Cold, hard Cash … Small amounts … shut down the Sky

Cash in hand Apparently it is possible for some things to be so predictable they become surprising. See the profile of Attorney-General (and rule of law fan) Michaelia Cash in Good Weekend. Apart from the customary “relaxed” photo shoot which makes you long for the warmth and authenticity of a Boston Dynamics dance sequence, Cash’s rhetoric is the exact kind of Kmart Thatcherism you’d expect:

To achieve, you work hard. To achieve more, you simply have to work harder … There’s a hurdle in front of you? You go under it, around it, pick it up and smash it, but you get to the other side … If your parents give you a work ethic, you will survive anything.

Ah yes, the exact kind of inspiring determination that one picks up in the hardscrabble world of … *checks notes* political dynasties. Cash is the eldest daughter of George Cash, one-time president of Western Australia’s Legislative Council. She went to Iona Presentation College, an expensive Catholic girls’ school. Best of all, Cash took elocution lessons. Firstly, one is forced to ask what kind of psychopath was running that class? Secondly, there is nothing that says “voice of the common people” than having done elocution lessons like the scion of an 1920s publishing mogul.

A Small matter WA Senator Ben Small has been busy of late. According to his register of interests (which is a favourite of Crikey’s) he’s recently acquired not one but six properties, lumping him with six mortgages — a lot even for someone on the parliamentary payroll. 

He has also made some interesting shareholding purchases, including shares in gas company Strike Energy, which of course counts on its board WA mate (and the PM’s former right-hand man) Nev Power. Power famously had to ditch his deputy chair position at the company because of his conflict of interest at the gas-obsessed National COVID Commission.

Small has also picked up shares in PEXA, an online conveyancing company, which if you believe the hype is one of the biggest floats this year. It appears Small got in on the ground level, acquiring shares just as the company listed on the ASX, making a motza for its founders. Interestingly, the company’s website says it is backed by a government initiative.

Skyfall YouTube’s decision to strike Sky News for seven days for apparent COVID-19 misinformation has given another insight into the broadcaster’s approach to their differing audiences.

There was the statement Sky released to the mainstream media — the general line of “we support broad discussion and debate on a wide range of topics and perspectives which is vital to any democracy. We take our commitment to meeting editorial and community expectations seriously”.

But then there was also its long, long, pseudo-intellectual response, which seems much more aimed at its huge online audience: “The freedom to engage in debate and challenge conventional thinking and wisdoms were not always accepted as human rights … It has changed shape frequently and even been snuffed out by leaders of more totalitarian persuasions… Holodomor, Auschwitz and Mao, are just three historical examples.”

It’s interesting to what qualifies as an offensive and frivolous Holocaust comparison, and what doesn’t, in News Corp’s mind.

That was then, this is now Of course, it wasn’t always like this. Remember the No Jab No Play/Pay campaign back in 2017, which News’ Sunday Telegraph proudly claimed as a victory of their coverage, and apparently lead to an increase of 174,000 immunised children over roughly a year?

Since then, of course, Sky News has continued to pupate into a (very successful) click-hunting repository of far-right grifters and conspiracy theorists, happily employing Alan Jones to spout vaccine misinformation — a step that, notably, the Telegraph is no longer going to take.