Hedley Thomas Redefines the term "Typo".

[tewiremu]

Hilarious: The Media's Shameful Silence, intones Hedley, who is smarting from the tanning Julia Gillard gave his sorry propagandist lily-white butt. I was particularly taken with the last couple of paragraphs:

They saved their worst for Thursday when the Prime Minister seized on a trivial error by my colleague at The Australian who had incorrectly reported in an inconsequential page 6 colour story that Gillard had established a "trust fund", not a "slush fund".
Gillard beat this nothing typo into something that a child would see as inflated nonsense.
She then reached out to journalists too naive or intellectually dishonest to call it for what it was - a desperate, craven deflection.
The Prime Minister used journalists to shoot the messenger, and at a time of threatened media regulation, they obliged and pulled the trigger.

Hedley, lovely boy: a typo is when one letter is mistakenly typed for another. You cannot call a nasty propagandist smear-job like that " a nothing typo".
While we're on the subject of News Ltd. cooking up propaganda with the Liberals, how's the whole Ashby/Brough/Lewis/Pyne thing going, Hedley? Or are those little plotters too dangerous to be seen in each others company any more?
ps..don't bother subscribing to The Awfulstralian to read the article: c'n'p the title into Google News.

[angra]

I dunno about the rest of you, but in talking to friends, family, the average bloke in the street etc, I can find no interest whatsoever and little knowledge of the Slater/Gordon News beat-up. It seems to be just a journo's wank-fest which is rightly being ignored by the vast majority of people.

Does this show how out of touch News is? Maybe people are sick and tired of being told what to get upset about by a few obsessives living in their ivory towers, especially when the faux-outrage is completely irrelevant to most people's immediate concerns.

Roads, power-bills, public transport, schools - yes.

A confected 'story' about obscure events 17 years ago with no actual proof of anything - no. Yawn - reach for beer, turn on the X factor, line the cat's tray with the Tele.

[jack]

Who said:

"It is so extraordinary that this disgusting publication should place me in a position where I effectively have to prove my innocence."

Answer: Kerry Packer (the 'Goanna'), in a statement written by his lawyer, Malcolm Turnbull, refuting allegations in Fairfax's National Times leaked from the Costigan royal commission.

Oh, and it never occurred to me that Fairfax "later resurrected the National Times for a website, boldly including a column titled Goanna."

www.theaustralian.com.au/news/foi/even-fbi-doubted-goanna-story-about-kerry-packer/story-fn8r0e18-1226457781644

[Matthew Of Canberra]

I actually wish the australian would move on, because I fear that I'm becoming a nut on the internet.

Today's op-ed is an example of "teaching the controversy". The actual question of whether gillard's some sort of association-creating criminal appears to be (in the absence of some sort of evidence ... guys? Listening?) answered. So banging on about that isn't going to get any traction outside the hate-o-sphere(tm). But they CAN bang on about the life of the story itself.

I'll reduce this to dot-points this time

(1) Yes, the PM's response was (IMHO) tactical. And good on her. The Oz' whole attack was tactical. She took an opportunity to come out on the front food and demand a reckoning. The story is and was bullshit, and that booboo gave her the chance to make that clear on equal terms. Stop whining, guys - you weren't playing fair either. And gillard's comment about internal processes should be taken on board - when you're running a smear, make sure every story gets double-checked. That was no irrelevant colour piece. And I feel very sorry for whoever wrote the story - but it wasn't their fault. That was a process screwup. And I don't think the irony should be missed, here - the whole of the australia's attack has been based on what was a fairly minor hindsight-oops two decades ago. And how did they botch it?

(2) The rest of the media did take an interest the moment that new information came to light. Prior to that, it was just NEWS trying to take an old story and squeeze it for some scandal. The SMH, ABC, Age etc, did actually report this the way it deserved. They weren't late to the party - it's just that the party started several days after NEWS thinks it did. And they now seem to be having a hard time accepting that the party's over.

(3) I was amazed with the way the PM handled that press conference. I really hope we see more of that sort of thing, because it was brilliant. And being able to see the whole video was also a big win - let's also have more of that too, please. Get one of those out a week and I doubt if anyone will be doubting the PM's leadership by the next election, particularly when placed alongside an action doll with four or five prerecorded sayings.

(4) Mr NEWS - when you have something resembling evidence to support the things you're trying to get at, I'm pretty sure everyone's going to be fascinated. Until then, maybe take on board some of that high-minded stuff about serving your readers, and start maybe reporting on things that are in the present, and real.

I'm so over this. I'm going to have to avoid the pull factor for a few days or I'm going to go batty.

[jack]

"I actually wish the australian would move on..."

See? -- you're a useful idiot for the forces of evil Gillard and passive-aggressively working against the trooooth.

"I'm going to have to avoid the pull factor for a few days..."

None so blind as those who refuse to see, etc. etc. etc.

Seriously though, I've only given Hedley Thomas's effort today a quick read, during which it occurred to me that, for every point he raises, there's a perfectly valid alternative interpretation.

As it happens, van Onselen in his column today in the same paper puts those very lucidly.

As I've said before, it was a great scoop for this paper to get its hands on the transcript, but there was no smoking gun Gillard detractors could latch on to.

All they were left with were a series of errors Gillard made in the way she dealt with the matter 17 years ago: little different to countless previous prime ministers who have had questions raised about their past.

She should have opened a file on Slater & Gordon's system to better provide the firm with legal indemnity. She shouldn't have referred to the account she provided advice on as a "slush fund". And describing it as for the purpose of workplace safety when the only link to that notion was that those campaigning for re-election intended to use workplace safety as part of their platform was weak, to say the least.

But these are relatively minor matters alongside the core charge (not that it was ever put) that the PM knowingly (or unknowingly) profited from the so-called slush fund.

That slur is comprehensively unproven, remembering that it is not the job of the PM to prove her innocence.

While much has been alleged about the circumstances surrounding Gillard's departure from Slater & Gordon, little has been said or written about the fact that at that time the firm was undergoing major changes which split the partnership and saw two distinct factions develop: those who wanted Slater & Gordon to do less union work and morph into a larger plaintiff firm, and those who wanted the links to the labour movement to continue to be the way in which the firm defined itself (as is the case at that other labour law firm Maurice Blackburn).

It was a hostile time.

Gillard fell into the latter category, which does more to explain the loss of confidence that developed between her and some partners than any conspiracy theory. Ultimately, the firm split and a number of partners left Slater & Gordon to take up positions at Maurice Blackburn. This was the primary driver of animosity, not the matter of Bruce Wilson's "slush fund".

As for the fact Gillard didn't open a file on her work on Wilson's fund, this is a less significant issue than even Gillard is willing to fight for (politically there is no point in her defending the line on this one).

Not formally opening a file on the firm's system doesn't mean that she didn't personally keep a file. It's not a case of a conspiracy that she was avoiding paperwork. Gillard just didn't log it into the Slater & Gordon system, because she was not intending to charge on the matter.

There would hardly be a law partner anywhere in the country who had not done similarly at some point in time, for a friend or a family member.

Gillard's crime -- not that you could call it that -- was that the fund she offered some assistance with setting up turned out to be highly controversial. Not through any inappropriate actions by her, mind you.

The bottom line is this: The Australian reported fascinating new information on a 17-year-old matter, which of itself is a testament to the investigative abilities of those involved. However, without something new and startling, there is no smoking gun.

The online mudslinging waged against the PM -- both prior to and during this week -- has been disgraceful. And no doubt it will continue, because the PM has been unable to do what none of us could: prove her innocence.

www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/gillards-accusers-are-left-without-a-smoking-gun/story-fn53lw5p-1226457698255

Meanwhile I see Stephen Mayne has just tweeted:

The Australian is wrong to claim it published "large parts" of the transcript from PM's 3 hour exit interview from Slaters. It has about 20%

It's a pity private companies aren't subject to FoI, because there'll be an army of Eighty Per Centers who'll sell their grandmas to get their hands on The Redacted Passages.

[Matthew Of Canberra]

"you're a useful idiot"

I'm just happy that I'm at least useful :-)

[Matthew Of Canberra]

"I think it will be a long time before Tone is on again (if ever)."

Look, I'm no rhodes scholar, and if I had my time over I _still_ don't think I would be. So I'm not going to pretend that I'm smarter than tonez or that I could do his job better. I couldn't. But I'm not the one who wants to be in charge of the country.

That interview was appalling. Does he really, truly, expect to never get basic challenges on the things that he says? That interview covered three subjects, and he utterly botched two of them.

Worse, the way he dodged those questions (his dodges were far better prepared than his actual statements) very strongly suggested that he didn't actually believe the things he saying, and he knew that going in.

I think a way to get abbott to melt down in an interview would be to lean forward, take a very quiet, serious tone, and ask "now, mr abbott, do you REALLY believe that?".

[tewiremu]

There's a sense (or perhaps I'm being hopeful here) that News Ltd and The Australian in particular are starting to feel an uncomfortable anxiety that their concerted pro-Tony campaign is wearing thin. What a stunning coincidence that the Gillard non-scandal should dominate the headlines in the week that Labor started to show a positive trend in the polls. There are a couple of considerations that might be lighting a small campfire under their sorry arses:
1. With the hiving off of the paper products of News, to sink or swim as may be, the shocking level of anti-Gillard publicity should be seen in the light of the desirability of electing someone who will reward a faithful Press with a bailout in the (inevitable) event of their financial collapse. Labor did it for Holden, Tony will do it for The Oz.
2. The propaganda campaign over the NBN, the Carbon Tax and the Mining Tax peaked way too early. Anyone with a pair of functioning synapses could see that the rhetoric and the effect were light years apart: by the time the next election comes round, there will be a positive attitude to the NBN, and the perceived lack of impact of the other two "taxes" will make Abbott's ravings a laughable irrelevance. The Australian is now in bunker mentality, facing their own death by a thousand financial cuts, and an electorate that is gradually growing tired of Chicken Little.