The ABC is reporting the election outcome as 73 Coalition, 72 Labor, even though one National Party member has indicated he will not sit as part of the coalition. If they had made a similar choice favoring Labor (eg by accepting at face value the statement of the Green MP that he intends to support Labor) I’m sure the cries of bias from the political right would have reached the heavens.
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John Quiggin 
@wmmbb
It’s Wilson Tuckey, surely, not “Winston”?
@paul walter
If you want to make a snark at my argument go ahead – but I am addressing the point. I was looking at whether the media is in fact biased.
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As for your comment that the ABC “…is necessary to ensure diversity of viewpoint and accurate information…” you seem to be determined to prove that this is in fact not the case. Make your mind up.
Perhaps you could look at the effect the current media regulations have in restricting choice and the many actions of governments over the last century or so to try to do this. Perhaps, just perhaps, your apparent faith that government regulation can be used to fix this is mis-placed. Maybe you should look at deregulation.
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@John Quiggin
He has made a choice – he is a part of the National Party caucus and the request to remove him from the Coalition count was withdrawn by his own party.
@TerjeP
Of the five people described in that Bolt article, it seemed like only two had some sort of permanent position with the ABC. Disliking (or “hating”) Abbott alone is not necessarily a reason for having a left wing opinion, or an “anti-right political bias”. Abbott’s huge amount of dishonesty can be a very strong reason for opposing him, regardless of whether one is left wing or right wing. But there is no reason for someone to not be in the ABC for having a political opinion, or expressing it on Twitter. Its not as if they were making crude comments about Tony Abbott under the banner of an ABC logo.
Maybe you don’t want your taxes to pay the wages of some of these people, just like I would prefer that they didn’t regularly fund appearances of Bolt on Insiders. But the fact is that taxpayer funding of the ABC provides a very good public good. And we get good value-for-money for this public good.
@Peter Wood
I think we need to separate the ABC from ABC News and Current Affairs. given its performance in the last 12 months I’d be very happy for the ABC to acknowledge that it no longer had the resources to do this latter function properly, and to withdraw entirely from the field. Another 12 months like the last 12 months would subtract egregiously from the public good in general and diversity in particular.
If Murdoch wants another broadcast arm, let him pay for it and let the ABC stop laundering his propaganda for him. I might even block with Terje, Jarrah and Andrew on that.
Peter – TV is not a public good. At least not in the economic sense of the word. It may have been once but technology these days makes pay TV viable. Also broadband and paywalls achieves similar ends. Given that nobody watches the ABC then taking it off free to air or including advertisements wouldn’t hurt anybody. And if a few people do sometimes watch it by accident then no big deal if they have to pay for their mistakes. If you love the ABC then you should be happy to pay a subscription fee. I like MAD comics but I don’t expect tax payers to subsidise them.
Free access to unbiased objective information is a public good Terje – I think you have read far too many MAD comics already.
Alice – clearly you don’t know what a public good is. And the ABC isn’t free.
TerjeP, if you were as good at bullshipping as Abbott you might have done better at the election. Furthermore, what makes you think Aunty is not a public good and not free to air.
1. I wasn’t in it to be popular.
2. Basic economics.
3. Taxpayer funding.
Terje – your results at the election were worse than Steve Fieldings. Doesnt that convince you yet the people clearly arent ready, willing or able to embrace your particular brand of ultimate market government free freedoms? In fact from what I can see people are getting a bit tired of the pro market vision. Look at the independents territories – what do they want? Tariff barriers back up and government services again. Ill be astonished if Windsor goes with Abbott because – hey guess what? Labor has already started rolling out broadband up Armidale way – and by crikey – its creating jobs. Who would have thunk that? Plus the uni thinks its a great idea so the students can get on broadband. There are a lot of country businesses think the same way too. Liberal doesnt and cant deliver it. Will they go with Abbott and watch it all grind to a halt (like country life)?
Terje – doesnt matter if the libs get in. You and your ideas are finished anyway.
@Fran Barlow
“And just to underscore this point — is it possible to be a non-leftwinger who opposes Abbott’s policies? ”
Over here! I would have voted for Malcolm Turnbull.
The ABC, radio and TV, is an essential service here in the outback. It is the only radio I can receive, and the only free-to-air TV. I can get satellite pay TV, but there’s nothing on it worth watching – I surf the channels but always end up back with Auntie – she doesn’t insult my intelligence. As for bias, I agree with the view that the ABC is so scared of being accused of pro-Labor bias that they are very reluctant to be critical of the Coalition.
Alice – our senate vote increased ten fold compared to 2007. It was a fantastic result. In NSW our senate candidate was the last man standing on eliminations. You have no clue but I don’t care that you have no clue, nor why the topic was even raised.
Ron – essential services need not be public goods. Food being a classic example.
TerjeP, since you are economic literate then explain to the whole world what is a ‘pure public good’.
Alice – senate result in NSW. We creamed Family First and did better than Fred Niles crowd.
http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2010/guide/snsw-results.htm
MOSH – ask and ye shall receive.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good?wasRedirected=true
@TerjeP
I cant help this Terje – Im even breaching my ban – but your result of 200 and whatever votes in Benelong was crap. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but it doesnt matter what percentage you increased from (200% of crap is still crap Terje). I know there is a lot of delusion about lately but Id hate you to succumb to it. If Fielding can get a bigger percentage than you (at 2.6% of the vote in his seat) – you need to do some serious mirror gazing Terje.
Terje, now what is the marginal cost of providing an extra consumer with the good?
@TerjeP
So Terje – who creamed who? Not you. You were running as some sort of free market offshoot (what were your letters again?) – but you didnt get hardly any votes. Now you are telling me “we creamed family first”?. Lies Terje – you ran on some sort of weird offshoot of liberals…so you want to take liberals “creaming family first” as your credit??
Oh come on… I bet the sex party did better than you in Benelong if you are counting your preferences.
Alice – Bennelong was a bad result in 2007 and 2010. The NSW senate result which I linked above shows us getting less votes than four parties and more votes than 16 parties. We beat Family First, the Sex Party, the Christian Democrats and loads of other. The four parties that beat us in the senate were Labour, Liberal, Greens, Shooters and Fishers. We did well for a party few have heard of. We didn’t get anywhere near the media exposure of the Sex Party or Family First or the Christian Democrats but we beat all of them. But I concede that in Bennelong we did badly. Still we did 200% better in Bennelong than in 2007. Things take time to grow and we have staying power and a great result to build on. I’m very optimistic.
@TerjeP
At that rate Terje – I might have to give you a hand on polling day when Im 90!
@TerjeP
Well Terje – the ones who I was working for creamed you! The Greens.
@Michael of Summer Hill
Depends if you need another transmitter to reach them. However typically nil.
Alice – congratulation to the Greens. After 40 years they have 10% despite huge public awareness. Watch your tail.
@Alice
Yes Alice, I thought I had corrected that. I haven’t any excuses.
TerjeP, did you say zero or am I dreaming. Now why is that so for someone like Ron E Joggles?
@wmmbb
I give up. I am sorry Robert.
@TerjeP
Yes Terje – “congratulation to the Greens.After 40 years they have 10%”
As I said Terje – if Im around at 90 Ill give you a hand on the polling booth!
Mosh – you’re not dreaming.
Alice – thanks.
@TerjeP
The Greens arounf for 40 years? Hardly Terje.
The Greens went national in 1992, 18 years ago. The first candidate to stand in a Federal election in Australia on an explicitly environmental platform did so in 1975.
By way of contrast, the stuff you are on about ihas been around since at least the 1950s. Earth Day didn’t happen in the US until 22 April 1970 — and there is your 40 years.
The real triumph of the Greens was their success in replacing the Democrats as the key vehicle for those concerned with equity and environmentalism. In Grayndler for example –an electorate where once the Democrats would have got a decent vote, the Democrats got fewer votes than Socialist Alliance and a few more than the Socialist Equality Party.
TerjeP, I am glad you accept the fact that governments do play an important role in civil society because much of what you have been saying about the free market is total bull. One only needs to look at Labor’s NBN to realise the private sector could not provide such a network without government assistance. In case you don’t know what that is it is called subsidies.
@TerjeP
Any time Terje – Ive set up manless booths – I know how to do it!
@Fran Barlow
I think another major triumph of the Greens is I reckong they are a young party and they are getting te young vote (I had two really cute about 19 year old girks come out of the polling booth and raise both hands in the air and say “go the greens!!” complete avec mini skirts).
Bit of a show stopper.
On a more serious note why would young people vote Labor or Liberal??. What do those old fogey parties do for our young people any more? Abbott thinks they are slave labour rates in his flexible labour dreams and Gillard and Abbott just cant help taxing them on the way into and out of school, unis and tafe. Ah so you want to learn? Then pay as you go!
Liberal and Labor – Old fogey parties who see the young as something they can just use and discard.
@Alice
In this election The Greens not only got a big lift in the youth vote, but in over 55s as well. Who knew they would respond to programs like Denticare, protecting the biosphere, a fairer share of mining revenue and compassion for asylum seekers?
Fran – I concede that 40 years is a stretch. Touché.
Terje, the whole point of standing for election is to be popular. Otherwise there are easier ways to donate $500 to the government.
Paul,
Would you have said that to the Green (or was that environmental candidate) that stood in 1975? Or was it less than $500 then?
“If Fielding can get a bigger percentage than you”
Alice doesn’t know the difference between lower and upper houses.
Paul – it isn’t quite that expensive because the $500 is tax deductable.
Andrew, I think they wanted to be popular. I suspect they wanted to do something useful too, but nevertheless they do want (even need) to be popular, otherwise they’re just tilting at windmills. The trick is to be popular without selling out.
Similarly I thought Terje at least took himself a little seriously, therefore standing for election and declaiming any interest in popularity seemed bizarre. His pride in the senate results suggests popularity has some meaning after all 😉
Terje, is the deposit deductible because you’re earning income as a politician, or just a perk?
Paul – I did not seriously expect to win Bennelong. I did seriously intend to give people a better option in Bennelong. Mission accomplished.
We all want to be popular, it’s human nature. However taking a given position on a serious issue simply to be popular is a pretty lame decision.
Jarrah – you low flier – I was talking about Terje’s percentage of Benelong votes relative to Fieldings where Terje comes off worst (where were you Jarrah – why werent you giving Terje a hand? You like the free free markets.). Not comparing reps to senate… duh.
Alice – how much Media did I get relative to Steve Fieldings? How many people have heard of FF versus LDP? Given our low profile I’m happy with the result. I’m not so happy with our low profile but that’s another matter.
a purely free market?
no regs or rules or guide lines
money comes first and damn the competition?
how about drugs,guns and sex trade/slavery and religion?
no pesky taxes or regulations in those transnational trading markets.
uncounted, pure good to populations and environments?
i think i saw it called the black economy and is equal to the taxed and regulated economy.
“I was talking about Terje’s percentage of Benelong votes relative to Fieldings where Terje comes off worst”
Exactly. You seem to think people a) have the same voting strategies for HoR and Senate, and b) that a rich, conservative inner metropolitan seat of 58 square kilometres with ~90,000 people will have the same kind of political preferences as a State of ~5.4 million people in 227,416 square kilometres covering metro and regional areas, and therefore percentages in each are directly comparable.
If you want to compare properly, in Bennelong Terje had 273 votes (a swing of +0.25%) and the FF rep 478 (+0.28%). Not bad considering the LDP has no profile to speak of, and no money. Still in Bennelong, in the Senate the LDP got 1201 first preferences, and FF 498. This shows how you are wrong to believe point a). In HoR for Bennelong, the ratio of FF to LDP votes is 1.75:1. In the Senate, the ratio of LDP to FF votes is 2.41:1. Who creamed who?
At a State level, in NSW the provisional quota shows the LDP smashed FF – 0.1508 to 0.0655. In Victoria, where FF have a sitting Senator, the quota margin was just 0.0408 in their favour.
“duh”
Yes, that’s about as clever as you get.
Back to the point for a minute – now the Greens have entered into a formal agreement with the ALP their seat is now counted with the ALP. I think this shows a reasonable degree of consistency and why this is not evidence of bias on their part.
Alice, some good news for today Labor & the Greens have made a pact whereby MP Adam Bandt would back Gillard’s Labour party in parliament after the Prime Minister offered to set up a climate change committee, invest in dental care and study a high-speed east-coast rail link which has really pissed off Tony Abbott.
@gerard #12 I so agree – I’ve been looking at ABC breakfast ABC2 and it’s bloody poor. Yesterday was all over the 2PP going Coalition’s way without once mentioning the electorates temporarly removed from the count, just a seemingly endless loop of Bishop gloating (3 times before turning off the box).
ABC2 a few weeks ago mentioned oh so briefly the open letter by 51 economists supporting the stimulus. It said there was a letter and that some of the economists had union affiliations – that was it. Did it comment on the contents of the letter – nope – nothing more was ever to be heard.
I’m pretty upset – It used to be the knob jockeying vegetables has commercial TV to drool to and I had the ABC to inform. It’s no better than the commercials. Actually, worse – during recent crud on ABC2 wife and I flick over to sunrise and there recently Beyond Zero talking about getting us off the coal. Another time I flicked, Koshie (or whatever his name) was telling us that boat arrivals are a small minority and this minority has done good for Aus – there was a Vietnamese comedian telling his story next to him.