The SMH ran a story today alleging that Refugees who were being placed in community detention were being "given" Welcome Packs of household goods worth $10,000. The story was patently false and represented a calculated attempt to deceive the public. The per-person cost last year of detention for asylum seekers in prison-like facilities in which computers, TVs and many other amenities are provided is about $140,000. Family Groups and others have been allowed to be "detained" in houses in the community since 2005 under the Howard Government. These alternative places of detention also have amenities like computers and TVs (can you buy anything other than a flat-screen TV these days) which are not given to the asylum-seekers when they move on, so they clearly are not a so-called "Welcome Pack" worth thousands of dollars.
Tony Abbott was so keen to get some political capital out of this story that he spoke about it as if it were true on the radio today. Alternative versions of the facts have been put to him, but there will be no retraction or apology from this feeble example of an alternative prime minister.
But I digress.
How is it that we put up with such crappy reportage these days? As Julia Gillard encouraged them a little while ago, I say "Don't write crap!"
There is neither money nor time for quality investigative journalism these days. I know they laud such a thing each year at the Walkley Awards, but it seems to me that once people have earned the right to have their name as by-line in the newspaper report they have become obsessed with writing what they think rather than reporting the facts.
There was a time when those invited to prepare an Opinion Editorial for publication were people of such note and stature in the field that their opinion was both insightful and reliable.
How times have changed.
