One of the striking things about insider journalism is that people who are rightly sceptical of what politicians say on the record give credulous acceptance to things they are told off the record by the same politicians
Sadly, it is what journalists are taught not to do at university. I can't understand why the practice persists, perhaps pressure to pump out x number of words per day, or a short deadline to meet the needs of social media? But I do know, that when a journalist starts out, he or she, understands that it is something to be avoided.
My greatest fear is that it is a part of larger system of quid pro quo.
Albanese will find it personally very difficult to manage without a Lower House majority, I think. More than anyone else in the Parliament, he's stuck in a C20 ALP mindset of "fighting Tories", in the "Go Rabbitohs" sense of the term. Anyone outside that two-party contest is an illegitimate interloper.
Assuming Labor loses its majority, the party would be well-advised to replace him.
Yes, and I think those are the reasons to replace him, not just the simple fact of going into minority government. But I suspect the latter is what would drive it.
But replacing leaders has become so difficult and complex for the ALP. How will they do it without widespread member disenchantment? Or will the ALP membership wake up?
It seems unlikely a push will come for his replacement; we'd have to rely on him to change or stand down. Can't see either of those happening.
The exception is after an election loss, when there is an automatic ballot. It's unclear what would happen if Labor lost its majority, but still sought to stay in power.
Maybe JQ or TD could answer this question about changes to the PM by a party? If say a party decided it wanted to change PM, but they have a party rule that prohibits that unless certain circumstances are in place, how does that go with the constitution?
Thanks John, I was aware of that, but I didn’t think a party policy could be used legally to stop a change of PM on party rules. Thought it would be dismissed if challenged in court; that a party rule would be sort of viewed as a “convention”.
Other way round, I think. Party rules have a (complex) legal status, the existence of the PM is a convention. A party could, I think, decide to have a rotating leadership and give the leader a name like "Executive Officer for the Week", who would be a member of the Executive Council (this is in the Constitution) A member excluded from the rotation could take legal action but someone who felt the need for a PM could not
Funny that there was so much ‘no detail’ on the Voice, but they didn't seem concerned about the lack of detail in the Constitution. Btw, do you know what the HC’s position is on convention when it comes to how the Gov runs; are we beholden on MPs doing the right thing?
I can recommend The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb; about the importance of what we know BUT more importantly what we don't know... prediction, cognitive bias, and how the past does not teach us about the future (even though we think it does).
Increasingly uncertainty has become the new flavour of political discourse. The most articulate accounts of contemporary uncertainty discussions are the books Black Swan and Anti-fragile (by Nassim Nicholas Taleb ) To understand why this should be so we need to take a closer look at the dominant ontology that frames public policy. That is the ontology of certainty and the media remains rusted on to the idea that if we follow the evidence we will get the 'right' answer.
We should be welcoming the trend towards independent parliamentarians. They have no choice but to embrace uncertainty. We are facing an ecological crisis and if our species does not survive the ecological crisis, it will probably be due to our failure...to work out new ways to live with the earth, to rework ourselves...we will go onwards in a different mode of humanity, or not at all.
Of course we will make mistakes that is the reality of coping with uncertainty . Today we are in the throes of the fifth industrial revolution. The fifth industrial revolution is a fusion of technologies: artificial intelligence, biotechnology, the internet of things, robotics and renewable energy. It heralds a new wave of innovation transforming the way we live and work. Ideas such as sustainability, work-life balance, environmental awareness are central to the fifth industrial revolution. We do not know what future the fifth industrial revolution holds out for us. What we can confidently predict is that we need imaginative leadership that embraces uncertainty to enable us to shape that future.
Thanks, John. Agree particularly with your final point. Would only add that we need to cultivate that sort of leadership, institutionally, in how we vote, even in how do journalism. It won't just appear.
I agree. I have written a couple of pieces about this (both awaiting publication). Suffice to say that this is being recognized in a number of jurisdictions. For example in the UK they have developed what has come to be called 'flat pack democracy''ideally suited to their mode of governance. but we could pinch the concept and begin to apply it here. Bronwyn Kelly has established Australian Communities Futures Planning (https://www.austcfp.com.au/) which is well worth a look. In March The Fabians and the Don Dunstan Foundation launched the Don Dunstan Research Network which is designed to encourage Australians to recognize that Another World is Possible. (https://www.dunstan.org.au/events/ddrn-launch/) - one of the results of that evening is that we were contacted by individuals and organizations who had started similar actions. The only thing I would add is that we need to do more to cultivate the youth - ultimately they will need to take action.
1. (OhThankGod) that started out sounding like a eulogy for Margo, whom I found first via 'Canberra Babylon', and whom I watched accept the poison chalice of Fairfax's WebDiary, when Fairfax still thought it was somehow safer having her in the tent aiming out (but doing so in such a way that she was less likely to upset the Board's parliamentary friends);
2. I created a meme regarding Phil Coorey, 3 yrs ago next week. He wasn't the first 'yellow' (or, indeed, 'pink-slime') journalist I'd come across. I'm from Brisbane. I grew up with the CM. Anyway, the text of the meme read:
"In the body politic, Mr Coorey engages in a very specific role in the colon. Medically, Mr Coorey would be referred to as Amoebiasis.
"Phil Coorey is: human amoebic dysentery
and everything [deargodeverything!!] he writes is -
"exactly what you'd expect."
Blimey Charlies, that boy goes out of his way, with sycophantic nose ever searching the fundaments of the currently rich and powerful to take their sh_t and repackage it as perfume. Sadly, I no longer think that he is in the minority in the Australian commercial media (& ABC);
3. History is all those people, practices and circumstances that line up and parade in linear order, in a manner that could never be sold as fiction.
Hitler, as a 'for instance', did all manner of conniving, bombastic & murderous things in the inter-war period, but he did it in a Germany absolutely awash with publicly promoted methamphetamine use. I love history, but my first mental discipline was in environmental biology. Everything happens amidst the Brownian motion of everything else. History happens holistically. And, that pedestal erected, I shall continue with: there are many social parallels between early 20th century Germany and early 21st century America;
4. South African Njabulo Ndebele says: "Democracy breeds possibility: people’s horizons of what is thinkable and doable are stretched, and it is for that reason exciting, infuriating, punctuated by difficult, quarrelsome, ugly and beautiful moments."
And many people have been raised, generationally, in a social miasma that conditions them not to stretch, not to question, but to accept the status quo, often for a promised reward later. Politics and religion have walked hand in claw to promote this compliance [a callback to Germany & their pharmacological Märchenland]. The mental capacity for stretching, for seeking a better way, is further reduced when the people live in constant anxiety, eg. of Austerity, cost of living, immigration, lack of housing, etc - all social whips cracked, in no coincidence whatsoever, by Australia's commercial media (& the ABC).
People, more often than not, have to be able to breathe before they can think, and the current lords & ladies of the status quo* do not want the Untermenschen thinking.
(* via the journalist cadre** of their Sturmabteilung)
(** it might be assumed that I have no good opinion of Australia's journalism industry - I don't.)
"People, more often than not, have to be able to breathe before they can think, and the current lords & ladies of the status quo* do not want the Untermenschen thinking.”
Nigel, I’ve always seen that a method of profit control, but not as a deliberate method for political control, but now having read it it’s so bleedingly obvious, it’s embarrassing!
You might enjoy this too: just an interesting, non-specialists take on using the apps. Accords with my own experiences so maybe that's why it grabbed me.
In my view one of the many virtues of a deliberative Parliament is that it forces the governing party to formulate policies and arguments that are convincing in policy terms to people who can't simply be pulled into line through the infamous mechanisms of caucus within caucus within caucus within caucus that secure obedience to the groupthink du jour of the Politburo around the party leader and their closest associates. This, of course, also helps to politically empower diverse voices within the governing party who are not among the groupthinkers.
Yes, I think it is one of the only ways of breaking those habits. Though note John Quiggin's comment above the need for leadership that doesn't just dig in against such influence.
In a word, brilliant insight, one filled with hope and freedom for the unknown to unfold and make itself known. In other words a beautiful blend of humility and optimism with due regard that we are not controllers of the Universe.
Listening to news podcasts by the New York Times, Washington Post ect, it's interesting to hear how many times their top journalists quite openly say "I don't know..." without any apparent fear of judgment from their colleagues, bosses or audience. It's a sharp contrast to the newsroom culture that has developed here where to admit not knowing is seen as a failure, rather than a commitment to facts.
Hahaha. Well my current list (where I am mostly hoovering the US election coverage) is Post Reports (Washington Post), The Daily (NY Times), Today Explained (Vox) and - locally - 7am and If You're Listening. We are spoilt for choice!
Terrific article TD. I'm always reluctant to recommend articles for people to follow up as we've all got enough on our plates already.........................but, this chap: Rory Stewart, the British ex-Tory MP & minister who disillusioned with the 'system' quit politics in 2019. Anyways I listened to a series of his BBC podcasts on a drive back from Canberra to Brisbane: Ignorance & Knowledge. The episodes had me nodding profusely in agreement & sit perfectly with your sentence: “I don’t know,” Margo says. “I don’t know.” The one on 'Ignorance in Politics' is cogent & there is referencing the concept 'citizen assemblies'. All this is to say that I'll champion ideas that challenge the status quo way of doing politics here in Australia & I would urge you to keep writing so we can get fresh ideas out & circulating. Thanks for your efforts. They're appreciated.
Ha. Sorry I missed your comments re Stewart in earlier posts. I did see he's on a speaking tour of Australia later in year, but I found the price of a seat a little OTT.
"It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so. “ – Mark Twain.
Nice!
I was thinking of this too !
I was thinking "Insiders" well before getting to that point in the pst
Telegraphing my punches!
More like a long-married couple who can complete each others' sentences.
😂
One of the striking things about insider journalism is that people who are rightly sceptical of what politicians say on the record give credulous acceptance to things they are told off the record by the same politicians
That would be hilarious if it weren't so dangerous.
Sadly, it is what journalists are taught not to do at university. I can't understand why the practice persists, perhaps pressure to pump out x number of words per day, or a short deadline to meet the needs of social media? But I do know, that when a journalist starts out, he or she, understands that it is something to be avoided.
My greatest fear is that it is a part of larger system of quid pro quo.
Albanese will find it personally very difficult to manage without a Lower House majority, I think. More than anyone else in the Parliament, he's stuck in a C20 ALP mindset of "fighting Tories", in the "Go Rabbitohs" sense of the term. Anyone outside that two-party contest is an illegitimate interloper.
Assuming Labor loses its majority, the party would be well-advised to replace him.
Yes, and I think those are the reasons to replace him, not just the simple fact of going into minority government. But I suspect the latter is what would drive it.
But replacing leaders has become so difficult and complex for the ALP. How will they do it without widespread member disenchantment? Or will the ALP membership wake up?
It seems unlikely a push will come for his replacement; we'd have to rely on him to change or stand down. Can't see either of those happening.
The exception is after an election loss, when there is an automatic ballot. It's unclear what would happen if Labor lost its majority, but still sought to stay in power.
Maybe JQ or TD could answer this question about changes to the PM by a party? If say a party decided it wanted to change PM, but they have a party rule that prohibits that unless certain circumstances are in place, how does that go with the constitution?
The office of Prime Minister appears nowhere in the Australian Constitution, even though the founders assumed there would be one.
Thanks John, I was aware of that, but I didn’t think a party policy could be used legally to stop a change of PM on party rules. Thought it would be dismissed if challenged in court; that a party rule would be sort of viewed as a “convention”.
Other way round, I think. Party rules have a (complex) legal status, the existence of the PM is a convention. A party could, I think, decide to have a rotating leadership and give the leader a name like "Executive Officer for the Week", who would be a member of the Executive Council (this is in the Constitution) A member excluded from the rotation could take legal action but someone who felt the need for a PM could not
Thanks John.
Funny that there was so much ‘no detail’ on the Voice, but they didn't seem concerned about the lack of detail in the Constitution. Btw, do you know what the HC’s position is on convention when it comes to how the Gov runs; are we beholden on MPs doing the right thing?
HC is absurdly literalist. More likely to decide that having a PM is unconstitutional than that is required.
I can recommend The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb; about the importance of what we know BUT more importantly what we don't know... prediction, cognitive bias, and how the past does not teach us about the future (even though we think it does).
It has been on my list forever but I have never got to it. Maybe now is the time (as soon as finish *one more* book on Weimar/Hitler!)
Increasingly uncertainty has become the new flavour of political discourse. The most articulate accounts of contemporary uncertainty discussions are the books Black Swan and Anti-fragile (by Nassim Nicholas Taleb ) To understand why this should be so we need to take a closer look at the dominant ontology that frames public policy. That is the ontology of certainty and the media remains rusted on to the idea that if we follow the evidence we will get the 'right' answer.
We should be welcoming the trend towards independent parliamentarians. They have no choice but to embrace uncertainty. We are facing an ecological crisis and if our species does not survive the ecological crisis, it will probably be due to our failure...to work out new ways to live with the earth, to rework ourselves...we will go onwards in a different mode of humanity, or not at all.
Of course we will make mistakes that is the reality of coping with uncertainty . Today we are in the throes of the fifth industrial revolution. The fifth industrial revolution is a fusion of technologies: artificial intelligence, biotechnology, the internet of things, robotics and renewable energy. It heralds a new wave of innovation transforming the way we live and work. Ideas such as sustainability, work-life balance, environmental awareness are central to the fifth industrial revolution. We do not know what future the fifth industrial revolution holds out for us. What we can confidently predict is that we need imaginative leadership that embraces uncertainty to enable us to shape that future.
Thanks, John. Agree particularly with your final point. Would only add that we need to cultivate that sort of leadership, institutionally, in how we vote, even in how do journalism. It won't just appear.
I agree. I have written a couple of pieces about this (both awaiting publication). Suffice to say that this is being recognized in a number of jurisdictions. For example in the UK they have developed what has come to be called 'flat pack democracy''ideally suited to their mode of governance. but we could pinch the concept and begin to apply it here. Bronwyn Kelly has established Australian Communities Futures Planning (https://www.austcfp.com.au/) which is well worth a look. In March The Fabians and the Don Dunstan Foundation launched the Don Dunstan Research Network which is designed to encourage Australians to recognize that Another World is Possible. (https://www.dunstan.org.au/events/ddrn-launch/) - one of the results of that evening is that we were contacted by individuals and organizations who had started similar actions. The only thing I would add is that we need to do more to cultivate the youth - ultimately they will need to take action.
1. (OhThankGod) that started out sounding like a eulogy for Margo, whom I found first via 'Canberra Babylon', and whom I watched accept the poison chalice of Fairfax's WebDiary, when Fairfax still thought it was somehow safer having her in the tent aiming out (but doing so in such a way that she was less likely to upset the Board's parliamentary friends);
2. I created a meme regarding Phil Coorey, 3 yrs ago next week. He wasn't the first 'yellow' (or, indeed, 'pink-slime') journalist I'd come across. I'm from Brisbane. I grew up with the CM. Anyway, the text of the meme read:
"In the body politic, Mr Coorey engages in a very specific role in the colon. Medically, Mr Coorey would be referred to as Amoebiasis.
"Phil Coorey is: human amoebic dysentery
and everything [deargodeverything!!] he writes is -
"exactly what you'd expect."
Blimey Charlies, that boy goes out of his way, with sycophantic nose ever searching the fundaments of the currently rich and powerful to take their sh_t and repackage it as perfume. Sadly, I no longer think that he is in the minority in the Australian commercial media (& ABC);
3. History is all those people, practices and circumstances that line up and parade in linear order, in a manner that could never be sold as fiction.
Hitler, as a 'for instance', did all manner of conniving, bombastic & murderous things in the inter-war period, but he did it in a Germany absolutely awash with publicly promoted methamphetamine use. I love history, but my first mental discipline was in environmental biology. Everything happens amidst the Brownian motion of everything else. History happens holistically. And, that pedestal erected, I shall continue with: there are many social parallels between early 20th century Germany and early 21st century America;
4. South African Njabulo Ndebele says: "Democracy breeds possibility: people’s horizons of what is thinkable and doable are stretched, and it is for that reason exciting, infuriating, punctuated by difficult, quarrelsome, ugly and beautiful moments."
And many people have been raised, generationally, in a social miasma that conditions them not to stretch, not to question, but to accept the status quo, often for a promised reward later. Politics and religion have walked hand in claw to promote this compliance [a callback to Germany & their pharmacological Märchenland]. The mental capacity for stretching, for seeking a better way, is further reduced when the people live in constant anxiety, eg. of Austerity, cost of living, immigration, lack of housing, etc - all social whips cracked, in no coincidence whatsoever, by Australia's commercial media (& the ABC).
People, more often than not, have to be able to breathe before they can think, and the current lords & ladies of the status quo* do not want the Untermenschen thinking.
(* via the journalist cadre** of their Sturmabteilung)
(** it might be assumed that I have no good opinion of Australia's journalism industry - I don't.)
"People, more often than not, have to be able to breathe before they can think, and the current lords & ladies of the status quo* do not want the Untermenschen thinking.”
Nigel, I’ve always seen that a method of profit control, but not as a deliberate method for political control, but now having read it it’s so bleedingly obvious, it’s embarrassing!
I've downloaded (but so far read only the abstract) a paper which may allay the concerns about AI raised in the paper you referenced in footnote 4.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07566-y
Cool, thanks, Dave.
You might enjoy this too: just an interesting, non-specialists take on using the apps. Accords with my own experiences so maybe that's why it grabbed me.
https://halcrawford.substack.com/p/learning-to-become-useful
Yes, that was interesting. Thanks.
You might also enjoy this. https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/i-will-fucking-piledrive-you-if-you-mention-ai-again/
In my view one of the many virtues of a deliberative Parliament is that it forces the governing party to formulate policies and arguments that are convincing in policy terms to people who can't simply be pulled into line through the infamous mechanisms of caucus within caucus within caucus within caucus that secure obedience to the groupthink du jour of the Politburo around the party leader and their closest associates. This, of course, also helps to politically empower diverse voices within the governing party who are not among the groupthinkers.
Yes, I think it is one of the only ways of breaking those habits. Though note John Quiggin's comment above the need for leadership that doesn't just dig in against such influence.
In a word, brilliant insight, one filled with hope and freedom for the unknown to unfold and make itself known. In other words a beautiful blend of humility and optimism with due regard that we are not controllers of the Universe.
Listening to news podcasts by the New York Times, Washington Post ect, it's interesting to hear how many times their top journalists quite openly say "I don't know..." without any apparent fear of judgment from their colleagues, bosses or audience. It's a sharp contrast to the newsroom culture that has developed here where to admit not knowing is seen as a failure, rather than a commitment to facts.
Be interested to know what podcasts like that you recommend. I need to update my game.
Hahaha. Well my current list (where I am mostly hoovering the US election coverage) is Post Reports (Washington Post), The Daily (NY Times), Today Explained (Vox) and - locally - 7am and If You're Listening. We are spoilt for choice!
Thanks!
Terrific article TD. I'm always reluctant to recommend articles for people to follow up as we've all got enough on our plates already.........................but, this chap: Rory Stewart, the British ex-Tory MP & minister who disillusioned with the 'system' quit politics in 2019. Anyways I listened to a series of his BBC podcasts on a drive back from Canberra to Brisbane: Ignorance & Knowledge. The episodes had me nodding profusely in agreement & sit perfectly with your sentence: “I don’t know,” Margo says. “I don’t know.” The one on 'Ignorance in Politics' is cogent & there is referencing the concept 'citizen assemblies'. All this is to say that I'll champion ideas that challenge the status quo way of doing politics here in Australia & I would urge you to keep writing so we can get fresh ideas out & circulating. Thanks for your efforts. They're appreciated.
Yes, I've been interested in Stewart since reading his memoir (see some earlier posts). I haven't heard these podcasts though. Lucky I don't sleep!
Ha. Sorry I missed your comments re Stewart in earlier posts. I did see he's on a speaking tour of Australia later in year, but I found the price of a seat a little OTT.
I was amazed at how much he's charging. Too rich for me.