A little while ago, I got a message from the Fin to tell me they wouldn’t be running any more columns from me, as they are bringing in some new commentators. Given my run-in with Michael Stutchbury (then at the Oz, now Editor-in-Chief of the Fin) last year, and other changes at the Fin since he came on board, I wasn’t surprised. Still, it’s the end of a long-running association, which started, ironically (at least in the Alanis Morrisette sense of the term) when Michael was opinion editor there. My first column, advocating the exclusion of food from the GST, ran in 1992. I wrote occasional pieces after that, and I was a regular columnist for 15 years, which is a very long stint by Australian standards, at least for someone who isn’t a full-time journalist.
I’ve enjoyed it a lot, and I think I’ve made a useful contribution, but now it’s time to move on. I’ll certainly continue to take part in public debate, through this blog and other media, but this gives me a chance to stop and think more clearly about where I want to go with this part of my life.
John Quiggin 
Don Boudreaux (cafehayek.com) writes so many letters to the editor (2 or 3 a week) I would suspect him of being autistic if I didn’t first suspect him of being paid for it. Please don’t do that.
There’s always a demand for refutation of the neoliberal paradigm du jur. Unfortunately the pay is all on the other side as well.
Might I suggest expert witness? There are so many journalists/solicitors who need someone they can rely on to tell them when they are hearing “Koch funded propaganda” as I like to call it.
Well. I’ve just seen the story in Crikey and have described the thing as gutless and explained why I think why. Currently on automods there.
Gutless, gutless, gutless…death of discourse and a craven concession that, as Quiggin argues, privatisation is usually a zombie dud.
Stutchbury doesn’t like privatisation questioned so he sacks the sceptic rather than even attempt to mount a defence based on facts and figures?
What is this?
Somebody please turn that tape of “Horst Wessell Lied” OFF!!
I wonder what a ‘free press’ really means? Does it mean anyone who is a billionaire can manage to get their voice heard?
Sounds fair. They are after all “the” most habitually discriminated against and marginalised group.
what run in?
It’s unlikely that the Australian will offer you a column, but would you accept if offered?
15 years as a columnist, yes, that is an impressively long stint, not least by Australian standards. I shall regret your departure from AFR, Professor; you and the late Peter Ruehl (RIP) were the only regular writers in that newspaper of whom I could understand every sentence.
I first read you in 1992 in the Fin; it’s been a grand 20 years. Fairfax needs to be making better decisions if they’re to survive let alone prosper; I’ve no doubt which party is the loser in this. In one clear sense it’s just one more win to the blogosphere at the expense of the MSM.
Please forgive me for a long comment, but it seems apposite. Firstly though, well done on being a sane voice in the press, for so long. However:
I think it is just another marker of how notional the idea of the free press is: it is free, but only in the sense that it is free to write anything its owners want, but not free in a truth-telling sense. Therefore, the idea that the press somehow keeps politicians honest, or provides the public with unbiased analysis, is well and truly dead in the water; if ever it was alive, that is.
Over the course of my lifetime, I have witnessed a great shift in the “set-point” of the press, a great shift to the most conservative right ideology. We are entering the epoch of the Corporatocracy / Plutarchy, even as we are told we never had it so good.
I am currently reading a book by Tzvetan Todorov, called “In Defence of The Enlightenment”, and a most pertinent section on pages 91 to 93 notes:
[My italics.]
Todorov goes on:
So far, so good. The kicker, though is the next bit:
I think Todorov has pretty much nailed it, and this meshes with several themes running on this blog and others, of late. Are we members of a liberal democracy, or not?
To laugh or cry?
My comment got hauled down at Crikey. I can (almost) understand the tabloid right’s fear of a man of Quiggin’s intellect, if ideas are some thing to feared rather than welcomed.
But me?
It’s a sad day, when something like Crikey is afeared of a nobody, but far worse when the nation loses a respected rational voice to prejudice, cowardice and hidden, nasty greedy, agendasat a once-respected journal.
Sorry.
Donald Oats, a beaut, reasoned explanation, logically framed and presented.
This is what they are afraid of?
Has the world gone mad?
@paul walter
Best not to speculate on that, for that way lie madness. 🙂
This is truly sad and tacky – just when the AFR is busily waving its credentials as fearless journalists at the Murdoch imperium, while surrendering to the same horrid economic ideology. Gutless is right.
A pity. I often read and always enjoyed. A different view of the world and thoughtful. Well written too. The question everyone asks is “how do you manage to do all the things that you do?” Did you ever compose a column while running a marathon?
Thanks for this post (disregard my question in’Academic Austerity’).
Of course, an editor-in-chief can do as he wishes but I would have thought that petty vendettas with disregard for the wants of the paying readers was a much more ‘Murdoch’ trait than a Fairfax one.
Ah, but Megan, C. S. Lewis’s famous definition of avant-garde art – “The customer is always wrong” – surely applies to the Murdoch media as well?
Yes, but I think it should have stayed there!
The Fin has also been running up the anti-science stuff disturbingly frequently. Not so much editorially/journalistically but certainly in opinion and letters.
Could Fairfax be fishing for a new niche demographic of ‘feeble-minded impressionable rich people’?
So is this the first slice from Gina Rinehart?
A taste of what is to come?
There needs to be a new name for the battle ahead. The “culture wars” will not cover this battle to legitimise Bull S>>t in the name of profits at the expense of the Planet.
Who owns AFR at the moment?
SMH according to wiki
@Sam
Google “Quiggin Stutchbury”. I recommend the Deltoid hit for a nice linky start.
Is this a case of the same Stutchbury at a different rag, or of a similar rag deploying the same Stutchbury?
Wasn’t Dateline on Murdoch’s dirty tricks hacking unit a revelation?
And who would deny ABC management have taken a crowbar to channel 2- all that’s missing is a paid ads in place of the monotonous flow of in-house promos, quiz shows and unreality TV. Are they speeding it up before any more sh-t hits the fan re Murdoch, et al, as to a privatisation?
There seems to be a “harmonising” process already long in place that government either will not or cannot direct in any way toward the public interest.
Better not have people doing msm who actually know what they’re talking about re the reality of privatisations, neoliberalism etc, so hiring and sooling the rabid attack dog Stutchbury onto Quiggin, who has bested him in reasoned debate- what a snapshop of the the debauched mentality of corporate msm!?
Rinehart on the ABC a night ago, was chilling…
I wouldn’t believe everything you read on Wikipedia:
“Journalists writing for the Financial Review include Alan Mitchell and Laura Tingle. Regular opinion columnists include former leader of the Liberal Party of Australia, John Hewson, a frequent critic of former Liberal Prime Minister, John Howard; John Roskam of the Institute of Public Affairs; Tony Harris, former Auditor-General of New South Wales and John Quiggin.”
I’m surprised that end bit hasn’t been assigned to the memory hole yet.
I respect your feeling on this JQ. Twenty years is a long time to keep up the struggle; I found one hour of arguing with Peter Lang here last night frustrating enough. But I will miss your pieces at the AFR. The AFR and the Advertiser are the only papers available to read at lunchtime at my work.
This only confirms for me too, there is declining utility in buying newspapers generally. Sad.
Their loss John.
We hope that the Fin is as good under Stutchbury, but you were one of the best things there so that seems unlikely. Surely, you wont have difficulty finding places to publish. Keep up the good work.
They can run John Roskam, but not John Quiggin.
WTF?
PrQ, you’re easily in the top dozen thinkers in Oz. Hopefully you’ll now have time to write another book or two. Cheers.
I hope you continue finding ways to make public comment, that’s for sure. Personally, I’m also interested in what your views are concerning recent events in Queenland; how about the axing of the literary awards, for one? Is this really a good saving for Qld, or is it perhaps a politically motivated equivalent of flipping the bird at the socialists (or whatever Newman may imagine writers to be)? Should Olympic atheletes have their funding deleted as well, in the name of balancing budgets?
Is there any truth to the rumour that Andrew Bolt now has your old gig?
The AFR is going down the gurgler and hopes by appealing to those with money by reinforcing their view of the world that it will stay afloat. Not likely by pretending it is the rich man’s version of the Oz.
@Donald Oats
I know you directed your question at Pr Q, but here’s my view on the “Premier’s Literary Awards”:
The major prize was won by only one Queenslander (Janette Turner-Hospital) as far as I can tell. As with so many other things in Qld after too many years of the same government, they were characterised by what I think of as cultural nepotism.
There is an anointed “in crowd” and everyone else stands no real chance of breaking through. Coincidentally, this goes for the music scene even more so.
I don’t think this is any great loss to creativity or the arts in this State. Certainly J.M.Coetzee, Peter Carey, Helen Garner and Richard Flanagan shouldn’t suffer too much from its axing.
I’m not even very convinced that it constitutes an “up yours” at ‘socialists’ or writers generally by Newman. In my view, it is a much more precisely aimed “up yours” at the in crowd of “Labor Luvvies” and, as with the election result more generally, will not result in much angst in the broader community despite what same in crowd would have everyone else believe.
Not surprised.
I used to get the AFR as it was the only paper worth getting – the policy reporting was good, with the added bonus of a good Quiggin read.
But I’ve noticed a decline in the last few months. Eg, what used to be reporting on how carbon trading worked and the ins and outs of various schemes as information became available was very good – but it’s all ETS=Tax bullshit now.
Hopefully Business Spectator offers you a gig so you can balance out terrible headlines like this one:
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Europe-staggers-through-bond-sell-off–ECB-walks-a-pd20120405-T2U9Z?OpenDocument&src=sph
Now that you are leaving the AFR I can start to read it again.
Would you please take Tingle with you.
Good riddance, John..
Well now that you’ve been disposed of, I might buy the paper again.
have a nice day. Ciao
@Megan
You are probably correct that it is aimed more narrowly at Labor “luvvies”—as you characterise them—than at writers, per se. Still, it seems a bit precious. Guess we’ll see, once Newman has had a year or so to rock’n’roll.
@John from Newcastle.
If the existence of John Quiggin as an occasional writer for the AFR was such a deterent for you, then you are overly sensitive, I’d say. The vast majority of the content of the AFR has been fairly factual, or is based on business reports, media releases, and also the usual journalist just digging around. An utterly committed business-friendly newspaper, and nothing wrong with that.
For me, the thing that was cool about the AFR was that although it was clearly coming at stuff from the perspective of business, it generally didn’t indulge in taking sides on the politics, or at least not greatly so. The beauty of that was it meant that government policies were analysed with a view to informing the reader, rather than used as a tool to proselytize with regards to a favourite political party. A reader had some hope of being taken through the mechanics of a policy, rather than arguing about whether the policy is good or bad, or whether the government should be kicked out or allowed to reign unmolested. Once a reader understands the policy, they’re free to form their own view on whether they like what the government is doing, or do not like it.
Reading a Stutchbury piece in The Australian often felt like stumbling into the middle of a shoot-out between him and the ALP/Greens/Indeps, with Stutchbury owning the bullets: that’s his style. Stutchbury should concentrate on excellence in business journalism, but I suspect he’ll decide it to be his mission to tinge the journalism with put-downs and snarks about the ALP, the Greens, and even some moderates in the Liberal coalition. Under Stutchbury I suspect that the relative neutrality the AFR journalists have strived for will be under persistent pressure to favour the conservative side of politics, at the expense of the centre-right, through to leftwing, or greens. I hope my scepticism is misplaced, for Australia does not really need two flagrantly rightwing, conservative national newspapers.
We really do need some kind of investigation into who gets paid to troll comments on blogs using identical talking points.
These last two for example, never seen here before (as far as I can recall), suddenly pop up to tell the host that they are happy he isn’t in the AFR anymore.
Yippee fellas (and if not ‘bots’, they are almost certainly fellas), off you go – buy the AFR to get your IPA talking points in printed form from a (formerly) reputable journal. Yay! You won.
If I wasted electrons on the online versions/variants of the hate media I’d probably know which puppeteer sent these recent visitors. But I don’t and don’t care to.
There really is a palpable desperation to the neocon/climate denial/Koch/Murdoch axis going on. I’m afraid it is not going to turn out well for normal people as these lunatics try to take us all down with them.
A quick check confirms “amotou” and “John from Newcastle.” are both Andrew Bolt regulars and I suspect both have come running at their master’s beckoning. Here doggies, lap, lap, lap.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/bye_bye_warmist_professor/
I find it hard to understand how Bolt has allowed himself to develop into such a contemptible man.
Real Climate look back at a Hansen et al article from the 1981 and find the model to be robust.
Why not write regular pieces for ‘the conversation’. I’d suggest macrobusiness as well, although the quality is declining now that everyone knows about it.
Mel @ 36,
The two are quite likely the same person. The evidence is in the hour and a quarter that it took to pen the second two sentence contribution. This delay would be consistent with the quality of the comment. It also provides possible evidence as to why Bolt “appears” to be so popular.
Wah, Wah, Wah.
Maybe that is three into one.
Gone but not lamented.
@BilB
It’s called “freeping” Mel
OK, Fran. Maybe I need to install that for my product website.
I think the fact that Bolt felt compared to mention you at all and that his cronies have flocked over here to gloat indicates that you had something of an impact. I do hope you continue to.
@John from Newcastle.
Rather than read to be informed, do you read to stay misinformed?
Surely the Oz sates that desire?
I’ve noted elsewhere that the best/simplest/most succinct and irrefutable put down for Murdoch’s operatives, collectively, is “Phone Hacking Scum.”
They can’t deny it. They can’t defend it. And the more people who realise it’s systemic and the corporate cultural norm the sooner the whole wicked enterprise will be limited to its rightful place in the irrelevence corner.
As an aside, today yet MORE Murdoch illegal hacking comes to light. They admit it (and that it was, technically, illegal) but say they “did nothing wrong”.
This may be more apropriate for the “Academic Austerity” thread but in light of our recent visitors on this one….
I just popped over to “informationclearinghouse” to get some REAL news and the daily quote on the front page is:
“Where suspicion fills the air and holds scholars in line for fear of their jobs, there can be no exercise of the free intellect. Supineness and dogmatism take the place of inquiry. A problem can no longer be pursued to its edges. Fear stalks the classroom. The teacher is no longer a stimulant to adventurous thinking; she becomes instead a pipe line for safe and sound information. A deadening dogma takes the place of free inquiry. Instruction tends to become sterile; pursuit of knowledge is discouraged; discussion often leaves off where it should begin.” – — William O. Douglas — (1898-1980), US. Supreme Court Justice
@Freelander
The Oz is for some, the drug of choice, for it acts as a salve.