Image from Crikey
By Situation Theatre 16/6/2020
The story became headline news on the first day of voting in the critical Eden-Monaro by-election but there is nothing sus about this.
Peter Costello was a Liberal MP from 1990 to 2009. He was the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party from 1994 to 2007. He was John Howard’s Treasurer from 1996 to 2007.
He has chaired one of the most influential media organisations in the country, Nine Entertainment Co., since February 2016.
In September 2019, Nine Entertainment used Sydney TV studios to host a $10,000-a-head corporate fundraiser for the Liberal Party, for which three Liberal Cabinet Ministers charged the taxpayer more than $4,500 in travel expenses.
This month, 70 journalists from The Age wrote a letter to Nine executives complaining of increased politicisation, such as in their editorial that “Australia does not have a legacy of slavery”. Concerns that their paper is shifting to the right are shared by Sydney Morning Herald journalists.
For further context, Victorian Premier Dan Andrews is currently the most popular politician in the country and as a result is currently the latest target of a Liberal/News Corp holy war.
On Sunday, Nine Entertainment broadcast an independent investigation of corruption inside the Victorian Labor Party. The nation is holding its breath for an equally rigorous investigation of endemic Liberal Party corruption, which is tipped to be about as effective as police investigating their own brutality.
This morning, on the second day of Eden-Monaro voting, the ABC spent the first seven minutes of their 6am bulletin on this “ALP Scandal”. It’s a scandal which reporters predict won’t end anytime soon, presumably because they won’t stop talking about it.
The ABC is chaired by Ita Buttrose, handpicked by Prime Minister Scott Morrison after having spent most of her career working for Kerry Packer and Rupert Murdoch. Conservatives have spent the last seven years stacking the board with Liberal Party donors, News Corp and mining executives, as well as friends of Peter Costello.
None of this context is mentioned in any mainstream media reports on the timing and framing of the Somyurek scandal.
This state of affairs is both cool and indeed normal.
As Chomsky famously wrote in Manufacturing Consent, “FFS”.