The Federal 3-Ring circus

All we've heard about in the news over the last few days in the leadership battle between the current and the former Prime Ministers of this country. It's driving me absolutely bloody crazy.

JUST SORT IT OUT ALREADY, PEOPLE!!! Get back to running the country, and do it as soon as possible.

All this reported* argy-bargy is doing major damage to the ALP brand, to the point where a lot of people, who wouldn't normally vote Liberal, will do so at the next election to prove to the Labor party that this kind of behaviour is wasting our time and wearing out your welcome.

* I flagged the term "reported" because I fear that most of this rubbish has been perpetuated by a number of media outlets who need to "drum up", or "invent" news in order to sell newspapers. Getting leaks from inside parliament, reporting on posts from Twitter, reporting opinion as fact - there's bigger issues to report on, rather than throwing Mentos into the metaphorical Diet-Coke bottle that is parliament.

Australia Day revisited...

I have just finished watching Media Watch on the ABC. Sure enough, they took a look at the drama that unfolded after Tony Abbott's statement to the media regarding the Aboriginal tent embassy.

I meant to write a piece about this at the time. The major issue is that Tony Abbott never said the words he was attributed as having said. As much as I'm not much of a fan of the guy, I will go into bat for him and defend the fact that he didn't say "tear down the Tent Embassy".

So who twisted his words? Ironically enough, it was the right-wing conservative talkback radio station 2UE in Sydney who did. Then, to make matters worse, it was later revealed one of the Prime Minster's media advisors told a union official who told a member of the tent embassy and then it all ended in a riot.

No-one is advocating that the Tent embassy should be removed. The indigenous people of this country are still fighting for their rights and much of what they wish to see discussed in the halls of parliament still hasn't been discussed. They have a right to peaceful protest like anybody else.

Also, no-one is supporting the behaviours of the protesters on Australian Day either. Or the actions of the police. Both sides say the other was violent, and that the other started it, so we'll never know the real story behind that one.

The one thing that Media Watch did pull out of this entire sorry saga was some of the comments left on the Yahoo7 web page about the story, by people who think that anonymity on the internet gives them the right to be racist. I'm sorry, but it doesn't. Free speech comes with a responsibility to use it wisely. It is not an open slather-fest to slander one and all because you think you can. But more on that later.

It was a sad chapter in the history of Australian race relations and one that I think is far from over....