From Minor Scuffles To A Mainstream Death Match...

'The Australian' Vs The Blogstream War Has Begun

The shift from back-alley sniper and tripwire insurgency to full blown street fighting in the war between 'The Australian' newspaper online and the thin ranks of the local political blogstream began yesterday with this post from Peter Brent at Mumble, talking about a call he got from The Australian newspaper :

A courtesy call from Editor-in-Chief Chris Mitchell this morning informed me that the paper is going to “go” Charles Richardson (from Crikey) and me tomorrow. Chris said by all means criticise the paper, but my “personal” attacks on Dennis had gone too far, and the paper will now go me “personally”.

No, I’m not making this up.

All very strange. And - I’d be lying if I didn’t admit - a little stomach-churning.

Why would Christ Mitchell choose to "go" Peter Brent "personally", along with Richardson from Crikey?

Because Brent and Richardson, and Crikey in general, dared to critique the way the editorial team of The Australian newspaper interprets the results of Newspoll, and last Monday's Newspoll in particular:

The latest Newspoll shows Mr Howard has closed the gap on Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd, who is now ahead by just one point, 43 per cent to 42, as preferred prime minister.

However, the opposition leader still holds a greater satisfaction rating, 60 per cent to Mr Howard's 46 per cent, and Labor retains an election-winning lead.

A fleet of opinionists from The Australian openly cheered the polls as showing Howard firmly on the comeback trail, whereas the real truth is that he is still flat-lining. The majority of .Australians don't trust Howard, and they don't want to vote for him or his government again. The Australian newspaper did not reflect, or headline, those very simple facts.

There was the usual barrage of blog posts bagging The Australian. Nothing unusual about that kind of criticism from the political blogstream.

Here was Crikey's take on July 10 :

The front page of today's Australian newspaper and its reporting of the latest Newspoll has prompted a range of reactions, from shock at the sheer mendacity of its main headline ''Howard checks Rudd's march'' to muffled awe at the paper's continuing ability to pluck some shred of glass-half-full optimism from the ongoing cataclysm of the Liberal Party's federal polling. All of which is no more or less than one might expect from the country's unofficial conservative organ.

The Australian shows a clear and undeniable bias towards the Howard government in the opinions, but most particularly in the headlines, which is what most people see and read. Most in the Australian political blogstream accept this. No big deal. Another Newspoll, another bad result for Howard Corp. polished to a dull glow of hope by The Australian's front page and headline writers. Life goes on.

But Chris Mitchell thought the wave of criticism was a very big deal indeed.

This time, for reasons still unclear, the editor in chief of 'The Australian' decided to try a shock and awe attack, decapitation strike on the still-below-the-mainstream-radar political blogstream.

Peter Brent, from Mumble, is a respected commenter of political polling for most political bloggers and dozens of poll addicts, and it is hard to see why Mitchell would see him as some kind of threat worthy of such a response, where at best Brent might be seen as a mild stainer of the newspaper's credibility. Brent's readership online is small, less than a thousand per day.

Well, Brent's readership was small, until Chris Mitchell went into meltdown mode :

Online prejudice no substitute for real work

THE measure of good journalism is objectivity and a fearless regard for truth. Bias, nonetheless, is in the eye of the beholder and some people will always see conspiracy when the facts don't suit their view of the world. This is the affliction that has gripped, to a large measure, Australia's online news commentariat that has found passing endless comment on other people's work preferable to breaking real stories and adding to society's pool of knowledge.

Stunning, and hilarious. Welcome to the blogstream, Mr Mitchell.

Mitchell stayed true to his 'threat' over the phone to Brent. His editorial did get personal :

"woolly-headed critics", "the one-eyed anti-Howard cheer squad", "masquerading as serious online political commentary" "smug" "self-assured" "delusional swagger".

No bias, and clearly cooler heads at The Australian, right?

Well, what about this :

As a newspaper we don't know who we will support at the federal election.

Why, if you are an unbiased newspaper, are you going to support either party? Or any politician, for that matter, running for a seat, or the big seat?

Of course, this editorial is in The Australian, and Mitchell, like so many other opionists in The Australian are still fighting the sort of 'Left Vs Right' battles most adults dispensed with once university was over.

Mitchell can't seem to comprehend that the vast majority of Australians now live in a world where they will vote, and voice their support, for the political party that most often voices their concerns and most actively appears to be looking after their future, and the future of Australia for their children. Labor and Liberal generational votes are all but dead. Left Vs Right? Irrelevant today, as it has been for good decade.

Mitchell should have just called his editorial "Those Bloody Lefties!"

The self appointed experts online come instead from the extreme Left, populated as many sites are by sheltered academics and failed journalists who would not get a job on a real newspaper. We fully expect that if anything goes wrong for Mr Rudd in the campaign this year we will be blamed for Labor's misfortune.

It reflects how out of touch with ordinary views so many on-line commentators are.

...they should not kid themselves they are engaged in proper journalism and real reporting.

That is probably the strangest comment of all. How many bloggers in Australian regard themselves as "proper" journalists anyway? Not many, I would presume.

Most bloggers don't have the time or resources to practice journalism, by whatever standard Mitchell thinks applies here. He misses one of the key missions, and American success stories, of independent political and news blogging - to keep a check on the mainstream media, and to inform the readers of the news they might have missed, or issues they believe their readers should be aware of. It's not complicated, and it's certainly not the big conspiracy that Mitchell appears to believe it is.

Here's Mitchell again :

On almost every issue it is difficult not to conclude that most of the electronic offerings that feed off the work of The Australian to create their own content are a waste of time.

So why go on and on about them, then? Because he's worried.

Why does Mitchell feel so threatened? And if he's right about them being such a waste of time, why are so many of the "electronic offerings" experiencing signs of real growth in readership?

Because Australians, like Americans last year, are bored with the mainstream media and no longer believe that most of what they read in the newspapers is truth. The blogstream allows news followers to see other sides to dominant opinion threads, like those so often found in The Australian, and to pick up links to other news resources, or other blogs, that will expand their knowledge on the issues that interest them.

Plus, bloggers can cut loose in ways that still seem unacceptable or too over-the-top for staid, tired newspapers.

Not to forget, of course, that the blogstream allows readers to instantly voice their own views on a subject, or news story, and to engage in exchange with other readers of the blogs they visit.

Mitchell must have known that by devoting his entire lead editorial to trying to bitchslap the blogstream into behaving itself that he would instead give it new life, new readership, new focus and fresh attention from the mainstream of Australia.

You've got to love the irony, too, of Mitchell complaining about the blogstream calling The Australian a biased media institution. His own newspaper has devoted literally hundreds of editorials in the past seven or eight years to endless whining about the 'bias' on show at the ABC.

Of course, when The Australian is accused of letting its bias towards the conservative government show far too often, Mitchell goes fullcore berko.


But it's all a bit too late for Mitchell to start claiming The Australian does not have a politically-motivated bias towards the Howard government.

John Howard clearly thinks The Australian is biased in favour of his government and its generally unpopular policies. Here's Howard on the ABC in March, 2006 :

"I think back over the last 10 years that this government has been in office and I think of the positions taken by The Australian newspaper. It has been broadly supportive, generously so, of the government's economic reform agenda. And it has been a strong supporter, consistently... of industrial relations reform. Its only criticism of the government is that it might not have gone far enough."

And here's Chris Mitchell himself keelhauling his own 'We're Not Biased' editorial on The Media Report :

I think editorially and on the Op Ed page, we are right-of-centre. I don't think it's particularly far right, I think some people say that, but I think on a world kind of view you'd say we're probably pretty much where The Wall Street Journal, or The Telegraph in London are. So, you know, centre-right. I think that's a good position for us to be....

Well, not if you want to write editorials claiming to be unbiased.


A lot of the anger and venting in the blogstream over The Australian's twisting and reframing of the Newspoll results was stirred up by this column from Dennis O'Shanahan in the The Australian yesterday.

Somebody didn't like the scale of the comments that post attracted, because it was closed down yesterday, by 11.32am, with this abrupt message :

Commenting for this article is no longer available, try one of the articles below for more from the Dennis Shanahan blog.

16 comments appeared on the blog in less than one hour. Most were negative, hammering Shanahan for spinning the Newspoll results to create the impression that Howard and his government were making a comeback.

Today's 'shock and awe' editorial from Mitchell was trailered yesterday in Shanahan's column :

Academics at arm’s length from the political and journalistic worlds can huff and puff about polls and poll reporting but they can’t deny the real world influence of those polls and the real interest politicians take in them.

Journalistic worlds? What does that mean? That journalists from The Australian dwell in a world, a reality, that is removed from the everyday Australian world they are supposed to be reporting on? His defence became his own indictment.

More Shanahan self-defence :

The Australian and Newspoll (and I) have been right about election result after election result. It’s all the vindication we need. Just spare us the amateur and jaundiced analysis that can’t accept the numbers going in the opposite direction.

He ended his column with this :

Cheers to all those who engage in the great, democratic and political exercise of freedom of speech.

Ironic indeed considering they only took 55 minutes worth of comments and then pulled the plug on Shanahan's 'blog'.

You have to wonder why they chose to shut it down.

Too much freedom of speech from the punters?


When Mitchell's badly aimed firebombing of the local blogstream hit online this morning, Tim Dunlop at Blogocracy was one of the first out of the gate :

They defend themselves in the strongest possible terms and attack, specifically and generally, just about anyone who disagrees with them, particularly “Australia’s online news commentariat that has found passing endless comment on other people’s work preferable to breaking real stories and adding to society’s pool of knowledge.”

Dunlop blogs via news.com.au, the corporate homeland for 'The Australian'. For reasons unexplained so far, Dunlop's critique of fellow Murdochians at The Australian disappeared from the net early this morning. It briefly reappeared and has now disappeared completely. So much for freedom of speech, and The Australian being ready to accept criticism.

AB at The Road To Surfdom manned the mortars a short time after Dunlop :

Do these guys at News think their reading public has had a collective frontal lobotomy? Do they expect their customers to just swallow their biased, looney manipulations whole, without even chewing? Do they really despise their blog contributors as much as Shanahan makes out? Are they really so afraid of criticism that they’re prepared to “go” the humble Mumble?

The answer, it seems, is sadly “Yes”. What a pathetic bunch of losers. Their condescending and now outright feral attitude is the best evidence yet that their pet government is going out big time next election. Shanahan should be especially fearful, as it was him who took the credit for getting rid of Beazley and having Rudd installed as leader. That one’s come back to bite you on the arse, hasn’t it Dennis?

The Poll Bludger, one of the blogs that appears to be getting under the skin of Chris Mitchell, built an IED and buried it by the roadside, asking one of the most relevant, potent questions of the day :

The Australian – sober and experienced voice of reason, or craven mouthpiece of the crony capitalist military-industrial complex?

The comments from Poll Bludger's readers on Mitchell's shitfit are well worth a look.

Bryan at Oz Politics asks : "Is it just me, or does this seem just a touch too precious?"

Simon Jackman, another poll analyst and political scientist, comments : "Frankly, I’m surprised that the mainstream media are paying that much attention."

Exactly.

With Crikey, Mumble, Blogocracy, and a dozen other blogs putting in the boot since the beginning of the week, Chris Mitchell must have felt besieged. He was clearly rattled. He didn't write that editorial today for fun. He was trying to undermine any credibility given to the political blogstream, before too many people started paying attention. Like we said, it has already backfired, and badly.


Larvatus Prodeo went for a grind on The Australian's editorial interpretations of Newspoll results yesterday.

LP has been busy popularising the moniker 'Government Gazzette' for 'The Australian,' which is now being used by Crikey as well. That sort of branding clearly annoys Chris Mitchell.

LP commenter Youie noticed an interesting bleed of government spin and editorial echo at The Australian earlier this week :

I couldn’t help but note this remarkable coincidence. Alexander Downer’s opinion piece in yesterday’s [Monday’s] Australian said of Rudd: “He used his trip merely as a media opportunity - all sizzle, no sausage.”

Today [Tuesday], three sentences into his piece, Shanahan says: “But voters drawn to the Rudd barbecue by the sizzle and smell of onions may now be looking for the sausage.”

The howls of 'Government Gazette' only increased after that effort.

For Mitchell, that should have been beyond embarrassing. Perhaps that echo chambering of government ministers also inspired his attack today.


Chris Mitchell made a serious tactical error, by running his rant as the main editorial. American newspaper editors learned all too late never to show your throat to the political blogstream. Now we now how rattled he is, we're not going to forget it.

Through the hundreds of comments up at various Aussie blogs today, it's clear the blog readers believe some serious blows have been landed in recent months against the credibility of how The Australian's editorial team interprets and billboards Newspoll results. Mitchell's throbbing forehead reaction proves it.

But, as pointed out above, there is an underlying theme to the comments : Why does Chris Mitchell give a shit what Mumble or Crikey or LP contributors think about how The Australian interprets the polls? The collective daily online readership of all the main political blogs, including Crikey, would barely crack 40,000. But those numbers are rising every week.

Has Mitchell seen the writing on the wall? That more and more Australians are turning to non-newspaper blogs to get some perspective, or 'alternative views'?

The Australian readerships of Australian blogs are rising, with Crikey and LP probably doing better than most, and it's likely Australian blog readership will blossom during the coming federal election, when the mainstream media begin seriously hyping the power of blogs and the internet to impact on the outcome of the elections. It remains to be seen whether the blogstream will have an impact on the elections, but the media is going to run with this story anyway. It's now part of the election coverage cycle, as set down by the American news channels.

Mitchell gave the rest of the media its starting point today. Is the Australian political blogstream worth being listened to, or not? Mitchell did the blogstream a huge favour by claiming that, for the most part, they're not worthy of your attention. When people read such warnings, the usual response is to think 'Well, why aren't they? Why is this guy telling me not to pay attention them? Am I missing out on something?'


As a multitude of blog comments, on the various blogs linked above, point out, Mitchell allowed himself to come over as "wussy", "petty", sensitive", "sooky" and so on. It was one of the weaker editorials from Mitchell, who can usually frame his arguments with clarity and perspective. He raised an argument against the political blogstream in Australia and failed to make enough relevant points to impact negatively.

He panicked and went on the defensive, and on the attack. And he failed mightily on both fronts.

Again, why does Mitchell even care about a bunch of blogs pulling a few thousand readers a day?


Mitchell not only showed his paranoia and his fears about how the Australian media landscape will be impacted by the political blogstream, he exposed his throat and he sparked a debate he has all but no chance of winning, and in turn, he's given some truth to the widespread belief that the editorial team of The Australian (with the except of Matt Price) simply do not like blogs. More so, they don't like the fact that Rupert Murdoch forced them to shift most of the daily editorials and opinion pieces into a blog format, from which Murdoch knows he will see increased online ad revenue. The more people who comment, the more fiery the arguments and debates under the columns get, the more ad revenue hitting the News Limited bank accounts.

In the past few months, with some of The Australian's columns and editorials ratcheting up 300 and 400+ comments, the actual opinions of the columnist tend to take a backseat to what the commenters are saying to each other. Matt Price gets involved in the ruckus below his own words more than anyone else from The Australian editorial team, and appears to enjoy the exchanges. But most of the rest don't return get involved at all, letting the commenters rock around in a free-for-all.

Digital democracy has come hard and fast to The Australian, and they don't like the fact that on an average Newspoll day more than 80% (my rough estimate) of the comments aired on the boards portray a highly opinionated, often venomous, sprawl of Australian readers who simply do not agree with the way The Australian editorial team interprets the Newspoll results, and regularly claim that the writers are spinning for Howard Corp.

It'll be interesting to watch the mainstream media and blogstream reactions to all this in the next few days.

One thing is now certain.

The Blogstream Vs The Mainstream Media wars in Australia have begun.

Photo ID To Buy Three Slabs Of Beer

Under the umbrella of prime minister John Howard's plan to seize control of more than 60 Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory, as part of a military-backed operation to confront alcoholism and child sexual abuse in remote communities, bottle shops across the Northern Territory will be legally bound to demand photo ID and record the names and addresses of anyone buying more than three cartons of beer.

Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough said the laws are designed to "strike a balance which does not disrupt normal people" who are consuming alcohol responsibly.

"So, if you're getting a pallet of booze and it sounds a bit suss, we can obviously follow up that sort of thing and find out whether or not it's going where you would expect it to be," he said.

The new laws are aimed at stopping 'grog runs' into Aboriginal communities, an extremely profitable bootlegging enterprise, but Howard is expected to stick to his promise to impose these new restrictions on alcohol sales to the majority-white mining communities as well.

That should go down a storm.

Strict controls on alcohol sales, bans on pornography? It's all starting to sound a wee bit Talibanesque.

Howard : "Racist Bastard"

New Zealand MP Scours Howard Over Aboriginal Intervention

Sacred Arnhem Could Become Backpackers Paradise

A New Zealand member of parliament has cut loose on Australian prime minister John Howard over his logistically, ideologically challenged plan to seize control of more than 60 Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory.

Hone Harawira, of the New Zealand Maori Party, claims that comments by John Howard, his ministers, and the one-sided media blitz over shocking child abuse, alcoholism and societal breakdown in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities has defamed and ostracised indigenous men :

"If I was an Aboriginal man in the Northern Territory I would feel like absolute s**t right now," the Maori Party MP said today.

"I would have the leader of my country saying I am an alcoholic, I am into pornography, I am into sexual abuse. All I would want to do is go out and smash someone."

Howard last month announced radical measures to tackle problems including abuse against children and women, and poverty in remote Aboriginal communities.

They include bans on alcohol and pornography, quarantining welfare payments, abolishing a permit system that limits access to remote communities, and mobilising extra police and troops to help address abuse and other problems.

"All Howard has done is generate more anger and bitterness in the Aboriginal community, a lot of which is going to be internalised," Mr Harawira said.

"I said John Howard is a racist bastard trying to impose racist policies on a people who can't fight back," he said, adding that he stood by those comments to air tonight.

Mr Harawira slammed Howard for ignoring reports issued ten years ago that revealed similar problems in Aboriginal towns and camps. Harawira, like the majority of Australians, views the intervention as an insidious publicity stunt related to the forthcoming federal election, which current polls show the Howard government is expected to lose.

The report into child sexual abuse in the Northern Territory that John Howard used to launch his intervention claimed that many of the sexual assaults on Aboriginal children were by white miners, a fact Howard himself acknowledged in an interview on Lateline, announcing the intervention.

That fact that so many white men are involved in the abuse of Aboriginal children barely surfaced amongst the hammerhard media coverage of indigenous communities in the Northern Territory in the past few weeks.

Only a few days ago, a report was published on how white men were buying sex from young Aboriginal girls in Darwin in exchange for cigarettes and beer. It received minimal media coverage.

Aboriginal men from all over Australia have been heard on talk back radio in the past two weeks talking of the glaring looks and verbal abuse they are now getting from white Australians since the child sexual assault report, championed by Howard, hit the headlines.

While government ministers and officials have been seen entering at least ten Aboriginal towns and camps in the past two weeks, we are yet to see any of them turn up in white mining camps, awash with alcohol and hard core pornography, to tell them to leave the Aboriginal children alone.


Meanwhile, the Northern Territory government has announced it will back the Northern Land Council in a legal challenge to Howard's intervention :

The Chief Minister, Clare Martin, led growing criticism of the intervention yesterday, saying seizing control of townships and scrapping the permit system did not make sense and would not stop child sexual abuse.

"So while we're working broadly with the Federal Government on the important issues of health, of tackling alcohol abuse, of tackling pornography, we will not support the removal of permits," Ms Martin said.

"It does not make sense, it is not supported by this Government and by Aboriginal Territorians, and we do not support five-year leases."

The Federal Government will seize control of 73 remote indigenous communities and introduce the most radical measures in decades to end indigenous neglect.

The Northern Land Council's chief executive, Norman Fry, said the compulsory acquisition of private property without consultation was discriminatory and could not be justified. He predicted that removing the permit system would subject tribal Aborigines to rampant tourism or rampant journalism.

"Removing the permit system will mean a free-for-all, with Arnhem Land instantly becoming the world's most sought-after backpacker destination, an exotic must, with busloads of tourists leaving Darwin for remote communities every day."

White Men Buy Sex From Teenage Aboriginal Girls For A Beer At 'Lollipop Corner'

Local Northern Territory Police Claim The Permit System Is Essential

Census Shows Indigenous Populations On The Rise

Indigenous Fears Over 'Military Occupation'

Canberra Ready To Seize Town Camps

Aboriginal Poverty And Neglect Is Rife In Sydney's Backyard

The Last (Online) Stand Of Piers Akerman

By Darryl Mason

For the benefit of our thousands of regular international readers, Piers Akerman is a newspaper columnist for Sydney's 'Daily Telegraph' and 'Sunday Telegraph'. Akerman was once an immensely popular opinion maker, in the days when there were only a handful of journalists making most of the published opinions in Sydney. Of course, the online revolution has leveled that playing field.

Akerman is also famous as a near full-time propagandist for the Howard government, who spent years watching Howard lock away four and five year old children in detention centres in the middle of the Australian desert, leaving them in those brutally hot camps until the children beat their heads against concrete walls in frustration, and then blamed their parents for daring to seek refugee status on Australian shores. Howard never did anything wrong in Akerman's world. He was a prime minister who shat pure gold and then gave it to the poor, who Akerman would claim never really appreciated the gift.

American readers will recognise the likes of Akerman from their own mainstream media's stable of aged opinion makers, who still have jobs despite being wrong about WMDs in Iraq, wrong about leaving Afghanistan in 2002, wrong about the strength of the Iraqi insurgency, wrong about post-invasion Iraq, wrong about the global threat of terror and wrong about the reality of climate change.

Akerman's speciality is smearing people who are trying to create new energy industries, through solar power and other renewable energies, and baiting Muslims by defaming their heritage and mocking their beliefs, be they fundamentalist or moderate.

Akerman is a spectacularly cliched old school anti-Green, anti-environmentalist, campaigner who still clings to his increasingly eccentric and bizarre belief that fighting the effects of climate change, by reducing pollution and increasing energy efficiency, is a vast left-wing conspiracy designed to destroy the Australian economy.

Akerman, of course, loves conspiracy theories. You can usually find a good one in nearly ever column he writes.

There's the global warming conspiracy. The gay conspiracy. The Caliphate conspiracy. The anti-white Australia conspiracy. The 'Aboriginal Industry' conspiracy. The Hitler-Stalin-Mao Imitating Union conspiracy. And let's not forget the all purpose Greenie conspiracy, which he actually believes is connected back through the decades to...Hitler. But of course.

Akerman has served, and served well, as the Daily Telegraph's hitman on all things Islam and Green for more than a decade. He's even devoted occasional column space attempting to draw his Muslim and Green conspiracy theories into a joint Greenie-Jihadi conspiracy. It's been fun to watch.

But as the readership of the Daily Telegraph drops, as it circulation shrinks, and as Sydneysiders become increasingly ready to sue newspapers for defamation and libel, Akerman is finding it harder and harder to use his anti-Islam hammer on people with real names.

To get around this, he now employs a particularly absurd and credibility-defying methodology of using variations of the Fox News trademarked "Some people say..." mantra.

His column 'Magnet For Madmen' on July 4 was absolutely chockers with the stuff. Clearly the News Limited lawyers have been working Akerman over. How much veracity can you place in any of his claims when he has been forced to place the word "alleged" in a sentence like this?

The detention of a Gold Coast doctor shows the alleged sweeping extent of the global links of international terrorism.

But there was plenty more in a column that contains the name of no-one bar the new British PM Gordon Brown : "alleged activities...possible risks...apparently fanatically shouting..it has been suggested...by all accounts... alleged actions... alleged wannabe terrorists...it may be wise...alleged connection..."

Is Akerman now afraid of being sued for defamation by the Global Jihad Conspiracy?

No, he's just too lazy to supply links to back up his claims in his blog and to gutless to stand by his words.

Repeated use of words like "alleged" and "suggested" and "apparently" and "possible" doesn't exactly make Akerman sound like he either know what's he jabbering about, or that he even holds the strength of his "alleged" convictions.

Although Akerman's increasingly vague, misinformed, hilariously cliched columns are syndicated through the rest of the Murdoch owned state capital newspapers, his spiels are often cut down, or censored, by local editors who are clearly becoming frustrated by Akerman's inability to do what a columnist is supposed to do - inform, opine and make clarity-rich arguments supporting his/her position - and his increasingly, potentially, libelous and defamatory bile.

Reading Akerman's columns today is like leafing through the pages of some old yellowed Australian newspaper from the 1950s. Substitute Italian for Muslim and Communist for Greenie and there's little difference to be found in the rhetoric. You end up thinking, who is this guy trying to convince? Himself? His bosses? His mates?

Akerman is becoming a liability for the Rupert Murdoch media in Australia. In the past few years, News Limited has had to pay, by some estimates, more than $1 million in out of court settlements, and court-awarded damages, for people he has told lies about in his columns, or just blatantly defamed and smeared, not caring who will pay the bill in the end.

In awarding a successful defamation payout in October, 2006, a NSW judge said this to say about Akerman's journalistic standards of accuracy :

"The inaccuracies of fact by the defendant... are gross... so extreme a misstatement of fact as to vitiate any defence of comment for any imputation based on it."

It didn't used to matter so much to the Murdoch tabloid media. These were the old rules of the tabloid game, following the well established British tabloid model : defame whoever you want, because in the end it will only cost a few hundred grand, at the most, if it even gets to court, and the extra sales and controversy generated by all the lawsuits will boost circulation and market brand prominence.

While Akerman was once a popular columnist in the Daily Telegraph (and its former incarnations) and the Sunday Telegraph, some journalist-circle rumours claim that he is nearing the end of his long run of low-to-medium six figure salary years at News Limited.

Not only because he is such a costly columnist as far as the legal bills go, but because he refuses to engage his readers enough on his blog. Akerman hates his blog. He despises the idea of having to answer to, or interact, with anyone who can be bothered typing a few comments into the box below his online blurtings. He was disgusted at even the idea of allowing someone, anyone, to write a comment that would be published below his own words. Akerman resisted moving his columns into the News Limited blogs, but only for so long.

His boss, Rupert Murdoch, loves blogs. Rupert Murdoch believes the future of the news is blogging, and blogs. So much cheaper than having to pay bloated old wind bags like Piers Akerman a few hundred grand a year to toss off two or maybe three short columns a week to
an increasingly disinterested readership.

What amazed Rupert Murdoch when he first took a serious look at the sprawl of blogs is that these people were writing all this stuff for free. For free! An idea began to form in Murdoch's mind of a day when he could dump expensive journos, or columnists, like Akerman and fill the space around the ads with any number of blogs written by freelancers, or non-professionals, who were happy just to take a cut of the ad revenue their blogs generated.

Rupert Murdoch announced a few months back that News Limited was going Green, and that he would restructure its global operations to become a carbon neutral corporation. Murdoch made a commitment to his shareholders that he would use his newspapers, online media, magazines and television channels to educate the public to the reality of climate change, and that initiatives to fight climate change would become a regular feature in his media outlets.

Akerman continues to pump his Great Global Warming Conspiracy guff, even though his own boss has apparently been taken in by it. Of course, Akerman, like his counterpart at the Herald Sun in Melbourne, Andrew Bolt, attacks those advocating measures to limit the effects of climate change, but would never dream of attacking Rupert Murdoch, who by his own admission, will become the world's most influential peddler of what Akerman and Bolt still refer to as a "myth".

To Akerman, like many millions around the world, Al Gore is an idiot, and a liar. But Rupert? Well, the silence from Akerman, and Bolt, is deafening.

Rupert Murdoch keeps a close eye on his Australian newspapers, particularly the online versions. He gets the data on how much traffic each of the News Limited blogs are generating, how many people are commenting, which issues are stirring controversy and how much ad revenue is generated through each blog via the the ads now peppered liberally through the comments pages.

When the Sydney Morning Herald and the Melbourne Age newspapers move to tabloid size, Murdoch knows the sales of the Sydney Daily Telegraph and the Melbourne Herald Sun will go drop. The Telegraph and the Herald Sun will have to share the shrinking tabloid newspaper marketplace with the Herald and the Age. Murdoch's Sydney and Melbourne newspapers will still make money, but as classified advertising, the backbone of newsprint, continues its exodus to the online media, his newspapers will thin and revenue will continue to decrease.

Murdoch sees the future of news, and New Limited, in the online world, particularly in Australia. He will keep the Telegraph and the Herald Sun in newsprint for years to come, but the high-cost columnists like Akerman will find they are not so highly-prized, particularly if their main beat is denying climate change reality (thereby making their own boss as much of an idiot and a liar as Al Gore), and baiting Muslims, who are more often choosing to sue for defamation and libel, even if they are not targeted by name.

Akerman will soon have to prove he is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars a year online, in his blog, or take a big pay cut. He will have to deliver the audience, and the ad revenue, primarily through his blog. That blog he hates and despises so very, very much, mostly because it allows the public to near instantly respond to his bizarre conspiracies and absurd generalisations.

But if online defamation and libel laws, including News Limited taking responsibility for the comments made on an Akerman blog, continue to tighten the noose of opinion making freedom around his neck, Akerman's diatribes will become more general, more vague, less genuinely offensive and therefore less biting and less controversial.

That Akerman had to censor himself, and throw in "alleged" every few sentences in his 'Magnet For Madman', even when mentioning the now well established linkages of global terrorism, shows just how constrained he now is. But that's just the beginning.

The more Akerman's rantings are contained and toned down, the less people will visit his blog and bother to leave comments, which, as we mentioned above, will eventually be the major source of the ad revenue that will pay Akerman's salary.

If all that wasn't bad enough, Akerman's key platforms of outrage - Islam in Australia and climate change - are already losing their power to generate waves of comments at his blog. He can still pull 100+ comments for a column like 'Magnet For Madmen', but for how much longer?

The more the media hysteria over the threat of terror turns out to be massively overblown, like the Doctors Of Terror workout last week (five were released without charge after questioning, one may, or may not, be charged), the less such stories will generate controversy and, in turn, comment. The less comment, the less ad revenue generated by Akerman's blog.

Most Australians understand that Islam will not spell the ruin of Australia, as they understand that taking part in a measured and responsible global fight against climate change will not reduce the nation to candle-powered ruin.

And when the Howard government loses office at the end of the year, Akerman will find himself, and his views, even more isolated from the mainstream media, increasingly dominated by less conservative, more open-minded, and far less judgmental, young people.

The worst thing that can ever happen to a columnist is to wear out his chief issues, or to cease finding anything new to say about the society on which he is handsomely paid to opine. Akerman is a loser on both fronts. The adoption of climate change by Rupert Murdoch, the appalling degradation and loss of life of the Iraq are only two issues that have completely shot Akerman's remaining slivers of credibility to dust.

It must have a black day indeed in the festering hellpit of Akerman's mind when he learned that the majority of Australians were more concerned about how climate change might affect their children's future than they were about the threat of terrorism.

The reason why most Australians are more concerned about the effects of climate change than terrorism is a simple one : they keep hearing from friends or relatives about flooding, savage storms, furious winds, decaying beach fronts and spreading drought, or they are experiencing the destruction of such events for themselves, plus their insurance bills are going up and up. But they aren't getting blown up by, in Akerman's pulp-horror speak, "panting, hot-eyed fanatics".

Wow. Hot-eyed fanatics?

"Mohammed? Why are you panting?"

"My eyes are hot."

Fantastic stuff. No wonder Akerman gets the big money. For now.

Should he stick around long enough, Akerman is likely to find himself battling for an audience share in the Australian blog world, happily dumped by the daily newspapers that once carried his hastily written, poorly sourced, screeds, because he is too expensive and no longer pulls a huge ad revenue generating crowd.

Akerman will be forced to compete in a media to which he has been vehemently opposed and barely understands. Like the rest of us, Akerman will eventually be just another voice in a media filled with unique, funny, brilliant, opinionated, well-informed, well-researched voices, many of whom have plenty of relevant and interesting things to say about the world and the city and the society we live in. Without having to resort to a blunted arsenal of decades old cliches and comic-book pap like "hot-eyed fanatics".

Of course, Akerman wouldn't stick around for that humiliation. His enormous ego couldn't take it.

But you must wonder how he feels, this former king of opinion, how lost and out of sorts he must be, when he discovers that news.com.au online polls pull thousands more participants, and generate far more ad revenue, than his online writings. The online polls are almost pure profit because they are mostly automated and people find it nearly irrisitable not to cast their vote on the more contentious issues of the day.

Akerman's time in the sun is almost over. Will he be missed? Hardly. The online world is full of mad ranters, loose with the truth, brimming over with bile and prejudice and unwilling to put sources to their wild and bizarre accusations.

Sometimes you can even find them right here.


Daily And Sunday Telegraph Forced To Issue Online Apology For Readers Comments

Akerman Busted Passing Off Hundreds Of Words From An Israel Defence Force Press Release As His Own

Blast From The Past : The "Hot-Eyed" 2001 Sunday Age Profile Of Piers Akerman

Climate Change Believers Are "Running Around With Their Petticoats Pulled Firmly Over Their Heads"...But Not Rupert

When The Unions Host A BBQ For Hitler, Stalin And Mao...Who Brings The Snags?

Howard Hits Iraq Oil Slick As Truth Becomes A WMD

Murdoch's Media Rewrites Stories After Furious Calls From Prime Minister's Office

Howard : I Didn't Say What I Just Said

By Darryl Mason

The phone calls from John Howard's office to the head office of Rupert Murdoch's News Limited in Sydney yesterday were less than pleasant.

The News.com.au website, the main portal for Murdoch's network of Australian newspaper websites, reaching some more than 1.5 million Australian readers per day, ran a number of headlines claiming John Howard had said that oil was now a key reason to stay in Iraq. Some of the headlines said the Iraq War was a war for oil. Just like all those protesters back in early 2003 claimed it would be.

By the time Howard moved to deny he said anything such thing, it was too late. The story was out, columns and articles had been written and sent to the printers for today's news racks, and there was no going back.

The furore started early yesterday morning when online news stories began appearing claiming that John Howard was going to unveil a new defence strategy for Australia, and mention would be made that we had to secure oil supplies in Iraq, as part of that strategy.

Yesterday morning, before flying out for a visit to Indonesia, defence minister Brendan Nelson did a radio interview where he reacted to the headlines hitting news stands :

"...obviously the Middle East itself, not only Iraq but the entire region, is an important supplier of energy, oil in particular, to the rest of the world, and Australians and all of us need to think well what would happen if there were a premature withdrawal from Iraq."

The two words "oil" and "Iraq" in the same sentence were enough for Nelson's few words to become the main, and most controversial, story of the day.

By the time John Howard delivered his speech, shortly after Nelson's interview, the thrust of the story for most of the media, including the Murdoch media, was already fixed.

Howard's speech only added to the furore :

Addressing an Australian Strategic Policy Institute conference, Mr Howard said events in the Middle East had long been important to Australia's security and its broader interests.

"Many of the key strategic trends I have mentioned, including terrorism and extremism, challenging demographics, WMD aspirations, energy demand and great power competition, converge in the Middle East," he said.

"Our major ally and our most important economic partners have crucial interests there."

It was on for young and old. First Nelson, then Howard, had admitted that Australia was in Iraq for the oil.

Most Australian newspapers are still written in the late afternoon, early evening, of the day before they're published. The front pages, the editorials, the letters, were all set down before Howard's retraction of his own words, and Nelson's words, could impact. No doubt some editors chose to ignore Howard's ridiculous quibbling and denials that he said what he said, barely a few hours before.

After all, when it comes to the Middle East, "energy" is "oil" and everybody knows it.

Howard tried to roll back the unexpected emergence of some hot truth about the Iraq War late yesterday afternoon, but it was pointless. Clearly the word "energy" had disappeared from his vocabulary, now he had become obsessed with the word "oil" :

“We are not there because of oil and we didn’t go there because of oil,” Howard protested. “We don’t remain there because of oil. Oil is not the reason.”

And then it was on to defending America :

“Are people seriously suggesting that it won’t matter to Australia if America is humiliated?” asked Howard.

It's sad, indeed it's horrifying, to think that the prime minister of Australia doesn't grasp that the US has been steadily humiliated in Iraq, month in, month out, for at least two years, if not longer. There are few military analysts or historians of any credibility who would even think of trying to deny the very clear fact that an insurgency that didn't exist, according to Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, has all but laid waste to the most powerful military machine in the world.

The United States is now spending an estimated $20 billion on a program to replace all their armoured Humvees with the new, supposedly bomb proof, MRAP vehicles, because the Iraqi insurgency has been so effective at using World War 2 guerilla technology - IEDs, or improvised explosive devices - to disable, literally, thousands of Humvees and trucks in the past three years. 17,770 MRAP vehicles are on order to fight the Iraq War for the next decade.

John Howard's office knew there was little point trying to get Fairfax newspapers to retract their stories, in print or online. Howard Admits War For Iraq's Oil was the story many journos for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age had been waiting more than four years to write.

But Howard knew the Murdoch media were likely to play ball. If not in print, then at least online, where news.com.au now reaches more Australians than the same company's newspapers do, in print.

But even until the early afternoon today, almost 24 hours later, some of the Murdoch websites were still carrying 'Howard Says Iraq War For Oil' headlines and stories, even though the main news.com.au site had rewritten headlines and stories, inside its own archive, and published the following correction....oh sorry, clarification :

An earlier version of this story from the Australian Associated Press incorrectly reported the Prime Minister as saying oil was a reason for Australia's continued military presence in Iraq.

He said "energy", but as we all know, "energy" is "oil" when it comes to the Middle East, unless Howard is thinking about cutting natural gas deals with Iran sometime soon.

The phone calls from Howard's office to News Limited HQ clearly worked.

News.com.au chose to blame Australian Associated Press for supplying the wire news story that claimed Howard had admitted to a war for oil in Iraq.

Here's the pre-furious phone calls from Howard's office Uncorrected Version as it appeared online yesterday :

And here's the spiffy new Corrected Version :

Note that the sub headlines now put the words relating to 'Iraq War For Oil' squarely in the mouth of defence minister Brendan Nelson, when it was also Howard who publicly talked of needing to "secure" energy resources in Iraq and the Middle East.

The sub headlines were also edited to remove the dead giveaway line 'Another Reason Is To Uphold Prestige Of US, UK', to be replaced with the far more Freedom And Democracy Agenda-friendly 'We'll Stay Until Iraq No Longer Needs Us, Says PM'.

But perhaps more importantly, note that on both the 'corrected' and 'uncorrected' stories above, the byline clearly reads "By Staff Writers And Wires".

AAP may have supplied a story that claimed Howard said Australia had an interest in staying in Iraq to secure future oil supplies, which is, of course, exactly what he said, but unless the byline is a total lie, more than one journo rewrote or added to the text and headline and sub headlines before it went online. Hence "by staff writers and wires".

But to Howard's utter horror, that correction, sorry clarification, only made it onto the story on the main news.com.au site.

The calls for clarifications to the story must not have gotten through to other city newspaper editors and staff in Murdoch's network. Unless, of course, they chose to ignore the clarifications because the story didn't need any clarifying at all. It was true.

And if that was the case, then good on them for not following directions from head office, via the Howard office.

story continues below....
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From other blogs by Darryl Mason :

Go Here For The Latest Stories From 'Your New Reality'

Go Here For The Latest Stories From 'The Last Days Of President Bush'

Go Here For The Latest Stories From 'The Fourth World War'
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story continues....


The below pages were all still online through the Murdoch online stable at 10-11am today, and later.

You will notice that the headlines and intros are almost riotously scathing for the Murdoch media's notoriously pro-Iraq and pro-Howard coverage, especially considering the absolutely vile smears these very same newspapers spewed onto the more than 600,000 Australians who marched in opposition to the Iraq War, many of whom, including thousands of World War 2, Korea and Vietnam veterans, claimed it was going to be a "War For Oil."

From the Adelaide Advertiser :



Australia's biggest selling daily newspaper, The Herald Sun, ran the following editorial today, hitting the presses before it could be pulled, and staying online, unchanged, well into the late morning :



The Tasmania Mercury still had this up on their site at midday :


And the Murdoch site in Perth still had this posted after midday today :



Even though the story of Howard's Iraq Oil Slick was running up hundreds of comments an hour on websites around Australia, any mention of it was gone from the news.com.au front page by 10.30am this morning.

Over at Murdoch's flagship 'The Australian' newspaper website, at least three key columnists weighed in supporting Howard's claim that he didn't say what he said, and it really didn't matter even if the prime minister and the defence minister did say what they said. Which they did.

Columnist Matt Price even went so far as to write that Nelson was wrong, dead wrong :

"I don’t think oil plays any remotely significant role in the government’s Iraq strategy."

Hell, clearly a newspaper columnist would know more about Australia's reasons for staying in Iraq than the defence minister. Right?

By 9am, more than a hundred people had hit Price's blog to castigate him for spinning on behalf of the government, and most of the commenters mocked him soundly.

Just to jog your memory, here's a reminder of what John Howard had to say about claims that the, then still coming, war on Iraq was about something other than WMDs and deposing Saddam Hussein back in February, 2003 :

"No criticism is more outrageous than the claim that US behaviour is driven by a wish to take control of Iraq's oil reserves."

And here's what the Murdoch media's favourite political whipping post, Greens Leader Bob Brown had to say in that same week, in 2003 :

This is not Australia's war. This is an oil war. This is the US recognising that, as the economic empire of the age, it needs oil to maintain its pre-eminence.

Back then, 76 percent of Australians were opposed to a War On Iraq.


By midday today, the Australia In Iraq For The Oil scandal was making international news, in a big way.

And the hundreds of headlines from around the world were immune to Howard's attempt to reframe his own comments, and those of his defence minister. They went in hard, using Howard as the first leader of a Coalition Of The Drilling country to finally admit the truth about a war so blackened and poisoned with so many lies :

Herald Sun, Melbourne : PM's war for oil

Daily Times, Pakistan - Oil key motive for Iraq involvement: Australia

The Scotsman, Scotland - Oil keeps Australia in Iraq

The Independent, UK : Australian troops 'in Iraq because of oil'

RTE, Ireland : Mideast oil priority for Australia

The BBC : Australians 'are in Iraq for oil'

Turkish Press, Middle East : Oil a factor in Australian role in Iraq: minister

Voice Of America : Australia Says Oil Key Motive for Involvement in Iraq

The Guardian, UK : Oil a factor in Iraq conflict, says Australian MP

Xinhau, China : PM: Australian troops to stay in Iraq for oil

Aljazeera : Australia admits Iraq war about oil

Forbes : Australia says securing oil supply means no Iraq withdrawal

Press TV, Iran : Aussies in Iraq for Oil

Gulf News, United Arab Emirates : Oil 'key factor for Australia's role in Iraq'

Stratfor (key military intel site) : Australia: Oil A Reason For Iraq Presence

Alsumaria, Iraq : Oil supply is an essential factor

Zee Tv, India : Mid-east oil crucial to our future: Australian PM

Alalalam News Network, Iran : Australia: Oil Means no Iraq Pullout


Some of those same news sites ran Howard's attempts to deny that he said what he said, but his retraction was given mostly backwater coverage. Those international editors knew, like some editors of Murdoch's Australian newspapers knew, that Howard was trying to scam them.

Like he scammed the entire back in late 2002 when he said he hadn't decided whether or not he would send troops to Iraq, when they were already in the Gulf. And in early March, 2003, when he said he hadn't decided yet whether or not commit troops to the coming war, when some of those already deployed troops had already written letters to their children in case they died during their war.

Howard's complete failure to keep the 'Iraq War For Oil' controversy in check couldn't have come at a worse political time for him. Today and tomorrow, the dreaded Newspoll surveys are taken, and Howard was counting on the poll, published early next week, to show the Liberal Party that is still a viable, respected, trusted and popular party leader and prime minister.

The rumours a few months back were if Howard didn't snap the polls back up in his favour by late July, his career was over. He would be rolled, and the federal election would be delayed until early 2008 to give time for a new leader to try and make his mark, and chase away some of the foul stench of the Howard years. If that's at all possible.

After 11 years as prime minister of Australia, John Howard stands today a doomed man. And he knows it.

And early next week, terrible poll numbers, and sweeping rumours of a leadership challenge, will confirm it for the entire nation.

Prime Minister Finally Admits Iraq Was A War For Oil

Blogocracy : Oils Ain't Oils, Apparently

Matt Price : Howard Didn't Say What He Said, And Neither Did Nelson

Howard Denies Linking Oil To Iraq

Rudd : Iraq Oil Claim Conradicts Goverment's Story

Government Admits Oil Behind Iraq Stay

Ninemsn Your Say : PM Links Oil To Iraq War

PM And Minister At Odds Over Iraq's Reasons

More Fury, More Outrage In Comments At The Courier Mail

Nelson's Iraq War For Oil Claim Spreads Around The World

"I Can't Believe I Voted For Him" - West Australians Rip And Shred Howard

London Bomb Victim Slams Howard For Increasing Terror Risk For Australians



Louise Barry is a young Australian who barely survived the July 7, 2005 bombings in London. She hit the headlines two weeks after the terror attacks when she confronted prime minister John Howard, during a hospital visit, on whether the bombers had attacked London because of the US-UK-Australian War On Iraq.

Two years later, and only days after another series of attempted bomb attacks on London and Glasgow, Louise Barry will appear in a TV commercial where she demands that John Howard get Australia out of the Iraq War before more Australians are killed or injured in revenge terror attacks.

Barry reportedly thought up the idea of the commercial, and wrote her own lines.

"You got us in this mess," Barry says, addressing the prime minister, "it's your responsibility to get us out."

"The situation clearly is not getting any better. I don't want what happened to me to happen to
other Australians, or anyone else for that matter."

“The recent attacks in the UK brought back some really painful memories."

“Wasn't going to war in Iraq supposed to make us safer, not put us in more danger?

“I don't have all the answers and I'm not an expert, but I do know something about the real cost of terrorism.”

During the July 7, 2005, attacks in London, Barry was on a train hit by one bomber. She was uninjured. But the bus she was directed to get onto, after being evacuated from the underground train line, was torn apart by another bomber an hour after the first blasts.

John Howard visited Barry in a London hospital on July 20, 2005. She was recovering from a broken neck, shrapnel wounds and severe burns. Howard was expecting to visit an Australian victim of the bombing who would be thankful for his visit, and might want to ask him some questions about terror. He had no idea she was going to confront him over the connections between the increased threat of terrorism to Australia resulting from its involvement in the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

During that hospital visit,Louise Barry's concerns about the links between the July 7 bombings and the Iraq War were all but dismissed by the prime minister :

LOUISE BARRY: What do you think about all this sort of stuff then? Do you reckon... 'cause everyone says that it's all about 'cause of the Iraq War. Do you reckon?

JOHN HOWARD: No, I don't. But, you know, different people have different views. I don't. I mean, they had a go at us and they had a go at other people before Iraq started. I think it's less likely in Australia.

LOUISE BARRY: You reckon?

JOHN HOWARD: A bit less likely, yeah. Less likely in Austra...

LOUISE BARRY: Why?

JOHN HOWARD: Why? I don't think there's the concentration of groups in Australia that might produce it, that's why.

LOUISE BARRY: Yeah.

JOHN HOWARD: But I think it's still possible, and I've said that, and it could happen.

LOUISE BARRY: Pretty scary stuff though.

JOHN HOWARD: It can happen anywhere, unfortunately.

LOUISE BARRY: Yeah, I know.

She sure does.

Howard was clearly uncomfortable during the questioning by Barry, which is the usual reaction from Howard when he hears something he doesn't like, or is confronted by an Australian who hasn't been screened by his minders, in case they raise too much truth reality or truth in his presence. When Barry confronted Howard, he quickly became annoyed, dismissive and rude. Like a petulant child.

The commercials are being paid for by political action group GetUp, who are also using Barry's commercial to solicit donations to buy more ad time and raise funds for further campaigns.

It's interesting to note one of Howard's comments to Barry :

"I don't think there's the concentration of groups in Australia that might produce (terror attacks)..."

But that's not what Howard and terror fear mongers tell us now. We're supposed to have thousands of young Muslims in Australia who subscribe to Islamist ideology, and we could be attacked in our streets at any time.

Nothing to do with the half million people killed in the Iraq War, of course.

You can expect the usual Howard and Iraq War supporters to take cheap and nasty shots at Barry. No doubt they will claim she is being used by those evil Lefties for political purposes. Their response to Louise Barry's plea to lessen the terror threat to Australians by getting our troops out of Iraq will be as tired, propagandist and cliched as their arguments for why the War On Iraq must continue, for years to come.

Howard Finally Admits Iraq War Was A War For Oil

There's Bullying, And Then There's Burying

A series of savage and cruel assaults were allegedly inflicted on a 13 year old Perth boy through more than six hours of brutality at the hands of five other boys aged 12 to 14.

Police and a prosecutor claim the 13 year old was subjected to painful "wedgies" and then hung from a tree by his underpants. He was also punched, whipped and "prodded" with a plank of wood bearing exposed nails.

The other boys smeared his lunch across his face and clothes and pissed in his lunchbox. One boy allegedly dug a grave and the 13 year old was told to lie down in it. Other boys are said to have then shoveled dirt in on top of him.

The 13 year was forced to crawl around like a dog while the boys verbally abused him. He was allegedly threatened with an ax. Not surprisingly, the 13 year old was so terrified he wet his pants and was said to have cried and screamed throughout the horror :

Five boys, ranging in age from 12 to 14, have each been charged with deprivation of liberty, threatening to kill, and assault occasioning bodily harm after the "horrendous" attack at a government high school in the Perth hills last week, Perth Children's Court has been told.

The victim and his alleged attackers are all Year 8 students.

The alleged ringleader's mother told reporters her son was a sweet child and that she had lost faith in the justice system.

Aren't they always?

PM Finally Admits Iraq Was A War For Oil

Howard To Iraq : We're Not Leaving Until You Say We Can

Howard Shoots For National Security Poll Rise In Desperate Attempt To Stave Off Leadership Challenge


Update : According to this story from the Melbourne Age, on today's speech by PM Howard on national security and the Iraq War, detailed below, Howard will say that Australia has a "major stake of oil dependency", and this is one of the key reasons why we had to become involved in the invasion and occupation of Iraq. So it was a war for oil after all.

Perhaps by no coincidence, The Australian newspaper also features a major story today on how we are now entering an age when Australian will suffer from major oil deficits, where in the past we had enjoyed locally sourced oil supply surpluses.

Update II : Both John Howard and defence minister Brendan Nelson discussed the need for Australia to continue the occupation of Iraq to secure future oil supplies, and all hell broke loose.


Original Story Follows :

John Howard will move today to dispel any doubt about his intention to keep more than 550 Australian combat troops in Iraq until the Iraqi government says they can go home.

Which raises doubts about this story from last week, which claimed Howard had a secret plan to pull out most of Australia's fighting forces from Iraq in early 2008. The doubt raised, then, is that the leak used in the story was a plant, a set-up to gauge the public reaction to a withdrawal of Australian troops. The reaction from most Australians was "yeah, so what?" Howard can now dismiss any notion raised by Labor on the way to the federal election that he is planning to pull troops out once the election is over.

Off the back of the currently very weak links between the spectacularly hopeless car bombing attempts in London and Glasgow and an Australian-based doctor, Howard is expected to ramp up both the threat of homegrown terror, and the threat of terror attacks from non-Australians who are visiting, or working, here.

Howard's core message will be simple : Australia is not pulling its fighting forces out of Iraq, and Australia is not withdrawing from Afghanistan. Not until the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan say our troops are no longer needed :

In a major security speech, Mr Howard will stress the stark consequences of a failure by the US and its allies to secure Iraq.

He will argue that the military coalition cannot allow weariness, frustration or political convenience to dictate strategy in Iraq.

Mr Howard today will launch a new defence policy statement, which underscores the strategic importance of the Middle East to global security and Australia's broader national interests.

The document warns of a far more complex and challenging global environment facing Australia's military.

It says Australia's new security challenges dictate a military force able not only to play a lead role in the region, but also to operate in an expanded range of operations further afield with close allies.

The 65-page defence update declares that violent extremism will remain a threat around the world for a generation "and probably longer".

It says the stakes are high in Iraq and Afghanistan, not only for the peace and stability of those countries, but also because the outcome will influence how the US will deal with future global security challenges.

A critical danger remains the prospect of terror groups such as al-Qa'ida getting hold of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons.

Increasingly, military technology once available only to nation states is being used by terror groups and other non-state actors. Organisations such as al-Qa'ida are unlikely to be deterred from using WMDs by the threat of military retaliation.

The update says extremist terrorism continues to draw funding, support and people from Middle Eastern states.

"For as long as that is true, Australia and like-minded countries need to fight terrorism at its source rather than wait for it to come to our shores.

"To help defeat terrorism Australia must have patience, a sustained military commitment, a willingness to adapt to conditions on the ground and work closely with our friends and allies."

It forecasts the defence force will increasingly be called on to fight irregular opponents and be capable of mounting counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations.

In short, Australia will keep fighting the 'War on Terror' for as long as the 'War on Terror' helps to keep spawning new terrorists.

Which also means Australia will keep spending more than $23 billion a year on defence, the second highest per person defence spend in the world (after the United States) for years to come. Not much is expected to change on that front even if Kevin Rudd, and Labor, win the federal election later this year.

Don't expect Howard to do much talking up of the Australian-United States alliance between now and the federal election. He will acknowledge it, but he is unlikely to be seen publicly praising President Bush. At least if his advisers have any say in it.

Pledging a strong and ongoing commitment to fighting the 'War on Terror' is now a coded way for Howard to say that he will continue to support Bush-led American military misadventures around the world for the foreseeable future.

It will be surprising if Howard has anything to say about Australia's involvement in the US 'missile shield' between now and the election, or Australia's involvement in helping the United States to 'encircle' China, in anticipation of a coming trade war between China and the US.

Howard's speech today on Australia's future security "challenges" and his government's role in helping to fight the 'War on Terror' will be seen as probably Howard's last major chance to buzz up his own dismal standings in the polls before Parliament resumes, and to tamp down the grumblings within the Liberal Party on whether or not Howard will destroy their chances of holding onto power in the coming elections.

There was speculation a few months back that Howard had to score a decent rise in national polls, like Newspoll which will begin collecting data on Friday, after Howard's key speech today, or he could be rolled by his own party and removed from the leadership. If Howard was replaced, the coalition government could delay the federal election until early 2008 to give themselves a fighting change. But they still need someone to replace Howard. Someone from the front ranks of the government who doesn't make most Australians wince every time they open their mouths.

Howard may see a slight rise in the polls from today's speech, partly due to unease caused by the, however weak, Australian links to the London car bombing attempts, but he will really have to rally the nation to knock Rudd and the Labor Party off their election winning perch, which they have enjoyed for all of 2007. This seems incredibly unlikely.

The chief problem for Howard today is that while he can pledge to try and keep Australians safe from terror, Australians are more concerned about who is going to keep them safe from Howard and his dishonest, double-dealing, secret agenda heavy, gang.


March, 2007 : Howard Sees Only "Faint Glimmer Of Hope" In Iraq

February, 2007 : Howard Keeps "Own Interest" Option For Early Troop Withdrawal From Iraq

Australian Defence Minister Says There Is No Hope Of Victory In Iraq War

The Skies Have Opened, And The 'City Of Drought' Eases Back Water Restrictions

Many residents of Goulburn, in the NSW southern highlands, used to shower with buckets around their feet to collect every spare drop of precious water. Water was precious they weren't allowed to wash their cars or water their gardens.

For more than two years, Goulburn was the largest 'dry' town in Australia, and the savage drought that almost emptied local dams looked like it was never going to end. Lawns turned to dust, gardens died and people all over the country saw in Goulburn a dawning reality that they feared they would soon have to deal with themselves, in their own towns and cities.

But the skies have opened up over Goulburn and the primary dam for the city's water supply is now more than 50% full, after a low of a mere 12% capacity.

Goulburn residents may not be dancing in the streets, but they are watering their gardens.

In a number of interviews with locals aired on television and radio today and tonight, Goulburn residents talked about how they would never take water for granted again, and how the drought and increasingly harsh water restrictions had changed their lives.

Many seemed to think the changes are for the better.

They said they had learned that water could not be wasted, and some shook their heads in disbelief at how, years before, they had treated water as a commodity that would never run out.

From the Sydney Morning Herald :

The NSW southern highlands city, which had come to symbolise the plight of the state's drought-stricken rural areas, will go from level 5 to level 3 water restrictions following June's heavy rain.

But one nursery owner said it wouldn't make much difference to his business as most residents had already adapted to the dry conditions.

"When it first started [in 2002], well, you could stand in the store and there would be no one around,'' said Shane Nelson, 42, who owns the Gehl Garden Centre & Wholesale Nursery in Goulburn.

"As time has progressed people have actually seemed to have adapted pretty well to the restrictions. People started adjusting to the conditions and got water-tanks on their houses, used grey or bore water. We definitely diversified ourselves into other things like garden furniture and pots.''

Mr Nelson said the restrictions had meant his customers moved towards plants that were less thirsty and more able to cope with the dry conditions.

"Roses have done very well as they actually seem to thrive a lot better in the dry conditions,'' he said. "They are very disease and pest-prone in moisture.

Plants such as camellias and rhododendrons, which favour moist positions, are not as popular now, Mr Nelson said.

"I talk to customers now and they use more water than they've ever done because of their tank supply,'' he said. "The first couple of years of the restrictions, if I could have picked up my plants and left, I would have. But soon we were holding our own.''

After strong June rains Goulburn's dam levels more than quadrupled, with one of its storages spilling over for the first time in six years.