Senator Andrew Bartlett
Wednesday, December 01, 2004
 
On the Monday, most of the media coverage was on Labor's internal brawls and tension between Senator Stephen Conroy and Mark Latham. All the TV news coverage of 'today in Parliament' that I saw featured a fairly witty and funny comment by Peter Costello in House of Reps Question Time about a rooster (Conroy) waging a jihad on a dead parrot (Latham).

Meanwhile in the Senate, a law was being passed which empowered police to intercept the private emails, SMS and voicemail of Australians without needing a warrant. This new law, which is directly relevant to the vast majority of Australians, received no television coverage at all that I'm aware of - I guess it just wasn't entertaining or funny enough.

The drama of interpersonal fighting within a political party obviously makes far better media and is deemed way more newsworthy than a massive leap in police powers - powers which will not even be able to be monitored to ensure they are properly used, because no warrant will be required to use them. See Brian Greig's press release for more detail.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Wednesday, December 01, 2004
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