By-Election Sleight of Hand

nsw democrats member of the legislative council

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Date:
21st August 2005

Morris Iemma is no fool, but the economists have agreed that his first act, in abolishing the vendor tax on investment properties, was not the best idea for the economy. The recent reassessment of the NSW economy, under the eye of Michael Costa, seems to indicate that there will be more of the asset sales and ‘just too expensive’ excuses that characterised the Labor government under Bob Carr.

I suggested that they should put Carmel Tebbutt in charge, but the bullyboys of the right will not give a woman of the Left so much power, which leads me to believe that the Labor government is doomed. The people of NSW do not want more of the same. The Liberals cannot believe their luck, but they have no policies that are strikingly different to those favoured by the Labor party. They think if they just keep smiling and criticising that they will be returned as the ‘only’ other option.

But is this a good option for NSW? They have already stated their intention to develop the State by Private Public Partnerships, with the companies making all the profits ( as with the M2, Eastern Distributor or Harbour Tunnel), and all the problems, (as with Port Macquarie Hospital or the Airport Link rail line) ending up in the public’s lap. The private sector gets the profit and the public gets the risk. The average punter loses both ways.

With no firebrands, like Barnaby Joyce, to keep them on the hop, we can only assume that the NSW Liberals will continue to serve the interests of the Liberal party as their main priority.

As the election machines are warming up, now is probably a good time to look at one of the major influences in the last election. The media should be viewed with a generous dose of salt at all times but especially around elections. Although they are hardly the worst when it comes to bias, anti-government or otherwise, the bias of the ABC has had a lot of attention that it really doesn’t deserve as it turns out. They monitored closely and stated that the Coalition got 44.6% of the Federal election coverage, Labor 43.5%, the Greens 4.4% and the Democrats 3.5%. A letter from the ABC addressed this subject stating that “during the election period, the ABC's basic approach was to provide equal treatment and equal time for the Government and the Opposition, while coverage of minor party representatives and independents was largely determined by news value."1

What this means is that the parties which get 75% of the vote get 82% of the coverage, whether it is news or not! This is the station most likely to cover the so-called ‘minor parties’. It would be interesting to see the commercial stations undertake a similar survey… Let’s hope that the real alternatives to big party politics get the attention they deserve in the upcoming by-elections.

Yrs,
Arthur Chesterfield-Evans (ACE)

1 Email to K. Gwynne 21/6/05 from Denise Musto, ABC Corporate Affairs.

updated: September 23, 2005