gatewatching

For non-Aussies, that’s the ABC’s Sunday Morning serious current affairs show. It’s returned from it’s summer hiatus, and already this morning, Barrie Cassidy has done a sharp interview with erstwhile (and presumably future) Liberal leadership contender Malcolm Turnbull, confronting him with evidence that his colleagues don’t like him very much. All quite entertaining.

I’m enough of a PJ to be very happy to see Barry and the crew back, but already weekly guest Paul Kelly - who’s wheeled in as an eminence grise of political punditry - has exhibited the problems that frustrate so many of us in respect of MSM commentators.

After Andrew Bolt had spent five minutes disputing the existence of the indigenous stolen generation, and the wisdom of offering an apology (I strenuously disagree with Bolt, but at least this is a point of view), Kelly was asked by Barrie Cassidy whether he thought that an apology was “the right thing to do”. Predictably, Kelly avoided the direct question - and few questions in Australian politics could be more important - and just talked about in strategic terms, thinking only about whether it was “smart” politics.

Here’s a theory: reason that the left-of-centre blogosphere has prospered in Australia is that the opinion pages only seem to be open to forthright conservatives, and erstwhile (small-l) liberals like Kelly have retreated to evaluations of political and media strategy.

Update: The show has featured a Hugh Atkin YouTube mashup of Barrie Cassidy and Cory Delaney. Tops.

media journalism, media