Milne Watch 4 - Worst of the Worst

All that is wrong with national political reporting in Australia could be summed up in two words: Glenn Milne. While there are people who periodically write worse columns, Glenn Milne is the exemplar of the three worst traits that pervade the scene:

1. Uncritically passing off whatever they have been told by a MP/minister/political staffer as their own thoughts;
2. An inability to think about any issue in terms other than its immediate tactical advantage to whomever it was they last spoke to;
3. Absurdly self-righteous commentary about others that are completely unwarranted in light of their own conduct.

The 2007 column about a pissed Kevin Rudd going to the Scores strip club in NYC being in the public interest as it "went to the heart of questions of character" had been the high/low point of this genre of political reportage thus far. But as "Ute-gate" unravels and the questions surrounding the forged e-mail are investigated, we should record these two Milne contributions from 22 June as - we would hope - an epitaph for a style of reporting national affairs, and the time to clean out the stables at News Limited in particular (Insiders needs a look at as well).

Exhibit A

MALCOLM Turnbull has told close colleagues the prime ministerial adviser at the centre of the ute affair admitted to him he was troubled and had not been able to sleep.

According to colleagues briefed on the Opposition Leader's version of his conversation with Andrew Charlton at last week's press gallery Midwinter Ball, it was Charlton -- not Turnbull -- who raised his own role.

The two men were seated next to each other at the ball. After talking about a mutual friend, Turnbull says he gave the generic career advice as "one old man to one young man; always tell the truth".

According to Turnbull's version of events it was Charlton who admitted to worrying about the advice he had given Kevin Rudd.

Charlton was "clearly anxious and stressed" but concluded he had given the Prime Minister the correct advice on OzCar.

Exhibit B

This would be a good time for Kevin Rudd to uphold the standards he expects of others, writes Glenn Milne

LET'S strip this down to its bare basics, shall we?

In a supposedly mature democracy in the 21st century, the leader of an opposition political party uses a newspaper report referring to a leaked email to raise questions about the behaviour of the government and on that basis calls for the resignation of the prime minister of the day.

The same prime minister responds by immediately ordering a police investigation into the opposition leader and the journalist who wrote the story using the full force and authority of the office of the attorney-general and the commissioner of the national police.

And where did this take place -- Tehran, Cairo, Singapore, perhaps? No, in Canberra last week, the capital of Australia, the country whose same Prime Minister is in the middle of a global campaign to secure a seat on the UN Security Council, the ultimate guardian of international human rights. And who at home campaigned during the most recent election campaign for more protection for public service whistleblowers and journalists.

At the same time, the Treasurer in the same government repeatedly refuses a public invitation to explicitly submit either himself or his department to a parallel investigation by the national Auditor-General into the same issue.

Let's take stock here; these are at root seriously worrying developments in the conduct of both our politics and the process of our democracy.

Especially in light of Kevin Rudd's own behaviour. Who can ever forget the basis on which Rudd eventually convinced his own colleagues that he had what it took to lead them? I speak here, of course, of his assiduous demolition of the Howard-led Coalition over its behaviour during the AWB "wheat for weapons" scandal.

During that time Rudd relied repeatedly on information leaked to newspapers to attack Alexander Downer, then foreign minister. And to call for his resignation.

The government of the day did eventually order an inquiry into the issue -- the Cole commission -- but it was into its own behaviour and that of AWB, not Rudd's.

Downer at the time was under enormous pressure and often -- and unconvincingly -- used the defence that he hadn't read relevant emails involving the role of his department. Much as Wayne Swan is now saying he didn't necessarily read the emails sent to his home fax by Treasury officials, Godwin Grech and Andrew Thomas, regarding John Grant Motors.

And while we're at it, what happened to the accepted legal convention that once a police investigation is on foot, politicians should cease making public comments about the case? Rudd whistled up his Attorney-General Robert McClelland to authorise a made-to-order police inquiry (and knowing McClelland to be a thoroughly decent man, I'm sure he's uncomfortable with all this) on Saturday.

Yet there was the Prime Minister, fresh from reconciling himself with God at St John's Church in Canberra yesterday, and here is what he had to say before again calling on the Opposition Leader to resign: "I believe (Malcolm) Turnbull has a fundamental case to answer here. This email is something he and the Liberal Party have boasted of now, for some time."

Well, under Australian law -- assuming that still applies -- the conclusion of whether or not Turnbull has a case to answer is now surely one for the commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions to reach based on the evidence provided to him by the Australian Federal Police.

And it's not only in the area of police inquires that decent process and standards are going by the board, sacrificed to the government's attempts to defend Swan. It also goes to public service standards and threats to public servants themselves.

Its hard to top the observation of blogger Possum in Crikey today (written before the whole story unravelled in Parliament):

The political analysis at The Australian has been sliding down a notch or two in the quality stakes recently – but honestly, you’d have to be a lead poisoned crackhead to believe that horseshit.

Journalism 101: "You get the best stories at the pub, when people let their guard down a bit"

Glenn Milne's column in The Australian was full of good advice about work-life balance, and how it is not being respected in Kevin Rudd's office:

It also leads to another inevitable conclusion: that the Government is being run at the level of officials by a bunch of 20-somethings who don't have families and can sustain the energy needed to keep up with Rudd. But, with all due respect, what good are childless 20-somethings when it comes to real-world political judgments about what are for them the otherworldly lives of ordinary Australians? Not to mention the work-family balance Rudd promised to deliver when he was campaigning against John Howard.

In the interests of pursuing this discussion of work-life balance, I wanted to record the anonymous diary of a weekly newspaper columnist based in Canberra.

The Daily Diary of a Weekly Canberra Newspaper Columnist

10am - arrive at work; have coffee and pastry at Parliament House with Ministerial staffers

10.45m - sit at desk; check emails; start thinking about column

11.15am - leave for National Press Club lunch

11.30am - pre-lunch drink at National Press Club (good networking opportunity);

12-2pm - lunch at National Press Club; ask question about climate change modelling (whatever the speaker's topic);

2.30pm - return to desk; check emails; read Media Releases; download PDFs of Media Releases; cut and paste relevant sections; start writing column;

5.30pm - leave for dinner with Christopher Pyne/George Brandis/other disgruntled former Peter Costello supporter (delete) other ascendant member of the pantheon of the Federal Shadow Cabinet - split the bill (one bottle of wine each)

9.30pm - have a beer or three at The Holy Grail with Ministerial staffers (Journalism 101: "You get the best stories at the pub, when people let their guard down a bit")

11.30pm - take taxi home.

Next day:

10am - arrive at work; have coffee and pastry at Parliament House with Ministerial staffers

etc.

Milne Watch #2

In a week where the Canberra commentariat universally decided that the Federal Government was too boring to pay attention to, so offered their advisory services pro bono to the Federal Opposition, there was a lot of competition for the silliest column on the question of whether Peter Costello wanted or did not want to be leader of the Federal Liberal Party.

Glenn Milne's prognostications were on a par with others - and no more silly than those of Paul Kelly, who takes himself more seriously - but this snippet from the Sunday column caught my eye:

Key former Costello supporters have now switched to Turnbull.

I ask them: "If Turnbull mounts a challenge and Costello rings to say, don't do it, what would be your response?''

They say: "Peter has now dealt himself out of the party's future; therefore, he has no say in it. We will make up our own minds''.

So there you have it. 'Key fomer Costello supporters' - whoever they are - not only receive the same questions from Glenn Milne, but collectively offer the same answers. They 'will make up their own minds'.

Repeat after me: We are all individuals!

Milne watch

Today marks the beginning of an occasional blog piece on this site noting the contributions of News Limited Federal politics pundit and occasional pugilist Glenn Milne.

I am particularly interested in examples of:

1. Shameless spruiking on behalf of Peter Costello;
2. Passing off comments from Liberal Party staffers as original political insight (e.g. "ute men decided the Gippsland by-election").

If you have any examples of this or other characteristic forms of Milne-speak, please pass them on.

Today's edition of The Australian provided us with a very good example of the first of these.

The dinner demonstrated that Costello has taken the Liberal Party hostage. And they love him for it. But in this case Costello is both hostage taker and saviour.

The central contradiction at the heart of this gala night was that it clearly showcased why Costello should be leading the Liberals and then offered no resolution as to how - or even whether - this would happen.

First, Tony Smith, Costello's former staffer and now the Opposition spokesman on education, recited his ex-boss's achievements in government: "Commonwealth debt eliminated, surpluses replaced deficits and funding freed up in key areas of national concern."

There followed a video of Costello's killer moments in parliament. The baby-faced shadow attorney-general destroying Ros Kelly's career over the sports rorts affair, an assault that shredded the credibility of the Keating government and presaged its defeat in the 1996 election. Through to his devastating ridicule of Peter Garrett selling out his core beliefs, replete with an imitation over the despatch box of the former Midnight Oil frontman's mechanical twitchings and a rendition of Beds Are Burning.

The ecstatic reaction of the faithful served to remind everyone of Costello's capacity to instantly turn the mood in parliament. The question hanging in the air was: What if it was him, rather than Brendan Nelson, sitting opposite Kevin Rudd?

...

On the evidence of Friday night's cracker of a speech to the faithful, Costello still remains a riddle inside a question. The address was textured, by turns funny, warm, personal and packing a political punch. Having walked into the venue declaring the event neither a farewell nor a resurrection, "just a thank you", Costello observed that usually in politics you have to wait until your funeral to hear people say nice things about you.

Not while Glenn Milne's writing.

Ute-man

A lively little debate has started on Larvatus Prodeo about the mythical or real status of a creature known as "ute-man".

The debate was started by Canberra press gallery commentator Glenn Milne's observations in The Australian that (and I will use quotes here) the "shock result" of the Nationals' holding the seat of Gippsland in a by-election - which they have held since 1923 - was due to the "genius of Brendan Nelson's uber-populist post-budget announcement that he would introduce a 5c a litre cut in the fuel excise", combined with "a backlash against Labor's "alcopops" tax grab by its own "ute man" mixed-drinks base".

I'm not sure whether the base Glenn Milne is referring to here is the Labor Party voting base or the base spirit Bundy or Johnnie Walker that gets mixed with the coke. I can only hope that, wherever it was that Mr. Milne was mixing this base with his "Liberal strategists", he did not mix it with the headache medication that led to problems at the Walkley Awards in 2006 or else this might have happened.

Anyway, if you really want to understand "ute-man", go not to Glenn Milne but to Glen Fuller and his Event Mechanics blog. I'll just throw in a few quick observations on this one:

1. As someone who has worked at a university campus that also doubles as a perpetual building site, I can assure you that "ute-man" does exist, at least in Brisbane. He is notable for having a considerably newer and better car than the academics (let alone the students), and for having a lot of bumper stickers on it.
2. The "ute-men" really, really hated Work Choices. Whatever they thought about just about anything else, they had well and truly decided to vote out the government that gave them Work Choices.
3. As "ute man" does not read The Australian, Glenn Milne's new found love for him is likely to remain purely Platonic. He is also unlikely to be a Brendan Nelson fan, no matter how many guitars he owns, tho' he may knock down a bevvy with Belinda Neal if she's shouting (the drinks, that is, not at him).
   
4. He is also unlikely to read the Garnaut Report on climate change, so there is lot of scope to explain what it really means for aspiring pundits and politicians. He may instead be reading The Tradie, so there's a thought.
   
5. The "what to do about ute man" question is a variant of the age-old question that troubles advertisers, marketers and political campaigners everywhere, which is what to do about the young male, who may inherit the earth if he can get off the couch.
   

As Homer Simpson famously put it, "I'm a white male aged 18 to 49. Everyone listens to me, no matter how dumb my suggestions are."