I am going to bell this cat … All this smoke is no evidence of fire. It is evidence only of a dry ice machine operated by a media outlet 

Well, when you bell the cat you expect to cop a swipe. And she got one. Two days later, the SMH in its lead editorial responded. Ironically, it claimed that her criticism of their coverage showed that she was not made of stern enough stuff. Given the editorial and the op ed piece they have devoted to reacting shrilly to her single comment in an estimates committee hearing, I think it is really the SMH that has the glass jaw.

In any case, the editorial went on to say of their coverage:

we are … printing stories we believe are true, and in the public interest. …We believe.. that the McGurk case raises serious questions, as it offers evidence of a network of … relationships, which is unhealthy for the future of democracy in this state. We believe that the case hints at a web of influence-peddling and deal-making between developers, lobbyists and government which relies upon the decisions of public officials, but which is conducted largely out of the public gaze, and to the public’s general detriment. … Labor has lost interest in serving the public and is interested only, as the McGurk case is showing, in serving itself.

These are strong and serious allegations. And they are deeply revealing. Because they lay out what it is that the Herald truly believes –the beliefs that have shaped the Herald’s coverage – rather than having been derived from their reporting. The Herald claims to believe that the McGurk case “offers evidence.” But it does no such thing, and despite their editorial claims, the SMH has not adduced any evidence of any government “relationships” with Mr McGurk, of any “influence peddling” involving the government, of any “deal making”, or of any self serving behaviour by the ALP in this case. Indeed these beliefs can only be sustained if you deliberately close your mind and your ears to alternative evidence – and indeed this is exactly what has happened in this case.

Rather than sticking with assertions as the Herald seems content to do, let’s look at the claims the Herald has made over the last month. It all started with the screaming, full page headline on September 4:

Dead man’s tape ‘could bring down NSW government’

The article stated:

Developer and loan shark Michael McGurk may have been killed because he was in possession of a tape that had potential to bring down the NSW Government. The audio tape is understood to contain revelations about the bribing of senior government figures. The controversial Sydney businessman Jim Byrnes told the Sydney Morning Herald the tape recording contained ”really, really dangerous information”. … ”It could bring down the State Government,” Mr Byrnes said. ”I wouldn’t want that information because I know the pain it brings with it. Mr Byrnes said that for the person on the tape, its contents ”could strip you of everything you owned and could see you wearing orange overalls for the rest of your life”.

To deliver this front page headline the Herald had to deliberately ignore that the reporters had not heard the tape, that Jim Byrnes had not heard the tape, and that Jim Byrnes is a convicted heroin trafficker. But that was OK – because this claimed tape that no-one had heard “offered evidence” of something they so deeply wanted to believe was true.

A few days later the Herald was back at it, again leading with a screaming headline:

How a quiet bush block turned into a goldmine

This article stated:

THE developer Ron Medich stands to gain millions from a western Sydney site he bought 13 years ago for a pittance from the CSIRO, confidential documents obtained by the Herald show…

Mr Medich, who used to employ Mr McGurk before they fell out over a $10 million debt, and his brother, Roy, bought a 344-hectare parcel of land at Badgerys Creek in 1996. They paid $3.5 million, half the amount similar blocks were fetching at the time. The land was zoned for rural use. However, its value is set to skyrocket now it has been earmarked for commercial use…

The Herald has been told that when the proposal was floated two years ago, the Medich rural landholding was outside the Government’s proposed development area. The document does not reveal why this changed. The project was to be announced in March, but cabinet put the decision on hold.

Of course this article was full of holes too. And this time there was no qualification in the headline. The reality was that the land in question had not been rezoned. Applications for part 3A treatment had been rejected. It was no goldmine. And the Herald cannot wriggle out of the matter by saying the land may yet be rezoned. The land has for many years been earmarked for potential rezoning for employment land associated with the proposed Badgery’s Creek airport, going way back to the 1990s under the previous government. All of this could have been checked – with the Department of Planning or on-line – But the Herald did not do so. Again, they appear to have deliberately closed their mind to alternative evidence so that they could maintain a belief in the thing they dearly wished was true.

A week later, the Herald was back at it again – saying boldly and without qualification:

Revealed: Labor ministers on new McGurk tapes

In this article, the Herald stated

MICHAEL McGURK illegally recorded conversations he had with five state Labor MPs and one former federal minister, a long-term colleague of the murdered standover man has told the Herald. The associate, who transcribed the tapes for Mr McGurk, provided the Police Integrity Commission with two written statements regarding this and other allegations about the loan shark’s corrupt relations with senior police, crime figures and politicians, last Wednesday. He said the recordings were not only related to property developments but involved the offers of bribes to have serious criminal charges dropped….

A fortnight before his death, two firebombing and three assault charges against the murdered bagman were dropped.

What was “revealed”? Again, the Herald had not actually heard the tape. This time they relied on the word of a man they would not name and who could have any number of motivations for making such a claim. The Herald did not offer the 70 men and women they accuse of corruption – the ALP members of parliament – the opportunity to respond to the allegation. The Australian showed a few days later that this can be done simply and quickly using email, but the Herald appears again to have been unwilling to even attempt to collect alternative evidence. Again – it appears they so wanted this claim to be true that they failed to balance the story with any investigation of any sort

I could go on and on about the practices of the Herald in this matter. We could discuss the publication of a front page photo of Craig Knowles and claims he had been dragged into the matter – based on no direct contact between Knowles and McGurk, but simply based on mutual contact with a soccer club. But this piece is long enough.

Over the last week the Hearld seems to have stopped showing an interest in ALP connections to Mr McGurk. I guess this shows that while the cat may scratch and hiss when you put a bell on it, there’s no better way to respond to media bias than to stand up and call them on it as Keneally did.

Our repeated election of politicians we know to be defective similarly selects, over the years, for perfidy, cronyism and prioritisation of tribal ritual over public good…

Tribes that – like the NSW Right – demand that their members prioritise group values over those of the general populace are deeply, dangerously anti-democratic… This is how we get John Robertson, who once promised to “put D9s and chainsaws through Currawong if I want to” as Minister for the Environment, as well as Climate Change and Energy. It’s how Minister Keneally can approve a massive 188-berth marina (half as big again as the proposed Rose Bay marina) at Lake Macquarie, with five-storey residential units on bushland – proposed by Pitt Town developer Keith Johnson ($438,000 to the NSW ALP) and call it “a lively new foreshore precinct.”

There’s no law against Labor MPs filling their offices and departments with spouses, relatives and friends. It’s not illegal for the party to cultivate legions of the biddable who play musical chairs between departments, consultancies and ”independent” panels – then, when the Libs get in, dive underground like mudskippers awaiting rain. It’s not illegal, but it’s cosy, nepotistic and wrong. Wrong because it produces a private clubby atmosphere where party and personal interests coincide so emphatically as to obscure all else…

Let us put to one side the apparent fact that Ms Farrelly is so lacking in empathy that she cannot but impute bad faith to anyone who disagrees with her views. Let us also put to one side the fact that Ms Farrelly offers no evidence whatsoever for her charge that private interests are out ahead of public interest or for her paranoid claim of a deeply networked conspiracy. Let us finally ignore the delicious irony of the SMH labelling the NSW Right “in-bred” on the very day that the Fairfax family came blustering out of the conservatory, sherry glasses in hand, to re-assert their control of the family company.

Rather, let us consider the sheer improbability of the comparison of the NSW Right to a pure breed of dogs.

Yes, the NSW Right has some hereditary members. But these are few in the context of the broader membership and it is not unusual to see reproduction within other professions such as medicine and law. In reality, the members of the NSW Right come from an enormously diverse set of backgrounds. Among the NSW parliamentary grouping are people of Lebanese, Jewish, Chinese, Italian, Greek, Assyrian and Croatian heritage as well as immigrants from the UK and the USA. Many of these members have accents and features that demonstrate their ethnic characteristics have not been “bred out”. This diversity compares well to the largely WASPy Greens and the mostly anglo-celtic Lib/NP representatives. The membership of the NSW Right are also far more likely to have grown up in the Western Suburbs or a regional city and have gone to the local state or systemic Catholic school.

There is good reason for this diversity of ethnic and cultural background in the NSW Right. For the NSW Right, in its very DNA, is a grouping of newcomers, of people from outside the establishment. Originally, it was the Irish Catholics – and plenty of them still remain – but increasingly others have joined them. It is the faction for outsiders seeking the opportunity to shape society through the exercise of power.

That seeking of power is an unapologetic trait of the NSW Right. The Right is not content with the purity of impotence. And it is this drive for power by newcomers that makes the NSW Right so threatening to the Establishment and to its house organ – the SMH. This group of newcomers has always been subject to smearing based on ethnic and cultural stereotypes. Decades ago the Establishment joked about Irish drunkenness and accused Catholics of hiding behind an obscure teaching to lie under oath. More recently they have relied on stereotypes about organised crime.

When you look closely, it’s no wonder that the SMH is still afraid of outsiders seeking power. The “pure-bred” heritage of the SMH extends well beyond the Fairfax family. Scan the by-lines in today’s newspaper. You will notice they don’t sound much like a real cross-section of Sydney. Where are the Asians? Where are the Arabs? Where are the Southern Europeans? (Compare those by-lines to the Daily Telegraph: tell me you see no difference!) Indeed, one of the few obviously non-anglo names among the senior reporters appears to have inherited her status as the ”token ethnic” from her father before her and is married to another senior reporter. Isn’t that the sort of thing that Elizabeth finds so offensive about the NSW Right?

 So Elizabeth, which organisation do you think looks more like a bunch of pure breeds?

We in the NSW ALP Centre Unity grouping – commonly referred to as the “NSW Right” – are a favourite whipping boy of both the Tory establishment and the broad left. While we would rather be getting on and doing than engaging in debate, some of us feel it is important to defend and promote our ideals, aims and agenda.

While this blog will unashamedly promote the perspective of the NSW Right, it will do so in line with our core commitment of loyalty to the broader party and the leadership. This will not be a venue for prosecuting internal debates within the NSW Right or the broader ALP. It is a venue for promoting our perspective on policy and politics and for defending the NSW Right against the many accusations that are launched at us.

We look forward to your comments and suggestions.