"Howard was the first politician in Aus to use the strategy of...

"Howard was the first politician in Aus to use the strategy of repeating a lie often and confidently until the lie was accepted as truth."

One can never go too wrong quoting Michael Pascoe and Chomsky. We're very lucky to have have Pascoe's voice in among the river of newstainment and boss pleasing passing as journalism.

Interesting post, it brought back events I had forgotten about his treatment of indigenous Aussies before Islamophobia became all the rage. its hard to think of an Australian politician who worked the 'big lie' like Howard did. They may have existed back a while but not that I have lived through. I've still got the "We will decide who comes to this country..." election postcard I received in the letterbox. I saved it for posterity knowing it was in its own small way a piece of infamous Oz history. Now if I can just locate the red flexiplastic 'It's Time' single I have somewhere about. They could be seen as historical bookends for a period in which we showed promise, grew and then degraded and declined since.

As for ABC bias. As you suggest, this should never have been about a left or right perspective. What they are really asking for is a politicised public broadcaster. That is what it amounts to. Journalism, well practised is a discipline. Economics is also an academic discipline, but when they chase corporate pay that oft gives way and that rigour and truth suffers. The difficulty is that once a journalist has a high proficiency and actively searches for and chases the truth they are led to the same position as quality ABC journalists, Pascoe, Bongiorno, Michael West or a bunch of others. They have to chase the truth, anything else is political advertising.