Comments on: Lies, damned lies and implied repeal …

By: James Farrell

James Farrell — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 04:34:07 +0000

Thanks for that explanation, Ken.

I agree with Nicholas’s criticsims of the reporting, but another thing that bothers me, which this episode exemplifies, is the developing obsession with the game of spot-the-gaffe. It’s OK to make politicains accountable for their promises and to check that policies are mutually consistent. But it becomes unhealthy when journalists are constantly insisting on binding promises at an inappropriate level of detail, and then preoccupy themselves with breaches of those promises. The Fair Work Act covers a huge raft of matters; Abbott should never have promised he woudn’t change any part of it. It’s his own fault he did, but if he hadn’t, it would have been reported that ‘Abbott refuses to guaarantee that the Coaltion won’t overturn the IR legislation’. The outcome is the pedantry that Sennex complains of, with the substantive issue being largely ignored.

By: Saxby in Exile

Saxby in Exile — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 11:10:30 +0000

Of course, it’s all based on the age-old hatred of the fact that working people became organised. Now that the mining magnates have gained their scalp, the sky is the limit, or should that be the earth’s core? When employers unite it’s called their democratic right. A board meeting is a ballot conducted in private, if not secrecy. When workers unite it’s called the politics of envy. WORK CHOICES – whatever the name, never again.

By: Senexx

Senexx — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 00:40:08 +0000

It is a game of pedantry.

We won’t make changest to Fair Work Act. We will make changes that are affected by the Fair Work Act with different and/or new legislation.

Upon hearing all this I thought why shouldn’t Unions pay for secret ballots just like everyone else. Then I thought the secret ballots were coerced upon the Unions and they obliged. Now they wish to coerce them to pay for them. It is clear what the result of Unions constantly paying money out for ballots is designed to do. Deny the Unions an opportunity to do anything substantive, perhaps bankrupt them out of existence, etc.

By: Club Troppo » Mad as hell? Welcome to #hesaidshesaid

Club Troppo » Mad as hell? Welcome to #hesaidshesaid — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:01:45 +0000

[...] There’s always the next day of course, but I’m not after miracles here. Today there was a classic case of “he said – she said” journalism – well I expect there were endless cases of it, but the one I’m referring to is the situation where, one day after promising that a Liberal Government would not make any changes to the Fair Work Act until at least the return of Halley’s Comet Tony Abbott promised to – well change the Fair Work Act. He would do so by changing another act, and that would impliedly change the Fair Work Act as Ken has pointed out below. [...]

By: Jacques Chester

Jacques Chester — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 14:12:38 +0000

Ken, you’ve misunderstood that mighty institution of journalism: objectivity. It is not objective if you get off your bum and try to suss out the actual objective reality of the situation. But having a he-said, she-said situation? Very objective.

Got your two quotes? Righto, bang out 250 words and let’s go down the pub.