Thursday 28th of March 2024

there’s no bloody snow this year, you climate-denying bastards!...

scomygum

Through fire, coronavirus and Scott Morrison promotional shoots, the curse lives on: one Pascoe of each generation fated to play New Year’s Eve stenographer for the contents of a Satanic sea chest, the result of a Cornish pirate captain’s pact with the devil as the tide rose above him on a Caribbean sandbar.

 

Michael Pascoe’s Olde Almanacke: An ode to 2021

My forebears have attempted burning it, burying it, drowning it, blasting it with cannon, but the thing unfailingly reappears. Once I even tried listing it among the included contents of a Sydney house sale – surely the greater evil power of Sydney real estate would overcome it? No.

Like the ‘Rona, it is un-alive but living, known but unpredictable, insidiously pervasive and always evolving. Not with the usual chorus of rattling chains, screams and jungle drums did the thing announce itself on Thursday night, but with booming coughs and all-encompassing wheezing underpinned by the piercing monotone of a flat-lining heart monitor.

It wasn’t the old beating, oozing sea chest beyond the attic door, but a sphere like the mines that blocked the Dardanelles, dripping with something red-black and sticky, its spikes impaling facemasks, Uber Eats satchels and Donald Trump voodoo dolls.

An ice-blue hologram flickers into being around the thing’s circumference and the instructions begin in spidery script…

Some call it a Steve Bannon mutation. Some say it’s Sky News After Darkwith less irony. I only know it as Olde Pascoe’s Almanacke.

2021 Constants

Occasional leakage of the microscopic beastie from quarantine; regular “look at me” statements from Franking Wilson, Banks’ Bragg, Poles Patterson and the IPA in general confirming what everybody already thought of them; permanent hope that the next round of vaccine will stop the ‘Rona; the one area of total discipline among federal Liberal members holds true – none reveals any sign of human decency regarding the Biloela family, none is prepared to turn “political terrorist” on their behalf. Search parties still out for the Opposition.

2021 Specifics

January

Despite the evidence of what’s between several Queensland Senators’ ears, Nature abhors a vacuum – so in the absence of the National Cabinet until February, the Federal and State Opposition leaders form the National Shadow Cabinet.

At an alfresco media conference attended by a passing street cleaner, two bin chickens and the compulsory three masked nodding mutes in the background, National Shadow Cabinet senior shadow, Albonce, declared a new dawn for Australian leadership.

“After all,” he said, “everyone agrees the greatest strength of every Australian government is the quality and cut-through of its opposition.”

Senator Matt Canavan (LNP, Qld) rejects the single-word change to the national anthem because we are not one and we are young – as long as you ignore the world’s oldest continuous civilisation – but mainly because he hopes it will get him more attention than wearing blackface.*

February

The non-shadow National Cabinet, renamed the Spotlight National Cabinet to ensure differentiation, is resuscitated with PM Scott ‘Stunt’ Morrison pre-announcing to select outlets he would be re-announcing his 2020 announcements of Australians being at the front of the queue for numerous vaccines any month now.

Over the hiatus, the government’s several thousand media advisers and spinners develop and now debut a New Improved Artificial Intelligence program for dealing with media inquiries, anticipating and pre-empting questions, saving valuable time for trips to Bunnings and allowing Stunt to start his media conference by saying:

“I reject the premise of your question. Just because lots of other nations are already shooting up, it doesn’t mean we weren’t at the front of the queue. It’s a long queue and it’s taking us a while to walk back from the front of it.

“Next question?

“Yes, I am aware of the great demand for copies of my Man of the Landseries. We’ll be issuing an unlimited edition of giclee prints that community groups and councils will be wise to order if they hope to score any grants this year. Thanks very much, that’s all for now, my photographer wants to catch the light for my upcoming Kong Kong-inspired Man of Parliament House poster.”

March

Premier Marky Mark creams the WA state election, calls it a long-overdue referendum on secession and commences negotiations for an alliance with the Queensland Premier, Ms QueenslandforQueenslanders.

What’s left of the WA opposition conducts the now-traditional state ritual of dumping whoever was the leader, replacing him or her with whoever will be dumped next.

Former Senator Cormannator, back from failing to convince the OECD it needs a climate-denying Thatcherite as its Secretary General, declines the offer of the job. “I might be a climate-denying Thatcherite, but I’m not that stupid,” he says.

April

The usual outlets commence the month by devoting most of their front pages to artfully shot photographs of PM Stunt Morrison, dressed as a gondolier, picking spaghetti from the “pasta tree” on the lawns of Kirribilli House.

Jen and the girls, for some reason in matching Tyrolean costumes, stand nearby in open-mouthed wonder. (Jen has one index finger on the corner of her mouth, which some subsequently see as forming the letter Q.) The accompanying headlines are all variations of “PM Jokemeister!” “Top Dad Joke!” “All In Fun!” “PM Wag!”

In an attempt to keep WA in the Commonwealth and revenue from iron ore rolling into Canberra, Sandgroper federal members “Sassy” Hastie and “Nobody Saw Me” Porter offer to headquarter the ADF in the West and relocate to Freemantle whatever submarine construction work isn’t completed in Adelaide by 2050 i.e. most of it.

“Sassy” Hastie issues a media release taking credit for the Budget halving the $116 million allocated in December for the Office of the Special Investigator examining alleged Afghanistan war crimes.

“Believe half of what you see, none of what you hear, eh?” he says.

June

Lawyers representing Kylie Jenner commence legal action against Stunt Shop Inc, claiming the Prime Minister’s range of tees, hoodies, phone cases, socks, underwear and pins are all direct copies of The Kylie Shop items, only the branding changed.

“There’s no way Mr Morrison could claim Kylie’s golden thongs are his, or so we hope,” a spokesman for Ms Jenner says.

“But he’s welcome to all his Dad, Father of the Nation, Sportsman and How Good Is posters.”

Senator “Fallujah” Molan (Lib, NSW) declares war on China. China fails to notice.

May

Treasurer Just Joshing denies he has brought down an election budget, saying every electorate earmarked for multi-billion-dollar grants was entitled to them as long as said electorates knew what was good for them.

“We have applied exactly the same Community Development Grants principles that we have since 2014,” he says.

“The only slight difference this year is the scale of our commitments, in keeping with the needs of our base, er, I mean the Australian people on the Road to Rona Recovery.”

‘Nobody Photographed Me’ Porter warns any journalist repeating the “our base” part of that quote will be given a new name, starting with “Witness” and ending with a single-letter.

July

Premier QueenslandforQueenslanders announces talks have broken down with Premier Marky Mark over plans to form the Frontier Australia Alliance secession movement, even though WA agreed to share elements of the ADF with the north-east state.

“Clive Palmer proved to be too much, as usual,” said Ms QueenslandforQueenslanders.

“WA was concerned that including him as a Frontier Australian would lower the tone of their filthy rich people and unfortunately we can’t expel him. Under the constitution we’re adopting, once a Queenslander, always a Queenslander, eh? So we’re going our own way, also as usual. My door is always open for Marky Mark if he wants another chat, but.”

Canberra’s Mid-Winter Ball exclusively sponsored by Bunnings.

August

Mad Hatter Katter (Qld, Mad Hatter) revives his own FNQ secession plans, or at least that’s what most people think he was trying to stay during a two-hour rave involving a giant power of scissors, a role of barbed wire and a post hole shovel.

Opposition Leader Albonce media conferences down to attendance by a single bin chicken after the Prime Ministerial AI Media Control Unit starts giving the press gallery Albonce’s talking points, their questions and Albonce’s answers the day before.

Uproar in the House when Zali Steggles alleges heroic pictures of Stunt Morrison on the Giant Slalom and his Building a Snowman for Jen and the Girls series were all photoshopped. Specifically, Ms Steggles shouts across the chamber: “There’s no bloody snow this year, you climate-denying bastards!”

“You Can’t Prove A Thing” Porter later warns her that Independent MPs certainly aren’t immune from the new witness “protection” scheme he is secretly developing – and don’t even think of reporting that.

September

PM Stunt Morrison launches a spring offensive with a six-episode documentary series on his role in teaching the Sharkies everything they know. To cover all bases, the Media Control Brigade also releases photographs on a geographically-targeted basis of the PM with the balls of other codes, all captioned, “I do hold the ball, mate”.

Opposition Leader Albonce counterattacks by having a South Sydney bunny tattooed on his forehead.

The NRL and AFL seasons are suspended when the apparent coincidence of all Queensland teams simultaneously hosting home games is revealed as a cunning plan – Premier QueenslandforQueenslanders impounds all players, demanding the codes agree to hold their grand finals in Queensland in perpetuity.

October

Premier Marky Mark reopens Frontier Australia Alliance negotiations, offering to swap the air force for the AFL grand final every other year.

“Sassy” Hastie, promoted to Defence Minister since the unexplained disappearance of his predecessor (name redacted), announces the Office of the Special Investigator would be wound down as “we’ve heard quite enough, thank you”.

China asks WHO to investigate the origins of the cross-party parliamentary Friends of Coal group. “We’re worried what the potential impact of concentrating the Kelly/Fitzgibbon/Canavan/Christensen/Roberts/Rennick brains trust in a small space,” says WHO.

“Nobody is sure how black holes start.”

Treasurer Joshing slips Foxtel another $300 million to enable the broadcasting of “things not currently broadcast”. Joshing says the grant will be budget neutral as funding of SBS is being discontinued.

November

Newspaper readers awake to photographs of PM Stunt Morrison riding trackwork with the Melbourne Cup favourite. Flemington at dawn, roses resplendent in the foreground, wisps of mist behind, the rising sun touches his face with a golden hue as he delivers a confident wink and smile. The Media Control Division has assured him he has picked the winner – or there will be a lot of jockeys called Witness.

With the Treasurer’s permission, RBA Governor “Low for Long Time” Lowe announces the cash rate will be adjusted by 0.01 per cent in one direction or the other, just to prove the bank still knows how. (RBA board meetings have been reduced to the annual Melbourne Cup Day lunch, lest the bank be distracted from its job of printing money.)

In return for an AFL quarter and semi-final, NT Chief Minister Gonna Gunner brokers agreement with WA and Queensland and provides the necessary middle bit for a contiguous Frontier Australia Regional Kingdom.

December

Foxtel pays $300 million for the Give ‘Em Curry with Stunt cooking show, a co-production by the IPA, the Centre for Independent Studies, the Sydney Institute and the Tuesday Night Prayer Group Inc.

Senator Fallujah Molan announces he is taking the fight up to the Chinese by invading Vanuatu, having discovered an old newspaper cutting about a CCP naval base there.

Storming the Chinese-built wharf under covering fire from Sassy Hastie and Senator Kimba Kitching (nominally ALP, Vic) he finds one fishing boat, three kids mucking about in a tinny and a pile of coconut husks.

“This is not the end,” he says. “This is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the beginning of the beginning. You know, we could still win in Vietnam with just a bit more bombing.”

After giving the coconut husks a full magazine, Sassy Hastie confirms the last members of the former Office of the Special Investigator had been successfully hunted down and would not be bothering anyone anymore.

The FARK announces it will not secede from the Commonwealth, but instead will expel NSW, Victoria and the ACT on January 1 and gift Tasmania to its rightful owners, New Zealand. Everyone forgets about South Australia.

Australians spend their last Christmas with open internal borders united by a single fact: every household however grand or humble, every mansion, every unit, every caravan, tent and bush humpy, receives a gold-framed 60 x 40 print of the Prime Ministerial Christmas portrait around the tree at Kirribilli House.

Jen and the girls gaze lovingly up at their hero from their positions at his feet. Stunt Morrison, a Santa hat rakishly tilted to one side, sporting a casual Bunnings team member polo, beaming his trademark grin, chin lifted, confidently facing whatever hair and makeup the future may hold.

 

*I actually didn’t make this bit up. Matt Canavan is really Matt Canavan.

 

Read more:

https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2021/01/02/michael-pascoe-olde-almanacke/

served, like in an esop feast...


How Murdoch extracts concessions from governments. Consider how he got control of Foxtel!

 


By JOHN MENADUE | On 3 January 2021

 Rupert Murdoch claims, falsely, that he has never asked a Prime Minister for anything. Yet his whole business career in three countries has been founded on threatening or seducing politicians for privileged commercial access or opportunities.

Foxtel was formed in 1995 through a joint venture between News Corp (Fox) and Telstra. News Corp obtained this position through political influence.

From that beginning News Corp went on to establish a controlling interest in Foxtel. While News Corp owns only 50% of Foxtel it effectively runs Foxtel through its power to appoint the CEO. In addition News Corp owns 100% of Fox Sports.

Let me set out in some extracts what I personally witnessed in Murdoch’s entry into Foxtel. I first set this out in 1999 when I published my autobiography. “Things you learn along the way”. (The full text can be found on this website. See particularly pages 279-281)

 In December 1994, I got a telephone call from (a Keating Minister) in Canberra about a possible appointment to the Telstra Board. I was asked about my relations with Rupert Murdoch. I assumed that the caller was trying to establish whether I might have any conflict of interest, a standard query before such appointments. I said I was not aware of any conflict because, whilst I had worked for Murdoch in the past, my links were then quite tenuous. It became clear to me, however, that I had misinterpreted the question. The caller was wanting to establish whether I would be a supporter of Murdoch on the Telstra Board.

I kept my counsel, and was appointed to the board. I learned very quickly the significance of the Murdoch query when I found myself on my own a few months later opposing the Foxtel joint venture between Telstra and News Limited.

The circumstances and reason for my opposition were set out in a letter I sent to the chairman of Telstra, David Hoare, on 9 March 1995. I have decided to put this on the public record because I think board behaviour should be more transparent.

“At the Board meeting on 2 March 1995, I said that I had not been persuaded about the proposed arrangements with News Limited and Australis (which would supply movie content) … In the Board paper of November 3 [when I was not a Board member] the first criteria for pay television partner selection was ‘strength in content creation, content distribution and packaging’. The paper added that News Limited’s strength was that as the ‘… world’s third largest producer, distributor and owner of films and television programming (Fox) could guarantee content availability’

On the basis of our belief that News Limited could supply content, I assume, the Heads of Agreement on 11 November (1994) was signed. My basic problem is understanding how such an agreement could be signed without being satisfied that News Limited could ‘guarantee content availability’.  Didn’t we check whether News could and would deliver?  Were we too trusting? [All movie film content, except Twentieth Century Fox, had been signed up by Optus or Australis.]

It seems to me that most of our problems have flowed from this flaw in the Heads of Agreement: News Limited’s failure to provide content on acceptable terms. Content is the primary issue, the rest is secondary. News Limited has clearly not delivered content and on 25 December at 3am!, News Limited ‘signed a Heads of Agreement with Australis without knowledge of Telstra, which secured the Australis programming (for the joint venture) on an exclusive basis for cable distribution’.  This Heads of Agreement was for 50 years! – since amended to 25 years.

As a result of News Limited’s failure to deliver on content as expected by Telstra, we are faced with a punitive arrangement with Australis which will deliver content ‘ … significantly more expensive than planned’. Further the agreement is for 25 years. One result of News Limited’s failure to deliver content is that Australis will reap a financial windfall, at the expense of the Foxtel joint venture. The increase in programming costs has clearly affected the business case which I find unconvincing. It was not discussed at our last meeting … “

There was also a generous marketing incentive payable to Foxtel by Telstra for each pay television connection. The logic of this was that Telstra’s telephone business would benefit from each pay television connection.

A bad deal, however, was only part of the problem as I saw it. The other was the political pressure that was being applied. The board was told by the managing director that ‘the Government wants us to do the deal with News Limited’, as I set out in the same letter to the chairman. …

Before a Board decision was made, the chairman, David Hoare, said that on such a critical issue there must be unanimous board support before the Foxtel joint venture would go ahead. When it came to the final decision, I said no, I wasn’t persuaded as a director that I could support the business case and I objected to what I regarded as political influence being brought to bear.

It is tempting for governments to try to bend government business enterprises to their party-political advantage. I learnt that is one of the responsibilities of boards – to try to stop that happening.

When I dissented, the chairman said that my opposition had vetoed the project. Perhaps he hoped to force me to change my mind. I said that I couldn’t. In further discussion some directors said that they thought it was unreasonable to require a unanimous decision. The Foxtel proposal was then agreed but there would be no suggestion in the board minutes that it was unanimously agreed. I sent the letter which I have referred to on March 1995 to the Chairman for the records of the company to explain my opposition…. Perhaps earlier in my career I would have kept my head down.

To clean up the books for the partial float, Telstra wrote off $818 million in its loss-making Broadband Network and Foxtel pay television business in 1996/97 after a loss of $155 million in 1995/96.  A loss of $166 million followed in 1997/98.

David Potts, in the Sun Herald on 27 July 1997, commented, ‘Telstra has been taken for a ride by Rupert Murdoch and taxpayers will foot the bill for what may add up to be the most scandalous deal every embarked on by a government authority … For the Keating Government to have allowed and maybe encouraged, for all we know, a taxpayer owned authority to do [this] secret deal … was straight out of a banana republic’.  Chanticleer in the Financial Review of 23 July 1997 described the Foxtel episode as ‘the largest strategic and financial disaster this country has ever seen’.

 

I recall Alan Ramsey writing at the time that after reading my account of political influence he felt like vomiting.

This political influence led on from a foothold for Murdoch to a dominating position in Foxtel. With so much now at stake in Foxtel it is not surprising that Murdoch and his loyal retainers are such bitter opponents of the NBN which potentially opens up the airways to many competitors for Foxtel. In advancing his business interest Murdoch relies much more on exploiting his political power than competition in the market. The Telstra board gave him a great leg up. I saw it at first hand.

 

Read more:

https://johnmenadue.com/how-murdoch-extracted-concessions-from-governments/

 

Meanwhile in Trump's caravan...

 

They used to be a match made in heaven.

A president that viewers wanted to watch, and a TV network with a big and attentive base.

But in the weeks since Donald Trump lost his re-election bid, his relationship with Fox News has fallen apart.

Since losing the election Mr Trump has tweeted that Fox, once a bastion of supportive coverage, is “as bad as CNN,” “pandering to the left” and that its “ratings have completely collapsed”.

Mr Trump turned away from the network after what he deemed unfavourable coverage on election day and has started heavily promoting a new network – the far-right One America News, known as OAN.

On Twitter, the outgoing president has been posting about the channel that is unashamedly pro-Trump, far-right, and has little journalistic credibility. He loves to share the network’s clips that claim he still has a way to win the election and get back into the White House.

On Saturday, he tweeted: “@FoxNews Weekend Daytime is not watchable. Switching over to @OANN!”

Tweet from @realDonaldTrump

Mr Trump has also encouraged viewers to switch to the MAGA-friendly Newsmax TV. Both TV networks purport to be legitimate news channels but peddle misinformation on voter fraud and the election outcome.

Since his loss, Newsmax has recorded growing numbers of viewers and its CEO, Christopher Ruddy, has been doing interviews on CNNCNBC, with the Daily Beast, the New Yorker and Variety to promote and defend the channel.

According to Bloomberg Intelligence, since Mr Trump lost the election Newsmax has seen an average of 370,000 nightly viewers – a 277 per cent boost. Meanwhile, Fox’s viewership has dropped by 29 per cent.

But OAN appears to be the current favourite – often spruiked on Mr Trump’s Twitter feed.

Launched in 2013, OAN predates the Trump presidency, but the network has passionately supported him from the start of his political pursuits.

In 2015, when many news organisations were treating Mr Trump’s campaign as a sideshow affair, OAN decided to play his rallies in full.

It was an instant ratings hit. The network even tweeted out a public apology when it missed one.

Tweet from @OANN

OAN is anti-immigration, pro-police and rejects climate science.

When the president claimed that hydroxychloroquine, a controversial and potentially dangerous drug, was a cure for the novel coronavirus, OAN reported it as true.

While the total viewership is unknown, the network reaches 35 million homes across the US, a fraction of the 90 million reached by Fox, CNN, MSNBC.

Trump News?

It has also been reported Mr Trump may be considering his own channel.

In November, Axios reported Mr Trump wants to start a subscription-based digital media outlet to “wreck” Fox News and steal its audience.

Many analysts think that is exactly what he is planning to do.

“Watching @FoxNews is almost as bad as watching Fake News @CNN. New alternatives are developing!” Mr Trump tweeted on Wednesday – leaving many to wonder if he was referring to his own channel.

Mr Trump would only need a handful of his base to watch his channel for it to be a success, US election analyst and Australian National University professor Wesley Widmaier previously told The New Daily. 

“The long and short of it is, yes, he could do it – the plan is certainly plausible,” Professor Widmaier said.

“The question is, ‘can Trump set up an oxygen tent to rival Fox? That’s an open question.”

 

Read more:

https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2021/01/02/donald-trump-fox-news-3/