer of Murdoch’s News Corporation and the majority of Sky News Australia’s offerings would have to turn their heads to the left to see the ABC, yet that doesn’t mean that the ABC is a lefty-socialist mouthpiece, as conservatives would have us believe. According to the Political Compass, both the ALP and Liberal well to the right of the centre line, and I'd suggest that they've both edged ever further to the horizon in the seven months since then.

An analysis of guests on the ABC’s two flagship panel shows, Q&A and Insiders shows where those two shows line up on the issue of bias. The result is that each show is fairly well balanced, with Insiders slightly favouring the right, and Q&A slightly favouring the left.

Insiders has slid a little to the left, though. In earlier years, regular Insiders guests included Andrew Bolt and Piers Akerman, both hard-line conservative climate-change-denying commentators who write their opinion pieces for News Corporation. Mr Bolt has his own show on Network Ten, and Mr Akerman has simply disappeared from television. For the sake of simplicity, anyone who regularly writes for the Murdoch papers has been placed in the conservative column.

With Q&A in particular, it can be difficult to categorise the political leanings of every guest, as they aren’t all known as politicians or political commentators: guests include comedians and musicians, business leaders and theologians. Those guests have not been categorised, except in blatant cases like Billy Bragg. Palmer United Party representatives have been tagged as conservative, despite being further left than the ALP. 

It’s also unfair to criticise Q&A for being slightly more progressive; Prime Minister Tony Abbott has an open invitation to appear on Q&A, but has refused to appear on the show for several years. 

To give any perceived bias inherent within these ABC programmes some context, the most direct comparison is with another current affairs chat show: Sky News Australia’s evening chat show, PM Live. The show’s regular guests are predominantly conservative commentators and former Liberal politicians. The single former-ALP politician who was a regular panellist was Mark Latham, and he has not appeared on the programme since his on-air shout-athon with Chris Kenny.

So in comparison to PM Live, the ABC panel shows have a higher proportion of left-leaning guests. That's only part of the story, though. The ABC shows are far more balanced and closer to the centre, as required by its charter. It is, in fact, Our ABC.

Post Script: No analysis of Andrew Bolt's guests was possible, as the Network Ten website now automatically redirects to www.tenplay.com.au, which is great for watching past programmes, but useless for readers like me. More dumbing down, courtesy of Ten?

The Night of Two Joes

Just an hour or so after commentator Joe Hildebrand's epic rant on Sky's Paul Murray Live last night, Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey held his own television moment, live via satellite from London on ABC's Lateline. The two Joes' rants were about as far apart as you can get in style - as far apart as the two Joes themselves.

Any yet, there were moments when the two red faced men would have found themselves in loud and violent agreement, if either one of them took the time to listen. They are both smart men. Never forget that simple truth.

I usually go out of my way to avoid Joe Hildebrand. He makes me want to stick my fingers in my ears and sing LALALALALA until he stops speaking. It's not always about what he says; it's the affected way he speaks...Like, yew know, those teenaged girls who talk too fast? At least there's no inappropriate upward inflections. Yes, today, I am shallow. 

You might be better able to handle a crazed political rant from a scruffy thirty-something Journo than I am. If so, I recommend you experience this cracker of a rant.

If, like me, you'd rather hear fingernails on the proverbial blackboard, here's the summary. Joe's rant is an emphatic statement about the ALP's tangled relationship with Twiggy Forrest, and with themselves, and about how ultimately, pride and internal distrust are dragging the ALP into an abyss from which they might never emerge. That's a scary thought.

Meanwhile, Joe Hockey had his bit to say. He's in London to talk about money, a subject close to the heart of our Struggle Street Shadow Treasurer and his meagre salary of just $231K plus allowances.

The title of Hockey's speech: The End of the Age of Entitlement. The title doesn't lie, although to be honest, the substance of the speech is so rooted in big ideas, grand theories, global concepts, that it becomes an exercise in economic wankery. In order to buy into Hockey's conclusions, you have to accept the premise that debt/deficit is bad. I don't accept that. Then, you have to agree that not all wefare is necessary. That's brutal stuff, and even Joe has trouble with that, as we see on Lateline.

But there's this:

"As a community we need to redefine the responsibility of government and its citizens to provide for themselves, both during their working lives and into retirement."

That sounds sensible to me. Daunting, yet I'm attracted by the opportunity to look at what we expect of ourselves, of each other and our government. Challenging the norm is good. It forces us to compare the existing structures against present needs, a projected reality, and an idealised future. 

The real thrust of Joe's address was that debt is bad, and because our welfare bill is apparently so large, we have to borrow to sustain it. Solution: roll back welfare. Follow the lead of our friends in Asia, not our traditional economic role models in the Northern Hemisphere.

Then, Oh Gawd. Enter Lateline. Our Shadow Treasurer has been overseas, talking about rolling back welfare to lower debt. A man who never performs well when (a) talking about money, and (b) under pressure, was about to try to turn those grand economic concepts into bite-sized chunks of relevant policy. 

Welcome to Joe Hockey's nightmare.

Tony Jones, hosting Lateline, asked the question: "If - let's bring this to Australia straightaway. If the age of entitlement is over, which entitlements would you like to see reduced or gotten rid of?"

Joe answered that we need to be ever vigilant. 

I don't know what that means, and I'm pretty sure that Joe doesn't know either. It sounds entirely practical, until you realise that it would entail making some people worse off. Those people who would lose entitlements are unlikely to be the Joe Hockeys of the world, who can afford it. 

Just remember, this Joe is the Joe with the meagre salary of $231K, plus allowances, who agreed with Treasurer Wayne Swan's assessment that means tested  'middle class welfare' should cut out at $150K. So, $150K is well off, unless you're Joe Hockey, when a well-off $150K is more than $80K less than 'meagre'. An answer to Tony's question about which cuts he had in mind was never found. With maths like this, I'm not surprised.

Just today, Joe's Coalition colleague Kevin Andrews has shot Joe down, stating flatly that no, it wasn't coalition policy to tighten welfare spending. In light of Barnaby Joyce's minor policy blip last weekend, on doubling the baby bonus for stay at home Mums, I'm literally losing track of how many Coalition positions exist from day to day on welfare reform. 

As much as I hate to admit it, Hildebrand won the battle of the Joes last night. Unlike Hockey, Joe The Younger had a point to make, and he made it. Maybe Joe Hockey could learn something.

I'm as surprised as you are.