Yesterday I read a tweet from Annabel Crabb to a tweep who’d complained that Peter Reith was on The Drum AGAIN. Anyone on my Twitter feed will know that we are constantly complaining about the regular presence of Mr Reith, both on the televised and the online version of The Drum. Regulars like David Horton of the Watermelon Blog ask several times a week that the ABC reveal Reith’s contract with the public broadcaster, to no avail.
Many tweeps repeatedly point out the role Reith played in the Howard government, particularly in regard to the so-called “Children Overboard” scandal, in which the government made unsubstantiated (and later discredited) claims that seafaring asylum seekers had thrown children overboard in a presumed ploy to secure rescue and passage to Australia.
A Senate Select committee later found that no children were thrown overboard from SIEV 4, and that several Howard government ministers including Peter Reith had deliberately misled the public by “cynically exploiting voters’ fears of a wave of illegal immigrants by demonising asylum seekers.”
It was also found that on no less than fourteen occasions, Reith and/or his office were informed that children had not been thrown overboard, and that photos Reith claimed proved the allegations were in reality images of asylum seekers and children struggling in the water after their boat had sunk.
Add to that charges of the improper use of a phone card, and Reith’s much criticised handling of the waterfront dispute when he was Industrial Relations Minister, and you have a politician with a very fraught history. His close relationship with the ABC is regularly and rightly questioned. The public broadcaster usually makes no comment, but yesterday Ms Crabb broke with tradition and tweeted:
@annabelcrabb: @preciouspress I’m always pleased when Peter Reith’s on. I think he’s a great panel member.”
While I acknowledge that the ABC’s responsibility to attempt a balance of perspectives in its opinion and analysis means there will inevitably be guests with whom somebody disagrees, I do wonder why a politician with a record such as Reith’s is their choice as a regular participant.
Now I wonder why Ms Crabb decided to so wholeheartedly endorse him, and in such a personal fashion. I thought we’d just established through the shaming of Stephen Long, that it is not the job of ABC journalists to express displeasure or favour towards any public figure.
The ABC presumably offers Peter Reith as a credible, honest commentator on current affairs. Now endorsed by Annabel Crabb, it seems confirmed that as we have long suspected, Mr Reith’s history is irrelevant to the ABC because he’s “a great panel member.” The ABC legitimises Mr Reith by offering him a regular platform, and now by Ms Crabb’s personal seal of approval as well.
There are many far more credible alternatives to Peter Reith, whom the ABC might invite to express a right-wing point of view. Personally, I am unable to dismiss Mr Reith’s role in the Children Overboard affair, and I am saddened that the ABC and Annabel Crabb apparently find it so easy to erase that shameful chapter of our history, and to redeem and grant legitimacy to someone who was a central participant in that disgrace.
No Place For Sheep 
Annabel is of course famous for warning a young Natasha Stott-Despoja,that she would need “more than a pair of pert boobs” to succeed in politics.
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Obviously Crabb failed the entry test on those grounds.
Best if she sticks to the kitchen,eh?
😉
A bit harsh on Nat I say.
Maybe jealousy.Happens a lot in that world.
Perhaps Ms Crabb has something in common with her crustacean namesake?
Walks sideways, cack in the cruett.
Or is it an ancestral apple?
Small insignificant fruit,astringent, with floury core.Bitter after taste.
Reith? His record and mealy mouthed words speak for themselves.
A true Howardite and Abbottophile.
Both are representative and indicative of Mark Scotts ABC mission.
Uhlmann is just biding his time for another foray into politics.
probably next election.
He has run his journalism race and hit the rails immediately after he broke the start.A sprinter,not a stayer.
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As for Reith, why has he been jammed up the Drum? Relentless tabloidisation from a worthless management.
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And not only the children overboard affair, but before that a crucial role in the balaclava clad dog squad ‘security’ force which stood over genuine waterside workers and enabled waterfront reform – a good result, perhaps but does the end justify the means? ‘Whatever it takes’ is a truly miserable way of gaining reform.
I call the gentleman BILKO – ex minister for Balaclavas Industrial Lightweights and Kids Overboard.
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Like most modern Liberals he is a complete complete undervaluer of natural talent.
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I think that any real analysis of Reith as a politician or a a man should go back to the Waterfront dispute of the late 90’s. Regardless of your opinion of the industrial relations of the time, what was done was an extremist act of a kind that despite Reith’s party being said to come from the conservative side of politics was anything but conservative. In the end the Howard government was seen in this and other episodes to be radically anti union in a way that was out of step with any mandate it may have had govern conservatively.
The Liberals’ ill concealed enthusiasm for attacking in unionism what is seen to be a major plank of their Labor opponents’ platform was and is to this day one of their major shortcomings as a political force in Australia. Ordinary Australians want jobs with the kind of security and conditions that unions helped to institute in a way that would tend to frame any truly conservative political party in the role of their protector when it comes to workplace relations.
The children overboard episode was a aberration borne of the kind of mindless enthusiasm for a political opportunity that very much marred Reith’s judgement as a politician. His mate (Teflon) Howard, ever averse to allowing anything to stick, saw him, perhaps rightly, as a liability and cut him loose.
If that’s the kind of person that the media are draw to simply because they know that they’ll get him to rise to their bate with some kind of controversial remark then it just goes to show how wilfully our ABC has abandoned journalism for Show Business!
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Peter Reith is part of the Drum’s beat-up. A bit like the tune ‘Greensleeves’ was part of Mr Whippy ice cream vendors years ago. The van would cruise through dehydrated deserted suburban streetscapes but when Greensleeves was switched on the kiddies would come out in droves.
Of course, the Drum is becoming as dehydrated as so many suburban Rozella Circuits and Peter Reith is perhaps not so much a’ Green sleeves tune’ as the King rat making for a nice moist drain.
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The Drum and Q & A, =
Ipecac Syrup and Laxettes.
(Interchangeable outcomes. Sometimes a combo)
And that’s me,in another very generous frame of mind.
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Surely we can FOI the connection of the likes of Reith and the ABC?
Can we get a copy of their constitution?
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plus——–
Isn’t a crabbe a bodye parasitee?
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Crabbe is a curious case. She seems to play for laughs when a serious point needs to be made. Sometimes humour can assist in making a serious point, such as in Evelyn Waugh’s ‘The Loved One’, and no doubt the readers have their own favourites in this genre.
But Crabbe could be so much better than she is, perhaps that is our disappointment.
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Chopper*Read would be a more credible panellist. Majority of the Electorate retain no memory of the reasons why Reith should always remain below his parapet. Shameless.
and
The Sisterhood should have wiped out Annabel for that ‘pert boob’ comment to Senator Despoja. disgusting.
I don’t watch The Drum. am dancing to the online opinion beat so I can skip the dopey stuff.
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Reith and Crabbe are a bit like one of those old mens’ barbers who only had “one” haircut and a dozen different approaches to the same result! Whenever an untitled piece appeared on the Drum headline spot, you could tell immediately if it was written beither either of those two!
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Yes, jaycee, one is a playschool girl and the other is a high-school bully, but you do recognise them always…
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Which is which,Helvi?
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The one with the yellow sunhat and the vintage dress is the girl….
One is sweet, the other one is sour..
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Oh come now Helvi I’ve found that slugs, snails and puppy dog’s tails are overrated as cuisine and exaggerated as insults towards boys.
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Hudson , sorry if I’m a bit catty about Annabel, I don’t dislike her, I just expect a bit more from ABC’s chief online political commentator.
As for Reith…rat tails will do 🙂
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Fair Point
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The Drum doesnt really have any talent on the show anyway. So Reith fits in fine. And Crabbs remarks suggest to me that she feels superior when Reith is on. So, it may not be an endorsement of Reith at all in the tweep that she tweeted.
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Crabbe, Reith,The Drum…none in whatever combo have been able to stop my intestinal hurry. My mum used the ingestion( when we were kids) of pieces of charcoal as an old faschioned remedy.
Just curious if respondents to above (Crabbe et all), know about this remedy or use Lomotil instead?
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Can’t stand Crabb, she is just another of the newly self-appointed ‘celebrity’ journalists. So, I don’t care what she tweeps and who she gushes over. It is all just boring, self-serving, look at me, look at me stuff. Now, as for Peter Reith…well, let’s not get started.
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I saw that cake making show of hers, in a boat with some Coalition senator, some fisher and shooter, and I wondered.who’s idea is this crappy show….?
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When I was a girl I never once met another Julia…a number of Julies & Juliette, even a Julienne (dead set…her mother liked the name on the can) but no other Julia. For a long while I half convinced myself that John Lennon wrote that song just for me…lol. Since JG became PM, I’ve been finding them popping up all over the place.
It’s a revolution, I tell you. No more closet Julias!!!
I like this one…she saved me the trouble of typing a response.
What she wrote:
ditto!
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I thought there were two Julia’s here.
I was worried for a while that we had more trolling.
Almost had a Julia Seizure!
And look what next month is called…………..
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Julia is supposed to mean “downy hair”
and next month is the best time of year
when lots of downy hair is just marvellous
for snuggling up with…..:)
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I thought I was the only Helvi in Australia, a couple of weeks ago I met a nice Estonian lady with the same name…now we are two….
We also have two Gerards, our Gez and Henderson….
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There’ll only ever be ONE Helvi.
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so true.
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I would keep the local Gerard, could someone please put the other in the kitchen tidy ready for this weeks waste collection.The old, mouldering. soggy rotten stuff or the dry, for cardboard cut-outs, either way.
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Agree.I don’t think our ‘local’ Gerard is a pompous Liberal leg humper, either.
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I can’t wait for the penny to drop at aunty after Fairfax and NL finish culling.
Then let’s gut the ABC.
Get them back to being a public b/caster.
Start by binning Scott.
Either that or we sell aunty and put their share into SBS.
The ABC is less than a gutter press these days with treacle and shit soup panels/opinions for the non-news area.
The bastions of journalism and icons like 4Corners are fully politicised of late.
All Mark Scotts doing and or responsibility.
The weather is the only unbiased bit left.
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I read an article by Scott on the Drum, he praised ABC stuff, and especially Annabell and Uhlmann…
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One thing that no one seems to be mentioning is all the small town newspapers Fairfax owns…how will these fare in the projected cut-backs?
When are we going to hear the question? let alone the answer.
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There was a time when a takeover of Fairfax by Rinehart would have led to demonsratations in the street. Whitlam and Fraser shared a platform in their protest against Packer. I don’t think the SMH generates the same level of affection now.
The ABC’s drift to the far right with commentary from Reith, Bolt, Ackerman and the Institute fo Public Affairs has diminished the institution and shaken my regard for it.
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Annabel has her moments. Once she matures she may ended writing some good stuff.
My problem with her is she, like so so many others these days, is she comes across as blinded by the glitter of job titles & high income-streams. She is flattered at the attention of the Reiths of this world, smiles coyly asking her pert questions with demurely draped decollette [sp] aquiver in the studio light.
Annabel has potential … but has still lots to learn…
,,,(if she ever does)
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grr….there was 2 “is she”s in that sentence 😦
The Drum on ABC 3 or is it 4? in Gippsland has the worst sound…grating brassy sound quality…totally out of synch.
Not worth the effort.
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“Once she matures”
Good wine often turns to vinegar if contaminated.
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Let’s face it, if Reith was to let go with an almighty fart on The Drum, the ABC. would be writing to Stockholm recomending him for a “Nobel”…Whilst Crabbe would expect a second Walkley for reporting it “verbatum”!
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Was that meant to be verbatim or verbal-bum, as seems appropriate to the kind of political flatulence that might be termed running off at the arse!
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then they get some up-they-selves seated at the Desk to waffle on & on in pseudo –coal cha…
till you change the channel
or hang yerself on the TV remote cord
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Yep……..
Verbal Bum
lol
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Your TV remote has a chord? How very steampunk of you!
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Mine is in Gmajor.Anyone for a jamplay?
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Gerard,
Is there a particular place you hide this Gmajor, and do you have any difficulty finding it???
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a guitar is a woman’s instrument…
designed to fit into the bumps and curves of her body,
and the shape of her arm.
…and comes with a G string for
for much chordial jamplay
Here’s a toast to:
Rule Brittannia
Marmalade and jam…etc
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There’s always a ukulele too
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It’s the flute players you really have to watch!
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I have it on good authority that farts are usually in E flat major; to do with tubes and natural horns and all that.
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Speaking of Libs with baggage, I see Troy Buswell the infamous WA Furniture Olfactory Engineer (moomph) has been picking on the ladies.
The latest episode reducing a female opposition member to tears.
Will the West Australian Newspaper use the banner,
“Drivers Seat, by Sniff and the Tears”,
should Troy get the WA Treasurer gig which Premier Colin Barnett will no doubt hand him, now that the rats are deserting?
WA’s Parliament is like reverse Muppet’s when it comes to Troy,
a piggy looking who had an affair with a Green.
Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-ya!
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EDIT
‘piggy looking dude’
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Well the High Court struck down the funding to the chaplaincy program; but government hate to be frustrated in their programs and A-G Roxon is already promising support to this dubious program.
The Feds seem to think this is counselling on the cheap; cheap because the Scripture Union is a proselytising body all too willing to provide its services, and would probably provide them for nothing if push came to shove.
All they want is access to the student body, which they have, and to boot they are subsidised by the Federal Government!
I see precious little objection to this misuse of government moneys by the shock jocks and right wing sound-offs.
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This is another ACL demand no doubt.
‘Must keep the brainwashing campaign on track.’
As good as Gillard may be compared to Abbott she still caves in as good as the rest.
I would rather we went to an election as soon as we can, after the carbon tax has bedded in, so we can know one way or the other whether we are a One Nation Bible bashing hybrid or something else.
I think I will smash my Midnight Oils music tomorrow, and use the CD sleeves for fire-lighters and date rolls..
Garret is half the woman Wong is, and she is useless.
She has had several portfolios and done diddly, except waffle.
If she was in a coma,her GP would think she was hyperactive.
Together they are the serotonin twins.
What has happened to Labor?
Never again.
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Have you lost the plot Hypo? Shithouse as Labor are they are still better than the rag-tag collection opposite which wants its trotters back in the trough.
Out of the frying pan into the fire is not progress.
We are as usual stuck with the least-worst option. C’est la vie.
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If there was a Labor plot,DQ, they appear to have lost it LONG before I did.
Or is off shore detention etc. core Labor values now.
I know how reprehensible shallow and gutless the coalition are.
Which pains me, in that Labor has been trying to out liberal the liberals since Rudds popularity went a tiny bit south.
I fully expect them to embrace individual work contracts soon as a union initiative.
I still have some respect for some Labor pollies,but the list is shrinking.
And just so I don’t cost you any sleep, here’s the rub- I’ll be dead before I touch a liberal how to vote card,let alone direct a microscopic preference in their direction.
I’m not so bereft of choices or enamoured with spineless grovelling that I would ‘donate’ my principles to someone borrowing a union card either.
Gillard can have the church.She has either earned them by choice or negligence or compromise.
It seems political opportunism is the new Labor religion,until proved otherwise.
SSM for instance may not be a high priority mainstream community aspiration,but how did chaplains become one?
I know a head job when I see one.
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Typically provocative.
Doug, they seem in lock-step with US Tea Party politics,on everything from morals surveillance and policing through dumbing down of broadcasting, education and economics, as if there was a blue print from which all the governments of the world, a sort of choir book from which all sang.
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As far as this chaplaincy program goes I spurn it as I would spurn a rabid dog, but there may be another side to the story.
On one hand we have a Labor party who we can’t quite believe are supporting this program doing so out of what many of us seem to think might possibly be more of a vote winning conspiracy than any authentically held conviction in its favour.
On the other hand if I may be so bold we have taken as our topic a generalised sense of disdain for the ABC having veered towards tabloid journalism in a way that suggests a competing conspiracy theory, that the chaplaincy program makes better copy than the actual issue. Lazy journalism and following the commercial outlets’ lead is probably at work yet again.
The real issue is government being conducted through the implementation of policies that don’t have funding approval without the passage of specific supporting legislation through the parliament.
It is an issue that should rightly be seen as important to the way government properly conducts itself, and quite obviously one that a minority government of any stripe needs to be reminded about, like they need a hole in the head!
It would be little wonder that Roxon was willing to defend this because without the power to implement a certain amount of policy that they feel is mandated if not specifically legislated then they’re probably worried that funding for other programs might be affected. And there seems equally little doubt that like this one they’ll mostly either be pet programs or initiatives designed to placate “special interest” groups.
What hasn’t been done is upholding the constitutional principle that a religious test should not be permitted. Nor is there any governing principle sparing children from indoctrination. We appear to believe that you can have freedom of religion to the exclusion of freedom from religion! Sorry Labor but I think that’s fucked up!
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“Sorry Labor but I think that’s fucked up!”
+1 ,HG
but seriously
There’s a Labor choice?
Do they only come out at night when we’re sleeping?
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Its the conclusion of I’ve come to.
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I agree with HG about the defensive reaction from the government. The High Court effectively ruled that the executive government is there to carry the laws of the Commonwealth into effect, and not to act as it sees fit in drawing down public funds for the extra-legal programs and policies which it may favour from time to time.
If carried through, the principle would threaten many Commonwealth “initiatives” and the Opposition will see it similarly as threatening their own favourite hobby-horses. They may grandstand about it and try to claim the high ground, but bet your bottom dollar that it would affect them even more if the voters are so benighted as to elect them.
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Reith got it right in a recent Drum article : he described himself as “a washed up ex-politician”
Sometimes he has something useful to say, and even Kevin Donnelly sometimes makes a reasonable point; the difficulty is that neither of them can resist making political points.
If they want to be regarded as neutral expert commentators they must – must – avoid party-political point scoring comments.
I know that Reith avidly reads my contributions; perhaps he will actually take my advice. (Grins)
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I don’t think Reith ever intends, nor is he intended by the ABC, to be a neutral commentator. What we’re seeing instead is an aspect of how “balance” is practised in the media by supplying counterpoints at the extremes to make for plenty of colour and movement, instead of speaking to the middle from the middle and largely denying radicals on the fringes more of a platform than they deserve.
You may be right to say that the likes of Kevin Donnelly occasionally make a reasonable point, but the problem is that it is quickly pressed into the service of propping up a wholly unreasonable one. And yet I’m more inclined to give Reith airtime than Donnelly as things stand, simply because Reith has a profile that at least means most people know to take him for the washed up ex-politician that he acknowledges he is.
And at this point I want to exercise my JW given right by gracious invitation to post a link to something on Youtube. This is John Stewart’s Crossfire appearance.
The back story to this was that Stewart who is well known to most for satirising politics, his Cable TV program The Daily Show on Comedy Central the rest of the context is well enough supplied by the video itself. In the aftermath of which Crossfire was cancelled by the station.
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Who is that wanker in the bowtie – no don’t answer I’d rather not know. Just another rightist glove puppet.
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Crabbe & Reith = Punch & Judy?
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I think you’re being a bit hard on Annabel. I have a feeling that tweet was meant ironically, but also Reith gets people’s backs up which ensures good, captivating television
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Mr Bayley,
Hard on Crabb?You jest.She’s the Muppet, Bitch Cassidy performs slapstick routines with every other Sunday on the Catholic Coalition Soapbox Derby, run by the Howard appointee,Mark Scott.Now that’s irony.Calling the ABC a neutral public broadcaster.
Pray tell how does one reflect irony in a Tweet? Post the technique here, and then best you let the Vatican Lawyers know.Before they chase another comedienne.
Reith had no justifiable place in any front bench position when he was milking the taxpayer,let alone since.
I think two blatantly baseless apologies (in one day) is enough for me.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>’
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The political appeasement (philosophical fellatio) of churches, sponsors and other parasitic institutions rolls on. One stupid move after another.
It will be interesting to see what the electorate think of the idea about a referendum recognising local govt.Interesting in a macabre way, that is.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-06-21/chaplain-case-could-impact-on-councils-says-roxon/4083662
I for one consider recognising local govt in the constitution is pure madness.
Local govt is a resort precinct filled by vested interests and barrow pushers,many of whom are practising for state politics.Councillors even get allowances and reimbursements already for raising rates every year.I wonder what the ratio of real estate agents(relatives of) and land owners/potential developers, is across the nation? I wonder how many Chambers of Commerce members fill seats?
Imagine how Newman et al would take advantage of the situation.
“Look the local council says it wants to drill for oil in the maternity ward of the local hospital.Listen here, if the lawfully elected council says a few oil slicks washing up on the Great barrier reef is what the locals endorse we back them 100%. Look the Gympie council has resolved to allow fracking on all rated land, and we are beholding to the constitution on this !”
He has already begun his attack on working people by step one in union dismantling.
And all this before The First Australians are even acknowledged to exist.
More of Labors liberal ideas.Honestly these idiots have morphed into zombies working for the big end of town.
I’d rather the real wolf, face to face, than one dressed as a sheep.
Let’s get this election happening so we can see if we really surrounded by idiots.
And here’s a prediction.As much as I very much admire Greg Combet as one of Labor’s greatest assets,his speech at the press club (and answers after it) will now be adjusted (180 degrees) by our right wing media.
The focus will be on a question relating to ‘tweaking’ the parameters of the carbon tax, which is not on the cards, but we know what Abbott will do with such an open invitation.
Watch this space.
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No doubt Scott Morrison will join Abbott in welcoming a capsized boat to our north, for more political mileage.
Prove us wrong Tony.Blame the culprits instead of the woman in your way.
The sound of a high pitched whistle and shattering lives snaps the air…………..
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the boats only capsize because you’re not going to use your best boat for the crossing when the Aussie govt is going to seize and burn it after arresting the passengers.
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….and tell me this does not reek of coalition tactics and timing…..
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-06-22/fortescue-launches-last-minute-mining-tax-challenge/4086414
The pseudo-Chinese Iron Ore Ambassador running to the High Court, a week out from the tax?
Record investment in mining and he’s still not willing to cough up.
What a joke.
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Why would they do that when the ABC is Libearls propaganda machine already?
I think Clive may be
‘protesting too much’.
Another CIA scam Clivey?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-06-28/liberal-senator-offered-to-lobby-for-abc/4097028
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EDIT Libearls=Liberals, unless of course you wish to use it as a hybridised word containing part of ‘pearls’ as in the ones before swine.
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…and just today…yesterday…Peter Reith: human rights are “high falutin’ values” that are not part of “the real world”
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