The extraordinary penchant of the national broadcaster to turn a crisis, any crisis, anywhere in the world, into an opportunity for Abbott hatred was in abundant supply again over the past few days as the European immigration crisis unfolded. Examples of the twitter sewer wagging the ABC dog (and we don’t mean that entirely metaphorically) are legion, but let’s confine ourselves to just prime examples from the past week.
Exhibit one i
s prime ABC Abbott hater Jonathan Green, who masquerades on the national broadcaster as a ‘journalist’ but is, of course, much more an anti-conservative activist, even to the extent of attracting the much sought after title of ‘sneerer in chief’ from Gerard Henderson’s Media Watch Dog blog. Green was at his sneeringly nasty best when discussing the Prime Minister’s inclusion of the words Nazi and ISIS in the same sentence. Appearing on The Drum (one of the many media platforms on your national broadcaster whereby assorted lefty types sit around a studio or get beamed in from another place for what seems to be the sole purpose of outdoing each other in agreement on the perfidy of the current government), Green opined:
“The other thing here on the point of shame and advertising their evil is that IS depend on the likes of Tony Abbott to do that job for them, to exaggerate their evil… To continually talk about their death cultness, to parade this in front of us, you know this is doing their promotional work for them.”
One might wonder how the evil of ISIS can be exaggerated. Indeed, if the certifiable terrorists of that organisation were sitting around in a circle right now pondering how they can exceed the barbaric deeds they have already perpetrated – burning people alive in cages, or hog tied and suspended from iron bars, or throwing them to death from high towers – even they would be having a hard time of it. But according to Jonathan Green, in comments that went completely unchallenged on this nation’s so-called national broadcaster, the Prime Minister of Australia is guilty of exaggerating the evil of ISIS. And not only that, but of actually doing their promotional work for them. What rock does the deluded Johnathan Green live under?
This unhinged delusional commentary of Jonathan Green was topped only by the bilious rantings of the former independent member of federal parliament Tony Windsor. He’s now a nobody, just another citizen. But because he’s a renowned Abbott hater the ABC were only too happy to give Tony Windsor an open microphone on the same subject. Windsor is seemingly now entirely consumed by loathing for the conservatives in Australian politics, and perhaps also by the guilt of his own gutlessness in declining to stand against Barnaby Joyce for his seat at the last election, and going out in an inglorious blaze. Like a toddler, jumping up and down for attention, has Tony Windsor been, ever since. He finally got the media platform he was craving, on ABC radio (of course) last week, and said this:
“It is an absolute disgrace, what is going on, on a number of levels: with this whole border protection, entering a civil war in Syria, the Border Force in Melbourne. It’s all part of a very sad agenda, in my view, to actually frighten people… And I’ve got no doubt that some of these people in Abbott’s government hope that something goes wrong domestically — that they can taunt a Muslim into doing something, so that they can say that: ‘We’re the only ones that can protect you. The Labor Party are too weak to protect you. Vote for us’.”
Here was a former member of parliament, actually claiming that the Abbott government is attempting to provoke a terrorist incident among Australia’s Muslim community. This might well be quite normal in the Green Left Weekly or Red Flag, or when shouted by some acne scarred adolescent at a campus protest, but this was a former member of parliament on the taxpayer funded national broadcaster, which is supposedly committed to the national interest and, hold your laughter, under a statutory obligation to impartiality and fairness in its political commentary and reporting. Not once were the deluded rantings of Tony Windsor challenged, such are the journalistic and editorial standards on your ABC. His Abbott hatred was allowed to fester on through the interview, untreated, like an open wound.
The bias and contempt for the taxpayer of the ABC as an institution is now beyond parody.