Is The Oz Admitting Its Mistake?

In its editorial 'Reality Bites The Psychotic Left' of June 11th this year The Australian launched a scathing attack on Australia's "Left". Of particular focus were the economist Clive Hamilton and intellectual Robert Manne (the last of which the paper in question is quite obsessed with). The editorial had this to say about 'Silencing Dissent', a book edited by Hamilton and Sarah Maddison and introduced by Manne:

'This is the institute after all that believes in a vast corporate conspiracy to stall action on climate change, accuses David Jones and Myers of "corporate pedophilia" and claims that Australia is becoming an increasingly authoritarian state where dissidents are silenced.'

'This last thesis, expounded at length in Silencing Dissent published earlier this year, would seem difficult to sustain at a time when the marketplace of ideas has never been so crowded. In newspaper opinion sections and magazines and on radio and televisions and increasingly online, Australians are engaged in intelligent conversation about the issues of the day great and small. Blogs and internet chat rooms have given everyone a seat at the debating table. Technology has lowered the barriers to publishing. A host of new periodicals online and in print including The Monthly, New Matilda and The Australian's own Australian Literary Review are providing new platforms for discussion while established journals such as Quadrant and the Griffith Review are reaching new readers and providing a home for new writers.'

As I've argued before, this is a dishonest distortion of the main thesis of 'Silencing Dissent'. The book doesn't ever try to claim that people aren't allowed to express their opinions publicly, the main point of the book is that the Government has shown contempt for public debate by vigorously prosecuting whistleblowers, plugging leaks and politicising the public service and all this without a word of objection from its barrackers, until now that is.

A coalition of concerned media companies began a campaign a while back called 'Australia's Right To Know', of which News Ltd is a key supporter, and they commissioned a report to look into the state of today's freedom of information laws, the prognosis sounds familiar:

'The report's findings show how little dissent the federal Government is willing to tolerate when it comes to the unauthorised disclosure of information'

What's that you say!?

'In each of these cases, the disclosure of the information caused no damage except political embarrassment for the Government'

'Moss accuses the federal Government of harbouring a cold and calculating attitude to whistleblowers, criticising its "dogged refusal"to provide them with legal protection and a "relentless determination to track them down"'

Moss' comments appear to me as though she is actually reading straight from the pages of 'Silencing Dissent', these are two of its core criticisms after all. So where does this put The Australian's editorial position after lambasting Hamilton, Maddison and Manne for daring to say such things not 6 months earlier?

'News Limited, publisher of The Australian, long ago grew weary of the erosion of press freedom and appealed all the way to the High Court for the right to know. It lost the battle, but still fights the war. In May last year, a coalition of media organisations known as "Right to Know" -- led by News Limited and including Fairfax Media, FreeTV Australia, commercial radio, ABC, SBS, Sky News, ASTRA, West Australian Newspapers, the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, AAP and APN News and Media -- funded an independent audit into media freedom.'

'The report, launched by News Limited chairman and chief executive John Hartigan yesterday, finds that journalists are struggling to gain access to court documents for no apparent reason. Sometimes, nobody in the court has any idea who is allowed access to what, and all tend to err on the side of secrecy. There is too little protection for whistleblowers, and none at all for journalists such as Michael Harvey and Gerard McManus, also of the Herald Sun, who today have criminal convictions because they refused to reveal the source of a story about planned cuts to veterans' benefits.'

'If you, as a reader, care at all for the exhausted, crumbling pillar of democracy that is a free press, demand at this election that both parties breathe life into the Freedom of Information legislation, protect whistleblowers, provide the media with a shield law so journalists can protect their sources, and open the courts to scrutiny.'

It doesn't acknowledge it and proceeds to paint itself as a pioneer on these issues. Are they admitting a mistake? Hell no!