The Rise of the Fifth Estate–excerpt

My book, The Rise of the Fifth Estate is released tomorrow. It is available in ebook form in various formats.

Here is a bit of a taste – an excerpt from the first chapter.

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Chapter One: Thrills and Spills

 

For as long as the media have had any say in how the news is to be provided to the public, journalists within its warm and self-protecting bosom have adopted the role of gatekeepers.

This is never more the case than when it comes to the Canberra press gallery. Imagine what it is like to be one of those few — well, actually, the not-so-few. The email list of the federal parliamentary press gallery runs to nine pages, and contains nearly three hundred names (The Australian has eighteen by itself, and the ABC’s names run for over two pages). But when you get down to it, the number of them who get by-lines, whose faces appear on television, and whose voices broadcast the news of the day, are few and privileged.

Oh, to be one of those few. Imagine the power — to be able to decide what to write, the angle, the slant, the lead. To be able to head off for dinner in Kingston or Manuka with some minister — either government or shadow — for a little off -the-record briefing (because we can safely assume that not all of those un-named ‘government sources’ are made up). Imagine being one of those who sit in the parliamentary gallery, overlooking the elected and deciding their fates. Oh, mighty Fourth Estate! Gatekeepers of the
news; provider of opinions for us all!

And should you disagree with a particular opinion or with the presentation of the news, send an email, or get hold of pen and paper, and write a letter to the editor — and see the wonders of free speech and freedom of the press combined (ignoring the fact that the media is the gatekeeper of even the public’s views of the media).

Back in 2007, in the run-up to the November election, the world of political blogs in Australia was beginning to disrupt this nice, century-old tradition. The ‘old media’ — The Australian, most particularly — didn’t take it particularly well. This was odd, not only because it was strange that a paper that held itself up as the leading newspaper of the country should care what a few ‘amateurs’ might think, but because at the time The Australian had one of its best journalists doing great work as a blogger.

The late Matt Price would have been perfect for the Twittersphere. A love of politics and sport, and the ability to mesh both with popular-culture references — such as when he compared the voting publics’ declining attraction to John Howard with Price’s own inexplicable indifference to the band REM — along with an ability to see both sides of a debate, and also to find humour in all things, would have seen Price as assuredly the dominant Australian political journalist on Twitter.

In 2007, Price’s output on The Australian was also the only kind of writing that deserved the name of a ‘blog’ being posted on a mainstream-media website by a journalist. Sure, by this time, Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt had blogs running on The Daily Telegraph and the Herald Sun websites, but Price’s blog was secondary to his work as a journalist. On news.com.au, Tim Dunlop was showing everybody how it should be done, as he spent long hours responding to comments, guiding the debate, providing updates and links, and moderating the comments.

Dunlop, however, was a blogger from way back, and was an anomaly among the authors of new-fangled ‘blogs’ that News Limited websites were trying to fashion. While the newspapers would occasionally fi re shots at the blogosphere, and journalists would obviously read the blogs — especially when their own name was mentioned — the interaction between the public and the gatekeepers remained as it ever had been. This was a state of media stasis that, a mere five years later, seems quaint. A look back over recent years shows the great changes that have occurred in the way that political events are reported.

On 11 September 2007, news came through from Canberra of a possible leadership spill within the Liberal Party. In the morning, Sky News ran a story that Malcolm Turnbull and Alexander Downer were withdrawing their support for John Howard. Both Tim Dunlop and Andrew Bolt were onto the story quickly on their respective blogs. Bolt ran with ‘Downer, Turnbull give up on Howard’; Dunlop, with ‘The last days of chez Howard?’ But the best place for readers to find answers to their questions was from Matt Price, who was also covering the story on his blog with the tantalising opening stanza of ‘Something is on in Parliament House’.

What we saw this day would not be the end of the Howard prime ministership, but it was the start of social media breaking down the gate-kept world of Australian politics. Throughout the day, Price provided updates of events taking place:

On the way out of questions, Downer walked past a bunch of journalists and dismissed all this as much ado about nothing, declared nothign [sic] would happen with the leadership, and predicted we’d all get sick of idle speculation over the next six weeks or so.

Yes, even the odd typo would get through — something that bloggers and Twitter users know happens, and that only the most miserable of pedants worry about. The social-media space is fast and messy, and is not the environment for as perfect a news article as one that has passed under the watch of a vigilant subeditor (back when sub-editors were employed directly and were valued).

However, Price was doing more than just providing updates; he was also responding to comments and questions from his readers. During the day he responded fourteen times to readers’ comments.

Some of these involved his calming down the hopes of lefty readers:

LukeH Tue 11 Sep 07 (10.45am) looks and smells like D-Day has arrived for the PM. baseball bats ready?! present arms!

Matt Price Tue 11 Sep 07 (12.18pm) Not so sure, Luke. Howard will need to be blasted out.

Or the delusions of the right:

deadcato Tue 11 Sep 07 (11.35am) Matt, a hypothetical: Costello’s unelectable, Howard’s gone, Turnbull hasn’t had much cut-through despite being fairly high- profile: what are the chances of a genuinely fresh face being vaulted in? I’m thinking Julie Bishop- two months to tart her up, election in January?

Matt Price Tue 11 Sep 07 (12.29pm) You’re dreaming, Deadcato.

He also gave insights into how the system works, and how journalists are never passive agents during a leadership spill:

Jane Tue 11 Sep 07 (11.42am) Is this a case of the Canberra press gallery getting too excited or is it going to be one of those historic days in Federal politics?? I guess we’ll just have to stay online (with Sky news on in the background) to see what happens …

Matt Price Tue 11 Sep 07 (12.33pm) Let’s be clear about this, Jane. When leadership battles are on, MPs use the media to pressurise rivals and send messages to colleagues. I don’t believe David Speers is inventing his story on Sky — clearly, senior Libs are attempting to force JWH to quit.

And then a final summing-up:

nomad3 Tue 11 Sep 07 (01.23pm) Matt, someone asked you a question earlier ... please respond … have you ever seen anything like this this close to an election … whats your take ? you think today is the day?

Matt Price Tue 11 Sep 07 (01.31pm) We’re in new territory, Nomad. Right now it seems Howard will hang in, but who one earth knows?

Over on Andrew Bolt’s blog, predictions were being made:

UPDATE 2: .... Costello isn’t stirring any of this, but is ready to lead. He’ll be prime minister tomorrow

And Matt Price was being used as a primary source:

UPDATE 4: No confirmation from Matt Price, but a sense of end of empire …

This was the blogosphere come to the mainstream media — blogs referencing other blogs, readers discussing events with each other, and it all being done in a fluid and (in the case of Bolt’s prediction) messy way.

There is often a messiness to blogs that is tough for the traditional media to accept (except when they make similar errors). But while it is easy to go in hard on Bolt’s error of foresight, it is clear that he was expressing his gut reaction. On some occasions (such as, much later, when he speculated wrongly about the religion and motives of Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik), this can be unwise, and can lead to false conclusions being made that become fact in the minds of trusting readers. But in the case of the machinations of political parties, Bolt’s readers were after his insights and hunches — and they knew they were just that. No one was thinking it was fact that Costello would be prime minister on 12 September.

Such discussions were not new to the blogging world, but what made this day unique was the presence of Matt Price inside the walls — responding directly to readers, and not filtering them through his editor or the editor of the letters pages.

It was an indicator of where the media would be going, because it was where consumers were demanding the media go. Write a letter to the editor? Why on earth would you bother to do that, when you could leave a comment on a blog of the journalist who wrote the very piece about which you wished to comment? While Price’s responses to his readers showed the way, they were still just a taste of what could be. His fourteen responses were written between 12.17 and 1.31pm. Most of them were in reply to comments written at least an hour earlier.

The nature of the moderation policy for blogs on media websites reduces the ability of the blogger/journalist to provide quick responses, and means that there is next to no chance for there to be quick dialogue between the commenters. Those blogs in September 2007 had brought the interaction between readers and journalists closer than ever before, but real-time responsiveness was still beyond reach. Readers could call out their comments, and know that the journalist would hear them, but the distance between producer and consumer was still there, and it could be measured by the lapse in time between query and response.

The cheek-by-jowl closeness of Twitter was yet to arrive.

Even by the time the leadership of a political party next became the subject of urgent political discourse, little had changed in the social-media landscape of Australian politics. On 15 September 2008, when Malcolm Turnbull challenged Brendan Nelson, none of the journalists in the Canberra press gallery had yet joined Twitter.

There were a few early adopters who existed on the periphery — Sky News director John Bergin had joined on 3 September. The earliest joiner of Twitter from among the main political journalists in the country was news.com.au’s Paul Colgan, who had signed up at the extraordinarily early date of 7 April 2007. Political blogger Malcolm Farnsworth and Crikey blogger Possum Comitatus (Scott Steel) had joined respectively in April and May of 2008, but had little cause to use it. Of the over three hundred journalists who covered federal politics or national affairs, only ten were on Twitter at the time of Turnbull’s leadership challenge.

Some politicians were also on Twitter, but little to do with politics was happening or said there — and certainly not by them. The Greens’ Senator Sarah Hanson-Young was the first Australian politician on Twitter. She joined in April 2007, but she would not find another parliamentarian to tweet to until Malcolm Turnbull joined in October 2008 after his ascension to the leadership of the Liberal Party. Thus, for the social-media history of Australian politics, we can move swiftly past this glorious peak for the Member for Wentworth, and move to his awful valley.

Throughout 2009, Twitter — a social-media program that enabled conversations of 140 characters in length that had been around since March 2006 — suddenly became popular in the Australian political-media world. Journalists who would scarcely admit to reading blogs, let alone commenting on them, were suddenly joining up and putting themselves out in the world of the Internet, and ‘micro-blogging’.

At the end of 2008 there were fourteen Canberra press gallery journalists and Australian political bloggers on Twitter: Paul Colgan, Malcolm Farnsworth, Scott Steel (‘Pollytics’), Michael Rowland, Sophie Black, John Kerrison, Tim Dunlop, Andrew Landeryou, Jonathan Green, John Bergin, Joshua Gans, James Massola, and Jessica Wright. By the end of March 2009, there were forty-six. Among the group that had joined were some of Australia’s most high-profile journalists — the ABC’s Leigh Sales (then with Lateline); Mark Colvin, the host of PM; Annabel Crabb, who quickly built up a large following, and remains the most followed Australian political journalist on Twitter; Crikey’s Canberra correspondent and ex-public servant Bernard Keane; The Age’s Misha Schubert; and News Limited’s David Penberthy.

After being badgered by Scott Steel on the Crikey blog Poll Bludger, I also decided to join — putting aside my concerns that not much of worth could be said in 140 characters, and after I was convinced it was not just a mini-Facebook. I joined in June 2009, by which time seventy-three journalists, political writers, and bloggers were on board. Others less political but ready to ride the social-media wave were aboard — Mia Freedman, having discarded the dead-tree magazine life, and finding branches online with her blog, Mamamia, had joined in February.

One of those journalists less well known to the broader public was Latika Bourke — a young reporter for Fairfax radio. She had joined in March, and quickly took to the medium in a manner that would bring her to a prominence well above what someone in her situation would normally command. She would be one of the first to grasp the possibilities that 140 characters afforded, and it would lead to her becoming one of the top-four most followed journalists covering federal politics — trailing, on the Twitter
mountain, only Annabel Crabb, Laurie Oakes, and Leigh Sales.

Australian politicians were also joining in greater number during 2009. Malcolm Turnbull had been joined by Kevin Rudd on 17 October 2008, and they were later followed by others such as Rob Oakeshott, Steven Ciobo, George Christiansen, Joe Hockey, and Jamie Briggs. Other than Rudd, Labor MPs and senators were somewhat slow on the uptake — the concerns of stuffing up in government being somewhat higher than when they were in opposition — but long-time social-media/Internet champion ACT Senator Kate Lundy joined Twitter in February 2009, followed the next month by Kate Ellis and Tony Burke, whose Twitter style would be the source of amusement and notoriety eighteen months
later, during the 2010 election campaign.

This all led to a community of political writers, participants, and watchers who were ready to put the speed of Twitter to use. Twitter denizens who were confident that they would discover the news well before it made it onto a news website or radio bulletin boasted that Twitter was the future of news here and now. All that was needed was an event of such importance that it would galvanise everybody interested in Australian politics.

This event happened in the last sitting week of the parliamentary year in 2009.

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The book charts the use of blogs and twitter in the coverage and debate of Australian politics and what happens when the traditional media collides with this world – most notably on Twitter. Rather than focus on how media companies and political parties attempt to use the internet to further their aims and adjust their business models I instead examine how journalists and politicians themselves are coping in this new environment. I look at the problems both blogs and the MSM have dealing with comments and misogyny, the fights that can occur on Twitter and what can happen when those in the social media tweak the nose of the traditional media – including what happened when I was outed by The Australian.

The chapter titles are:

Introduction
1. Thrills and Spills
2. The Australian Blogosphere: what, what, how, who, why?
3. Where Are All the Women?
4. Never Read the Comments
5. The MSM v Bloggers: ‘let the professionals do their job’
6. How to Become a Twitter Hashtag
7. Journalists All a Twitter
8. One, Two, Three, Four, I Declare a Twitter War
9. How Many Votes Are There on Twitter?
Conclusion

Hope you enjoy it.

My Book– The Rise of the Fifth Estate

On Tuesday, as usual, I discovered news through Twitter. Michelle Bennett of 3RRRFM tweeted me saying my book looked good and she couldn’t wait to read it. This rather surprised me as I had no idea the release had even been announced. A quick look on my publishers’ (Scribe) website showed that their catalogue for July-December was out, and sure enough I was there on page 17.

The blurb is below for your pleasure:

Even though at the top of the page “September 2012” It will be out at the end of August. I’ve seen various dates on Angus and Robertson, Penguin and Book Depository ranging from the 22nd, 25th, and 27th.

I know I should be more across such details, and I was told 25th so it’ll be around then I guess!

And yes there will be an e-book version!

I’ll let you know about book launches etc.

For those wondering, there are only seven graphs in the entire book. And in keeping with my early days of blogging, one of them is (with his magnanimous permission) from Possum.  

Drum piece - Rates, jobs and speedboats: the economy explained

My Drum piece this week is on interest rates and some remarks by Andrew Robb that I found amusing.

Not much else to add today. My book is due with the publishers on 22 February, so life is currently a mess of stress and mess, as I come to grips with editing it all and locating those missing papers I have conveniently filed on my desk under a stack of other papers conveniently filed on my desk under a stack of other papers….

Not sure what I will be doing post 22 Feb at this stage. I haven’t had a break really from work or writing since January last year, so I suspect a week’s rest will be in order. If I make it to then.

On the QT: The element of predictability

And so it reached 3:15pm. There was a sense of nervousness in the air. The House was restless; the gallery confused; the people on Twitter techy dishevelled and at a loss.

Surely on this the anniversary of the rolling of Rudd there would be a censure motion? Usually Abbott needs a pretty good reason to launch a censure motion – you know, like the day ending in a Y – so it was pretty clear there would be a censure motion today. But time was slipping by. It was now 3:20 and Jenny Macklin was responding to a question. Would Tony rise to his feet and move the motion? Everyone in the censure motion sweep sat on the edge of their chairs waiting, wondering. Could this be a fantastic day that would see a Thursday Question Time go all the way through uninterrupted.

Such a thing is so rare, so beyond the ken of the current political system, that one only hoped the galleries were full of young children. Of whom one could say – “Go find the youngest child in the gallery, because that's the only person here who will have a chance of seeing this happen again in their lifetime."

But alas. At 3:21 Tony did stand and sought leave to move a motion of censure against the PM. Why? Did this follow repeated questions that had Julia Gillard cowering and lost? Well no. Given all the questions from the Liberal Party were variants of the theme of what have you done in the last 12 months, she was able to talk about anything she wanted. And so Abbott moved this:

That this House censures the Prime Minister for her failure to achieve anything of substance in 12 months of government after supplanting her predecessor on the basis that the government had lost its way when it is clear on any assessment that things have just gone from bad to worse.

Used to be a time you censored PM’s because of serious things – you know misleading the house or allegations of corruption. Now it’s just “things have gone from bad to worse” (you know if you ignore the economic data which shows that things actually haven’t).

Censure motions used to be something to get the journos rushing back into the gallery. A hold the presses type moment. Now, under Abbott, they are jokes. The ALP MPs call out “I move! I move” When Abbott stands up. They know it’s coming. They don’t care. Gillard leaves, and Abbott makes a big deal about how John Howard would never have left during a censure motion, ignoring of course that under the ALP the censure motion was not reduced to the absurdity it has become under Abbott.

No one cares. The TV doesn’t even bother reporting it anymore.

The rest of QT? It too was hardly worth the bother. Oh yeah I guess you could say Gillard was “attacked”, if the Libs asking the same type of questions is an “attack”. The ALP had two main thrusts – the NBN deal announced today by the PM and Stephen Conroy with Telstra and Optus – a pretty key moment that will basically mean the NBN is going to be here regardless of who wins the next election – and Tony Abbott attending a conference at which climate denier fruit-loop Christopher Monckton will be speaking.

The issue with Monckton (aside from the obvious thing that everyone already knew) is that he recently compared Ross Garnaut to Hitler. And not in a subtle nudge nudge way, But with a bloody Swastika! Abbott still intends to speak – though he did condemn Monckton for his statements.

But in the end it was all a bit sideshowy.

In other real news the House and Senate sat later than expected because of this:

28. MESSAGES FROM THE SENATE

Messages from the Senate, 23 June 2011, were reported returning the following bills without amendments or requests:

No. 151—Family Assistance and Other Legislation Amendment 2011.

No. 152—Tax Laws Amendment (2011 Measures No. 5) 2011.

No. 154—Appropriation (No. 1) 2011-2012 (without requests).

No. 155—Appropriation (No. 2) 2011-2012.

No. 153—Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) (No. 1) 2011-2012, 9:41:34 PM.

   29  MESSAGE FROM THE SENATE—Remuneration and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2011

Message No. 156, 23 June 2011, from the Senate was reported returning the Remuneration and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2011 with amendments, 9:41:46 PM.

Mr Albanese, 9:42:13 PM, moved—That the amendments be considered immediately.

Question—put and passed, 9:42:22 PM.

Mr Albanese, 9:42:33 PM, moved—That the amendments be agreed to.

Question—put and passed, 9:42:46 PM.

That there was the Budget being passed. So much for the House being unworkable. So much for the Govt losing control of the house. So much for Abbott and Hockey amending and improving the Budget.

What was Joe Hockey doing today? Well he didn’t ask a question during QT – probably because he had been too busy this morning carrying on like a primary school kid getting his advisors to take a cardboard cut out of Kevin Rudd around to various embassies and places in Canberra. He then proceeded to tweet them :

After a long day of travel @KRuddMP decides it is time for a rest at Aussie's in Parliament House http://yfrog.com/kezo5xyj about 3 hours ago via TweetDeck

Then @KRuddMP pops up to Red Hill to look over the land he once controlled. "It should all be mine!" he excla… (cont) http://deck.ly/~gk9Lv about 5 hours ago via TweetDeck

Then @KRuddMP decided to drop in to say hi to his friends at the Indonesian embassy. http://yfrog.com/h8hkrtavj about 6 hours ago via TweetDeck

This morning @KRuddMP visited China. http://yfrog.com/kkrommj

It was utterly juvenile, and only funny on a pull my finger kind of humour level. But what made Joe’s efforts so lacking in comedic timing and class was that he decided to string out the tweets over the whole day  and ended by tweeting a few of them at the same time that most political watchers on Twitter were absorbed in the SBS documentary series Go Back Where You Came From. Having Hockey tweet his “jokes” while the rest of the Twit stream was filled with people expressing horror at women in such appalling conditions that they would sing a joyful song about no longer being raped, showed a decided lack of political nous.

Though he was only slightly less foolish than Scott Morrison who also tweeted during a program that forced people to confront the hell that asylum seekers have to endure each day:

• Is en-route to KL #fb #auspol

What a champ.

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An announcement

And that my friends ends my regular blog posts on Question Time for a while. In fact it also ends my regular blog posts during the week on any topic.

I have recently moved to part-time (Thursday and Fridays off) and am writing a book for the good folk at Scribe Publications on (rather coincidentally given the last parts of this post) on Social Media: Politics, Policy and Journalism.

As it usually takes about 3 hours each night to write these posts I have decided I will for the next 6 months need to use that time to research and write the book instead.

I will try to write a couple posts a week – but they will more likely be on a Thursday or Friday night and the weekends, and be more weekly summations than a review of the day’s proceedings.

This is all a bit of an ‘I plan not to write so much”, but given this has been my addiction for the last 3 years (3rd anniversary 15th of next month) I probably will make a liar out of myself and bang out some words more regularly than once or twice a week – though the On the QT posts will probably take a back seat as they can be buggers to write – especially if I want to quote things said.

So I will still be here (and as ever on Twitter), but I hope you will excuse my drop in regularity.

I’ll keep you posted on the book progress. I have already lined up some very interesting people to interview, and hope to talk to many more as well.

This blog and more importantly your readership and support has opened this door for me, so I thank you for that.

Oh and by the way, by reading this post, you have just agreed to buy the damn book when it comes out!

Friday Night Relaxer: Vale Borders

I first encountered Borders in 2001 when my wife and I visited friends who were living in Vancouver. I think I spent about 3-4 hours in the Borders and I probably drooled most of the time. So I was a bit sad to hear this week that all the stores in Australia were closing.

Back then in 2001 I was in total awe.

My God the books!

Living as I did in Cairns at the time, which is not exactly replete with City Lights type bookstores, it was a joy to be in a place where I could think of a book I had been searching for in Australia and voila there it was (so yep, thank you I will buy that copy of The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes). I bought my cup of coffee, read a magazine, then sauntered off around the store, found a collection of William Goldman’s essays from Variety (The Big Picture), sat down in one of the very comfy chairs, and read the whole thing.

I then bought it.

I read another book – and also dozed for a bit (we had arrived the previous day and I was pretty jet-lagged), and then went searching and found a copy of The 42nd Parallel by Jon Dos Passos (bought it), and left thinking this is as close to heaven as I’m going to get.

I’ve always loved bookstores. When I was a kid and we’d go shopping in Adelaide I would happily stay in a bookstore while my parents went off around the rest of the Westfields. At that stage I wasn’t even that big of a fiction reader, but I would happily look at the books on sport, or biographies or history section. Even the crappiest chain store bookstore was bliss for me.

When I went to Japan as an exchange student this love continued as I found some excellent bookstores in Tokyo that had copious amounts of English books – it was actually that year that I really discovered fiction.

And so when I encountered Borders in Vancouver and another in LA and the Barnes and Noble in San Francisco (and also the magnificent City Lights), I was as happy as a book lover could be (apparently there were other sites in Vancouver, LA and San Fran which also made the trip worthwhile).

When Borders opened in Adelaide, I was rather overjoyed as each year when we went home for Christmas I would stock up on books. Though if I was honest, the Borders in Adelaide didn’t change my buying habits much because I would often end up buying the books from the great Imprints bookstore on Hindley Street or the Mary Martin Bookshop on Rundle Street. If I am also honest, the Borders in Adelaide (and the one in Sydney) never really had that great welcoming vibe that did the bookstore in Vancouver. Neither store ever had the come on in and saunter around, grab a book and have a read, buy it if you like it vibe.

They sold coffee though. Gloria Jeans coffee…

When the Canberra store opened however things did feel better – it was just one floor – a wide open expanse. It had a great kids section where someone would often be reading stories on weekends, and my book crazy 5 year old (at the time) daughter was in raptures. It was her absolute favourite store (this was before she discovered Smiggle).

But as time passed I realised that we would go each week and let my daughter do some colouring-in and browsing of the kids books, but my browsing became less and less, because the content in the shop began to shrink. A shelf here and there was taken away. It wasn’t much, but it was noticeable. It went from being a store where I could come across a book I would likely not find anywhere else to one where I would say – you’re kidding they don’t have a copy of Bleak House? No Crime and Punishment?? No Solzhenitsyn at all???

We would buy a book for my daughters (they had a good supply of the “That’s Not My…” books that my youngest loves). But I stopped buying. A couple years back I wrote a blog post called Ten Books Needed in the Perfect Bookstore. It was a bit of a response to Borders lack of content.

Back then I also wrote  a blog titled How Much does that Book Cost? in which I despaired at the lack of logic in the price of books, noting that in Borders a copy of Winton’s Cloudstreet which came out in 1991 cost $29.50, but his latest work Breathe (which had just been published) cost $27.50. And of course a couple shelves away I could get Our Mutual Friend for $18.99, but Oliver Twist for $9.99.  

I wrote how I could go next door to JB Hi Fi and find logic in the price of DVDs and CDs (you never for example expect to pay more for Achtung Baby which came out in 1991 than U2’s latest album – unless it was a special remastered re-issue, and even then it would likely be the same price as the latest release not more). Similarly you don’t pay more for the DVD of the first Harry Potter movie than you do for the most recent.

Logic. Wonderful thing.

But of course that is not the only reason I stopped buying books there – the actual prices themselves were absurd. With the Australian dollar where it is shopping at The Book Depository with its lovely nil shipping charges is just too good to resist.

Booko has become one of my most visited sites as I compare prices across the world and buy with a couple clicks.

The close of Borders will nonetheless be a sad occasion, but when I went in on Wednesday lunchtime after hearing the news that it was closing the place felt pretty soulless. And what’s more the 20% off didn’t make anything more enticing. I grabbed a couple kids books for my youngest daughter. Went looking to see if a copy of Barnaby Rudge was there (one of the few Dickens I don’t own), it wasn’t. And so I left.

It will be sad because the place will leave a big hole in my daughter's life – she truly loved racing down the back to the kids’ area. But for me, the book addict, it won’t cast too much of a pall. I will still go out each weekend to the great second hand bookstores around Canberra,  and also to the fabulous Book Grocer in Kingston which is staffed by people who know books, and which has great books at great prices – $10 for a copy of Roger MacDonald’s 1915, why thank you, yes I will buy that!

There are a number of reasons why Borders failed. Yes the Parallel Import Restrictions play a part – but that doesn’t explain why Borders in the US also went belly-up. It is bizarre to think we could even care that Borders is going. Its demise perhaps makes You’ve Got Mail now officially the most dated movie of the 1990s – remember the book chain owned by Tom Hanks that run Meg Ryan’s little bookstore out of town was modelled on a Border’s type chain – so now, not only is no one meeting anyone through email, neither are massive bookstores chomping away the little guy.

Obviously the internet beat Borders. But I don’t think it did itself any favours. Borders reminds me a bit of Channel 9. Under Packer Nine was always the biggest and the best. Yes it made a profit, but being Number 1, and the biggest and the best seemed more important than being the most profitable. Let Channel 10 play the low revenue, low cost game. Nine was big. And then it was sold to bean counters who slashed and burned as they tried to cut costs and make a profit and well being “Still the One” seemed less important. And so the ratings absolutely tanked across the board.

Borders had to be big, and had to be well stocked, had to offer big service – story readings, coffee, comfy chairs. You had to want to go there because it was BIG. In the last couple years, yeah it’s been big in size, but has felt small in scope.

Floor space is pointless if there feels like more space than books.

But maybe bookstores are dying. I still seem to spend plenty of time in them – the Dymocks in Canberra central is nice and has a “we know books” vibe. So too does the Paperchain bookstore in Manuka (another favourite of mine). If the big bookstores are dead, but the smaller, independent ones (even though I know Dymocks is not) remain, I don’t think that will be too bad a thing. 

Have a relaxing weekend (I know I’ll be relaxing in a bookstore).

Friday Night Relaxer: Record Books

A couple months ago I wrote a piece for the Walkley Magazine on 10 Things You Need to Know to Blog Your Way to Success (success, obviously being a pretty flexible term).

Rule Number 5 was Be regular 

Ironically, since writing that I have probably been less regular than I ever have in the past 2 and a half years (3rd anniversary comes up in July). The regular irregularity continues tonight, as this post was meant to be a piece on some favourite novels of mine. Life, as it always does, intrudes and so I shall have to hold that over till another week. I wanted to post something however if only to arrest the irregularity of posts. 

And so instead I shall direct you eyes to this rather wonderful idea that someone I follow on Twitter (by the name of Crackers_76) linked to today.

It is the page by a guy known as “Cee Gee” who has redone album titles as though they were books. It is one of those genius ideas that you come across every now and then on the internet.

Now I am on record as believing you truly do and should judge a book by its cover. I’m also pretty strongly into analysing  movie posters. But record covers have never held much magic for me. Perhaps because we never had a record player growing up and so it was just the small cassettes that I had, which never really conveyed a great sense of art.

But if you had to tie me down and get me to answer the question though, I would have to say my favourite record cover is “London Calling” by The Clash:

It just conveys everything you need to know in that one picture. The referencing of Elvis Presley is perfect, but combined with the absolute riotous anarchy of the guitar about to be smashed, it is rendered perfect.

Just as with Presley in 56, this one in 1979 was a real you either get it or you don’t cover.

You’re with us or against us.

And when it comes to The Clash, I’m most certainly with them.

But as I say, record covers have never grabbed me like book covers or movies posters.

I can see an old edition of a book I read in High School and will get a rush of memories more than I would if I saw a record cover from the same period. Probably it is because I am rather obsessive about books and movies, but less so about music (I think I saw those who were music obsessives and knew I could never match them!)

However this idea of turning album covers (or more correctly the album titles) in to books is genius. And I recommend you go to the guy’s page and have a look (and check out as well the cool photos has has taken featuring people holding album covers).

Here are my favourites. I think they perfectly capture what could easily be the spirit of the album’s name (especially when he used the real names of the singers as he does with David Bowie and Prince).

          

Have a good weekend – I’ll try to get back some regularity soon!

A Lack of Confessions

On Tuesday night in Canberra I went along to the book signing of Paul Howes’s book “Confessions of a Faceless Man: Inside Campaign 2010”. At the launch he made some good points about the ALP – that they need to examine doing away with the binding caucus vote; that a price on carbon will raise the prices of electricity – that’s the bloody point; and that it’s time the ALP got with the 21st century on the issue of gay marriage. He also made some typical ALP-LNP-Media points about the Greens – namely in the next few years they’ll be a lot of fun to watch as they argue over whether or not they compromise on issues. I had a quick chat to him after he spoke and he came across as he generally does on TV – smart, personable and knowledgeable of the working of politics.

I look forward to Howes writing a book that reveals these qualities, because Confessions of a Faceless Man doesn’t do it.

On Wednesday I had to fly to Sydney for work and I was able to read the book in the two hours flying up and back. It is an easy read, but that is not only because he writes easy to read prose, but because he writes prose that doesn’t require too much thought. This is as much the format’s fault as it is Howes’s. It is written as a diary and too often such a format especially when written with the knowledge that it will be published (as is the case here) leads to entries that have little in common with a real diary – no introspection, no secrets, no (to quote the blurb on the back) “unvarnished” accounts.

Howes makes no secret of the fact he is not a writer – and certainly he was not employed with this task because of his writing ability but because of who he is – he was contacted by Melbourne University Press after his appearance on Lateline on the night of the spill that took down Rudd. Nothing wrong with that – which is why I can forgive him on Day 4 describing AWU media officer Andrew Casey as a “dishevelled genius”, and then on Day 10 write, “Bob Ellis, the dishevelled genius who…” Two dishevelled geniuses in the ALP? What are the odds?

But that is being churlish. It’s not why you read inside accounts. You read inside accounts to find out what happened inside. But on this score Howes’s book is a failure: instead it’s a political version of a cricketer’s diary of an Ashes tour, though neither as earnest as Steve Waugh, nor as funny as Warwick Todd.

It is instead pretty innocuous, and worst of all, lacking insight.  One journalist tweeted it was “compulsory reading for anyone interested in election 2010”, which leads me to wonder if he was paying attention during the campaign because I struggled to think of anything new that I discovered from Howes’s account. I certainly came out from reading it just as ignorant on a number of things as I was before hand.

For example, I still have no idea what was Howes’s role in the spill of Rudd or what was his role during the campaign. 

The book begins on the night of the spill. Howes writes that he received a phone call from a senior member of the federal ministry telling him the challenge was on and asking could “I please make my mind the fuck up about whether we’d support it and let him know in half an hour”.

Howes then spend a good portion of the rest of the opening chapter explaining how he had next to bugger all influence over the result. Why then was it so important he (and the AWU) decide who they were going to support? The closest we get is that the plotters wanted an “outside voice” a “leader of the labour movement” to back their decision.

Howes does not explain why on earth the opinion of a labour leader, but not a member of parliament could influence an MP – and equally how his opinion made the move legitimate. He says he went on Lateline purely because “Gillard’s key supporters thought that the AWU’s backing might be the key to convincing a number of backbenchers to make the switch”. Why he could persuade them to make the switch is left unanswered. Left unanswered as well is why his going on Lateline would do this most effectively – surely a few phone calls would do the trick?

The book is full of such unanswered points – Howes describes the ALP a “a large family made up of different wings” but he gives no insight into how they work. The core reason for Howes’ lack of insight is because he is a party man. The only ALP person to get a bullocking in this book is Kevin Rudd; everyone else gets off scott free. Howes of course knows that publishing an account so soon after an election which reveals his complete “unvarnished” thoughts would be manna for the Liberal Party and the media, and there is no way in hell he is stupid enough to do that. Now there’s no problem with that, but let’s not pretend then that we’re getting anything other than a filtered version of the truth.

Take Howes’s verdict of his mate Karl Bitar. Here’s what he writes early on:

“Plenty of people have laid the blame at the feet of the campaign director Karl Bitar… This is a pretty lazy and weak analysis . The actual campaign machinery that Bitar and party officials were responsible for ran like clockwork”.

That’s a nice account which makes Bitar sound like an executive assistant rather than a director. No one ever criticised the organisation of the campaign; it was the direction.

In his book Howes and his wife (as with everyone else) makes fun of the “Moving Forward” slogan. Is there a discussion with Bitar about this? Nope.

Howes thinks (again like everyone else) that the Citizen Assembly idea is dopey – did Bitar play a role in the decision to announce this? Guess not.

Howes disagrees with “many in the federal  campaign” who tell him the seat of Lindsay is in trouble. He writes “the race card plays well in Lindsay, so we’re told” Who is telling him this is it the media or the party executive? Is Bitar ever criticised for the obvious stance taken by the ALP in the campaign to appease the red neck vote in western Sydney? Nope – his role in it doesn’t even come up.

What about the “real Julia” strategy? This is laughingly put down by Howes to a “slip of the tongue” made by Gillard on Monday 2 August . It must have been a damn big slip of the tongue because it was on the front pages of the major newspapers on Monday before she even had an interview about it. What role did Bitar play in getting this story out? None? All? Part? 

Howes’s applauds Bitar for the adverts put out on Day 20 “the first outlines Labor’s genuinely good record of economic management”. They were good adverts but most Labor supporters had been wondering where the bloody hell they had been for 20 days. Why did it take the campaign so long to focus on the economy? Howes doesn’t ask or let us know.

You see Howes doesn’t actually tell us what his role in the campaign was. As far as I can gather his role was to go on the Today Show and debate Michael Kroger; go on MTR and debate Michael Kroger; quickly whiz over to Sky News and appear on Contrarians with Peter van Onselen (no Michael Kroger); then for something different go on Lateline and debate Michael Kroger. To finish off the night he’d ring Bitar, find out the polls then have a few beers and go to bed before getting up to debate Michael Kroger.

At no point do we actually get told his role, nor even that of the AWU, in the whole campaign. He writes near the end that “plenty of critics are mocking me about my ‘media slut’ status as well”. Gee I wonder why. Howes doesn’t tell us why he needs to go on TV. Why is it him and not someone else? Why him and not a Minister? What is he doing for the ALP? He worries at the start that he might be hurting the ALP by going on, but Bitar tells him to go for it. But how was he helping? Was he unable to say no to the Today Show, to MTR, to Contrarians, to Lateline, to Australian Story because to do so would have hurt the ALP’s chance of winning?

All we needed is a “Bitar wants me to be the media front man of the campaign – because we need someone not running for office to argue the Government's case against the likes of Kroger and Bolt”. But nope, none of that – he’s just out there going on TV, on radio, having to go on Sky on election night because… well we don’t know why.

So much of this book tells us nothing about what really went on in the campaign – the real inside story. Take Day 7, the day of Gillard’s climate change speech. After spending a good four and a half pages writing about Mark Latham, he ends with

“After indulging in my own version of 1984’s Two Minutes’ Hate against Latham, I settle into a busy day of work, more media appearances and a few meetings related to the campaign.”

Does he care to tell us who was in those “meetings related to the campaign”, what they discussed, what happened as a result? No of course not, you would only include such things if you were writing an insiders account of the campaign.

You see while it is nice to read Howes let rip at Latham, it’s nothing new. Anyone who follows politics knows Latham is a rat. But what did the campaign do about it? Did Bitar or anyone come up with a strategy once they knew Latham would be on 6o Minutes? No idea.

And so it goes on and on. Howes complains about aspects of the campaign, but blames no one. He sees the polls and blames the leaks and Rudd. Now I agree the leaks played a big part but they only served to give the campaign a hip and shoulder – that it was knocked over was because it didn’t have a firm footing to begin with.

Take Day 7 and the climate change speech. Howes writes of the citizens’ assembly “This seems a bit wacky (or Ruddish)”. He is spot on! The problem with the citizens’ assembly was not that it wouldn’t work, or wouldn’t help (which it would not have) but that it smacked 100 precent of a Rudd idea. Linking Rudd with any issue was bad, but with climate change? Death. And yet when the polls come out the following Monday with the ALP slumping from 55 to 52, he writes: “Maybe the Rudd factor is now starting to have an affect”. 

Please.

Surprisingly the person most missing from Howes’s tale is Julia Gillard. We really don’t see her other than as we all saw her – on TV. And when we see here in the flesh, we get little insight. Here’s Howes writing on Day 5:

“I see the Prime Minister in the evening. She says she feels that things are going well, but there is still along way to go”.

Geez I hope that isn’t all she said to him, otherwise she talks in person like she does when having a press conference. But we get no closer; no deeper.

Howes is at his best when he writes of Scott Morrison – the way he graduates Morrison’s title from Shadow Minister for Boat People, to Shadow Minister for Boat People and the Whipping Up of Racial Tension and on and on is wonderful. It provides the narrative with… well a narrative, rather than just another day, another interview, another debate with Kroger, another poll, another few beers with the boys. But even here we get no sense of what the ALP was trying to do to counter the asylum seeker issue.

Howes writes well about his wife and children – but again here the format does him no favours, for there is no time to build much of a sense of the loss he feels from being so often away from them (perhaps because we get no sense of why he must be away from them).

And so we are in end none the wiser, other than that Bob Ellis does think Julia Gillard is good (contrary to every bloody thing he wrote during the campaign about her on The Drum), and that Andrew Bolt and Janet Albrechtsen apparently write about policy.

Howes no doubt is not just some hanger-on in the ALP. He is an insider – deep inside. He also obviously has some strong views about the direction the party should head. When he came out back in 2009 against the Government's asylum seeker policy he deservedly got a lot of praise from many people who now criticise him. He has things to say and he often says them well. He also would have some views on what went wrong during the 2010 election.

One day, perhaps many years from now, when he doesn’t have to worry about ruining his own career, or being viewed as a rat, he’ll write about them. When he does, perhaps then we’ll get the true confessions. The complete unvarnished, brutally honest account.

Friday Night Relaxer – Just give me some truth

If we were to go back in time some 30 odd years, and you were to go looking for me in the library of my primary school, the most likely spot you would have found me was either re-reading Asterix comics (which I wrote about here) or in the reference section going through the volumes of the World Book encyclopaedia.

I loved the World Book Encyclopaedia – loved that they had a double page of the the highest mountains in the world depicted as one mountain range. Loved that each US President got a huge write up. I didn’t care that they were obviously American biased. I probably should have been concerned that I could name all the US Presidents at about the age of 10 , but wouldn’t have been able to tell you who was Edmund Barton, but I figured that was the school’s fault not mine.

I loved to grab volumes and just dive in -  did I learn anything? I must have, but if not at least I am now a pretty handy trivia night contestant.

As I grew older and left Primary School and the World Book behind (I never really got into the High School’s Encyclopaedia Britannica) what did stay with me was a love of non-fiction. I’d have to say I was a heavy non-fiction reader well before I discovered fiction – and definitely well before I came near some “literature”. It is a trait that probably explains why my first degree was in Economics and not English – though the literature magnet became too impossible to resist. And now, even with my bookshelves stuffed with fiction – far too many I must admit, and far too many still yet to be read – it is non-fiction that more often is the object of my gaze as I read in bed each night.

I find non-fiction is relaxing – I don’t need to invest in the characters; I don’t need to get in the rhythm of the prose; I don’t need to lose myself in the suspension of disbelief.

Mostly I read histories and biographies, but these are more like novels – works that need to be read front to back. At the moment I am reading Richard Rhodes’s excellent Dark Sun (not as good as The Making of the Atomic Bomb, but then few works are), and it has taken me a few sittings to get into the narrative – to connect with the scientists around the world in post WWII as they attempt to create the Hydrogen Bomb. But when I truly am tired, and want to just have some easy reading there are a few favourite, well dog-eared works of non-fiction that I have read and re-read, re-read and read. Books that like the World Book I can just dip in and start reading wherever the pages open. Books that I think I’ll just read a few pages, and before I know it the night is now very late and that early night I had promised myself is but a promise for the next night.

The Dictionary of World Biography, edited by Barry Jones

The dust jacket of this has long been lost/destroyed. The spine is barely left intact.

I have a couple Dictionary of Biographies, but this is my favourite. The tone is chatty, almost gossipy. It is the type of book I suppose I would read less of were I to have an ipad, and were able to sit in bed surfing through Wikipedia.

But I still believe I would read this. The Wik is all well and good, but to be honest, it isn’t all; that well written. You go to Wikipedia for the facts (to an extent!) not because the pages are themselves worth reading. Jones here has put in some of his own opinion amidst the facts, and it makes it all the more enjoyable to read. Also the Wik gives you too much information. These short bios – some little more than a paragraph give you what you need to know, and let you know if the person is someone you’ll want to know more about. Otherwise it’s on to the next page. Harking back to my Primary School days I sometimes will run through the Presidents, or the English monarchs.

Other times I’ll start with a random person and see how long I can keep going until I get to a person who does not link to anyone else. The book would be great in electronic form – because then I might not continually think of a person to look up and then while flicking the pages become distracted by someone else and then forget who I was looking for.

 

The Complete Book of the Summer Olympics, edited by David Wallechinsky

While I might have been reading the World Book encyclopaedias in the library, the book I would have been most borrowing to read at home were earlier incarnations of this great, great work.

I love the Olympics – love them more than is probably healthy. Two things helped create that love (aside from the sports themselves) and that was Bud Greenspan’s brilliant documentary series, and Wallechinsky’s “complete books”.

The book has every result from every Olympic Games (as you can see I need to update mine – if only to get the drug cheat off the cover), but more than that Wallechinsky has the stories behind the events. A few reads of this and come the London Olympics you’ll be able to bore your loved one and friends with bits of information about who won the team Sabre title in 1936, and whether or not Chariots of Fire is truth or fiction based on about 2 bits of fact (the later unfortunately).

For the Sydney Olympics we had two night of athletics. In preparation I had printed out the top 30 all-time bests for each event that we were to see, plus the top 50 best times/distances for that year for each event. So when I say I am a bit of a athletics stats nerd, you can take it to the bank. It’s me and Bruce McAvaney head to head, and I’m taking him down.

It’s why when I first moved to Canberra and went to a work trivia night I was able without too much thought to write down the progression of the men’s 100m world record since 1958. It was a good night for me, especially because they also needed to know about Best Picture winners…

 

Alternate Oscars, Danny Peary

As you can see this book has gotten a lot of love. I bought it in 1994. It was the last copy left in the Dymocks’ store in Rundle Mall – literally the shop assistant had found one out the back (this was before Amazon, so such things mattered). It contains every Best Picture, Best Actress and Best Actor winner and nominee till 1991, and more to the point contains Peary’s own choices – eg Chinatown for Best Picture in 1974 instead of The Godfather II, or Cary Grant for Best Actor in 1937 for The Awful Truth instead of Spencer Tracey for Captain Courageous.

I agree with many of Peary’s choices – such as the above two, but also find he likes Chaplin just a bit too much, and Wesley Snipes for Best Actor in 1992 for New Jack City??

Peary’s essay that accompanies each choice are informative and interesting. The book introduced me to many films I had never heard of – such as The Awful Truth, and many of my favourite films I first read about in this book. I love the book and his concept so much I started doing it myself (and really must get back to it). 

 

 

Adventures in the Screen Trade, William Goldman

Another well-loved book. Peary’s book may contains the facts of winners of Oscars, but this book contains the truth about some of the films that won Oscars, and also the whole sordid world of working in the film industry.

Goldman, who wrote among others, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the Presidents Men and The Princess Bride, lets you know what happens when you find yourself writing a film script – first lesson don’t expect a hell of a lot of respect.

It is the book that contained the now universally regarded mission statement of Hollywood: “Nobody knows Anything”. It contains advice for producers working out their film budget: “Add one-third for the shit”, and how to explain why a film was a success when you have no damn idea why it was a success: “A non recurring phenomenon”.

The book is divided into chapters on the industry – “Stars”, Directors”; chapters on making a film: “Agents”, Endings”, “Subtext”, and then on the stories behind the films he has written (note, Carl Bernstein does not come across well). Structured as it is you can read any chapter independent of others, so it is a great one for dipping into.

If you love film, you no doubt already have this. If you don’t, get it.

 

Seven Centuries of Poetry in English, Third Edition, edited by John Leonard

This one is special for many reasons.

When I was first at university way back in the dark ages of 1990, I was the lone Economics student at my boarding college (it was a college mostly for those doing teaching degrees). One of my best friends was doing Arts at Adelaide Uni, and like many English students across the land, she had this copy of Leonard’s anthology of poetry. At the time I had an interest in literature that I didn’t quite understand – after all the only “literature” I had read was what I had done for Year 12 English. The only poets I really knew were thus Judith Wright, Bruce Dawe and Wilfred Owen.

And yet on those many, many nights that I would be in her room late at night drinking coffee and talking of cabbages and kings I would often grab this book and flick through almost in a confused manner. I knew of John Donne, knew he had written “For whom the bell tolls”, but had no idea he wrote other poems. Which one was Yeats and which one was Keats again? And you mean TS Eliot wrote things other than the poems that Cats was based on?

I was given this copy for Christmas in 1996, by which time I had seriously fallen hard for books. I was to go back and study English Lit in 1998, and that I got (and was in raptures at getting) an anthology of poetry for Christmas says a bit about how much I had fallen.

It is here I discovered “The Love song of J. Alfred Prufrock”. Here I found the poetry of Whitman mentioned in Dead Poets Society. Here I came across that wonderful amalgam of perfection and fragility that is Silvia Plath. When I read “Arrival of the Bee Box” I realised poetry ain’t all daffodils and sunshine. What writing, what pain, what imagery.

This book is also special because John Leonard taught at James Cook University- where I did my PhD, and so I feel a connection. I love that when I was a young Economics undergrad in Adelaide I felt an attraction to a book of poetry, in which the supervisor of the English Lit PhD I would do in Cairns was thanked.

I also got to meet Leonard when he was launching another edition of the book – the fifth I think – and so I was able to ask him about his selections – why none of Shakespeare's songs, why not Tennyson’s “Ulysses”?

It was a long way from the third floor of my uni boarding college wondering so this Wordsworth guy? Didn’t he write “Paul Revere’s Ride”?

***

And so these books stay by my bed – there for me to grab when I am too tired to read anything else, but which I want to read because without doing so I know I will not sleep. And as I look at the clock, and think about what I want to do before I go to sleep tonight, I know it’ll probably be another late one, and I know once more one of these five will capture my mind when the clock gets near midnight.

Have a great weekend.

On the QT: Bloomsday Edition

June 16 is Bloomsday, that day when all things James Joycean are celebrated and the great novel Ulysses is enjoyed by many in between a few pints of Guinness. I am one of those who believe it is the greatest novel of the 20th Century, and for my thoughts on Ulysses itself see my Bloomsday post of last year. But for this year I have decided to go a much more self-indulgent route.

For those who have never read the novel, you might find the following a tad confusing (quite possibly those who have read it will as well), and you might do best to skip to the real On the QT blog below.

But for the two people in the world who love Ulysses and also avidly watch Question Time (c’mon there has to be a least one other person!), I present Question Time through the lens of Ulysses.

***

Stately plump Harry Jenkins came from behind the speakers chair, bearing a copy of the standing orders on which his bookmark and pen lay crossed. He held the book aloft and intoned:
– Pater noster qui es in coelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum.

Halted, he peered down to his left at the dark straight bench.
– Come up, Abbott. Come up you fearful, Jesuit. 

***
The ineluctable modality of Question Time: at least that if no more, thought through my own answers. Hansard of all things I am here to read, interjections and exclamations, the click of Julia’s tongue, the rustle of Kevin’s pages. If that is all I shall hear then I shall hear no more.

Lindsay closed his eyes to hear the crack and shrill of the opposition front bench as they strode across the green carpet to the dispatch box to make a point of order.  The snotgreen carpet.

– On relevance, Mister Speaker!
– Order! Order! Order!

I too was once there. Will I be there again? Will I be left on the shelf, shelved like mining projects that never were, left behind, left alone by voters because I wasn’t left enough as the Greens, the Greens, the scrotumtightening Greens.

– The Minister for Finance!
– Thank you Mister Speaker, and I thank the Honourable member for his question, because it allows me to draw the Houses attention to the latest comments by the economic wunderkind of the Liberal Party, the Member for North Sydney.

And is this all there is? What’s that, a lesser PJK? Never to reach the highest height? Why couldn’t I have got them to keep the ETS? Why do we have to be so stupid with asylum seekers? Is this to be my fate? Listening to the oral dribble of Wilson Tuckey?

– The Minister for Finance!
Coming after me. Hope there’s no more points of order.
– They say Philip Ruddock was the best Minister for Immigration? Do you know that? And do you know why?
– Why Tuckey? He asked, beginning to frown.
–  Because he never let them in!
A coughball of phlegmy laughter came from his throat. 
– He never let them in!

Question Time, said Lindsay, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.

***
Mr Kevin Rudd with relish walked through the inner organs of Parliament House on the way to Question Time. He stopped at the door of Julia Gillard’s office pondering whether to go in.

Desolation. Comes to all of us in the end. One minute popular next moment not.

He walked in, she was at her desk. Oh thanks Kevin, she says pointing to the drink in his hand. I’m parched. She drinks and motions to him to look at something behind him.

Following her pointed finger he looked at the mass of magazines and newspapers on her couch. He took up a Time magazine. No? Then a heavily marked copy of The Australian.
– No, that speech of yours.
Quarterly Magazine, the Marr essay on him. 
– It must have fell down, she said.
The speech lay on the floor. Must have fallen down as she read the Quarterly essay…
– Show here, she said. I put a mark in it. There’s a phrase I wanted to ask you.
She took a long drink of his water that he had meant for himself. As she found the phrase.
– Program specy what? 
– Here, she said. What does that mean?
He leaned down and read where she had circled his words in red pen.
– Programmatic specificity?
– Yes. Who’s he when he’s at home?
– Programmatic specificity, he said frowning. It’s from the DFAT by way of ANU. On the question of what it means, can I just say that it goes to the heart of the way in which we as a nation undertake to develop the manner and programmatic nature of programs which have specifically been specified to come into being. 
– Oh rocks! she said. Tell us in plain words.

***
I was just passing the time of day at the pub watching nothing but Question Time when I damned near wanted to put my eye out with my pen when I caught sight of Julie Bishop on the opposite benches waiting for the proceedings to begin.

– Lo, says I to the Citizen. Did you see that? Begob if I nearly did blind myself when I sees her white suit and smug expression.
– And those eyes, says the Citizen, She’s no Julia.

And the first order of the day, taken down and recorded for all eternity and maternity by Hansard is from Tony Abbott ex of Oxford, formerly of Priesthood, who rises to his feet and begins to intone in the direction as you would expect at the Prime Minister seated opposite surnamed Rudd, first name, Kevin.

And would you believe it but be buggered if he doesn’t want to ask about the resources super profit tax.
– What’s that? says Kevin, you think that a winner do you?
And wouldn't you know it but he takes to talking about it as though the world was hanging on his every word, talking about this and making hand motions about that and referring to the Clive Palmers and the mums and dads and working families with their chippies and their chalkies and all the glories of the labour movement as though he was there on the picket line with us leading the charge.

Well you wouldn’t credit it but then Abbott first named Tony, lately out of Warringah, gets up and says to Jenkins Jr, son of the former speaker in the time of days Hawke and Keating (bless them, praise them and sanctify them to all the hosts of heaven and earth), on a point of order that Rudd must be relevant to the question and in doing so he invokes the names and sayings of all the great Liberal Party heroes and heroines of antiquity, Sir Robert Gordon Menzies Knight of the Order of the Thistle  Knight of the Order of Australia Order of the Companion of Honour Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science Fellow of the Royal Society Queens Council Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports Constable of Dover Castle, Lord Archer, Lord Monkton, Sir John Kerr, Harold Holt, the Harold Holt Public Baths, Malcolm Fraser pre 1975, John Gorton, Ainsley Gotto, Mata Hari, Philippe Pétain in WWI, Winston Churchill in WWII, Wee Willie Winkie, William McMahon, Sonia McMahon, Sonia McMahon’s dress, Andrew Peacock, Shirley McLain, L Ron Hubburd, Enron, the Smartest Guys in the Room, Malcolm Turnbull, the man who broke the heart of the Australian people, Malcolm Fraser 1975-1983, William the Conqueror 1066, The Old Man and the Sea, the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, Alan Jones, Mark Ella, Mal Meninga, Maralinga, Bennelong, John Howard, Janette Howard, Adam and Eve, Moses, Noah, Torah Bright, Steve Bradbury, Steve Waugh, Don Bradman, Babe Ruth, Ruth Cracknell, Crackers Keenan, keen as mustard, Bill Lawry, Laura Norder, interest rates at record lows, Peter Costello, the man who invented asylum seeker boats, Philip Ruddock, the Ghost who Walks, Alexander Downer, Alexander Downer’s Dad, Alexander Downer’s Granddad, Thomas Playford, Gary Player, Gary Hart, Hart to Hart, Simon and Simon, Cagney and Lacey, Matlock, Solo One, Dave Sullivan, Tom Croyden, Tom Rafferty, he who has the gold makes the rules, Rupert Murdoch, Kerry Packer, James Packer, Jodee Rich, what goes up must come down, what goes around comes around, every little thing she does is magic, Pauline Hanson.

– And be buggered, says I, but Jenkins the younger tells him to sit down and says there is no point of order.

– On a point of order, says Chris.
– On point of order, says Julie. 
– Oh Mister Speaker! says Joe. 
– No point of order, says Jenkins the younger.

And then after a series of interjections and outerjections the proceedings returned to the normal order of service as Rudd gets up and lets fly with his sayings and ponderings and all the while we’re wondering when he’ll get to the point and come the raw prawn he out of nowhere starts to shake the sauce bottle which is all rather amazing seeing as he is dead.

– What dead? says Annabel.
– Dead as you can be, says Dennis.
– Kevin Rudd? says Laurie.
– Been dead now for some weeks, says Dennis.
– But I just saw him up at the dispatch box, says Annabel. 
– Then you did see a ghost, says Dennis.
– Who’s dead? says Kerry.
– But dead? He can’t be, says Annabel.
– Dead? says Laurie.
– Kevin Rudd? He no more dead than you or I, says Kerry.
– Maybe so, says Dennis, but Newspoll took the liberty of burying him on Monday.

And then the floor was given over to Julia to allow her time to address the room and to give her account of the proceedings thus far.
– About time, says I, and there is general agreement on this issue moved, seconded and passed without need for recourse to a vote.
– We’ll hear some sense and reason now, says the Citizen. May God and Gough and all the saints in Trades Hall bless her.

Then before she did but utter five words, who do you see rise up but bloody Bronwyn Bishop, resplendent in all sartorial splendour evoking memories of the NSW CWA AGM circa 1951 attended by Gladys, Mabel, Mavis and Deidre (apologies by Irene).

– I refer to the section 89 of the practice, says the Bishop, and as well section 64 of the Australian Constitution 1901, Clause XIII Statute Law Revision Act 1863 and Statute Law (Ireland) Revision Act 1872, Section 1 Crown Proceedings Act 1947, the Butler Act, Roe v Wade, Donoghue v Stevenson, the Warren Commission, the Costigan Royal Commission, and the minutes of the Bonnie Doon Golf Club bi-monthly Finance Committee meeting.

– No point of order, says Harry Jenkins the younger.
– On a point of order, says Chris. 
– On a point of order, says Julie.
– Oh Mister Speaker! says Joe.
– Why not a point of order? says Dutton. 
– No point of order, says Harry, and the member can leave the chamber for one hour for being an idiot. 
– No fair Joolia gets away with everything, tweets Dutton once he is out the room.

– And I belong to a party too, says Julia, that is hated and persecuted. Also now. This very moment.
God, she near burnt the souls of the opposition bench with her gaze.
– Are you talking about the new media? says Abbott.
– I’m talking about The Australian, say Julia.

And then Rudd as easy as you like rises to his feet and lets spread forth with such lifeless and lack of wonder all manner of circumlocution and verbal Diaspora as to make the Citizen slam his beer down on the bar as he listened.

And begob with a cry the Citizen did roar at Rudd to stop and would have ran into the House and near chased him across the lake and up Constitution Avenue all the while screaming and hurling abuse and anger with Rudd having to flee for his life were it not for the fact that the ABC coverage ended at that time and the publican switched the television over and the session was closed with the view of the glorious vision of Entertainment Tonight which served to raise our  joy and cause the heavens to open up with rapture at the wondrousness of celebrity in a manner not seen or read since the weekend of the Budget Estimates Economics Committee 2009 wherein we heard the words of the great man Dr Ken Henry Ph.D., A.O.M., Q.C., O.M., G.C.M.G., T.V., E.T.S., C.P.R.S., A.B.C., S.B.S., N.B.N., D.B.C.D.E., D.E.W.H.A., D.E.E.W.R., A.L.P, L.N.P., W.H.O., U.N., A.P.A.C., A.P.E.C., O.P.E.C., M.S.N.B.C., C.N.N. and P.I.G.S. as he strode forth on the wonders of the economic stimulus plan.

You never saw the like of it! There was a Lindsay not of Melbourne but of Lohan, and lo there was a mighty wonder as we heard the trivialities of the life of the rich and famous and ye verily we did sit comforted that nothing that had occurred in Parliament House that afternoon would be noticed by a vast majority of the populous and when we saw talk of the new dress of Lady Gaga we did shout Aba! Adoni! And the thoughts of Question Time left our minds at an angle of forty five degrees at such a speed it were like a shot off a shovel.

***
What was asked?
The questions ranged across a broad rang of subject including taxation, vexation, expectation, regurgitation, sanitation, assimilation, education, absolution, ejection, health, wealth and war.

Where any answered?
None.

Did this surprise anyone?
Only those who had never watched Question Time before.

Were there any suggestions of a change of the proceedings?
Yes. The Speaker did remind the House that should they wish to make the answers more relevant they need only change the Standing Orders.

Is this likely?
No.

Who were the star performers?
Gillard, Tanner and Rudd.

Who will be reported as being the star performers?
Abbott and Hockey.

What words will be used to describe their performance?
Attacking, challenging, mounting pressure, repeated.

What words would an objective person use to describe their performance?
Insipid, dull, uninspired, pointless.

Was anyone forced to leave the chamber?
Yes, Peter Dutton (for being an idiot), Wilson Tuckey (for being himself) and Christopher Pyne (for being permanently indignant).

Who was answering a question when this occurred?
Julia Gillard.

What was the issue?
The Building the education revolution spending.

Did the opposition appreciate her answer?
No – Dutton, Tuckey and Pyne found no humour in her relating the inaccuracies of various articles in the day’s media, Julie Bishop was only concerned about the authenticity of Julia’s pearls (she declared that they were fake), and Tony Abbott sat with a vacuous grin on his face taking nothing in.

Were any Ministers troubled by any of the questions?
No.

Will it be reported that no ministers were troubled?
No – they were all under attack.

Howe many points of order were made?
14 – 5 by Pyne (pre-ejection), 2 by Abbott, 2 by Bishop – Julie, 2 by Bishop – Bronwyn, 1 by Hockey, 1 by Wilson Tuckey (frivolous, resulted in immediate ejection) and Kevin Andrews (no one quite why he did though).

Was there a motion to suspend the standing orders?
Of course.

Was there any momentum built up prior to the opposition moving this suspension motion?
Absolutely none.

What did Malcolm Turnbull do during this time?
He played with his ipad.

Did this impress anyone?
Only those who were impressed when last year he was proudly playing with his now discarded Kindle.

What was the mood of the Government front bench?
Confidence, they feel they can best anyone on the opposite side.
Concern, the polls have not been good.
Scorn, Abbott seems completely oblivious to his hypocrisy
Humour, Tanner and Julia both produced good one liners.
Boredom, when listening to Kevin Rudd’s fourth Dorothy Dix response.

What was the mood of the Opposition front bench?
Overconfidence, they think they will win the next election.
Ignorance, they think the electorate will vote for Tony Abbott to become PM.
Mendacity, they believe the Liberal Party is the party of free markets despite opposing any pro-market policy.
Boredom, when listening to Kevin Rudd’s fourth Dorothy Dix response.
Exasperation, they can’t believe their long preludes to each question keep allowing Ministers to avoid answering the question.

Was Kevin Rudd seen to be doing anything of note?
Yes, he was arranging a large number of papers in front of him, and making a copious number of notes.

Did his answers to the opposition inspire confidence in his leadership?
Yes, he was solid and fiesty.

Will it be reported as such?
No.

Is he worried about Julia Gillard?
No and yes.

Should he be?
Yes and no.

Does Question Time matter to anyone?
No.

Why do we bother then?
Because it matters to those for whom nothing else matters.

What was the direction of Rudd after the events of the day?
Exit by way of behind the Speaker’s chair, then right along the corridor back to his office.

What is his demeanour?
Happy, because he has performed well in Question Time.
Disappointed, because this won’t be reflected in the polls.
Frustrated, because this is still his first term.
Annoyed, because everyone knows he will still win the election.
Angry, because people are pretending that he won’t.

Is he weary?
Yes, he has been up since early in the morning to do the breakfast radio shows.

Will he sleep?
Not for many hours yet.

What will he do now?
Many things he could do, some things should do, a number of things he would do, and not enough things he needs to do.

Will he rest?
Not until after the end election.

When?

.

***

Yes because he never did a thing like that before as to answer a question in Question Time him without his can I just say and his on the question of and his you know something since when we were younger and he chased us among the rose gardens in the political wilds of 2007 when the voters were young like mountain flowers and we were the flowers of the mountain and we wore a TShirt that said Kevin 07 and we had to put up with the lines from Mr Costello and Mr Howard and the Shanahan conglomerate about how Kevin couldnt drive the economy bollocks to them look at how we got through the global recession though they give you no credit as though it was dumb luck that we still have low unemployment and you cant blame that on the stimulus with all its houses burning down though less than ever before but what does fact and truth matter when there is a narrative to run and I think back on my time and wonder at the men I have known and where are they now with Gough and his time for us all now it is time to turn on the lights with Fraser before Bob Hawke was bringing Australia together and I was singing lets stick together lets see it through in 1987 and wondering what the hell is incentivation and why the answer was not Andrew and they have all come and gone and gone and come but the media remains and now they want to say the the schools are all overpriced and undersized like the eleven years under Howard when I used wonder if there would ever be a time when I would be proud of my Prime Minister and then he apologised and all the world was good and great and this was a new era and even though Brendan Nelson would tell tales of woe and hardship of Taragos and wheelchairs we would all be happy and we would all be disappointed because we all expected too much and he asked us for too much and were it not for the recession we didn’t have we would now be wondering why we shouldnt be looking across the chamber at the man on the other side which would be Turnbull were it not for the Grech affair that shows you cant trust a man when he promises you the world and says he can deliver but the world did deliver something in Copenhagen but it wasn’t enough and so Tony Abbott now tells us that he is the one to trust but don’t trust what I say because what I say you cant trust and you can trust me on that oh for the love of God I say just give me some truth all I need is some truth we live here imagining if there will ever be a time when we will run through the political fields in joy and smelling all the flowers while we can like when we were younger and when he said to us we were the flowers of the mountain and we agreed and we smiled with wonder and then he said to us with his eyes that he was from Queensland and was here to help and to ask us to vote yes and we asked him with our blogs to ask again yes to say vote for me yes and we walked into the voting booth and we thought well as well him as the other and that night as we watched Maxine bring down John our hearts were going like mad and the crowd was cheering like it never has and yes we said yes we voted yes. Yes.

Canberra, 2010.