Up to this stage they had been partially successful in reactive measures taken in "sanatising" the news to ensure the privileged status of the media barons and the political elite would go unchallenged. They had also continued with their relentless assault against this new political enemy of the "establishment" while leaving GWB alone.
On Sunday the 7th of September this all changed with the first assault by News Limited against GWB stemming from a media-contrived story about a "compromising picture". This, just two days after GWB had alerted SOCOG and the Prime Minister's Canberra office to the link between the ALP and the boycott being planned for the Sydney 2000 Olympics.
The first we knew about the planned assault was a most remarkable and stupid phone call that we had from Sid Maher a political journalist with The Sunday Mail.
Scott Balson after several minutes of being asked strange questions asked Mr Maher what his line of questioning was about. Maher was very evasive about the brief he had been given by his chiefs-of-staff. He concurred that it had to do with GWB's support for Pauline Hanson's One Nation.
The subsequent article appeared as a lead story on page 13 - the first 12 pages being taken up with pictures and stories about the funeral of Princess Diana.
In our response to the article (see the above link) we demonstrate quite clearly how Mr Maher broke the journalists code of ethics when reporting this story in The Sunday Mail.
We had now experienced first-hand the media attention and misreporting normally reserved for Pauline Hanson.
It didn't take long before we had validated third party claims that Sid Maher and co-political journalist in News Limited's The Sunday Mail, Michael McKenna, had misreported the truth - and this since the recent story about GWB.
Kennett had told friends previously that on the day Packer took over Fairfax, he would be at The Age handing out pink dismissal slips to journalists. Of course Kennett was known by insiders to wield the big stick on those who would tarnish his skin-deep portage of running a good, clean government in Victoria - obviously neither Packer nor Kennett could wait for that "big day" for Guthrie's removal. What can only be termed "mysterious" was the decision to place Steve Harris, an ex-NEWS LIMITED executive, in control of The Age's editorial content on the day Guthrie left.
Kennett of course is anything but squeaky clean, in fact, to many, he represents the heart of the Trojan Horse.
Since being elected Premier in Victoria he has had
Poor Packer, figuratively speaking of course, just a few days after Guthrie resigned John Howard put the proposed changes to media ownership in the "too hard" basket, and Peter Bowers, a journalist with Fairfax, summed up the obvious reason later that week on the ABC's 7.30 Report:
"I think the last thing that made it too hard that Mr Howard realised he couldn't give the Fairfax papers to Mr Packer without incurring the extreme displeasure of Mr Murdoch and when Mr Murdoch gets angry with governments he turns his, his, his, umm... editors loose on the government and I think that was the last thing Mr Howard wanted in the run up to the next federal election."
Just a few days after the Coalition ministry turned down Packer's attempts to take over Fairfax, in late September, the worm turned and the prophetic words of The Australian newspaper came home to roost,
"John Howard will be the other big loser.
"Having frozen out the country's largest newspaper group, News Limited, (from owning Fairfax) he has now alienated Packer's interests, which include the country's biggest magazine publishing empire and its most powerful television network, Nine."
Channel Nine, through political editor Laurie Oates, drew on its sludge files and "blew the whistle" on several members of the Federal Coalition causing the resignation of three ministers in as many days.
It goes without saying that it is, at best, questionable whether this story would have broken if Packer had got his way with Fairfax.
A little bit of research reveals how this Jewish magazine was founded on fascism and links to influential "Hitlerite" figures in the past.
This was the magazine that created a media furore when it misrepresented Pauline Hanson's One Nation director, David Ettridge's, past financial dealings.
In fact the extremist views of one journalist, in particular, writing for the Australia/Israel Review is one of Australia's best kept secrets.... or it was until now.
You see, just like the history of the publication, one of the most vocal anti-Hanson journalists with the Australia/Israel Review and self-proclaimed anti-Nazi reporters, David Greason, was, in the past, a self-confessed fascist. These claims by the University of Melbourne (search on David Greason) are backed up by none other than the violent extreme left Militant thugs led by Steven Jolly who quote Greason in articles, such as this extract:
"A recent article in the Australia-Israel Review by David Greason, himself a former fascist, describes the favourable reaction that Hanson has been receiving on the neo-nazi Internet network." Of course, Militant's Steven Jolly and David Greason are apparently "comrades"... which makes you wonder if wealthy Australia/Israel Review owner, Mark Leibler, is not in fact wittingly or unwittingly financing this Communist organisation and others who incite undemocratic violence at One Nation meetings in Victoria.
These are the sort of fringe dwellers who are given a voice by the mainstream media who will go to any lengths to denigrate Pauline Hanson while the media do not bother doing their homework on the background of those making the claims.
City Council bans of One Nation meetings:
In late July the Australian Labor Party dominated Ipswich City Council
banned Pauline
Hanson's One Nation Party from meeting at council venues, citing
the violent action of the protesters as the reason.
Ipswich is the seat of Hanson's Oxley electorate.
Leading the charge was Ipswich Cr Paul Tully who is often seen protesting
at One Nation meetings and was
protesting
at the April launch where a window was broken - resulting in the
decision to ban One Nation from meeting on council premises.
The council's decision was parroted by another Labor hopeful, the mayor of
Brisbane,
Lord Mayor
Jim Soorley, whose decision along with that of Ipswich was
slammed by the normally anti-Hanson Courier
Mail. Ipswich's Queensland Times however, took a
different
perspective.
The outrage by the Ipswich community on One Nation's right to free speech was even supported by the extremist violent socialist groups on Left Link. Soorley took the first opportunity he could to cancel a One Nation Party meeting being held at a Brisbane City Council owned venue.
The council's venue co-ordinator, Damien Maloney, cancelled the booking at 5.10pm on that Friday night after receiving instructions from the mayor's office. He left his decision to cancel the booking on an answering machine... not even speaking to the One Nation co-ordinator in person.... this link is a 310 kilobyte wav file of his actual message.
In November 1997 the Australian Labor Party's on-line Left Link radicals posted articles by Campaign Agianst Racism (CAR) - the same group who had threatened a physical attack on Pauline Hanson earlier in the year.
This time they were targeting the Liberal Party over their response to the High Court's decision on Wik. The violent CAR extremists announced that they were planning rallys and protests just like those planned at One Nation meeting which led to Scott Balson challenging the Brisbane and Ipswich City Council's to "either ban Liberal Party meetings in Council buildings or to allow One Nation to use the facilities". Balson's letter appeared in the Queensland Times under the heading Democarcy Thwarted on Friday the 28th November 1997. Not surprisingly News Limited's Courier Mail did not publish the letter.
Here are copies of the posts that appeared in Left Link in late November 1997:
Subject: LL:rally against racism 13/12 - 20th November 1997
LL:Anti-racist picket - 21st November 1997
In late February 1998 after a request by the Ipswich branch of Pauline Hanson's One Nation to hold meetings at the Barry Jones auditorium in the Ipswich Global Information Centre (library), the mayor of Ipswich relented allowing One Nation to once again use council facilities.
During August the University of Southern Queensland at Toowoomba took a
remarkable step for an Australian university by
banning Pauline
Hanson's One Nation Party from meeting on that campus. There reasoning
in the face of
simple
democratic principles is wrong and reflects the disease of political
correctness now permeating what should be open-minded pillars of
higher learning.
This comment by a university spokesman, from the above link, sums up the
financial reasons for the ban:
"It is extremely undesirable to have any meeting of
that group at this university, "they said. Mr Tanzer said although universities
are supposed to provide a forum for public debate, USQ is a living example
that what Ms Hanson is saying is wrong. With a combined on and off campus
international student population of nearly 4000 and a 198 percent increase
in overseas enrolments since 1991, USQ anticipates a 1998 income of more
than $13 million for the delivery of programs to overseas students.
Those who study in Toowoomba spend an average $10,000 per year in the local
community."
At what cost to democracy? The University's drive to strengthen Vietnamese
and Korean student ties amongst other Asian students at the expense of simple
democratic principals totally ignores the fact that the Asian papers state
categorically that
Hanson
is not having a detrimental effect on the decision made by student as to
where to they should study.
Even if Hanson was how can that University be seen as impartial,
democratic and free thinking?
The antics of the University of Southern Queensland and various councils pale into insignificance when compared to the carefully staged acts of abuse by the willing partners in the Trojan Horse. These abuses are orchestrated day after day with total disregard to the impact that they have on the democratic rights of mainstream Australian voters.
The Trojan Horse is not a fantasy or a conspiracy theory it is a fact.
The Internet is the last frontier for true freedom of speech beyond the all embracing powers of the media moguls. It has to be used wisely to upstage those who have taken away our rights... it has to be used wisely to assist the Pauline Hanson's of the world who are deliberately misrepresented in a blatant abuse of the journalistic code of ethics.
The power to defeat the Trojan Horse lies within Canberra and those who participate in its treachery will leave no stone unturned to disable those who pose a threat to this power shared by the bi-partisan Liberal and Labor parties - even though their actions often involve a blatant abuse of systems that have been put in place to prevent this.
We obviously believe that Pauline Hanson's One Nation is the way forward the way to break down the Trojan Horse's undemocratic hide... and if One Nation does secure the balance of power, one thing that you can be sure of is that the Australian media will be in for a shake-up. It's not for us to say how because that is not our role, but the shake-up will go a long way, we believe, in allowing Australian journalists to report the truth once again without fear of losing their careers.
We should not look at the situation with despair - rather hope - as it is only now, through the Internet, that we can fight back in the short term to regain our freedom of assembly, speech and a democratically-based future for the children of all Australians - irrespective of colour, creed or religion.
University bans of One Nation meetings:
Summary: Australia's Trojan Horse:
Email: "Making the News"
© Global Web Builders 1997.
