Or just another country
The art of cropping can do more than fix the composition or energy of a picture. Take the following image from The Weekend Australian‘s coverage of the shellacking the Country Liberal Party handed out to Labor in the Northern Territory elections. A tipster sent it in, saying they’d “screenshotted [it] before the Oz inevitably takes it down. Check the shirt.” And yes, unless the party has renamed itself to better express its commitment to putting 10-year-olds in jail, that’s an unfortunate angle.
Sure enough, we checked back a day later and a slightly closer framing had replaced it.
Down in the Grove
Australia’s own ALDI-brand take on America’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) feels like it comes around earlier every year. Speakers for the event, which is set to take place in Brisbane in early October, have begun to be announced, and one of the earliest confirmations is Sall Grover. The announcement came on the same day that the Federal Court found Grover’s app, the “female only” Giggle, had illegally discriminated against transgender woman Roxanne Tickle, after Tickle was booted from the platform for not looking “sufficiently female”. Grover was forced to pay $10,000 in compensation and legal costs.
It’s proof that once you appeal to a certain crowd, pretty much anything makes you a figurehead. Lose a court case? You’re a brave truth-teller in a world gone mad. Lose your job after history-making levels of incompetence? You can reveal the deep state. Spread misinformation about vaccines to elderly people during a pandemic? Doesn’t mean you won’t be given a platform!
Tender watch
Over on AusTender comes the announcement that the Department of Social Services is spending nearly $50,000 on “market research” from consulting firm ORIMA. Frankly, we think if the department wanted to know more about what people think, it might have invested more time in say, that “consultation” over the recent, very badly received NDIS reforms, but anyway.
Interestingly, this is not the first time Australia’s government has turned to ORIMA for help. Various iterations of the previous Liberal government relied heavily on a 2017 evaluation by ORIMA Research as evidence in favour of rolling out of the now abandoned Cashless Debit Card.
In 2018, the Australian National Audit Office found the methodology of ORIMA’s evaluation of the trial was flawed and thus did not provide any credible conclusions (although ANAO can’t have thought it was that terrible, given it has engaged the company since). Regardless, the government kept on using that trial to justify its policy. We’ll watch with interest what comes of this latest collaboration.
Nine’s regulatory faux-pas the latest in a long line
This week, broadcasting watchdog the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) found 2GB host Ben Fordham in breach of advertising disclosure regulations after the shock jock claimed on air he had taken up driving Ubers as a side hustle, without disclosing to the audience he was in fact being paid to promote the company.
Nine came out today with a long and grumbling statement describing the regulations as upholding a “heavily onerous [standard], relying on constant vigilance to determine news content from sport or entertainment content”. One would have thought it was somewhat common sense, but then again disclosures have been a bit of a prickly topic at Nine over the past year.
The statement also made a point of noting that the disclosure standard was introduced 24 years ago. What happened 24 years ago, we wondered? Oh yes, 2GB being embroiled in the cash-for-comment affair — Fordham’s predecessors John Laws and Alan Jones were paid to give favourable comment on the likes of Qantas, Foxtel and Optus without disclosure.
While the sordid affair clearly sticks in the memory of Nine’s spokespeople (even if Fordham might’ve forgotten it), there are other, more recent examples too. 3AW in Melbourne was found to have breached the rules last year, with presenter Jacqui Felgate failing to disclose her deal with luxury car manufacturer BMW. In 2021, 2GB failed to disclose a sponsorship by The Star Entertainment Group in a segment discussing one of The Star’s projects.
We asked Fordham whether he had any comment on the ACMA findings, or whether he was aware of his disclosure obligations before broadcast. He declined to comment, saying he wasn’t sure he would be able to discuss the matter without permission.
