TR EMERITUS

Perfect spin is so elusive Andrew Bolt From: Herald Sun March 05, 2010 12:00AM  POOR Peta Duke. If she hadn't somehow typed the ABC's address on the email she'd actually meant for her boss, she'd be a hero. "You've done it again, girl!" Planning Minister Justin Madden would probably have chortled. "Your plan will do the trick." With emphasis on the word "trick" - as in one more deceit by those pea-and-thimble shysters you now elect in these spin-spin days. You know the kind of thing - stacking committees to produce the "right result", fudging surveys to prompt the longed-for answer, and launching sham inquiries to give your crusading politicians exactly the dodgy conclusion they always wanted. But, alas. Duke, eyes no doubt whirling from another frantic day of spinning in the Brumby Government's media unit, last week accidentally emailed her plans for the Government's latest "trick" to the ABC, and now must pay the price for being caught doing precisely what she's paid to do. Denounced by the suddenly moral Premier, John Brumby, and the suddenly outraged Madden, she was "demoted" to doing, er, what she always does. Paid to spin, and now "punished" as spin, by a minister whose other new title - "Minister for Respect" - is pure spin, too, to trick Indians into thinking this Government is cracking down on racist thugs. It's a circus, folks. You've no doubt heard about Duke's precise "crime" - drawing up a document titled "Minister for Planning Justin Madden's Media Plan" to help her man rig the blocking of a proposed redevelopment of the heritage-listed Windsor Hotel. The problem, she wrote, was that the "Windsor Advisory Committee report is expected to recommend that development go ahead". The solution: "Strategy at this stage is to release it for public comment, as this affects the entire community, and then use those responses as reason to halt it, as we have listened to community views." Well, listened to only the "community views" they were sure they could incite. The Government has since tut-tutted that Duke's email was something it neither wanted or endorsed, being "not professional" and filled with "speculative language". Heavens, they would never do anything so cynical. But they do, and many of you - I'm afraid to say - keep falling for it. Want some examples? Right from the very start of this Labor Government, we got exactly the kind of rigged public consultation Duke proposed a decade later. Remember the Government's plans then to give us five "safe" injecting rooms for the addicts it falsely claimed would otherwise die by the hundreds? It appointed a committee of experts under Prof David Penington who - surprise! - already agreed with the Government's mad scheme, and who commissioned a survey that claimed that two-thirds of residents in the five lucky druggie-packed municipalities agreed, too. Except, of course, the Government never released the survey questions that prompted this highly unlikely support, and it soon dropped the whole idea when it became only too obvious that the public was in fact furiously against it. Later came the Government's even more reckless spinning over our water supplies. Maniacally opposed to building the dam that fast-growing Melbourne clearly needed, it appointed just the kind of committee that would say it was damn right, too. This 2003 committee on Melbourne's water resources was stacked with "experts" sure to share the Government's green ideology - dam-buster Tim Fischer of the Australian Conservation Foundation, Mary Crooks of the Victorian Women's Trust (yes! really!) and a spokesman for the Victorian Council of Social Service. And the Government got the echo it wanted - a committee that called dams "unacceptable", suggested "exploring the drought response strategies adopted by indigenous people", and pooh-poohed even a desalination plant (which Labor then opposed), saying we'd be right until 2050 if we just used a lot less water. Wrong, insane and wrong. Three strikes, but is the Government out for fiddling such a trick? But here I am criticising the apprentice for the sins of the master. If you want a real lesson in salt-the-mine spin, look no further than your Prime Minister. YOU'D think Kevin Rudd actually set the bar with the trick he pulled with the bill of human rights that is Labor policy - a bill that lets Leftist judges bring in the laws that Leftist politicians can't get through parliament. He stacked a committee, led by Jesuit Frank Brennan, and had it do "public consultations" of the kind that were sure to be dominated by the very activists who'd back Labor. And, indeed, Brennan's committee found that 87.4 per cent of the 35,014 submissions it got agreed - goodness, yes - we did need the human rights act the Rudd Government wanted. Which would make you think every sane person backed this idea, right? Ahem: consult now the survey Brennan unguardedly commissioned, that found that whatever Rudd, his committee and their consulted experts thought, two-thirds of Australians were sure their rights were already protected just fine, thanks. Not that this mere detail stopped the committee from telling Rudd his plan was just peachy. Yet Rudd trumped even that effort, and anything John Brumby could dream up, with his 2020 Ideas Summit. Remember that farce of two years ago? Rudd invited 1000 of our "best and brightest" - actually almost all tame Leftists, including 118 members of the GetUp group alone - to give the Government a plan for our future. This was meant to show you that all Australians, or at least the smart ones, agreed with Rudd. Indeed, delegate Sam Mostyn even boasted: "We do represent the whole community." And - like magic - these 1000 "best and brightest" almost unanimously agreed that so many of Labor's policies were fabulous, whether it was fighting "global warming", giving us that bill of rights, creating one-stop childcare centres, reviewing the tax system or assembling fresh armies of bureaucrats. Not one person at Rudd's summit was a declared climate sceptic. Most tellingly, only one even objected to the summit's call for a republic, even though the latest Galaxy poll shows fewer than half of the rest of us want such a thing. BRILLIANT spinning. Fabulous, and better than anything Peta Duke could suggest to our Minister for Respect - yet I'd still have expected voters to have learned by now to see through such flagrant fakery. But, no. There you lot go again, falling for the latest trick of these watch-my-hand slyboots - of appearing sorry for having stuffed up what they'd once pretended to fix. There was Rudd last week, in strife and suddenly admitting his Government deserved a "whacking" because "we haven't been up to the mark so far". And there, almost within hours, were Brumby and South Australian Premier Mike Rann playing the very same trick to turn scorn into sympathy by putting the con in contrition. "We've been not delivering as well as I would have hoped," sighed Brumby.   "We haven't communicated our message well enough," cried Rann. What a great trick, but to have three leaders play it at once forces me to ask young Duke a hard question. Peta, you didn't muck up your emails again, did you - sending to Rudd and Rann advice meant only for Brumby.   Source: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/perfect-spin-is-so-elusive/story-e6frfhqf-1225837126876  Read More →

Written by Our Correspondent Embarrassed by its own ineptitude, incompetence, and impotence during the last few years, PAP spin doctor Chua Mui Hoong has been called upon again to whitewash the disastrous performance of the PAP during the recent parliamentary"debates" on the Budget which is all "sound and fury", but nothing of substance to show of. In other democracies, the lawmakers will debate first before the Budget is finalized and put to a vote. In Singapore, it is the other way round - the Budget is announced and then the MPs pretend to "debate" on it. Isn't this a "wayang"? Even with literally no opposition to speak of in Parliament, the PAP ministers and MPs appear to be completely clueless and out of touch with public sentiments on the ground. In a lengthy commentary titled "Gently, gently does it with political opponents" published in the Straits Times today, Chua Mui Hoong tried desperately to sugarcoat the PAP MPs' juvenile mistakes by portraying them as "gentlemen" to take the heat off them. (Source) If you haven't realized, this is part of a well-thought, comprehensive strategy over the years to shift the style of political engagement in Singapore from a "confrontational" to a "constructive" one for the simple reason that the present PAP MPs cannot stand up to scrutiny and will be demolished flat by eloquent speakers like the late J.B. Jeyaretnam and Dr Chee Soon Juan in Parliament thereby piercing through their fake aura of invincibility forever in the eyes of the people. Remember that one old man kept reminding Singaporeans that his ministers and MPs are the best talents in Singapore and therefore deserving of the highest pay in the world? How can they justify that when they can't even deal with an opposition MP in Parliament? Chua's article is no more than PAP propaganda to paint a positive picture of them as "gentlemanly" politicians and to further reinforce the erroneous public impression that politics must be conducted in a civil manner minus the confrontation. Take for example the following choice of words used by her: 1. Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam is a gentleman. 2. Instead, it was gently, gently does it when he sipped his water, walked to the lectern and began his speech at 1.52pm. When he sat down an hour later, the House applauded. Even MPs most critical of the policy - Mr Low and the PAP's Inderjit Singh - were smiling. 3, Ministerial responses to the opposition have been remarkably benign this debate. Mr Lim Swee Say for example did not react to Mr Low's obvious dig that the labour movement was squeezing workers to be 'cheaper, better, faster'. Instead, he coolly explained the pressures caused by global competition..... 4. Less patronising, less heat, more light. Gentle rebuttals based on facts, without giving ground on fundamental values. Old wine in new bottles? But specially packaged to appeal to a young generation. Ms Chua should cut that crap - she does not speak for the younger generation of Singaporeans who yearn for a genuine debate and not half-baked "wayangs" as such. For the past five decades, the PAP has been using only repressive measures to destroy their political opponents such as the use of ISA to detain them without trial, use of ruinous defamation lawsuits to bankrupt them and laws to prevent them from reaching out to Singaporeans. Let us recall some infamous quotes made by its paramount leader Lee Kuan Yew, courtesy of leewatch: "Anybody who decides to take me on needs to put on knuckle-dusters. If you think you can hurt me more than I can hurt you, try. There is no way you can govern a Chinese society.” - Lee Kuan Yew, The Man and His Ideas, 1997 “If we had considered them serious political figures, we would not have kept them politically alive for so long. We could have bankrupt them earlier.” - Lee Kuan Yew referring to opposition MPs Chiam See Tong and Low Thia Kiang, Straits Times, Sept 14 2003 "I will make him crawl on his bended knees, and beg for mercy.” - Lee Kuan Yew on J. B. Jeyaretnam, as reported by Devan Nair, 1981 And let us not forget the mother of all quotes by his son Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong: "Right now we have Low Thia Khiang, Chiam See Tong, Steve Chia. We can deal with them. Suppose you had 10, 15, 20 opposition members in Parliament. Instead of spending my time thinking what is the right policy for Singapore, I'm going to spend all my time thinking what's the right way to fix them, to buy my supporters votes, how can I solve this week's problem and forget about next year's challenges?" - Lee Hsien Loong during a pre-election speech, 2006 With due respect to the three opposition MPs in Parliament, they are hardly good orators or formidable political opponents to begin with and even then, the PAP ministers can still "gabra" and screw up big time like multi-millionaire Minister Lim Swee Say using a lame fable of a "frog" to counter Mr Low Thia Kiang's criticisms of the labor movement: "We never give up....... We are deaf to all these criticisms.....So instead of telling us that low-wage workers are having problems, why not be part of the solution?" Does Ms Chua really consider this type of answer a "gentle rebuttal"? Mr Lim would have been crowned as the clown of the year had he made those remarks in the United States or United Kingdom. Politics is all about passion, committment and confrontation. That is the way it is in the rest of the world. If the PAP MPs cannot take the heat, then they should get out of the kitchen! The PAP ministers are the highest paid politicians in the world! Surely they should be able to articulate themselves well and hold their ground when challenged by the opposition? Ms Chua should seriously go and watch the parliamentary debates of the U.K., Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Hong Kong on Youtube and see how the opposition lawmakers take the ruling party to task. Watch how DAP MP Tony Pua grilled Malaysian PM Najib over his plan to introduce GST, the Hong Kong legislators heckling Chief Executive Donald Tsang for not helping the poor or Taiwanese President Ma Ying-Jeou being jeered and taunted by DPP MPs over his inept handling of the Typhoon Morakot disaster. Only in Singapore do we see such gross ineptitude being labelled, repackaged and spun as "gentle rebuttals" by the Singapore media, described as a "trusted" source of information by Minister Lui Tuck Yew.  Read More →

Written by Our Correspondent Workers' Party MP Sylvia Lim pressed DPM Wong Kan Seng to reveal the electoral boundaries at least six months to a year before Nomination Day in Parliament yesterday. The electoral boundaries are under the charge of the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee which will review and redraw the boundaries to reflect "demographic changes" before the election. Ms Lim said that a longer timeframe will give the political parties adequate time to prepare for the elections: "Having good notice will give voters confidence in the boundary redrawing process. It will also give a reasonable time for political parties to do more focused groundwork and consider their candidate line-up," she was quoted as saying in the Straits Times. As the past elections have shown, the electoral boundaries are often announced only in the last minute to throw the opposition off guard. For example, Singapore People's Party Chairman Sin Kek Tong (previously with SDP) won 47.1% of the votes in Braddell Hill SMC in the 1991 elections. He had been working the ground there for six years till it was announced on the eve of the 1997 elections that Braddell Hill has been "absorbed" into Marine Parade GRC under then PM Goh Chok Tong. She also took a dig at the PAP for the rampant gerry-mandering and alteration of boundaries to serve its own partisan interests: "This is especially important because of the unique situation in Singapore where... GRCs can be chopped and changed, and SMCs can be created and dissolved with the stroke of a pen." The electoral boundaries are often changed radically to weaken and dilute areas of strong opposition support. Eunos GRC was won only narrowly by the PAP in the 1988 and 1991 elections. It was dissolved and absorbed into neighboring Aljunied, East Coast and Marine GRC in the 1997 election. Similarly, Cheng San GRC which was hotly contested by the Workers' Party in the 1997 election "vanished" into thin air by the next election without any proper explanation. Mr Wong replied that the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee has not been convened. It is likely to happen only after the Constitution is amended to make certain changes to the electoral system. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced last year to increase the number of single-member constituencies (SMCs) and reduce the size of the Group Representation Constituencies (GRCs) ahead of the next general election to allow for more "alternative voices" in Singapore. As the parliamentary "debates" over the last few days have shown, it is pointless to have alternative voices in Parliament so long they remain powerless to effect real changes in the policies. Unless the PAP is denied its traditional two-thirds majority in Parliament or ousted from office altogether, there will be no changes in the disastrous policies they have implemented in the last few years which have caused tremendous hardships and sufferings for ordinary Singaporeans. With public sentiment against the PAP at an all-time high, it is expected to lose a few more single seats and even a GRC in the next election. Some online punters even predict that the PAP will garner less than 50 percent of the popular votes. If the opposition is able to work together and field a team of credible candidates, it is not inconceivable that the PAP loses its two-third majority as the Malaysian political tsunami in 2008 has shown us.  Read More →