Public discussion enters the age of the uninformed

Jonathan Green | The Drum | 10 May 2012

Can somebody tell me what happened? Can someone explain how in the space of just a decade our public discussion has been hijacked by the ignorant and the bigoted and their boosters in the mass media?

And there's a more important question, how did the once authoritative political class let it happen?

You may or may not have watched Four Corners on Monday: a gripping report that recalled the High Court's Mabo finding in 1992 and Paul Keating's subsequent political quest to put legislation round the court's repudiation of terra nullius and enshrining of native title. The history of our Commonwealth has had few more significant - or challenging - turning points.

Like all documentaries of this type, the Four Corners report did more than simply shed light on its central subject. There was much else to see besides, little snippets that also illuminated the political and media culture of the time. This exchange between Paul Keating and a talkback caller on John Laws' 2UE morning program in 1993 was stunning, an absolute show stopper.

Caller: Good morning.

John Laws: Okay, the Prime Minister is here.

Caller: Yes, good morning. Just a very broad question, Mr Keating, is: why does your government see the Aboriginal people as a much more equal people than the average white Australian?

Paul Keating: We don't. We see them as equal.

Caller: Well, you might say that, but all the indications are that you don't.

Paul Keating: But what's implied in your question is that you don't; you think that non-Aboriginal Australians, there ought to be discrimination in their favour against blacks.

Caller: Not... whatsoever. I... I don't say that at all. But my... myself and every person I talk to - and I'm not racist - but every person I talk to...

Paul Keating: But that's what they all say, don't they? They put these questions - they always say, "I'm not racist, but, you know, I don't believe that Aboriginal Australians ought to have a basis in equality with non-Aboriginal Australians. Well, of course, that's part of the problem.

Caller: Aren't they more equal than us at the moment, with the preferences they get?

Paul Keating: More equal? They were... I mean, it's not for me to be giving you a history lesson - they were largely dispossessed of the land they held.

Caller: There's a question over that. I think a lot of people will tell you that. You're telling us one thing...

Paul Keating: Well, if you're sitting on the title of any block of land in NSW, you can bet an Aboriginal person at some stage was dispossessed of it.

Caller: You know that for sure, do you?

Paul Keating: Of course we know it for sure!

Caller: Yeah, [inaudible].

Paul Keating: You're challenging the High Court decision, are you? You're saying the High Court got this all wrong.

Caller: No, I'm not saying that at all! I wouldn't know who was on the High Court.

Paul Keating: Well, why don't you sign off, if you don't know anything about it and you're not interested. Good bye!

Caller: Yeah, well, that's your ...

Paul Keating: No, I mean, you can't challenge these things and then say, "I don't know about them".

John Laws: Oh well, he's gone.

It really sets you back in your chair. From a contemporary perspective this seems an extraordinary act of political courage, of reckless honesty. A politician on talkback radio telling someone with no real knowledge of the issue beyond a gut feel that it rankles their deepest prejudices, that they are not entitled, under those terms, to enter the discussion.

You just know that today, the caller would be indulged; their opinion flattered with undue attention. So it is that today we see a political discussion that rather than excluding or marginalising the voices of the uninformed, angry and blindly polemical, is in fact conditioned, directed and dominated by them.

Look at our endless to and fro over asylum seekers... a debate in which the national government happily sets aside its obligations under international law and convention, never mind any reasonable notion of what is moral, in order to placate a vocal core of constituents whose shallow xenophobia and nebulous economic anxieties are amplified by talk back radio and the tabloids of TV and print.

Same for climate change. Five years ago we had something near to a national consensus based on unambiguous science, a consensus cynically talked down often through shorthand distortions and misrepresentations pitched at the uninformed.

Today few politicians dare confront these tides or take a stand against it. The tail has wagged the dog.

Where Paul Keating thought nothing of speaking his mind, Julia Gillard sits in the same studio as Alan Jones, is called a liar to her face and brushes off the insult. This is not an audience the modern politician dare offend and the result is to diminish the authority of our leaders. Team it with the reflex anxiety over every nuance of polling and we end up with a discussion that is easily mired in misconception and the darker sub currents of the national psyche.

To be reminded of Keating's boldness and certainty is to recall that we have lost more than his trademark arrogant pugnaciousness in the intervening decade. We've also lost political leadership, surrendering it to belligerent ignorance at high volume. You get the feeling that the modern politician, seeing that Keating talkback video would be schooled: "see that's the arrogance that cost him''. And that's cost us.

Jonathan Green hosts Sunday Extra on Radio National and is the former editor of The Drum. View his full profile here.

Ray Hadley interview with Barry O'Farrell and Robert Brown

This week we heard Ray Hadley interview Premier Barry O'Farrell on gun crime, the bail review and the "weak-kneed, lily-livered" Attorney General Greg Smith. Ray then moves on to the Shooters and Fishers' Robert Brown, who talks about a bill to deal with the punishment of gun crime.

Listen to the interview here.

It is interesting in the BOF interview to see how the Premier deals with Hadley's ravings. It appears he realises that a proper, reasonable discussion with Hadley is out of the question, and so chooses the only sensible option: tell Ray what he wants to hear and let him think he's won.

When questioned on the bail review, watch how O'Farrell appears to play a successful judo trick on Hadley. Of course, it could be a sign of a complete capitulation to the Police Association's campaign against bail reform, but we rather hope that it's an example of how a seasoned pro like BOF deals with an absolute galah like Hadley.

The Shooters and Fishers' bill is so far receiving no support. That is not surprising, as the major parties are not, generally speaking, made up of fools. The Shooters say on their website:

"We want the law to regard the possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime as a separate crime in itself, not an aggravating offence, as the law sees it now.

"It will be a separate, additional crime to be dealt with separately by the law both in terms of the judgement and the penalty the court might impose.

"The Bill proposes that on conviction of the separate offence of being in possession of a firearm while committing a crime, the person so convicted will be sentenced to a period of detention NOT LESS than the period of sentence for the core crime, to be served cumulatively.

As it stands, an ordinary robbery under s.94 carries a 14 year maximum. Robbery armed with a dangerous weapon under s.98 carries an almost double maximum of 25 years.

The Shooters idea, as far as we can work out, is that instead of the Court treating the presence of a firearm in a crime as an aggravating feature on sentence, the Court should instead, for example, impose a sentence for a robbery simpliciter under s.94 (assessing its' seriousness without counting the gun), arrive at a number, and then impose a separate sentence for the possession of the gun during the crime, which can't be any less than the sentence first imposed, and must be cumulative.

"Unworkable" does not do this conceptual dog's breakfast justice.

Let's not forget these are the same geniuses that introduced s.6B Firearms Act, the amendment that allowed the severely mentally ill Shamin Fernando to obtain a gun and ammunition from a gun club with no licence or permit, and no background checks into her mental health, take them home and then shoot dead her father.

Not much more needs to be said about this mob or their backwoods ideas.

Hadley clearly knew nothing about the bill when Brown made a failed attempt to explain it, but nonetheless went ahead and wholeheartedly endorsed it. The same man who threatens governments they will be in Opposition if they don't bend the knee before him.

Ending Sydney’s law-and-order auction

Robert Milliken | Inside Story | 3 April 2012 

The NSW attorney-general has taken the politically risky step of trying to reduce the prison population, writes Robert Milliken


NSW attorney-general Greg Smith (above, right) and security manager Patrick Aboud viewing the 300-bed drug treatment facility for prisoners at the state’s John Morony Correctional Complex.
Photo: Kate Geraghty/ Fairfax

WHEN Sydney’s southwest suburbs suffered a wave of drive-by shootings early this year, the city’s tabloid press and notorious radio shock jocks went into overdrive. Their target was Greg Smith, who is about to complete his first year as attorney-general in Barry O’Farrell’s state government. In most respects, Smith is a classic conservative Liberal: a barrister, and former public prosecutor, who represents the leafy electorate of Epping. His Sydney north shore constituency is a world away from the streets on the other side of town where rival gangs of young men shot up each other’s homes in an intimidating display of turf warfare.

In one regard, though, Smith is something of a radical. After sixteen years of state Labor governments, he came to power promising to reform the state’s prison system. Instead of locking more people up, Smith has pledged to find formulas to allow many minor offenders and young criminals to be rehabilitated and then let go.

Sydney’s Daily Telegraph has waged an unrelenting campaign against Smith. It calls him “Marshmallow Smith,” and accuses him of going “soft on crime.” In one extraordinary front page splash in early February, the paper claimed: “Exclusive: Gays, Minorities Get Bail but the Rest… Go Straight to Jail.” The piece claimed to be based on a draft report by the NSW Law Reform Commission, which Smith had not seen. Media hype of this sort threatens to unsettle the government, in a political climate in which law-and-order auctions are the name of the game: both sides compete in proving to voters that they are the toughest on crime.

Smith claims to be unmoved. “The whole hardline approach against crime has been a failure in many places,” he tells me. “This attempt to make me look softer misrepresents what I am trying to do. I am trying to turn people away from crime. It’s not soft, it’s being more pragmatic.”

The challenge Smith faces in testing his pragmatic approach is daunting. Australia spends $11.5 billion a year on law and order, about $511 a year per person. The dubious honour for the biggest spending goes to New South Wales. In evidence late last year to a parliamentary estimates committee, and in a speech to a solicitors’ conference in Sydney, Smith painted a chilling picture.

Within two years of their release, 43 per cent of NSW prisoners reoffend, compared with just under 37 per cent in Victoria, for example, and less than 30 per cent in Tasmania. (The Australian Capital Territory will start reporting on recidivism from 2011–12.) This high recidivism rate accompanies another grim profile: of 15,000 people taken into custody in New South Wales in 2007–08, almost two-thirds were affected by drugs or alcohol when they committed their most serious offences.

Smith’s state also has the highest number of prisoners on remand in Australia. Over the ten years to October 2011, the number of adults held on remand rose by 86 per cent. More worryingly, more than four-fifths of the juveniles held on remand were eventually set free with non-custodial sentences. Locking these young people up, when their crimes are finally found not to deserve such punishment, simply creates more problems, says Smith: “They spend a long time being exposed to a university of crime among prisoners.”

Sport bans for violence don't affect only clubs

Nina Funnell | SMH | April 17, 2012



Suspended for a year ... Robert Lui of the Cowboys. Photo: Getty Images

The new Australian Rugby League Commission has suspended Cowboys halfback Robert Lui for a year and Sharks player Isaac Gordon for nine matches after both were found guilty of domestic violence-related assaults.

Gordon pleaded guilty to assaulting his girlfriend and threatening to kill her after a booze-filled evening in September. She was seven months pregnant.

Lui also pleaded guilty to assaulting his girlfriend, Taleah Rae Backo, who said he entered the apartment via a balcony, pushed her in the chest, then dragged her by her hair to a mattress where he kicked her several times and headbutted her. This assault also took place in September, following end-of-season Mad Monday celebrations.



Out for nine matches ... the Sharks' Isaac Gordon. Photo: Getty Images

Many in the rugby league fraternity have welcomed the bans, including former Kangaroos David Peachey and Sam Backo, the uncle of Ms Backo - but others have been less receptive.

Lui's 12-month suspension has ignited fierce debate, with the Cowboys and the Rugby League Players' Association boss David Garnsey claiming he was not given the chance to tell his side of the story when his punishment was being decided.

But if the 22,000 signatures on a petition calling on the NRL to take a tougher stance on domestic violence are anything to go by, the bans will be popular with the public. If anything, some believe they are too lenient, particularly as the players will be paid in full during their suspension.

The petition was set up by Anthony Simpson, a rugby league fan who says there should be an "automatic, one-season ban for any player found guilty of assaulting a woman … Under this policy, every player who is convicted of violence against women would be stood down for a year. It would send a signal to players that there are serious consequences for assaulting women."

As an anti-violence campaigner, I welcome the general sentiment. And yet the proposed time limit of one year seems fairly arbitrary; why not two years, or five? It is also not clear why assaults against women should carry an automatic suspension while assaults against men should not. Aside from pub brawls and street-based assaults, we must remember men can also be victims of intimate partner and family violence at the hands of other men (although women still make up the overwhelming majority of victims in family violence cases).

The Politics of News: David McKnight’s 'Rupert Murdoch: An Investigation of Power'

David Marr | The Monthly | February 2012


A frustrated politician: Rupert Murdoch in 1985. © Roger Ressmeyer/Corbis

Australian journalists have a sad history of going off to Washington to be ruined. They leave home the hope of the side but after a visit to the boiler room and a peek into the furnace they return enthralled by American ambitions and dream of becoming players in its games of power. Rupert Murdoch was one of these. Visiting Washington in 1972, the young tycoon fell under the spell of Richard Nixon and was never the same again.

The flip-flops ended. He had once sung Fidel Castro’s praises, cultivated crusty old Arthur Calwell and used his new national broadsheet, the Australian, to demand ‘Black Jack’ McEwan succeed the drowned Harold Holt. Crazy stuff. He had swung his UK titles behind Labour and his Australian papers behind the rising Gough Whitlam. Then he went to Washington and turned hard right. Nixon – and later Ronald Reagan, Murdoch’s enduring love – gave him the politics he’s pursued and the rhetoric he’s used ever since.

It’s been a long, colourful and often whacky ride, not least for News Corporation. Murdoch has freely spent its blood and treasure for the best part of 40 years on his political causes. “He was and still is a frustrated politician,” wrote John Menadue, who served both Whitlam and the News chief. “He can’t leave politics alone.”

Bombastic voices aiming to shout down the Attorney-General

Richard Ackland | SMH | February 10, 2012



"There is a misguided perception that the legal community is soft on crime and out of touch with community expectations" ... Chief Justice of NSW Tom Bathurst. Photo: Wolter Peeters

The Chief Justice of NSW, Tom Bathurst, issued the annual rallying cry to lawyers at Parliament House's new law term banquet. That was on the night of January 30. Part of his speech was about the crisis of confidence faced by the criminal justice system.

''Community trust in the system is eroding. Much of this distrust is fuelled by misinformation that is propagated by sections of the media who prefer to inflame rather than inform … There is a misguided perception that the legal community is soft on crime and out of touch with community expectations.''

The next available issue of The Daily Telegraph promptly splashed on page one with a fine piece of confected inflammation: ''Exclusive: Gays, minorities get bail but the rest … Go Straight to Jail.''
Advertisement: Story continues below

Accompanying the exclusive was a little graphic of the NSW Attorney-General, Greg Smith, in pink, captioned: ''Marshmallow man: Greg Smith.'' By asking the NSW Law Reform Commission to review the Bail Act, the Attorney-General seems to have confirmed in many minds that he is a big, fat, pink softie who presumably will melt when heat is applied.

The fact that the Attorney-General hasn't yet received the report of the commission, or considered any proposals for reform, or put them to cabinet is beside the point.

Alan Jones interviews Greg Smith

Alan Jones | 2GB Radio | 31 January 2012

Listen to interview between Alan Jones and Greg Smith here, regarding the bail review and other matters.

Unlike his 2GB morning counterpart, Jones seems prepared to give Smith a fair hearing on his proposed criminal justice reforms.

Prison plan always on the cards

Heath Aston | SMH | January 29, 2012

BEFORE entering politics, Greg Smith spent a career in the courtroom as a Crown prosecutor. So he knows a thing or two about how words can be twisted to suit a purpose.

But even he must have been surprised by the tenuousness of the recent attacks on him for supposedly going soft on crime. The NSW Attorney-General was in the sights of the tabloid press and talkback radio last week for asking the Law Reform Commission to find ways to reduce the headcount in prisons.

Any move to alter the Crimes Act and increase non-custodial sentences is obviously one of extreme public interest and should be debated thoroughly. But the story quickly evolved into how Smith had been a tough talker in opposition only to turn into a big softie in government. Quotes were dug out that seemed to portray the Attorney-General as having been an old-school ''lock-'em-up'' conservative while in opposition.

The truth is basically the opposite.

Take the very first line of a story I wrote in July 2010: ''A Coalition state government would slash the NSW prison population by a fifth by taking prisoners with mental-health problems out of the criminal justice system and reducing sentences for a range of 'less serious' crimes.

''Shadow attorney-general Greg Smith said he was planning to reduce the headcount inside NSW jails, which is set to push past 11,000 …

''The Coalition's reformist agenda, which would reduce sentences for minor drug offences, minor assaults, theft and fraud, is part of a calculated gamble to prevent the election in March descending into the traditional law-and-order auction for who can crack down hardest on crime.''

There were numerous other articles that covered Smith's desire to reduce the number of graduates from the ''universities of crime'' he considers adult jails to be.

Hardline A-G hits back at his critics

Anna Patty | SMH | February 3, 2012

It didn't take long for the vitriol over the state government's approach to law and order to start.

Ten months after the NSW election, the opposition and tabloid media have been dishing it out to the Attorney-General, Greg Smith, accusing him of being soft on crime.

One radio talk-back host recently accused Smith of being a step away from the Greens, saying he had failed to earn his stripes as a conservative Attorney-General.

When it comes to the rehabilitation of non-violent offenders, Smith would agree.

He says he is "more left-wing on issues like dealing with prisoners and rehabilitation than any other Attorney-General in the country".

But Smith, reputed as a tough public prosecutor when he worked for the DPP - having put away murderers including those who killed policeman David Carty - is hardline when it comes to serious violence.

In response to a recent spate of drive-by shootings in Sydney's south-west, the opposition and some commentators have confused the distinction Smith has made between his different approaches to sentencing and rehabilitation.

He believes in non-custodial sentences for less serious offenders and rehabilitation for people with drug and alcohol addiction or mental health problems.

When it comes to people guilty of serious violent crime, including the "buffoons" responsible for the shootings, repeat offenders and those guilty of child sex offences, Smith wants to toughen punishments.

Smith recently asked the Supreme Court to look at how judgments against people convicted of sex offences against children could be strengthened.

Populist approach to violence hardly good public policy

Josh Gordon | The Age | December 8, 2011


Melbourne is a safe place to live, so what's all the hysteria about?

Melbourne is a bad-ass town. At least it is according to outspoken Liberal MP Bernie Finn, who recently told his local paper that parts had become so dangerous automatic weaponry was needed.

''Places like Werribee, Sunshine, Williamstown . . . have suffered for a long time,'' he said. There are places . . . without a flak jacket and a sub-machinegun you just wouldn't go there.''

Finn was no doubt being colourful, as is his custom. But the comments underscore a growing sense of hysteria being encouraged by some political figures and members of the commentariat.

You might be forgiven for thinking Melbourne is in danger of being overrun by ''thugs'' (a word that incidentally derives from the Hindi ''thuggee'', who were members of an extinct Indian robber cult who killed their victims with knotted scarves) who have been allowed to ride roughshod by liberal-minded judges.

But, according to analyst Economist Intelligence Unit in its global liveability survey, Melbourne has once again overtaken Vancouver as the world's most liveable city. It is one of the safest places to live in the world.

In 2010-11 there were 6429 crimes committed for every 100,000 Victorians, a fall of 3.9 per cent compared with the previous year, and the lowest since comparable records began in 1993.

While it is true that the rate of so-called crimes ''against the person'' increased by 4 per cent, as new Police Commissioner Ken Lay points out, this has had much to do with the burgeoning problem of family-related violence. Crimes linked to family incidents, for example, leapt by an alarming 26 per cent in the year. In contrast, other crimes against the person increased by just 0.1 per cent (murders fell sharply).

The bottom line is that it is difficult to say whether Melbourne's streets are becoming less safe. Even if you accept they are, it is simplistic to blame hoons, thugs and louts, as if they represent a new subspecies of humanity.

The Baillieu government's populist approach to law and order has been its controversial tough-on-crime agenda, which includes the abolition of suspended sentences and home detention, minimum jail terms (except in extenuating circumstances) for 16 and 17-year-olds who commit acts of gross violence and new ''baseline'' minimum sentences.

A better approach would be to focus on ''upstream'' causes, rather than tackling ''downstream'' symptoms.

Radio attack dogs fail to shake lawman

Sean Nicholls | SMH | 26 November 2011

There are two inevitable rites of passage for any new NSW attorney-general.

One is a war of words with the Director of Public Prosecutions over funding and the merits of ''tough on crime'' legislation. The other, ironically, is being periodically bludgeoned by talkback radio hosts for being too ''soft on crime''.

In his first nine months in the job, the Attorney-General, Greg Smith, has managed to neatly sidestep the first, thanks largely to the retirement of Nicholas Cowdery and the appointment of the far less outspoken Lloyd Babb as the state's DPP.

But the lack of fireworks in this area has been more than compensated for by a spectacular clash with 2GB's morning presenter, Ray Hadley.

To recap: Smith, the member for Epping, is accused of making sneering comments about Hadley's audience and the readers of the Sydney Daily Telegraph at a Liberal Party Christmas function a week ago.

Hadley's audience were ''red necks'', while Tele readers were ''bigoted fools'', Smith is alleged to have said.

No doubt there are many who would wholeheartedly agree with the former assessment, especially given the quality of the debate generated by Hadley's relentless pursuit of the asylum seekers issue.

But naturally, and understandably, the radio host has taken deep offence at the slur on behalf of his listeners and has proceeded to tear strips off Smith in a series of blistering tirades, despite the A-G's strenuous denials.

(It should be noted that Hadley's three ''sources'' have not been named and none has been willing to go on the record to contradict Smith's version of events. This has been put down to the Liberal Party rule that threatens expulsion for members who discuss internal party matters in public - but it is quite a stretch to classify a Christmas party bash as official party business.)

While Hadley's complaints have focused on defending his audience's reputation, the dispute appears to have emerged from both men's very different relationship with the NSW Corrective Services Commissioner, Ron Woodham. Last month it was announced that Woodham, a veteran in the position, would have his contract renewed for only six months. This followed some pointed comments by Smith on the need for ''culture change'' in the NSW prison system to improve the treatment of prisoners, recently revisited by him over two deaths in custody that have become the subject of inquests.

It is the impression that Smith is critical of the culture that has flourished under Woodham's leadership, and that he is planning to get rid of Woodham to change it, that appears to have enraged Hadley.

Intriguingly, the attack on Smith has coincided with a stampede by media organisations for the right to document the life and times of the prisons boss. The ABC's Australian Story is believed to have been chasing Woodham with a proposal for a profile, as has Foxtel. The third bidder is Graham McNeice Productions, which wants to pitch a program to Channel Nine. Hadley is understood to have introduced Woodham to the production company.

Smith has so far weathered the storm with dignity and has refused to be cowed by Hadley's attacks. He has given as good as he has received and deserves to be congratulated for that. There seems to be a feeling among Sydney's talkback hosts that if they go hard enough, they will eventually get their way. And why wouldn't they, given how well it has worked in the past?

Smith, nine months into his term as Attorney-General, has an early opportunity to change that.

NSW Attorney-General Greg Smith in row with shock jock Ray Hadley

Nick Leys | The Australian | 22 November 2011

NSW Attorney-General Greg Smith has engaged in a slanging match with Sydney shock jock Ray Hadley over claims he called his listeners "rednecks" and readers of the city's daily tabloid "bigoted fools".

Sources in the Liberal Party claim Mr Smith made the comments at a Liberal branch Christmas party on Saturday night in Beecroft in Sydney's northwest.

Hadley, an often controversial radio presenter and a columnist for The Daily Telegraph, told 2GB listeners yesterday he was "disappointed" to hear of the comments, given his support for the Attorney-General.

"Apparently and allegedly -- and this has been confirmed by three sources, including people who took a transcript of Mr Smith's off-the-cuff speech -- he spoke at length about the 'rednecks' who listen to my program . . . you, his constituents," Hadley said. "And he spoke in detail about the bigoted fools who read The Daily Telegraph. He spoke about my support of a public servant whom he didn't name and my continued support of this public servant, a public servant he wants to get rid of, apparently, but whom the Premier has expressed a desire to keep."

During a seven-minute conversation that dropped out twice, Hadley and Mr Smith then argued about what was said and whether the Attorney-General supports NSW prisons boss Ron Woodham.

Hadley accused Mr Smith of "going back to your Labor Party ways" -- a reference to his membership of the party nearly 20 years ago.

Several times Mr Smith denied the remarks, but he admitted using the term "rednecks" when discussing people who "supported a culture in NSW prisons that existed in the past".

"I have been taken out of context," he said.

"Clearly I have some people in the Liberal Party who will do anything to poison you or poison you towards me."

The slanging match ended when Mr Smith's line dropped out for a second time.

Yesterday, the Attorney-General released a statement, in which he declared: "I did not disparage readers of The Daily Telegraph in any way.

"In fact, I said that while they normally take an aggressive line on law and order, the Telegraph and radio stations 2GB and 2UE had been prepared to give the government a fair go as we argue success on law and order should not be judged alone in terms of how tough sentences are or how many people are locked up."

Hadley could not be contacted yesterday.

Listen to the interview here

and some more Hadley ranting on Smith the next day

Attorney-General Greg Smith stung by Ray Hadley

Andrew Clennell | The Daily Telegraph | 22 November 2011



War of words ... Attorney-General Greg Smith and Ray Hadley. Source: The Daily Telegraph

UPDATE 11.59am THE head of the prison officers' union has joined an attack by broadcaster Ray Hadley on Attorney-General Greg Smith, saying Mr Smith's comments about the culture in the prison system are "absolutely disgusting".

Mr Hadley said on air today that Mr Smith had lied on his show yesterday over claims a prisoner had been punched and kicked.

Mr Smith had been defending himself yesterday against claims he denied that he had called Mr Hadley's listeners "rednecks" and The Daily Telegraph's readers "bigoted fools" during comments at a Liberal Party function.

Mr Smith had said he had referred to rednecks but: "I don't want to see people treated like dogs, whatever their status in life. You see a man being marched across a room like a dog recently on television and kicked into a prison cell, that man died two days later, there's an inquest on at the moment .. that's what I was talking on the other night."

Mr Hadley said today film footage of the incident concerned had shown a prisoner being "gently" placed in a cell, not kicked.

On Mr Hadley's program, Matt Bindley, the chairman of the Prison Officers Vocational Branch, said he and his members resented comments by Mr Smith that prison officers treated prisoners under the current culture as "like dogs".

"To be told we treat people like dogs ... is absolutely disgusting and we won't tolerate it," Mr Bindley said.

Hadley countered:"`I think he wants [prisons] to be some sort of retirement resort ... where they're [prisoners] going to be namby pambied."

In a fiery on-air exchange yesterday, Mr Smith denied he made the disparaging comments at the Pennant Hills Liberal Christmas party on Saturday night - despite Hadley saying he had three sources backing up the claims.

Hadley had accused Mr Smith of trying to go soft on "murderers and rapists" and seeking to get rid of prisons boss Ron Woodham.

One version of Saturday's function, from solicitor Mark Turnbull, was that Mr Smith referred to "certain redneck radio commentators" who wanted him to go harder on justice policy.

Mr Smith admitted he wanted less prisoners in jail and said he wanted to change a culture where prisoners were being bashed but he claimed Hadley had been misled.

"Clearly I have some people in the Liberal Party who will do anything to poison you towards me," Mr Smith said. Hadley then asked Mr Smith if he had called his listeners rednecks.

"I did not Ray. I talked about rednecks who supported a culture of ... NSW prisons in the past and it was in the context of me saying how upset I was at the treatment of two men who recently died," he said.

Hadley said: "You better be careful because I've spoken to three people ... who say that you called my listeners rednecks and you referred to readers of The Daily Telegraph as bigoted fools."

Mr Smith said: "I might have used the word redneck but it wasn't in specific regard to 2GB."

Berowra MP Philip Ruddock, one of those at the party, would not comment yesterday other than to say he did not recall comments "of that sort".

Mr Smith said last night: "I did not disparage readers of The Daily Telegraph in any way."

Cops, robbers and shock jocks: the media and criminal justice policy

Dr Alyce McGovern, Elaine Fishwick | The Conversation | 31 August 2011 

MEDIA & DEMOCRACY: Today, Alyce McGovern and Elaine Fishwick look at how the impact a tabloid campaign has had on the law as part of The Conversation’s week-long series on how the media influences the way our representatives develop policy.

When it comes to criminal justice policy, it can be easy to assume that the stories we see on the news, read in the papers, or listen to on the radio, are the drivers for change.

Whilst we could quite feasibly assume the link between media commentary and policy is clear cut, the reality of the policy making process is often more complex than superficial analyses suggest. This is no less the case when it comes to “law and order” style reforms.

The relationship between the media and governments, as explored previously, is a symbiotic one; politicians need the media as much as the media need them.

Whilst the media are often accused of running the agenda on a whole range of issues, politicians themselves are not averse to turning to the media to garner favour and to boost their profile.

Successful politicians are those that use the media well; successful media organisations are those that maintain their audiences by linking in to the politics of the day.

With the amount spent on public relations and media across government departments, it would be naïve to assume the media hold all the power in the relationship; more likely, it’s a tangled symbiotic policy, politics, entertainment, information relationship.

A range of factors and a range of choices need to come together then to provide the catalyst for policy action and reform; the media are only part of this process.

Sentencing remarks of his Honour Magistrate Rosencwajg

DET SEN CONST HOGAN v DERRYN HINCH 

Melbourne Magistrates' Court 21 July 2001

[...]

[16] Indeed, it was on the basis of your medical condition, that you asked I impose a form of a suspended sentence of imprisonment.

[17] In doing so, you also acknowledged, in court, the irony of that submission, coming from a man who had publicly advocated the abolition of suspended sentences, and no doubt, to whatever degree, influenced the public and political debate on that issue. Legislation has recently been passed restricting the ability of the County and Supreme Courts to impose suspended prison sentences with the intention to extend these legislative provisions to this jurisdiction in the future.

[18] Your present situation before this court in fact highlights the significance of judicial discretion in the sentencing process and that each case has its unique factors requiring a balancing process which results in tailoring sentences to the distinct facts of the offence and the individual circumstances of the accused. A 'one size fits all' approach, without judicial discretion, will result in courts being transformed into vehicles for injustice.

[19] Solely for reason of your medical condition, I have had you assessed for a Home Detention Order which will permit you to serve your sentence of imprisonment in your home, subject to certain conditions. You have indicated that you are more than willing to accept such an order and indeed you have been assessed as suitable.

[20] Ironically, as we speak, a Bill is before Parliament which will amend the Sentencing Act and deprive courts of such a sentencing option. You may very well be the last person in this state to be sentenced to a HDO in its current form.

[21] It would be well for you to reflect on these matters when next you enter the public debate, as indeed you have in the past, on such issues as the abolition of suspended sentencing or even more pressing, the current issue of mandatory minimum sentences as contemplated by the government.

[...]

Derryn Hinch sentenced to home detention: Guilty of contempt for naming two sex offenders

Norrie Ross | The Herald Sun | 21 July 2011

A magistrate today ordered that Derryn Hinch, 67, serve five months of home detention for naming two serial sex offenders in breach of serious sex offender laws.

Magistrate Charlie Rozencwajg told Hinch today that he had several previous serious breaches of the law in his various "name and shame campaigns" over the years. Magistrate Rozencwajg made a number of conditions on the home detention order which will mean the "Human Headline" cannot communicate with his audience.

The magistrate said Hinch must not engage in gainful employment and must not use Facebook or Twitter or other social media to propagate his views. Hinch has also been ordered not to give media interviews and not to encourage others to pass on his views on his behalf.

Hinch was found guilty of five breaches of section 42 of the serious sexual offenders monitoring act by naming two rapists.

In his Melbourne Magistrates' Court sentence Mr Rozencwajg said the offences were committed in May, June and July 2008 when Hinch posted information on his website and publicly named the offender at a rally on the steps of state parliament.

"I would regard your actions as taking the law into your own hands and encouraging others to do the same," Mr Rozencwajg said.

The magistrate said that one of the ironies of the case was that HInch would probably be the last person in Victoria to be sentenced to home detention. He said that another irony was the fact that Hinch had campained for the abolishing of suspended sentences and encouraged the passing of a "one size fits all approach which removed judicial discretion" in sentencing.

Such an approach would lead to injustice, the magistrate said.

Mr Rozencwajg said that Hinch had a number of prior convictions for similiar offences but had not heeded the warnings given to him over the years about his conduct by various.

The magistrate said that if Hinch gave interviews to the massive media pack assembled at court today it would be in contravention of his order.

Hinch underwent a life-saving liver transplant earlier this month and was in hospital again yesterday to have a stent removed

Scandal Sheets

Christopher Hitchens | Slate | July 11 2011

In Britain, the Guardian takes on Rupert Murdoch's cynical view of what newspaper readers want to read

On a beautiful Sunday morning at Brideshead Castle, Sebastian Flyte breaks off a desultory conversation about religion and morality because he wants to immerse himself in the scandal sheets: "He turned back to the pages of the News of the World and said, 'Another naughty scout-master … oh, don't be a bore, Charles, I want to read about a woman in Hull who's been using an instrument … thirty-eight other cases were taken into consideration in sentencing her to six months—golly!"

As my colleague Anne Applebaum pointed out elsewhere in Slate, in his essay "Decline of the English Murder," George Orwell knew exactly how to set the scene for a pleasurable reverie on human wickedness:

It is Sunday afternoon, preferably before the war. The wife is already asleep in the armchair, and the children have been sent out for a nice long walk. You put your feet up on the sofa, settle your spectacles on your nose, and open the News of the World.… In these blissful circumstances, what is it that you want to read about?

Orwell's answer—"Naturally, about a murder"—differs significantly from Evelyn Waugh's preference for sexual deviance. And you'll perhaps notice that both authors, or their characters, are consciously "slumming" it by picking up a newspaper that was intended for the less-literate elements of the proletariat. But for decades, in fact since well back into the mid-Victorian epoch, the News of the World was the winning formula for the depiction of crime and squalor and vice. The brilliance of the formula lay in its venerable hypocrisy; actually in two distinct kinds of venerable hypocrisy. First, the sad news of human frailty was not bugled with lurid and sensational tactics. It was laid out more in sorrow than in anger, published on a Sabbath day that was still full of legal and moral force, and strove to show how easy was the fall from grace. Second, and in keeping, its reporters and editors took a very high moral tone. They would take the investigation of a brothel, say, only so far. Once a certain point of complicity had been reached, there would appear a phrase that became celebrated both in print and in court. "At this stage," the reporter would solemnly intone, "I made an excuse and left." This degree of detachment was thought essential to the proper conduct of business.

Hand it to Rupert Murdoch and his minions: They got hold of the solid old "News of the Screws" or "Nudes of the World" and made it into a paper where the question was not how low can poor human nature sink, but rather is there anything, however depraved, that a reporter cannot be induced to do? Admittedly, this question is not a new one in the folklore of Fleet Street. Describing the press pack on assignment in his masterpiece Scoop, it was Evelyn Waugh who noticed one of their tightest mutual bonds: "Together they had loitered on many a doorstep and forced an entry into many a stricken home." As a lowly cub, I remember being told always to take along a partner if it was planned to visit the recently violated and bereaved. "They'll always offer a cup of tea, so you go in the kitchen with them, and then your mate'll have nice time to grab the family photographs off the mantelpiece."

Crime report: good news is no news

Greg Barns | The Drum | 18 July 2011

On July 6 the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research issued a media release containing a remarkable statistic.

Household burglaries, a crime that affects in some way or another most of us throughout our lives, had dropped by 50 per cent between 2001 and 2010. The bureau went on to say that cash not cameras were in vogue among burglars these days.

A 50 per cent fall in burglaries is big news in anyone's language. It means that in New South Wales the rate of households being broken into has dropped from 1,200 per 100,000 people to just under 600 per 100,000 in a decade. And this announcement by the bureau is made more newsworthy by virtue of the fact that household burglaries is something communities in New South Wales can relate to because it's an offence that happens in every neighbourhood and in just about every street at some point in a person's life.

Given all of this one would have thought the tabloid media in New South Wales, the Daily Telegraph, the radio jocks like Alan Jones, the commercial news bulletins and their appendages A Current Affair and Today Tonight would have jumped all over the bureau's good news.

The Murdoch media game-changer

Stephen Mayne | The Drum | 19 July 2011

The biggest media scandal in the modern age is exploding and the world's most powerful family is under siege, yet some key players in Australia still don't understand that the media power game has changed forever.

How can it not when News Corp shares have tanked more than 20 per cent since July 6, senior executives are being fired, the British PM is under enormous pressure, arrests are into double figures, the police chief Sir Paul Stephenson has quit and the UK is openly pursuing numerous inquiries into media conduct, ethics and ownership.

Only this morning, News Corp shares in Australia plunged another 5 per cent as investor confidence collapsed in response to all the weekend drama. A company capitalised at $44.76 billion two weeks ago is now only worth $35.8 billion. The Murdoch share of this $9 billion wipe-out is about $1.2 billion and now Bloomberg reports there are stirrings from independent News Corp directors such as Tom Perkins and Viet Dinh.

While it is the British Labour Party leading the charge against Rupert Murdoch, Conservative prime minister David Cameron also baldy called time on political kowtowing to media barons when he said the following last week:

Over the decades, on the watch of both Labour leaders and Conservative leaders, politicians and the press have spent time courting support, not confronting the problems. Well, it's on my watch that the music has stopped and I'm saying, loud and clear - things have got to change.

In future, politicians have got to stop trying to curry favour with the media, but instead regulate properly.

We were all in this world of wanting the support of newspaper groups and, yes, broadcasting organisations and when we are doing that do we spend enough time asking questions about how these organisations are regulated, the malpractices and the rest of it? No, we did not. We have to.

As part of this "new paradigm", David Cameron has already released full details of all his meetings with editors, executives and media proprietors since becoming prime minister and will continue to do so on a quarterly basis. Why don't Australia's current political leaders follow suit?

Cameron mugging Clarke was about fear of the tabloids, not consultation

Simon Jenkins | The Guardian | 23 June 2011

The justice secretary's message on penal reform was too radical and the PM lost his nerve. So we will keep wasting money.

So what caused the car crash? It was supposed to be the first real chance for penal reform in Britain for a quarter century. For years terrified Labour home secretaries quivered before the forces of darkness. They introduced 50 criminal justice measures and imprisoned more people than anywhere in Europe. They locked up their minds and threw away the key. Last year along came Ken Clarke, apparently without a fear or an electoral care in the world. The clouds rolled back and sanity came over the horizon. Yet on Tuesday a person looking remarkably like the prime minister took the justice secretary into a dark corner of Downing Street and mugged him. Everything went black.

Clarke's proposals in a green paper last year were designed to put some subtlety into Britain's primitive justice system. Prison sentences should treat the circumstance of cases rather than parliamentary megaphones and mandatory messages. Early admission of guilt would attract up to a 50% reduction in sentence and save millions in court time and much witness anguish. There should be more plea bargaining, less incarceration of foreigners and greater emphasis on rehabilitation.

Most of this has been overturned by a David Cameron whose hand on the wheel of policy has been unsteady of late. Up to 60% of Clarke's green paper has been lost. His incentives for guilty pleas are dropped, along with his bid to increase community sentencing and reduce the prison population.

To rub home this exemplary drubbing of liberalism Cameron insisted on a return to "stupid justice", with two-strikes mandatory sentencing, automatic jail for knife crimes and a special "bash the burglar" law. At present there are 20,000 knife crimes a year, of which just 20% lead to prison. This, with a shorter remission for sex and violence crimes, should push the prison population towards the 100,000 point. This is paraded as "punishment with a purpose". It is a desperate play to the gallery.

On Wednesday Cameron got his desired reward. "Right at last," thundered the Daily Mail, hailing the prime minister's "new sense of direction". The Sun cried, "Cameron shows welcome steel," and claimed credit for stopping the "soft justice secretary", otherwise "Crackers Ken, the paedophile's pal". The Daily Telegraph welcomed "Humiliation for Clarke," as Cameron was "forced to get a grip on the government's agenda." Thus was the fatted calf prepared for the repentant hoodie-hugger.