Election 2010: Day 14 (or waste and mismanagement - the media)

And what your government did was exactly right. So, Australia had the shortest and shallowest of the downturns of the advanced industrial countries.And, ah, your recovery actually preceded the - in some sense, China. So there was a sense in which you can't just say Australia recovered because of China. Your preventive action, you might say pre-emptive action, prevented the downturn while things got turned around in Asia, and they still have not gotten turned around in Europe and America.

But no, we had none of that. It was all politics.

Now I don’t write this to criticise the policy - because it looks good (and you know I don’t say that often about the Liberal Party!), but I really don’t know enough about the policy because the media has given me next to bugger all information on it. I can’t get anything from the Libs themselves, because it isn’t up on their website yet - their most recent policy on the site is still their anti-gang idiocy of yesterday!

So here I am, a guy with a genuine interest in the policy, a guy who lives on news websites and I couldn’t find anything. Over on The Oz (that champion of the any news but policy news style of media) had instead a story by the always consistent Matthew Franklin:

Labor's 'waste' has left little money for campaign promises, says Tony Abbott

the other story he wrote was a bullshit side issue that had seen the Libs and Nationals in a bit of a split (but seriously, who gives a damn):

Abbott to keep tabs on foreign ownership of farms but rejects need for register

And the Disability announcement? Sorry it ain’t to be found.

Over in the Julia Gillard camp, today they found themselves in Perth where she was announcing the NBN was to encompass 93% of the population and not just 90% as was previously announced. They were also going to release the maps outlining where the optical fibre would be rolled out, where there would be wireless coverage, and where there would be only satellite coverage. 

As guy who grew up in country SA, I was eagre to find out more - to see the maps, to see if my old town where my parents still live would get coverage.

I wondered how NBN Co could now get to 93% instead of just 90%. I wondered if the Government was going to consider the impact of the net filter. I wondered, and so I waited for the end of the press conference so the journalists who are apparently at the top of their profession could grill the PM over this policy.

And the first question to Julia was about Cheryl Kernot running as an independent for a spot in NSW for the Senate. The second question was about Mark Latham. And on and on it went. One journalist in a moment of utter self-importance asked Julia if she was annoyed that she kept getting asked questions about Kevin Rudd, and if it was distracting to the campaign. 

Yep a member of the media who keeps asking Julia about Kevin Rudd asked if it was distracting that the media keeps asking her about Kevin Rudd. Kieran Gilbert back at the Sky News desk prior to Julia’s press conference said in response to his co-host suggesting the policy will be a good positive message for the ALP that it would be "if it got coverage". Yep a member of the media was suggesting it would only be a good story for the ALP if the media decided to cover it. I looked on news sites for links to the maps. I couldn’t find any - but go have a look, they are quite fascinating - especially when you look at just how much work is going to be involved. This my friends is infrastructure at its finest.  Once the NBN is finished you will all wonder how the hell we ever did without it.

But the journalists? Nup. Not one question of policy. The closest they came was to ask given the BER and Insulation scheme "bungles" how could the public trust that the ALP could do this on budget.  But that’s not a policy question - it’s a political one. There were none about the actual nitty gritty of the policy.