Every new Thing gets opposed by people in one way or another for a variety of reasons. Marriage equality, for example, where apparently if we get that, people will be marrying goats soon enough.  Those of us who support renewable energy solutions have been aware of opponents to wind farms for a while now. Like climate change deniers, the supporters have either dubious university degrees and / or silent financial backers.

The latest in this group of alarmists are the creators of the “Stop These Things” website. Their rally in Canberra on June 18 would ordinarily be a stock standard group of cranks with signs saying Stop The Things! We Don’t Like Things! Things (especially new ones) are Bad.  Normally, most people would probably ignore a campaign by such an organisation rallied around a blog site. I know my constant calls for rallies fall on deaf ears. No-one showed interest in my rally ideas – Better Beer in all Sydney Pubs, Genetically Modify Goats to Look More Like Bob Katter, Stop the Supercars (Wasting tens of millions of dollars in Homebush every year) and Stop the Boats (The Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race is a waste of money).

I should have just said “Stop These Things”, because this Stop These Things rally has gained the support of a variety of Federal politicians, including Craig Kelly, Alby Schultz, Chris Back, Nick Xenophon and John Madigan of the DLP, as covered in this Chris Johnson article. Oh, and Alan Jones.  Point him towards a “Stop The Things” rally of any sort and there he’ll be.  It does point, however, to a schism in Liberal Party ranks about climate change and their policies in relation to it.

As for Stop These Things!, their blog site is filled with the usual features of an astroturfing operation. Claims that

“We are not affiliated with any group, political party or industry… a kitchen table group of citizens concerned about what is happening across rural and regional Australia, by the harm being done  by the wind industry, in partnership with governments”

and yet follows up with

“We are surprised and alarmed by how the Green movement is now in bed with big industry.”

With this broadside we hear the creaky line about a “Green conspiracy”, then discover on the same site that Alan Moran of the IPA will be speaking at the Stop These Things rally – indicating a strong link to one of our oldest and most clandestine lobbying groups, in terms of hiding their links to business and big industry.

It’s a not so new tack for these movements, claiming to be a “kitchen table” movement, then claiming some kind of major conspiracy, while hiding their own connections.  Later on, they follow up with a picture of the lone opponent to the tank at Tianamen Square, invoking a new China related version of Godwin’s Law – maybe Tianamen Law – attempting to categorise yourself as powerless in the face of a monolithic machine.  Yet they manage to attract politicians and a broadcaster with a large audience to speak at their rally. Powerless?

When I first read the website I was hoping, as ever, that this new group was honest and have the intention of just expressing an attitude towards wind farms and wasn’t an astroturfing operation. I hoped it had no links to the Waubra Foundation and its relationship with fossil fuel company employees and “Not in My Backyard” campaigners. I hoped that, unlike Tasmanian wind farm opponents, they won’t seek expensive support from PR companies linked to things like the Galileo Foundation. (thanks to @leroy_lynch for those links).

A purview through the site, however, didn’t fill me with confidence. On the “experts” page, listed with one expert – an acoustic engineer. Then they have a “people who get it” page, listing Sarah Laurie, the CEO of Waubra; Alan Jones (the most expert English teacher in the history of English teachers); John Madigan and Nick Xenophon; Graham Lloyd, from the Australian (whose campaign against wind farms is dissected here), and Robert Bryce, a spruiker for the Manhattan Institute, a think tank funded by fossil fuel companies.  And, as mentioned, they have Moran from the IPA speaking at their rally.  It should be concerning us that Xenophon and Madigan are supporting things like this Stop The Things idea – they hold a good chance of holding the balance of power in the next Senate.

Ultimately, groups like this come across as cranks who don’t like the look of wind turbines and make up spurious claims of health impacts – but, more importantly, do not offer any alternative solutions for long term power generation. There’s not any support provided to the idea of renewable energy alternatives to wind farms, nor is CSG mentioned – even though CSG poses more of a threat to public health than any wind turbine.  I would suggest, though, that people could turn up to the rally in Canberra on June 18, ready with signs declaring “Stop These Things”, but with a variety of Things on them.  That would liven up the event.

and finally…

They are Things! And they must be Stopped!

Oh, and as a postscript, this video should convince you why we need to create Kattergoats.

It’s not new for old media journalists and editors to hate Twitter. We have had a variety of journalists selectively edit Twitter commentary on issues to suit their purposes. These journalists have wilfully misrepresented the way Twitter works – that comments come from all angles, all of the time.  It’s not something that can be pinned down in the same way we can traditional media forms. One can excuse this kind of reportage in the earlier days of Twitter, where many didn’t use it well or have interns who did.  There is little excuse for that to happen these days – but it continues apace.

Andrew Bolt doesn’t see the need to have a Twitter account – his audience would feed him all he needs for his deliberate misrepresentation of everything that occurs on various platforms. This is his blog post, posted on April 28 at 5.55 am.

Bolt is less a journalist, more a self created ringmaster of a circus built for lunatics. (Though the other day, I was speaking to a reasonable fellow netball dad who came out with the phrase “I agree with Andrew Bolt…” which startled me).  What is surprising, however, is that the source of his post is a senior journalist in a non News Ltd outlet. It’s from Chris Johnson, National Political Correspondent, writing in the Age.  This article highlights much of what is wrong with media’s relationship with politics and social media. As ever in my deconstructions, the original article is in italics.

The left takes a turn for the ugly as power slips through Labor’s grasp

Thought I might try something different with the Institute this week – pose some questions about a topic that is being discussed in the twittoblogosphere and give a bit of a comment after those questions. These are questions, not answers. Sometimes I will state both sides in my discussion of the question. Just like Q & A, really – except I am not providing party political talking points as a substitute for answers.

Question 1. Why is it always high fee paying private schools that are used as examples of the independent schooling sector?

Read the Sydney Morning Herald, and funding of the high fee paying private schools like Kings, Scots, Pymble Ladies’ College and the like is a frequent visitor to its pages. It’s almost as if the Herald aren’t aware of Catholic systemic, community Christian and Islamic schools. For it is these schools, out in the suburbs, that receive the bulk of Federal education funding for independent schools. Yet what we see time and again are pictures of new swimming pools and rugby fields, which works to polarise and sensationalise, rather than discuss the complexity of the education system.

It is also the case that many advocates of public schooling want to target independent schools, so they make the high fee paying ones the symbol of the wastefulness of government spending. It could also be that many of these advocates live in relatively affluent areas, where the main schooling options are public schools and the high fee paying school. The question remains – why not look at the schools that receive most of the money, not the lucky few that benefit from former students and from well paid parents.

Question 2. Why Don’t We Hear About Teacher Recruitment Issues?

When I started out in teaching, I could not get a permanent posting. Three years of living in the western suburbs of Sydney, being available to be placed in a Western Suburbs public school and nothing. So, like many teachers in the western suburbs, I worked in blocks, on temporary contracts. Financial security non existent – especially if I was after day to day casual work. This situation remains to this day. Teachers on temporary contracts – often in the same school – who can’t be upgraded to permanency. Teachers on blocks who can’t get an interview for a position or get pushed up “the list”.

It is a worthwhile conversation to have about teach quality. But imagine the quality one could have if more young teachers could gain permanent placements. Somewhere. If that school is considered to be a “rough” school, then provide support to that teacher and encourage support networks.

Question 3. Why Must People Attack Sides?

The education debate is often torpedoed by comments from people – like Catherine Deveny – who insist on labelling parents who choose to send their students to independent schools. Or label supporters of independent schools as “elitists” who “support Knox getting another rugby field”. On the other side, we have people who support education choice by making uninformed and prejudiced comments about the “type” of student who goes to a “typical” public school. We get a polarised dichotomy that doesn’t help. Schools aren’t easily placed into boxes or stereotypes, so attempting to do so by taking a “side” is probably unproductive – but still people do it.

Question 4. Why Aren’t We Talking About Increasing All School Funding?

The old argument about whether independent schools should get funding from governments was fought and lost quite some time ago. Considering that it seems most politicians from the ALP and Liberal Party either went to an independent school, their children go to one – or, more importantly – are frequently lobbied by voting parents of students who attend these schools – funding of independent schools will be a continuing reality for a while.

This is why, maybe, the conversation could turn to discussing whether all school funding should be increased, at the expense of areas where the need isn’t as great, such as defence or asylum seeker processing. The government that stands up and says “we are actually increasing funding for all schools” would actually receive a lot of support – especially in that Western Sydney area people go on about. As I said in my post on education in Ausvotes 2013 – education is very important – for parents who send their kids to all schools. More important than stopping boats and transport.

Question 5. Why Selective Schools?

This is a NSW specific question. We have academically selective schools that are frequently trumpeted on the league tables produced in the HSC result coverage in the Herald and Telegraph. This is rendered almost meaningless when you regard that these schools take students from other schools and group them together in a place where very good is just mediocre. What we don’t hear is how the academically selective system benefits the whole student. They are just made into their result.

Anyway, these are questions. Come up with some answers. Or not. Your call.

It seems Sundays are the time for me to do a bit of a deconstruction of an opinion piece from the Canberra Press Gallery. Today’s subject is the well respected Michelle Grattan, who has been there for quite a long time. She seems in this piece to be pooped by the prospect of covering another election campaign that will be about very little. This is why her piece sounds more at times like an almost uncritical reporting of a product launch rather than an analysis of issues. As ever, her words in italics.

Political science: altering Abbott’s polarity from negative to positive

Expect some rebranding as the Coalition campaign begins.

‘Abbott is starting the year confident but not complacent.’ Photo: Rob HomerAlways good to have a picture of Abbott trying to look serious and explain something. Looks like it would be home on an Abbott election leaflet.  It would be interesting to compare this to many of the pictures we see of the Prime Minister in media articles.

TONY Abbott is likely to be residing in the PM’s office later this year. Even though the polls have tightened and things can change dramatically, on both sides of politics, that’s the assumption.

From whom? By whom? A pretty big statement to start with – and I can only assume that it’s the press gallery about which she speaks without any provided evidence to the contrary.

A second assumption is that a swag of New South Wales seats will help him get there. It’s no coincidence that Abbott is starting his mini-campaign this morning with a rally (invitation only) of the Liberal faithful in western Sydney’s Lidcombe. The home territory of those ”Howard battlers” is fertile ground for Abbott.

It seems Michelle needs to do a bit of research before talking about areas outside Melbourne and Canberra. Lidcombe is far from being “home territory” of “Howard battlers” at all. It is in the seat of Reid, which is the home of a variety of nationalities, including many newly arrived refugees.  It is also, these days, a much more marginal seat than in the Howard days, due to a number of factors.  If Michelle knew Sydney well, she’d know that the “Howard Battlers” – a lazy term that fits nicely with the Liberal Party strategy documents of the Howard years – was more associated with seats like Lindsay, Greenway, Macarthur and Hughes; containing suburbs that Mark Latham called the “white flight” areas.  Not Lidcombe at all. The move by Abbott to target Lidcombe as a launch site for a campaign (no, sorry, unofficial mini campaign) is more a rallying cry for a marginal seat strategy.  (I am amused by the idea of the Liberal faithful setting off from their plush suburban digs and setting their GPS devices for Lidcombe.)   Having seen the way members of the Canberra Press Gallery showed little understanding of the western suburbs in 2010, I’m not all that surprised that Grattan would say that Lidcombe is just a Howard battler location. It is more a location, however, where the anti-refugee policies of Abbott would have traction amongst those who live in Reid that were either refugees in another era or boat dwellers of the Anglo Celtic variety.

Labor has a total of seven seats in western Sydney and on the NSW central coast that are sitting on margins of between 0.9 per cent and 5.1 per cent. Labor was extremely lucky with some of these last time and a double miracle is unlikely, although the party will make a big effort – a government industry statement is coming, directed at manufacturing workers in such areas.

“Extremely lucky” and “miracle”. Grattan appears to be positioning the Coalition as being unlucky to not win in the western suburbs seats – as if it should have been inevitable. Not a mention of the possible impact of Coalition workplace policies, which would be pretty close to the top concern of seats like Reid.  Indeed, they have been quiet in the press gallery – and the Liberal Party – about IR for a while.

This week’s Coalition campaigning, complete with TV advertising and a booklet detailing values, directions and those policies already in the marketplace, is all about seeking to persuade people that the Opposition Leader can be ”Mr Positive”. The key message is that the Coalition has a (positive) plan. It’s not the first time such an attempt has been rolled out, but this time it is more extensive and serious.

The news that Grattan is discussing here is the release of an advertising campaign and summing up what the angle of that campaign is. It sounds a bit like those articles one reads in newspapers – in lifestyle sections and on page 46 of local newspapers – that just discuss new ad campaigns – that sound something like this -

“Andre Rieu has signed a contract with Chanel, where he will appear in ads where he will stand still and look wistful, with the breeze blowing through his luxuriant hair. The campaign will be seeking to say the violinist is ‘Mr Soulful’. The key message is that Chanel has a (positive) plan to engage with music fans. The spend on this campaign is significant, so it looks extensive and serious”.

It’s a timeless meme in the media. In the 80s, it would have sounded like this -

“Warwick Capper has signed a contract with Brut, where he will appear in ads where he will stand still and look glamorous, with the breeze blowing through his luxuriant hair. The campaign will be seeking to say the Swans star is ‘Mr Flamboyant’.  The key message is that Brut has a (positive) plan to engage with football fans. The spend on this campaign is significant, so it looks extensive and serious”.  

But I digress. Onwards…

Abbott is starting the year confident but not complacent. He knows from experience how narrow the gap can be between success and failure. In 2009 he obtained the leadership by chance (Joe Hockey almost had it in the bag) and by the smallest of margins; in 2010 he failed by a whisker to get power.

More of the advertorial style, casting Abbott in a positive light. “Confident, not complacent” is a way of describing a footballer starting a season, as to not make them sound like an egotist who thinks everything is easy.  Plus, “by chance” reduces the significance of the campaign by Nick Minchin, amongst others, to install Abbott as opposition leader. “By chance” is a oft repeated half truth.

No wonder he’s risk averse. He won’t contemplate a reshuffle – it just creates whingers. He minimises ”hard” interviews. His office has made an extraordinary effort to counter Labor’s claims that he is ”anti-woman”, with his chief of staff, Peta Credlin, willing to talk publicly about how he encouraged her to use his parliamentary fridge to store her fertility drugs.

It is here we have a list of things reported by the Press Gallery but not really examined or analysed a great deal – Grattan doesn’t seem overly bothered by the idea that Abbott is being allowed to minimise those “hard” interviews, as if he has the right to avoid scrutiny.

He is obsessed with discipline, though seemingly unable to avoid periodic lapses. He knows he can be his own biggest risk. His deep personal unpopularity and his negative branding are problems to which he will apply his usual diligence. But can he change his image? And how much will it matter in the end?

“His usual diligence” is an interesting expression, as is Grattan’s question as to how important his image is.  Image, image, image is the focus of this article. And, as if to confirm this, Hugh Mackay is mentioned – the social researcher who is the go to person for journalists who usually write about social trends and product popularity.

Social researcher Hugh Mackay believes Abbott’s brand – being negative, destructive and dismissive – has been unchanged for so long that it has become ”indelible” and it’s hard to see him being able to break out of it.

Abbott’s Brand confirms the idea that this article is about a product. Abbott is Chanel – or possibly more accurately, Brut. What we don’t see here is any exploration of why he is unpopular – that it might have something to do with more than image.  Then we slip into my favourite quote in the entire article – the moment that in advertisements that are usually prefaced with the line “Don’t take my word for it, let’s ask one of Abbott’s supporters”:

But one of Abbott’s senior colleagues argues: ”He’s strong on the tangibles. He’s an alpha male. Alpha males are runners, jumpers. They build things.” He believes Mr Positive will be convincing.

They build things? They are runners, jumpers? Such a blindingly simplistic view of politics just slides through unchallenged. Or maybe Grattan is just opening the door to the brain of a Modern Liberal, showing that the Liberals really are that superficial.  Talking of superficial, Kevin is never far away…

If Abbott faced another Labor leader – notably Kevin Rudd – things might be different. But the chances of a change to Rudd have faded (and a switch would involve its own huge problems for Labor).

It seems Michelle has finally dropped her fantasy (a shared fantasy with the senior members of the Press Gallery, it seems) of the Rudd return.  I’m surprised Malcolm didn’t make an appearance.

As matters stand, Julia Gillard, while she has clawed back her ratings, is also fundamentally unpopular. Both leaders know that voters are thoroughly fed up with each of them and the hung parliament. Perhaps that’s why the start of this election year has been rather slower than might have been expected. The less visible the leaders are, the happier the public. As Mackay says, this will be a contest where there is no inspirational figure.

Imagine, ratings, superficiality.  It’s like a Theatre of the Absurd play down there in Canberra. Guildenstern’s cry – “Words, words. That’s all we have to go on” from Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern turns into “Polls, polls. That’s all we have to go on”.  That and broad statements by “social researchers”.

This week’s Coalition campaign will be emphasising the team, including Julie Bishop, Warren Truss, Hockey (slimmed down with the help of surgery for the battle ahead), Andrew Robb and Malcolm Turnbull. Many promised Abbott ministers are recycled from the Howard ministry, which Abbott sells as one of his positives.

Back to explaining the ad campaign, including the helpful comment that losing weight is a good strategy for fighters.  (I am personally looking forward to seeing just how Warren Truss and Andrew Robb will be “rebranded”)

The Coalition speaks enthusiastically about releasing major policies. Well, soon. Those hanging out for its industrial relations policy, probably its biggest policy test, won’t be getting it this week. It’s hard to think Abbott won’t throw out something in Thursday’s National Press Club speech, but manager of opposition business Christopher Pyne said last week: ”We are not planning on announcing new policy in the next week but we are planning on reminding people of what is already out there.”

No policy still.  I look forward to Grattan’s critical reports about the non release of policy throughout the year, like we received in previous years.  *crickets*

How effectively Abbott sells Mr Positive in coming months could be less important to whether he wins or loses as to the size of his majority.

A Coalition government with a modest margin and an unpopular PM would have no guarantee that fickle voters would be tolerant. Abbott almost overturned a first term Labor government in 2010. A robust buffer is needed to withstand the danger of an electorate that can quickly go sour on new rulers.

There is another reason Abbott needs to do more than just scrape in. A strong lower house vote helps the Senate vote and that could be very important for Abbott. Unless the conservatives get a right-leaning Senate, Labor and Green opposition to Abbott’s promise to repeal the carbon tax might force him to meet his pledge to go to double dissolution. And that would be high risk.

This seems to be the best part of the piece, speaking of some real issues Abbott would face if indeed he has a narrow lead. It seems to be a feature of many of these articles that any decent analysis is left to the end. Pity that the rest of it sounds just like the coverage of a product launch. Or maybe that really is Grattan’s whole point – that the Coalition are just about the image. I would love it if she was being that subtle.

At times when people have an argument about things on Twitter, things come up that tend to deflate the strength of a person’s argument, especially as wild comparisons are made. Often, that involves Hitler – “you’re as bad as Hitler” and so forth. Otherwise known as Godwin’s Law - and normally is taken to mean that the person who invokes Hitler has automatically lost the argument.

The current fashion, however, is switching to invoking Stalin. This is especially the case when a political party wants an investigation and / or inquiry about something that is going on. Or used to describe parties that want to regulate things.  I can’t remember people objecting too heavily when Keating introduced regulations for the banking sector in the 90s which helped them during the GFC. Or any number of regulations that help us maintain a civil society.  It is regularly called “Stalinist”, for example, to want a media accountable to others, rather than just itself.  It’s become shorthand for reactionaries to label things they see as bad – just name the murderer of millions and you apparently win your argument.  It’s a bit of a amplification from the IPA’s Nanny State label (which, curiously, is the same term used by the tobacco industry whenever Government regulations affect them).

The NSW Greens Senator, Lee Rhiannon, is one of the chief recipients of this Stalinist tag. Michael Danby, the avid Israel supporter in the Labor Government (I mentioned him before in this post), was published in The Punch accusing her of being a Stalinist – even though Stalin was long dead by the time she joined the Socialist Party of Australia in the 1970s.   Wendy Bacon deals with that absurd label here, which appears to be part of a campaign (featuring assorted ALP figures and media outlets) to smear Senator Rhiannon with supposed sins of her past – rather than do the hard work of assessing her record as a politician in NSW and Federally.

But now it’s Barry O’Farrell who is a Stalinist.  Apparently.  The Premier of NSW wants to set in train a strengthening of anti-discrimination laws that would work to convict those who set out to racially vilify.  This has got a range of reactionaries huffing and puffing, expecting their man BOF to tow their line of being able to say and do whatever they like. So, Michael Smith has complained and Menzies House has issued a warning. Andrew Bolt, has gone further, calling O’Farrell an “idiot” and that such an inquiry “is against the spirit of the law” and “straight out of the Leninist playbook”.  Not just Leninist -

But Bolt asked why Mr O’Farrell didn’t simply “set a quota of how many racists he wants hauled before the courts? Why not just do it as Lenin used to do, as Stalin used to do?”

I’m surprised Bolt didn’t mention Lee Rhiannon in this spray. This invocation of Stalin can be seen as being as bad for arguments as Godwin’s Law. So, we need a name for it. I propose the Mercader Principle, after the assassin that Stalin sent in to kill Trotsky.  If you want to kill something, get an assassin to come with a machine gun and an icepick. If you can’t kill it with the machine gun, get the icepick and hack your subject to pieces with it.

The Mercader Principle. Just watch it ramp up this year.

Yesterday, many people saw the article by Samantha Maiden in all the metropolitan Sunday News Limited papers about Peta Credlin, Abbott’s Chief of Staff, speaking of how nice her boss was. The criticisms were swift and brutal, as one can expect. The “MSM are Biased – Giving Abbott a Free Kick – Ashby Inquiry Now!” people were fast to scream across the day. As were the fact checkers, who did make some salient points. It is a curious article indeed and worth a deconstruction – if only to see how journalists craft a narrative. Maiden is a skilled writer, in that she emulates the styles she sees as important. This one shows that she could dash off an article in Women’s Day, New Idea or the Women’s Weekly very easily. It also shows, however, that Maiden is also revealing and possibly undermining Abbott’s obvious attempts to spin himself as Human Being and Friend to Women. The original article in italics, my comments in plain.

PETA Credlin knows the questions female voters have about electing Tony Abbott as prime minister.

Immediately, we understand the possible focus of this article – that female voters are the issue for Tony Abbott and this perception of Tony needs to be addressed.

As his female chief of staff, she occasionally gets pulled aside at functions, and her inquisitors all want to know the same thing.

I did wonder at this point if a male chief of staff would be asked the same question. However, as gendered language is at the core of this piece, that is probably an irrelevant question.

“What’s he like to work for as a woman? Isn’t he tough on women’s issues?”

“Isn’t he anti-abortion?”

“Isn’t he weird on contraception? What would he really do if he was the prime minister?”

But she knows all the questions already, since, not so long ago, Credlin asked them herself.

Right here, it’s a touch like a FAQ section on a website or the beginning of a “Let’s See Where Your Fridge is Made” video at this stage rather than a no holds barred interview with an important political figure. We are about to get the answers to these Dorothy Dixers.

And then last year, she ended up learning more than she ever expected to about what Tony Abbott really thinks about all of these difficult, complex issues when she endured the personal heartbreak of multiple rounds of IVF treatment and no baby.

That’s when Abbott surprised even her – by offering to keep her secrets and help store her fertility drugs in his office bar fridge.

The language has switched here to one often sees in weekly women’s magazines or that one sees in Mamamia from time to time. The personal anecdote mixed with personal tragedy. The point here is to show Tony Abbott is human – “Human Being Tony”. It’s interesting that IVF isn’t entirely consistent with the teachings of the Catholic Church – but also, it is meant to show that Tony Abbott is human. Though, really, offering a fridge in that workplace context is what a lot of people would do, even opponents of IVF, I would have thought.

Credlin, 41, a Catholic, is also pro-choice on abortion. She’s married to Liberal Party director Brian Loughnane, who will run Abbott’s campaign for The Lodge – a true power couple in Canberra.

Intensely private, she has never given an on-the-record interview – until recently.

But she attracts attention, as you do when you’re a six foot-tall glamazon with long brown hair in a leopard-print dress.

Power Couple. Glamazon. Back to that women’s magazine language again. (An open question – how many people actually say the expression “power couple” out loud? Also, “campaign for the Lodge” – it’s a campaign for his party to be in government. Another annoyingly simplistic expression.) “Catholic and pro choice” is something that is frequently the case for Catholics (Each day on Twitter I read atheist opponents of the Catholic Church screaming “No, George Pell, Pope, Evil Church says No to Choice and all the followers are sheeple”). This is a point left hanging in the air at this point, but will become very crucial later on. But of this whole section, the “intensely private” line stuck with me – I can’t recall the Chief of Staff for any political leader giving an interview willingly. I kept picturing Malcolm Tucker giving such an interview. These people are usually supposed to keep in the shadows, passing around dirt files and the like.

This felt as though we, as the audience, should be grateful for being allowed entry into this private world of the staffer. Even Maiden herself seems a touch in awe that she was allowed to enter. It’s a often used technique used to engage the reader – and a good one The cynic would say that this is opened door is part of a wider political strategy of softening Abbott’s image. I’m a cynic – but I’m not the only one, as the article shows later.

In a previous incarnation as a public relations executive for Victoria Racing, she turned heads by wearing giant hats. She would make a formidable politician and one day she most probably will.

It’s also unusual for a COS to go into politics themselves*. (Edit – I have been told by Kimbo Ramplin that indeed many CsOS go into politics – maybe it really is a stepping stone here). Perhaps this is a major part of Credlin’s agreement to do this piece (Maiden stated on Twitter that she approached Credlin, not the other way around).

After working for Liberal leaders Brendan Nelson as an adviser and then Malcolm Turnbull as his deputy chief of staff, Credlin took the surprise election of Abbott as Liberal leader in 2009 as a green light to exit politics and return to Melbourne to practise law. But Abbott urged her to stay.

Another interesting point made – to show that Credlin, like apparently the women of Australia, took one look at Tony Abbott and said “ugh”. And so the story unfolds of how she was made to judge him less harshly into the future… *cue harp music*

Could she work for a man who described Australia’s abortion rate as an unutterable shame? Over a coffee in Canberra last Sunday, Credlin tells Agenda she didn’t think she could. So, early in 2010, she told him it was a big reason why she wouldn’t stick around.

The difficulty with this part of the story is that if Credlin was actually serious about going, she probably would have just gone. The story here shifts a touch into sounding a bit like an episode of The West Wing. It is also here we see the real shift in emphasis – intending to show that Abbott isn’t a hardened ideologue that doesn’t allow for change in his dogmatic ways.

“Look, there was this elephant in the room, which was Tony and women’s issues,” Credlin says.

She wasn’t worried about his personal dealings with women – Abbott had surprised her with his warmth. Plus, he had always had female chiefs of staff.

The issue was his views on abortion, IVF and contraception. Credlin had been on the opposite side to Abbott during the RU486 abortion drug debate when she worked for former Senate leader Robert Hill. The original decision was about whether Abbott should be able to maintain his ministerial powers to veto the drug. Some argued he was unqualified on the grounds of his Catholicism.

“While it started out as an issue of ministerial authority, it became code for so much more,” she says.

And here we go, the West Wing scene.

Credlin says she told Abbott: “I will just never agree with you on abortion.”

Abbott asked: “Well, what do you think my position on abortion is?”

“And I said, ‘Well, I think you are opposed to it, and you would like to see it restricted’. And he said, ‘Well, that’s just bullshit. I believe it should be safe, legal and rare’.”

Abbott was using the terminology of US President Bill Clinton. He confirmed he did have a problem with “the quantum”, the number of abortions in Australia, and he didn’t back away from that. But crucially, he did not want to ban or restrict access.

Safe, legal and rare. Taking a line from a Democrat like Clinton is clever politics, even if it does position him away from Catholic teaching. It is startling that he has never said this publicly, especially in 2010 – but maybe his strategists didn’t think it was important for people to see how Abbott adjusts his weathervane to suit his audience – as he may have done on this occasion.

This is where “Human Being” Tony is quite different from the self-described “Gospel Tony”. Gospel Tony is the one who wrote this speech in 2004 about the “Moral Failings” that are contained in the abortion rate. He may have acknowledged his opinion to Credlin that Australia has too many abortions. However, to say it should be legal, but is also evidence of our moral failing as a nation is a curious set of values to hold at once. It is possible to be such – look at Gillard’s opposition to marriage equality, for example – but Abbott’s speech is quite stark at negative image he cast about abortion – for example in this line

“Even those who think that abortion is a woman’s right should be troubled by the fact that 100,000 Australian women choose to destroy their unborn babies every year”.

Destroy is not a word used by a convinced supporter of abortion. It is the language of the anti-choice ideologues. Then there’s this line:

“When it comes to lobbying local politicians, there seems to be far more interest in the treatment of boatpeople, which is not morally black and white, than in the question of abortion, which is”.

Abortion, to Gospel Tony is a black and white issue – not a morally complex one at all. And people wonder why he may have an issue with women “misunderstanding” what he says. There’s little to misunderstand with “abortion is a morally black and white issue”. Again, this fairly hardline view could be seen to be at odds with the Human Being Tony who tells his potential COS that it should be “legal, safe and rare” forever. The speech also showed that in 2004, the repetition of the ugliest image was his favoured technique of persuasion:

“Even so, as a measure of the moral health of our society, 100,000 terminated babies is a statistic that offers no comfort at all”.

This speech – and its context, becomes important later on, so I will return to it. Back to the Glamazonian Jungle…

“And I agree with that myself. No woman wants to think it’s a decision that’s not taken carefully and in a considered way, and I can’t see that for the vast majority of women it wouldn’t be. I think it’s one of the toughest decisions a woman can make,” Credlin says.

“And I think most women would want to hope that your sister or your friend or yourself would have choices before it got to that point.”

Doesn’t seem like a black and white moral decision right here.

In many ways, Credlin’s conversation with Abbott as she wrestled with working for him is similar to many of the questions women have as they weigh up voting for him at the next election.

Maiden is stating the obvious here, revealing the point of the article, that is, the softening of Tony – Credlin’s first opinion of Abbott, and then her changed opinion, should be the model for other women reading the article. In other words, “Peta Credlin changed her mind about Tony Abbott, why can’t you?” Then comes the killer paragraph.

It’s a political fault line Julia Gillard tapped into in her speech to parliament accusing him of misogyny – a hatred of women – and attacking Abbott for describing abortion as an “easy way out” (he didn’t actually say that, as it turns out). Other senior ALP women have returned to the theme, suggesting it is showing up in party polling.

Accusing. Hatred. This must be the bit where Gillard enters. The villain with the poison apple, accusing Abbott of the crime of saying abortion was the “easy way out” – even though he didn’t say it. Truth was, he did. In the 2004 speech.

“To a pregnant 14-year-old struggling to grasp what’s happening, for example, example, a senior student with a whole life mapped out or a mother already failing to cope under difficult circumstances, abortion is the easy way out. It’s hardly surprising that people should choose the most convenient exit from awkward situations. What seems to be considered far less often is avoiding situations where difficult choices might arise”.

This was leapt upon with great speed by the Twitter fact checkers, claiming that Maiden was lazy, she could have found this out with a Google search. Maiden, in her Twitter responses to this accusation, said that she had already read this speech and that the context was important.

The Year 7 Comprehension line is a touch patronising – but I think her point here is that the “abortion is the easy way out” line has been taken out context. Abbott was saying that he believed that is the way many women perceive abortion. It is a blinkered, male-centric way of guessing the way some women see abortion – going back to that black and white thing – but he is not saying in a blanket fashion that “abortion is the easy way out” in that quote. The speech is more nuanced than that – Maiden is right. Though, not especially sensitive or understanding of the individual contexts of women involved. It’s a political paternalism, assuming what women feel without actually talking to a range of them.

Where she is wrong, however, is in the way she expressed the concept in the article. “he didn’t actually say that, as it turns out” probably should have rewritten along the lines of “the line about abortions has been taken out of context” or “he didn’t actually mean that all abortions are the easy way out” or words to that effect. The original comments directed to Maiden weren’t made by people who failed Year 7 Comprehension. But they did fail to respond successfully to her point that the “easy way out” line wasn’t placed in its proper context. A little bit like the “there will be no carbon tax in a government I lead” line. Sometimes, when responding to experienced writers like Maiden, people need to be a little less shouty and one note (I have learnt this lesson after being a little like that myself once upon a time). Anyway, back to the jungle…

Credlin kept ticking off her concerns during her conversation with Abbott that day in 2010. “I also heard you are against contraception,” she said. Abbott replied this was “ridiculous” as he was the father of teenage girls.

What does this line mean? That fathers of teenage girls have to automatically favour contraception? That’s not really an answer and it raises more questions about Abbott’s views.

“And I said, ‘The last one is all that kerfuffle about IVF. I can’t say at my age I might not need it. How could you be against IVF?’ “

It was a remark that would prove to be prophetic.

Abbott insisted this was wrong too: “I am not against IVF, I am passionate for IVF. Anything that helps families is a good thing, it’s not a bad thing.” Credlin left the conversation surprised that Abbott’s position on IVF, abortion and contraception wasn’t as black and white as she had assumed. Why did she think otherwise? A big reason is Abbott’s own words.

This view, while at odds with Catholic teaching, is interesting and illustrative perhaps of the nature of Abbott’s political life, having to compromise and agree with the different people you meet. Also interesting is that the “Human Being” Tony we are shown isn’t as “black and white” in person as he appears to be when he’s Gospel Tony. I can’t recall an Abbott speech where he has publicly backed IVF, abortion and contraception. Or perhaps someone could google that one. Interestingly, Maiden then uses Gospel Tony phrases in order to show the apparent contradiction between the two Tonys.

“We have a bizarre double standard; a bizarre double standard in this country where someone who kills a pregnant woman’s baby is guilty of murder, but a woman who aborts an unborn baby is simply exercising choice,” Abbott told parliament in 2005.

“I want to make it clear that I do not judge or condemn any woman who has had an abortion, but every abortion is a tragedy and up to 100,000 abortions a year is this generation’s legacy of unutterable shame.”

In 2005, the Howard government floated a plan to restrict the number of IVF cycles for women over the age of 42 when Abbott was health minister. Asked about the debate in 2009, Abbott offered these words to describe his reflections on the controversy that followed: “It [the proposal] fell foul of the ‘I’m over 40 and I need my baby’ brigade,” Abbott said.

Not exactly the remarks of a sensitive new-age guy.

Could it be that, during their fateful conversation, Abbott was simply telling Credlin what she wanted to hear?

She insists this is not the case.

“I think it is important that people, especially women, hear the truth about Tony Abbott, and not just the myths,” she says.

Not a single comment made in response to the language or content of the Abbott words are made by Credlin. “It’s important for women to hear the truth” is undermined by the fact Credlin doesn’t respond to the truth, as articulated in the quotations used by Maiden. It does undermine the credibility of her pleading for people to understand. It’s also odd for Credlin to be talking about “myths” when Maiden has given her actual words, not myths.

This is why I think Maiden’s piece isn’t exactly the 100% piece of biased puffery that people are making it out to be. In this part of the article, the contradictions are clear and Credlin is hung out to dry a bit by her own lack of response to the Abbott quotations. This can also be supported by Maiden’s comments about the way the strategists have been attempting to create a “Human Being” Tony.

As the next federal election looms, Team Abbott has wheeled out a succession of women to endorse his female-friendly credentials to assure the voting public he’s not the anti-woman ogre they were led to believe.

The most powerful intervention was naturally his wife Margie Abbott and his daughters. Then there’s his sister Christine Foster, who has spoken of her brother’s supportive embrace when she came out as a lesbian.

Credlin’s decision to speak out publicly as his chief of staff is highly unusual.

The cynic comes out – the line about the “highly unusual” appearance shows that Maiden is putting this whole Credlin piece in the wider context of the selling of Abbott – hinting that it’s nothing more than just spin. The following paragraph does little to counter this idea that it’s spin – it’s a “deep loyalty to Abbott” that is doing this.

Yet her candour is not only motivated by a deep loyalty to Abbott and a desire for voters to know the truth about what Abbott would do as prime minister on reproductive health issues, she is also ready to talk about her own painful experience of infertility, in which she tried, and, in her own words, failed to fall pregnant after back-to-back cycles of drugs, egg collections and IVF treatments.

“This is a really important election and you can’t leave these things unsaid if they need to be addressed.”

Maiden then goes back into New Idea mode (or Marie Claire mode, perhaps).

Credlin agreed to a brief question-and-answer session with the glossy Marie Claire magazine late last year. But her candid response, when asked about her toughest day at work, shocked even the press secretary from Abbott’s office sent along to chaperone the interaction.

The magazine will publish the piece on Wednesday.

“There was a grubby joke told about me at a union event attended by some Labor MPs in Canberra. I didn’t hear about it until the next day,” Credlin told the magazine.

“The joke didn’t faze me – politics is tough – but on that day I had come to the office straight from hospital after my fifth failed IVF attempt. All I wanted to do was go home to bed, pull the doona over my head and cry. But if I didn’t front up, there would be a sense that the joke had got to me. So I had to sit through Question Time in the advisers’ box and have a smile on my face. It was personally tough.”

Human Being Peta revealed.

The “joke” was a smutty reference to longstanding innuendo about her close relationship with Abbott.

Credlin could have probably left it there, but she agreed to a request by The Sunday Telegraph to talk about her IVF experience. Some will be cynical. Credlin is not fazed.

“I have never given an interview in over a decade in politics. I’m doing this now, about an issue so deeply personal, because I’m determined to set the record straight and because I chose to be as honest as I could in the magazine article,” she said.

I read some write on Twitter that Maiden should have pursued the rumours of an Abbott Credlin affair. It looks as though to me she does here. Though, really, I think rumours and innuendos of private lives of politicians should be the preserve of those on #auspol and commenters on the blogs of Andrew Bolt and Piers Akerman. It doesn’t do credit to anyone to go down those paths.

“Some will be cynical”. Yes, Samantha, some will be. The article then goes into some more Human Being Tony.

Her decision to try IVF after the 2010 election brought about another difficult conversation with Abbott on a plane back from Afghanistan in October, 2010.

“I had been to see the doctor a number of years before I finally bit the bullet,” Credlin tells Agenda.

“And for many reasons that anyone who has ever done IVF knows – it’s expensive, it’s intrusive, you lose control.

“(But) I didn’t think I could wait another three years before I gave it a go. I hesitated to raise it with Tony because I didn’t want him to think I wasn’t committed to the job. But there was a window that was closing and I knew that if I didn’t decide if I was in or out of it, I might end up never making a conscious decision to try to have kids.

“And there will be a point if I don’t try that I would regret it for the rest of my life. So I said to Tony, I just want to try, I may not get there, but I want to try.”

Credlin asked Abbott if she should resign as other friends had to focus on IVF.

“And he said, ‘absolutely put all those thoughts out of your head’. He said, ‘you are my chief of staff, who is going to do IVF. You’re not going to go and do anything else. You can make it work. We can juggle things’.

“I said, ‘It’s really intrusive, I don’t want people to know about it’. He said, ‘Nup, I will run interference’.

Credlin says that Abbott in his “usual style of practically pulling apart a problem” said: “Well, drugs? That’s easy – we will just put them in my bar fridge, no one will go in my bar fridge. Bathroom? Well, you obviously can’t use a public toilet can you? Well, that’s fine, I will clear my stuff out and you can use my bathroom for the needles. And he made it sound like it could work.”

As she talks about the experience of doing IVF over and over again and not getting close to even the possibility of a pregnancy, the word “failure” crops up and Credlin begins to cry.

At one point she says Abbott even cried with her one day as she “wallowed” in a pretty awful IVF experience, which would be almost impossible to believe apart from the fact that it’s hard not to feel moved by how honest Credlin is about it all.”(Abbott’s) just such an optimist. He’d say, ‘it’s OK. You’re going to try again’. And I am like, ‘Oh God. I am just coming off failure’,” she laughs. “It would be so easy with IVF to wallow in your failures. But I never want to be one of these people whose whole life gets defined by whether I had kids. You also have to dust yourself off and keep going.”

None of this part of the article should surprise anyone – the human being Tony Abbott acts in a way most people would act, given the same situation. The point could be made, however, that perhaps we haven’t seen many articles that portray the Prime Minister in the same light – and it would not be hard to find similar examples of care and compassion. Maybe that is something Ms Maiden will be doing in the future. Time will tell.

This last part of the article is very good at something outside politics – showing how hard it is for people trying to get pregnant through IVF. It’s good writing here, though that has been lost in the context of the article and what it has been seen to be doing.

Credlin gives every impression of someone who has conquered every problem in her life by just working harder, trying harder, studying harder, training harder.

But infertility isn’t like that.

You can’t always beat it into submission by doing fertility treatments that wreak havoc on your body and sometimes your mind over and over again. Sometimes IVF just doesn’t work.

Credlin would still dearly love to be a mother, but doesn’t think she will try IVF again in an election year.

“It’s more the fact we are in the fight of our lives and you have to be committed. And it takes over your life,” she says.

“And that’s just the nature of it an election year.

“It consumes your life and your partner understands that, and your family understands that. I don’t want to have my attention divided. So I probably wouldn’t.

At this point, I personally have sympathy for a woman who wants to start a family but understands the difficulties in the political cycle – especially in a party so heavily connected with machismo like the Liberal Party. I could imagine a number of readers thinking “these women, complaining…” Maybe that’s just me. The last lines, though, snapped me out of that moment of human sympathy.

“I’ve got one job this year and that’s to change the government.

“But what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.”

Her job is to change the government. And if she can do that through revealing that she’s human and her boss is human, so be it. I think for those reading between the lines and reading the whole article, rather than focusing on a couple of lines, there is a nuanced picture we can gain from this article. The cynicism mixed with the human interest story. I look forward to seeing a similar piece about one of Gillard’s staff. Or perhaps not.

The first movie I saw in 2013 was Rise of the Guardians, a Dreamworks film about the “Guardians” of children’s hopes and dreams – Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, the Sandman and Jack Frost fighting the master of dark, fear and nightmares, Pitch, aka the Boogeyman.  Yes, a kids movie pure and simple. A good one too, in that it highlighted a number of good ideas – that people need to find their “centre” – the thing that drive their actions; that belief in positive things and having pleasant dreams is not a bad for children to have; that if you are the boss of something (like the Guardians), you can get out of touch with ordinary people;  that enjoyment is something that can be missing in our lives.  It was nice to sit in the cinema (the local one, I still avoid Hoyts like the plague) and also see a movie through my kids’ eyes. It was an enjoyable film that wasn’t reminding me that I needed to enjoy things ironically and was also free of in-jokes about other films.

It was also highlighting to me how pointless my morning’s activities had been – having debates with people about the changes to single parent payments and Jenny Macklin’s gaffe.  The gaffe and resultant predictable response featured a number of things that characterises the current political and media landscape and highlighted what I think is missing from our society – a wider vision of what positive things can be done for people.

The question – “could you live on $35 a day?” highlighted the adolescent nature of a media pack that would think such a question in any way heightens the conversation about policies. It’s a “gotcha” question designed to either trip up the politician involved or would bring out the usual string of weasel words – “this change in system is designed to encourage single parents to find other employment and be productive members of the economy…”. On this occasion, it tripped up an unwary Macklin, which caused a great deal of back slapping and chortling from the media pack. Not a single journalist in Canberra would agree that it’s a facile question – their job, as currently they see it, is to create headlines and soundbites.

Imagine if Macklin went completely off script and replied “No, I couldn’t, because I’m a government minister who is employed to do a very complicated job. Could you live on $35 a day?”  The gallery would be apoplectic. It would be good to watch.  It would highlight the stupidity embedded in such a glib way of looking at a complex issue like welfare reform – with journalists who appear to have the memory and lifestyle habits of goldfish – simply seeking the next new sensation.  Superficial retail politics where what is needed are questions about the wisdom of such a movement.  Better questions would be “what do you know about the impact this would have on single parents – have you talked to a wide range of people that will be affected by this?”; maybe “is this a move designed to make the ALP more appealing to talkback callers and current affairs programs?”

The issue highlighted the Labor Government’s distance from those who voted them in – their increasing neoliberal attitude towards welfare reform. The move would be seen as “encouraging” single parents to seek paid employment, through taking away a payment. That’s not encouragement, that’s forcing.  Short order forcing as well – the original announcement was made the day Julia Gillard made her famous “Misogynist” speech, which was not that long ago – not really giving single parents a long time to make alternative arrangements. Plus, the changes coming into affect when school aged children are at home for another month doesn’t make it any easier for these single parents to be “encouraged” to seek work.  What has also been lost is that the changes also mean single parents are also losing other benefits afforded to them because they are parents.

What is being lost in this part of the discussion is that these changes will have a profound impact on children – their single parents should be considered more than just potential cogs in an economic system.  It says that in the scheme of things, single parents don’t deserve any more than a person without children that is seeking a job.  The problem is for the single parent, children are important. For the 8 year old child, they would need expensive after and before school care – if that can be obtained.  If the parent hasn’t had a high paying job and even finds a job, there is no guarantee that it would cover child care and transport costs – if you live in various parts of Sydney and Melbourne and have a full time paid job, you have to have a car.  That idea also discounts the idea that looking after children is a job in itself – as has been covered in this excellent post about the context of welfare reform and its biases by Bluntshovels.

The issue will now have oxygen and already we have had Adam Bandt from the Greens following on from Rachel Siewert’s week on Newstart last year. I am not a big fan of stunts like these, but they are seemingly necessary in order to parties like the Greens to make a public and lasting statement in the general public on an important issue like this – it will help to give the Greens have a presence on media outlets.  Plus, it’s one time for the Greens to be an opposition party to a mean spirited Labor Government. It is a policy change we would never see the Liberal Party oppose – because, like the changed asylum seeker policy, it is consistent with Liberal Party philosophy. Also, likewise with the asylum seeker policy, wait to see Labor people say the Greens live in a “fantasy land” where they don’t deal in “reality” of the situation. Many in the ALP seem to like attacking Greens more than they like opposing the Liberals. Maybe because in many ways, the ALP is more like the Liberals in their lack of a progressive inclusive social philosophy, instead hell bent on short term job creation for individuals. The reality is that Australia is a rich country that should be able to assist the parents of our children if they need that assistance.  There are other ways the Government can find savings. This action, however, gives them a chance to show (not tell – you will never hear them actually say this) that they are “tough on lazy single parents”.

This takes me back to the movie and what it metaphorically tells us about our polity – our current political landscape is focused not on positivity, but instead tied up with negativity and irrelevancies.  There is a whole gaggle of people tied up with the absurd Ashby business and whether the LNP is paying Ashby’s costs. It’s something we will probably never know because the general public doesn’t seem to understand or care and it seems most journalists in Canberra are too lazy and goldfish like to pursue it.  That isn’t anything new – it’s old news, like that silly AWU business.  What is forgotten in that is the ALP could have avoided the Ashby / Slipper mess by simply supporting Harry Jenkins as the speaker and enacting Andrew Wilkie’s poker machine regulation, which would have had a positive impact on people in helping to cut down poker machine addiction. Plus spare us the problems that had plagued Slipper long before he became the speaker, such as a clumsy way of expressing himself away from parliament – which seems to be his biggest actual “crime”.

Ultimately, I think people who dive into the Twitter storm each day forget what governments and politics should be about – being Guardians, helping those who need help as well as providing positivity to Australians wanting to build a happy, healthy nation.   Driving out the nightmares and fear that we see whipped up in various newspapers, TV programs and on talkback radio.  I’m not talking the weasel worded “assistance” and “encouragement”, I’m talking about finding out what Australia does well and emphasising that. You won’t find that with much of our Canberra Press Gallery, addicted as they are with the sound bite and daily gaffe.  Fortunately, there are some around who do focus on the big game. People should seek them out as the derp storm rises closer to the election.