9. Fact Checking

Hi, I’m Greg and I want to grumble about facts. Well, actually about journalism and facts.

During the Federal election there were at least 3 Fact Checking websites set up to check the factual accuracy of things politicians say. The ABC had a staff of about 10 people in their “Fact Checking” unit, while the US-based “PolitiFact” set up a branch in Australia to keep an eye on our pollies' claims. This added to Crickey.com who was running a regular fact checking service, “Get Fact”.

Now don’t get me wrong. Independent fact checking and calling our politicians to account is a good thing. By why is it needed? Isn’t that what journalists are supposed to do as their day job?

Apparently not. Tight news cycles and inexperienced journalists mean that most of the political news coverage we get is he-said/she-said competing claims with no analysis and no way the public can work out what the truth is. Journalists could check with independent experts and either present those views, or inform themselves and make an assessment of the facts and issues and then tell us the story. But instead what we often get is simply a packaging of sound-bytes from political leaders. The “news story” is not about the issue, but what one person said about what the other person said about the issue.

And then there is the issue of balance. Any journalist actually trying to do an assessment of issues and present facts about who is right or wrong on a particular issue will inevitably be the subject of a complaint of bias. This is particularly the case if they work for the ABC – not because the ABC is biased, it is just easier to complain about. And so, we get an even more extreme version of political debate where if one view is put, “balance” requires that the opposite view be put. The views may be bizarre, offensive or incredible, and such balance may make shows like Q&A unwatchable, but it is balanced – apparently! Well, I’m sorry, the earth is round, climate change is real, and you can’t live properly on a $35 a day Newstart Allowance – and I don’t need to hear from someone providing me “balance” on this.

So, good luck to the fact checkers checking the facts that the journalist fact checkers don’t check. And long live community radio where you can actually discuss issues.

I am Greg, and I am grumbling.

This Grumble can be heard online or by podcast at https://radio.adelaide.edu.au/gregs-grumbles-9/ 

First Broadcast:1 October 2013

6. The Final Election Grumble - How to Vote Cards

Hi, I’m Greg and I want to grumble about the election. Yes, I know it is over, but I want one more grumble – not just because I am like that, but because even as we speak millions of pieces of paper with candidates faces and how-to-vote recommendations are on their way to be pulped, or worse, to go to landfill.

Thousands of people all over the country spent hours and hours on polling booths handing the brightly coloured advertisements to voters, almost all of whom didn’t want to know or didn’t care. Running the gauntlet of the line of how-to-vote spruikers is part of our electoral tradition, but it is a pretty wasteful one. Think of all the trees, bleaching chemicals and toxic inks that went into the leaflets whose life-span is a nano-second in environmental time. And think of all the good community work that could have been done by that army of volunteers if they had been channelled into something more useful.

Now don’t get me wrong. As long as one party does it, all the parties need to hand out how-to-vote cards, and I confess I was one of that army of volunteers spreading the paper trail.

Yet I find it a profoundly depressing experience. Partly this is because of the ignorance and apathy of so many voters, and partly, to hand out how-to-vote cards you have to believe that someone will vote for your candidate on the basis of the banal advertisement, the false smile or simplistic slogan you have given them.

How come our system of government, one of the most successful democracies in the world, has so alienated people that they feel they have no stake or interest in who governs us?

The issues here are huge and complex, but I continue to dream of a system of democracy which is more than a vote once every 3 years – a system which engages people and where real decisions that affect people are made in the community and not in distant government forums or corporate board rooms. But until then, I get stuck spending election day handing out how-to-vote cards.

I am Greg and I am grumbling.

This Grumble can be heard online or by podcast at https://radio.adelaide.edu.au/gregs-grumbles-6/
First Broadcast: 10 September 2013 

5. Election Debate

Hi, I’m Greg and I want to grumble about the state of the election debate, in particular about the contribution of leading journalist, Ross Gittins, the Economics Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald.

Last week he published a column claiming that there is not much difference between the two major parties in terms of economic management credentials, but there is in fact a big difference in relation to who wins and loses from their policies. He pointed out a whole range of policies like superannuation, the abolition of the mining tax, paid parental leave and the fringe benefits tax treatment of company vehicles where Tony Abbott’s policies will disproportionately benefit those who are better off. And then there are policies like the plan to abolish the twice yearly supplement to the pitifully small Newstart unemployment allowance which take directly from the poor.

But Gittins also savaged Labor which refuses to talk about inequality and which, to its unforgivable shame, has repeatedly refused to increase the poverty level-rate of Newstart.

Taken together, he says there is class warfare going on and the rich class is winning.

Now you may be thinking that whether one agrees with his conclusions or not, Gittens has given us an important analysis of policies. So why am I grumbling? Well, I am grumbling because of what it says about the political debate and how far we have drifted. What does it say about the policies at play in this election when the Economics Editor of one of the bastions of the establishment media is driven to warn us of inequality and impact of the policies on the poor!

Still, if Ross Gittens wants to put it out there, I say yep, let’s vote for a fairer share of wealth. And more than that, let’s vote for justice, for the environment and all the things that are important. Let’s vote for community and for compassion, and not for the purveyors (of any political colour) of so-called “tough love”, or of greed and economic self-interest.

As the great English songwriter Billy Bragg put it many years ago, vote not for the iron fist but for the helping hand.

We’ll see what happens on Saturday, but until then, I am Greg and I am grumbling.

This Grumble can be heard or downloaded at https://radio.adelaide.edu.au/gregs-grumbles-5/

First Broadcast: 3 September 2013

3. Election Preferences

Hi, I’m Greg and I want to grumble about election preferences. Now preferences are a good thing – having your vote still count if your first choice candidate does not get elected gives you a much better say in the election and gives us all a much more representative government.

However, the preference system needs to be open and accountable, especially in the Senate. Unlike in your local seat where you direct your preferences, in the Senate the parties direct the preferences in the vast majority of case – those where votes are cast above-the-line.

Personally, I am a fan of the Senate and the proportional representation system which gives a broader range of voices in the parliament. I think that it is vital we have this breadth of views to have accountability and close scrutiny of legislation. Unfortunately though, the election process is so complicated that voting and counting is far from transparent and the results can be a lottery. I am not going to grumble about that today, but I do want to grumble about parties whose preference deals undermine what they stand for, or mislead voters or make voting on principle or policy difficult.

In the South Australian Senate race there are the usual assortment of parties on the right preferencing eachother, and those votes will probably eventually find their way to the Liberals. And there are the competing groups of leftish or social-issue candidates whose preferences will flow to the Greens or Labor. That is fine and relatively transparent. My grumble is about some other parties.

Do the warm fuzzy supporters of the Animal Justice Party, the Sex Party or the Hemp Party know that their preferences will go to the climate sceptics before they go to parties and candidates who have moved legislation in support of their causes? And will the voters for the Australian Christians know that they will be preferencing the climate sceptics ahead of other nominally Christian parties like Family First and the DLP. Curiously, the Australian Independents are preferencing a political party (Family First) before any other independents, and the Socialist Equality Party is preferencing all the major parties equally!

And what do we make of Senator Nick Xenophon’s decision to split his preferences between the Liberal and Labor Parties. He is most famous as the no-pokies MP, but the Liberal Party never supported poker machine reform and the Labor Party tore up the pokie reform agreement in the last parliament. So why did Senator Xenophon preference these parties above the Greens who, like him, have campaigned for good reforms like mandatory pre-commitment and one-dollar bet limits on pokies? Where does that leave those who care about the harm caused by gambling in our community as voting above the line becomes difficult and contradictory.

Is it really too much to ask that political parties make preference decisions based on policy and principles, so that those who want to vote above the line can be confident that their vote won’t end up somewhere they don’t want it to go?      I am Greg, and I am grumbling.

This Grumble can be heard or downloaded at https://radio.adelaide.edu.au/gregs-grumbles-3/
First Broadcast: 20 August 2013

2. Election Posters

Hi, I’m Greg and I want to grumble about the election. No, I am not going to grumble about the blandness of Sunday night’s Presidential debate where the man with the blue tie and the man with the red tie seemed incapable of answering questions in any detail or without abusing the other tie. I am not going to go there.

I want to grumble about the visual pollution of those core flute election posters which an army of party volunteers put on stobie poles and fences the moment the election is called. The posters are a product of PR firms who are paid a small fortune to get the magic mix of colour, font and image, and members who have no real say on anything important in their centralised and media driven parties compete to put them up in the most visible locations – or least above the other candidates’ posters. Such is the local electoral contest.

But what do these election posters really tell us? The Liberal and Labor posters tell us nothing other than the name of their local candidate. But if we are to elect these people to represent our local community, surely we need to know more about them than simply whether they play for the blue team or the red team?

Lacking the brand power of the major parties, the smaller players have slogans on their posters. The Greens urge us to vote Green if we care, the Christians will save our nation, and Family First has “strong values”. But I am not sure what I should care about, what the threat to the nation is, or what values are strong.

And so we are left with the smiling visages of politicians looking down at us from light poles all over Adelaide. Presumably the posters are supposed to reference other political propaganda or remind us of candidates we have seen or heard elsewhere, or is it that we might just vote for someone because of the way they look?

I want to see election posters that talk about addressing homelessness and housing stress, about raising income support payments to the poorest people in society and funding services to vulnerable and disadvantaged people – and about using taxes and government policy to make a fairer society. When I see those posters, I will know there is a real election contest.

But until then, I am Greg, and I am grumbling.

This Grumble can be heard or downloaded at: https://radio.adelaide.edu.au/gregs-grumbles-2/
First Published: 13 August 2013

1. Taxes

Hi, I’m Greg and I want to grumble about taxes. I know everyone grumbles and about taxes, and nobody wants to pay them, but I want to grumble about people not paying tax. We are about to have 5 weeks of an election campaign with politicians mostly promising to cut or abandon taxes.

But taxes are important. They pay for our schools, universities and hospitals, for our roads, trains and buses, for our police and our public spaces, for environmental protection and for sports and big public events. And dare I say it, they pay for defence and border protection! Taxes also pay for social services for those in need, and they pay for pensions and for a safety net for those who can’t support themselves. In short, taxes underpin the social fabric of our society.

But you would not think that listening to the public debate. Just look at what happened recently when the government moved to close a rort in the Fringe Benefits Tax. Outcry. It was simple proposition – that people should not get a tax benefit by having a car paid for by their employer. Everyone else has to earn the dollars, pay their tax on that income and then buy a car. But some people got a car as part of a salary package, and that was counted mostly as a work vehicle and not as part of their income. And now, oh my god, they have to keep a log book if they want to claim it as a work vehicle, or pay tax the same as everyone else as part of their income. Howls of protest from the parasite industry that has been built around this rort. Unfair, the end of the car industry and civilisation as we know it!

Please.

But there will be more of this stuff during the election. So what I want is every time a politician talks about cutting taxes, I want them to name the service they will cut, the homeless or domestic violence shelter that will shut, the species that will die, the train that won’t run or the section of road that won’t be repaired, or the social security payment which will fall further behind the cost of living. And then we can have a real grumble about taxes.

This Grumble can be heard or downloaded at: https://radio.adelaide.edu.au/gregs-grumbles/
First Published: 6 August 2013