*That stands for Fuck fuck fucking fuck which was my response when I saw this in a tweet:
ABC Environment ?@ABCenvironment
Why is @JuliaGillard letting households be unduly frightened about the #carbontax, asks Jeff Angel http://bit.ly/N4GuZ1 #auspol
probably because I had just watched the link in this tweet:
Tim Burrowes ?@mumbrella
Oh the humanity. Best takedown of a politician by a TV interviewer this year?
Link here
In the Mumbrella link we have a veteran interviewer, Jeremy Paxman, interviewing UK Treasury Minister Chloe Smith, about a tax that has just been announced by the UK Government. I don’t have much knowledge about the UK Parliamentary system, but obviously the Chancellor and the PM make a lot of the big decisions together and then Ministers are informed afterwards it would seem. Somehow Jeremy Paxman turns this into a personal failing on the part of this Minister and spends the interview interrupting her, bullying her, and ends with asking her if she thinks she is incompetent. I thought this was something that only Chris Ulhmann on the 7.30 report indulged in, but obviously not. No this is not the best takedown, this is disgusting and this interviewer should be ashamed of himself. Does he treat male interviewees with this same contempt?
Now onto the other article: Why doesn’t Gillard defend her Carbon Tax?
You will note in the tweet that Gillard is being blamed for Tony Abbott’s scare campaign.
Then this:
The NSW and Queensland Governments intend to force electricity retailers to display on household electricity bills the average cost impact of the carbon price after 1 July. In the case of NSW, from 1 July 2012, NSW power bills will include the following statement in red text: “NSW Govt estimates that Federal carbon tax and green energy schemes add about $315 a year to a typical 7MWh household bill.”
But strangely no mention that both NSW and Qld have Coalition Governments now. Gee do you think that might have something to do with them trumpeting on about the ‘cost’ of the carbon tax?
Also, since this is on the ABC website, even if Gillard did defend the ‘carbon tax’ as you insist in calling it would you even report it? You are asking the wrong questions Jeff Angel and ignoring a rather large elephant, in speedos, in the room plus a strangely compliant MSM.
On the Chloe Smith thing – Grogs Gamut said he thought the interviewer was insufferably smug too. #vindicated
Meanwhile here in WA, which doesn’t have a new Liberal Premier, we have the ALP sending out fake “Barnett Bills” complaining about the way that our power bills have gone up by 60% during the term of the Barnett government. My own opinion is that Mr Barnett really timed things poorly, because they pumped up power prices by a fair old whack last year, and then another fair old whack this year, and there’s due to be another fair old whack added on next year (if I’m remembering correctly). So if he tries to whinge about the carbon tax adding to the punter’s power bills, the punters are more likely to turn around and point out that it’s still less than what got added by the Libs here for no reason other than “because they could”.
Does [Paxman] treat male interviewees with this same contempt?
It’s been a while since I’ve watched any of his interviews, and I’ve not seen this one, but he certainly does (famously, in the UK) treat his male interviewees with contempt. Whether he treats them with the same sort of contempt I can’t comment on.
I don’t have much knowledge about the UK Parliamentary system, but obviously the Chancellor and the PM make a lot of the big decisions together and then Ministers are informed afterwards it would seem.
Not how it’s supposed to work, but our Cabinet is massively incompetent at the moment. (This is a good thing, as most of their policies are appalling, and if they were competent then they’d get more of them through…)
It’s not the first time the Chancellor has sent Smith on to take the blame for his policy mistakes, either.
Thanks for clarifying that cim. If Paxman treats everyone that way, then I’m not concerned. We have some interviewers here that are extraordinarily rude to our PM, yet let her male opposition colleagues get away with blue murder. So I’m a touch sensitive to that style of interviewing.
Mindy – there’s a fair few Paxman interviews on YouTube if you’re looking for comparison. He’s got a reputation for not being very respectful of his interviewees.
I do wish that interviewers here in Australia would start aborting interviews when politicians are being their usual evasive selves (I know it would be hard to do especially on TV as they have to fill the time with something else). Something along the lines of “Since you’re not going to answer the questions I’m going to terminate the interview. Bye!”.
Most of the time political interviews just turn into 5 or 10 minute PR sessions for the political parties because they answer the questions they wish they were asked rather than the ones they are asked. Politicians have plenty of other avenues to make statements.
Notice the words “estimates”, “about”, and “typical”. And how, exactly, has this number been calculated? In apparent contradiction, this week we received a letter from Origin Energy telling us that they’re going to reduce the cost of their green energy plans when the carbon tax comes in. So maybe everyone should just switch to Origin and they won’t have to worry!
Also, completely unrelated, but I find MSM a very unfortunate acronym. For a long time I didn’t even realise what it was meant to stand for since I’d only ever known it to mean men who have sex with men. So that was interesting.
There has been some debate over whether Paxman is sexist or not. He is certainly always aggressive and his treatment of Chloe Smith is fairly typical, but he does occasionally make sexist remarks when trying to rile his interviewees and really behaves as badly as he needs to to get a rise from the interviewee, which can mean playing to a person’s gender or telling a feminist that her values are worthless.
Interestingly, much of the press thinks it was the Tories who were sexist by sending their young, female lamb to the slaughter: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/27/fuel-duty-osborne-chloe-smith-newsnight?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487
I found this take on the situation to be better: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/29/chloe-smith-mouse-feminist-tory
Hi folks!
The “Anti Carbon Tax” marches promoted by Alan Jones and the Consumer and Taxpayer Association (CATA) strongly resemble the Tea Party rabble.
Some very ugly homophobic and misogynist slogans to be seen.
http://timimage.com/2011/04/03/no-carbon-tax-rally-part-1/
http://timimage.com/2011/04/04/no-carbon-tax-rally-part-2/
My bad, here are the photos from the previous day.
Note the photo from The Jakarta Globe with P.M.Gillard depicted as a Soviet Commissar.
http://www.google.com.au/search?q=carbon+tax+rally&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=7VJ&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&prmd=imvnsu&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=ZGrxT832MIuZiAeAnqyvDQ&ved=0CE8Q_AUoAQ&biw=967&bih=419#q=carbon+tax+rally&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=VBe&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&tbm=isch&prmd=imvnsu&source=lnt&tbs=qdr:d&sa=X&ei=aWrxT6S0DKHeigequIGwDQ&ved=0CB4QpwUoAQ&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=c6353135d73fed88&biw=967&bih=419
@Chris
Really, like what? Or what that actually has an audience?