Really agree with that last para in particular. In fact, it is interesting to think how this would work with an independent: even if journalist allowed them to comment anonymously, which I doubt they would, the small number of them renders the veil pretty see-through. IOW, you are exactly right to see it as an artifact of the two-party mindset we would all be better off moving beyond.
I have wished since I first arrived in Australia that the media would decide whether The Coalition is a single entity, or whether it's two (or more) parties in coalition with each other. As it is those 2-ish parties pretend whichever version suits them from moment to moment and the media let them.
In this case why did the non-Murdoch media not say "the government refused repeated requests for comment, and since we can find nothing to recommend this policy we leave you the reader to draw the obvious conclusion (hint: Labor can't defend it)". I would not object even slightly to the parenthesised comment.
More broadly, I fear the Australian ALP will follow the Aotearoa Labour Party and try very hard to talk about nice things while doing soft right neoliberal things. They may have learned from the well deserved bollocking Ardern got for her "no capital gains tax, no wealth tax" guarantee.
"Even more, it reflects the cosy relationship between the political commentariat and the politicians themselves, epitomised by the name of their favorite show, Insiders."
Might I suggest that Insiders is their second-favourite program ... at the top of the list would be Yes, Prime Minister.
I agree that the relevant ministers who are 'authorised' to speak on tax matters should have made themselves available ... just getting an unidentified comment from a backbencher is close to useless.
The bigger context is that taxation is a can of worms for social democratic parties: on the one hand they are claiming to represent working and middle class people, but they are scared witless in a right-wing neoliberal world to suggest any tax increases. Look at how Bill Shorten crashed and burned in his over-reach with the elimination of franking credits that were greater than any tax paid. Boom!
It never seems to occur to most mainstream political journalists in this country that operating in a culture of anonymity is not the way to acquire moral stature.
(One reason for THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO's impact is that Solzhenitsyn, at great risk to himself, identified himself as being responsible for it, rather than hiding behind "Prisoner #12345 or some such pseudonym.)
Before the rise of social media, unnamed-source-addicted journalists could have defended their addiction (to a certain extent) by citing Australia's admittedly irksome libel laws; but that excuse won't wash nowadays, when Twitter can globally fillet a person's reputation within seconds, whatever statutes might exist on paper ostensibly preventing this outcome.
Moreover, in practice invoking these statutes is today beyond the capacity of all except the super-rich: I know of one retired New South Wales academic who, in law, had a watertight case against those who had calumniated him, but who naturally couldn't afford the $25,000 per day which it would have cost to hire a top-flight Sydney barrister, and who therefore dropped the case.
Like so much else in modern Australian life, the culture of journalistic reliance on unnamed sources resembles the human appendix: whatever purpose it might have served once, and whatever alleged justification it might hitherto have had, it manifestly lacks such purpose and such justification in 2022.
Really agree with that last para in particular. In fact, it is interesting to think how this would work with an independent: even if journalist allowed them to comment anonymously, which I doubt they would, the small number of them renders the veil pretty see-through. IOW, you are exactly right to see it as an artifact of the two-party mindset we would all be better off moving beyond.
I have wished since I first arrived in Australia that the media would decide whether The Coalition is a single entity, or whether it's two (or more) parties in coalition with each other. As it is those 2-ish parties pretend whichever version suits them from moment to moment and the media let them.
In this case why did the non-Murdoch media not say "the government refused repeated requests for comment, and since we can find nothing to recommend this policy we leave you the reader to draw the obvious conclusion (hint: Labor can't defend it)". I would not object even slightly to the parenthesised comment.
More broadly, I fear the Australian ALP will follow the Aotearoa Labour Party and try very hard to talk about nice things while doing soft right neoliberal things. They may have learned from the well deserved bollocking Ardern got for her "no capital gains tax, no wealth tax" guarantee.
"Even more, it reflects the cosy relationship between the political commentariat and the politicians themselves, epitomised by the name of their favorite show, Insiders."
Might I suggest that Insiders is their second-favourite program ... at the top of the list would be Yes, Prime Minister.
I agree that the relevant ministers who are 'authorised' to speak on tax matters should have made themselves available ... just getting an unidentified comment from a backbencher is close to useless.
The bigger context is that taxation is a can of worms for social democratic parties: on the one hand they are claiming to represent working and middle class people, but they are scared witless in a right-wing neoliberal world to suggest any tax increases. Look at how Bill Shorten crashed and burned in his over-reach with the elimination of franking credits that were greater than any tax paid. Boom!
I have been watching the Ukraine conflict. Unidentified Gov't sources are the norm.
Ask me if I believe them.
It never seems to occur to most mainstream political journalists in this country that operating in a culture of anonymity is not the way to acquire moral stature.
(One reason for THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO's impact is that Solzhenitsyn, at great risk to himself, identified himself as being responsible for it, rather than hiding behind "Prisoner #12345 or some such pseudonym.)
Before the rise of social media, unnamed-source-addicted journalists could have defended their addiction (to a certain extent) by citing Australia's admittedly irksome libel laws; but that excuse won't wash nowadays, when Twitter can globally fillet a person's reputation within seconds, whatever statutes might exist on paper ostensibly preventing this outcome.
Moreover, in practice invoking these statutes is today beyond the capacity of all except the super-rich: I know of one retired New South Wales academic who, in law, had a watertight case against those who had calumniated him, but who naturally couldn't afford the $25,000 per day which it would have cost to hire a top-flight Sydney barrister, and who therefore dropped the case.
Like so much else in modern Australian life, the culture of journalistic reliance on unnamed sources resembles the human appendix: whatever purpose it might have served once, and whatever alleged justification it might hitherto have had, it manifestly lacks such purpose and such justification in 2022.