The statements of fact in Ewin Hannan's report about Gillard, Hartigan and Mitchell

... and making a cameo appearance for added rhetorical flourish, Andrew Bolt

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The following is a presentation of the facts reported by Ewin Hannan's article in September 3 edition of the Australian: "8am call that put Julia Gillard's old news on front page".

The presentation here is given in the dry chronological order of the events as they occurred, rather than in an order better suited to The Australian's rhetorical purposes.

Hannan's article does include several assertions by Mitchell about Gillard being "apoplectic" and "furious".

It also contains a denial by Andrew Bolt that he had any contact with Glenn Milne and his assertion that there "is no vast right-wing conspiracy against the Prime Minister". Interestingly, on the same day this article was published, Bolt claimed -- with zero evidence -- that the ABC's dropping of Glenn Milne from this week's "The Insiders" was evidence of a conspiracy to "protect Gillard".. He also stated in that article that this conspiracy was so "sinister and shameful" that there "should be a riot". To which I say: #nochaffbags.

The rhetorical point of The Australian's article -- from its title through to its conclusion --seems to be that Gillard has only her self to blame that "old" allegations "hit the front page". Presumably, in News Limited's universe Prime Ministers are not entitled to seek to protect themselves from libel.

These elements are not further discussed here; the interested reader is referred to the original article.

In the remainder of this presentation, I have tried to refrain from making any statements of my own opinion. Perhaps that is not how one is meant to present facts. But then what would I know about journalism? I am merely a software developer.

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On Saturday, September 3, The Australian published an account by Ewin Hannan of conversations between the Prime Minister Julia Gillard, the chief executive of News Limited John Hartigan and The Australian's editor-in-chief, Chris Mitchell that took place on Monday 29th August. The report also referred to earlier conversations that took place between Gillard and Hartigan two days earlier, on Saturday 27th of August.

According to Hannan, Gillard rang Hartigan on Saturday. Hartigan stated that:

"She brought to my notice that she had information that Andrew Bolt or Steve Price or both were likely to publish assertions that were first made public in 2007 and she was very concerned by this because she said, when they were raised at that time, they were wrong and inaccurate and damaging,"

Hartigan made inquiries of Price and Bolt and then called Gillard back. Hannan reported:

"I gave her an assurance that, were something to be published, we would give her an opportunity to respond before it was published", he said.

Hartigan had made inquiries at the Herald Sun and Daily Telegraph. He made no inquiries to The Australian because he said Gillard had not nominated the newspaper.

On Monday, August 29, The Australian published an opinion piece by Glenn Milne in which Milne stated: "What the lawyers would not allow to be reported was the fact that Gillard shared a home in Fitzroy bought by Wilson using the embezzled funds.". Note that Hannan's report of September 3 did not include full text of this statement, presumably in deferrence to accepted journalistic practice &/or an understanding between News Limited and Gillard. Hannan's report states "The unproven allegations, in political terms, are ancient, and have been rehashed numerous times by critics of Labor and Gillard over the past 16 years." and outlines the circumstances in which the allegations had been raised publicly in the past.

As a consequence of this publication, Gillard rang Hartigan around 8am on Monday. According to Hartigan, Gillard said on Monday: "This has broken the deal we had.". Hannan reports that "Hartigan rejected the claim, insisting The Australian did not cover his original undertaking. (sic)"

When Gillard called Hartigan on Monday morning, Hannan reports:

According to Hartigan, Gillard put a series of demands that she wanted addressed in 15 minutes. The deadline was later pushed back to 9am.

As well as a public apology and the Milne article being taken offline, she wanted a commitment that the allegations never be repeated again in The Australian. This demand was later extended to all News Limited newspapers and their websites.

"She said they were very damaging accusations," Hartigan said. "She wanted some action and she wanted it quickly."

Hartigan told Gillard he would speak to Chris Mitchell, The Australian's editor-in chief.

Hannan reports that Mitchell then rang Gillard but does not report the substance of any conversation between the two. He then reports:

Asked yesterday for comment regarding the accounts given by Hartigan and Mitchell, a spokesman for the Prime Minister released a one-paragraph statement last night that read: "Those accounts of the conversations are false and inaccurate. Considering what The Australian has already published this week, that's hardly surprising."

According to Hartigan and Mitchell, for an hour on Monday morning there was a flurry of phone calls, emails and texts between them, Gillard and lawyers, including News Limited's chief general counsel, Ian Philip.

Hartigan said he had six conversations with Gillard during this period, as well as exchanges of text messages and emails.

Hannan also reports that:

Mitchell, who was not working on the Sunday, said the column was not sent to lawyers before publication.

He said the column should have been legalled, particularly given it contained the above-mentioned paragraph.

Given this admission by the editor-in-chief, it is perhaps not surprising that:

By 9am on Monday, Mitchell had emailed a suggested form of apology to the Prime Minister, which Gillard agreed upon. Her demand that the allegations never be repeated in any News Limited publication was rejected.

Milne's column was removed from The Australian's website and replaced with an apology.

"The Australian published today an opinion piece by Glenn Milne which includes assertions about the conduct of the Prime Minister," it read.

"The Australian acknowledges these assertions are untrue. The Australian also acknowledges no attempt was made by anyone employed by, or associated with, The Australian to contact the Prime Minister in relation to this matter. The Australian unreservedly apologises to the Prime Minister and to its readers for the publication of these claims."

#notruckwits - a call for #CalmerDiscourse

Sent as a letter to the SMH, Friday September 2.

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On Thursday, we yet again saw an angry crowd of anti-carbon tax protesters waving placards that depicted a dog with the words "Ditch Gillard" and another that said "Tolerance is our demise". Some of these protesters screamed "maggots" at Anthony Albanese who addressed the rally.

Marching in solidarity with these protesters was the Liberal Party MP, Sophie Mirabella. In her speech, she reportedly called on protesters "not to be intimidated". By what, it is not clear . Perhaps it was the crowd of smiling carbon tax supporters up the road who chose to avoid an angry confrontation by staying away from the protest rally.

I call on Sophie Mirabella, MP to publicly and strongly repudiate the uglier sections of the crowd that she chose to support yesterday.

I also call on supporters of the Liberal Party who oppose the carbon tax, but are appalled by the angry mobs who turn up at such rallies to urge their MPs to issue similar public repudiations. Liberal Party MPs should refuse to attend such rallies until the organisers do something concrete about defusing the heat from the crowds they attract.

Finally, the Liberal Party should be strongly repudiating its supporters in the media, such as Alan Jones, who repeatedly foster such disturbing, anti-democratic tendencies with incendiary rhetoric such as his call for elected politicians to be dragged out to sea in "chaff bags".

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Updated 16:10, 2 September: On reflection, the call for Sophie Mirabella to repudiate the entire crowd is, of course, quite wrong so I have amended my call. However, she should be asked to repudiate the uglier elements of the crowd in the interests of encouraging calmer discourse.

Open Letter To Sophie Mirabella, MP to repudiate degradation of the political discourse

Today I wrote an open letter to Sophie Mirabella, MP calling for her to repudiate the disgusting tactics used by the people she marched in solidarity with during Thursday's anti-carbon tax rallies.

Australians, particularly Australian voters, deserve better from their politicians.

Copies were also sent to Anthony Albanerse, Tanya Plibersek and Malcolm Turnbull.

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Dear Ms Mirabella,

In the press today, it was reported that yesterday you marched along side and in solidarity with an angry mob of protesters against the Government's carbon tax policy.

The fact that Liberal Party MPs voluntarily associate themselves with angry mobs that carry signs such as "ditch the bitch" and "tolerance is our demise" astonishes me.

This is extremely degrading to the political discourse in this country.

I call on you to strongly and publicly repudiate protests of this kind and also statements from your supporters in the media like Alan Jones who have called for Gillard and Brown to be dragged out to sea in "chaff bags".

How the Liberal Party expects to survive the next election campaign with ads that portray the compatriots of the Liberal Party as a blood thirsty, irrational mob is beyond me.

As a courtesy to you, I point to a blog posting I have written about this issue.

If you feel "intimidated" by this post, please act.

jon seymour.

Pro- and Anti- Carbon Tax Rallies - Marrickville 2011/09/01

In Marrickville today there were two rallies.

One for the carbon tax

One against.

Which group of protesters listens to the likes of Alan Jones and reads the commentaries of Andrew Bolt?

Which group of protesters looks happy? Which looks angry and hateful?

How can the Liberal Party, and @SMirabella in particular, associate themselves with an irrational mob that carries signs such as "ditch the bitch" and "tolerance is our demise"?

Is this "decent" political discourse or is it cynical hate mongering by an Opposition party that has never relinquished the conceit that they are the natural party of Government?

Where are Ms Mirabella's repudiations of the disgusting, "intimidating" behaviours from the ranks of her anti-carbontax peers? Where is her repudiation of the call by Alan Jones to drag Gillard and Brown out to sea in "chaff bags"?

An MP of any political party claiming any legitimacy to rule, any concept of decency would loudly decry these outrages against the democratic discourse before slandering her opposition with false claims of "intimidation".

If, as Andrew Bolt outageously claims, Julia Gillard should be judged by the company she once kept 16 years ago, the Liberal Party MPs should be judged by the company they keep today.

How could any thinking, rational voter entrust the reins of Government to politicians who use irrational denial of science and hate as a political tactic? Or don't such voters matter to the Liberal Party, any more?

Pantomime of the oppressed, starring Andrew Bolt

On Friday 26th August, 2UE presenter Michael Smith read out on air parts of a statutory declaration sent to him by Bob Kernohan, a former state AWU president.

On Saturday, 27th August in a blog post timestamped 09:46am (since removed), Andrew Bolt included excerpts of this statutory declaration that had already "been read out or paraphrased" by Smith.

According to Bolt, Gillard rang John Hartigan on Saturday "to check whether I or another News Limited journalist would be pursuing the story." Bolt states that "after calls were made to me and papers I write for, she was assured I was not."

Bolt does not say whether or not Gillard was given any assurances about whether any journalist from any other News Limited publication would be writing such a story. However, given that Gillard asked a News Limited executive about News Limited journalists in general, it is unclear why such an executive would attempt to evade such a direct question from a Prime Minister by responding with a half truth.

In any case, on Monday 29th of August, the Australian did publish a copy of an article by Glenn Milne which contained the words:

"What the lawyers would not allow to be reported was the fact that Gillard shared a home in Fitzroy bought by Wilson using the embezzled funds. There is or was no suggestion Gillard knew about the origin of the money."

As quoted by: Tony Wright, The Age, August 30.

Some time on Monday morning, Bolt reports that Gillard went "ballistic", called both Hartigan and the Australian editor-in-chief, Chris Mitchell with "multiple" calls (emphasis Bolt's) and "demanded an immediate retraction".

Again, according to Tony Wright of the Age:

"Shortly after 9.30am, Milne's column disappeared from The Australian's website and was replaced by a short and sharp apology, headlined ''Correction''.

"''The Australian published today an opinion piece by Glenn Milne which includes assertions about the conduct of the Prime Minister,'' it read. ''The Australian acknowledges these assertions are untrue. The Australian also acknowledges no attempt was made by anyone employed by, or associated with, The Australian to contact the Prime Minister in relation to this matter. The Australian unreservedly apologises to the Prime Minister and to its readers for the publication of these claims.''"

Tony Wright goes on to state:

"The Age understands Ms Gillard was furious not only because the column included a false claim, but because she had been led to believe by Mr Hartigan that News Ltd newspapers were not intending to pursue the decades-old story of her former conman lover."

Over on Andrew Bolt's blog, in an update to a new post originally dated Monday 29th August, 05:44 am Bolt had quoted extensively from Milne's article, including Milne's assertion of fact about Gillard sharing a house with Bruce Morton Wilson. The quotation was accompanied by Bolt's own rider which stated that:

"(I am not sure that Gillard did share a home with Wilson. My own understanding is that she maintained her own house.)"

This post remained published on Bolt's blog until after 7pm Monday. Neither News Limited or Bolt appeared to be in any hurry to remove the post even though it quoted extensively from the very article that The Australian had already retracted and issued an apology for.

On first glance this failure to remove Bolt's post, given the real threat of legal action (or, if you believe Bolt, worse) might seem strange. Yet, on second glance, not. Bolt, unlike Milne, was not asserting the truth of the allegation merely reporting the allegation that Milne had made. This is no different to the quotes of Milne's allegation that Tony Wright included in his Age and SMH reports about the furore, reports that remain published to this day.

It is not clear when Bolt's blog posts of Saturday 27th and Monday 29th were removed from the Herald Sun website although the Monday post was still available as of 7pm Monday. Neither Bolt, nor News Limited have explained why these posts were removed. News Limited has not apologised for these posts nor has it issued any statement to indicate that these posts were removed at Gillard's behest. Neither Bolt nor News Limited have explained the timing of the removal of Bolt's blog posts, particularly the long delay between the removal of the Australian article and the removal of Bolt's extensive quotations from the same article.

It seems unlikely that the posts were removed at "Gillard's insistence" since if she objected to the posts she would have requested that these posts be removed on Saturday when she first learnt of their existence or at the very latest Monday morning at the same time she contacted both Mitchell and Hartigan about the article in The Australian. The fact that at least some of Bolt's posts were not removed until late on Monday night indicates that no such request was made. That being the case, and in absence of evidence to the contrary, one is entitled to assume that the decision to remove Bolt's posts was an internal decision made by News Limited for their own reasons. Until and unless these reasons are explained, we can only speculate what they might be.

Bolt himself only claims that the retraction of The Australian article was at "Gillard's insistence". He does not claim that Gillard insisted that his own blog posts be removed, although he does state that he believes that the fact that they were was an "overreaction", presumably by News Limited management.

Roll on, Tuesday. In a post timestamped, 12:01am Tuesday 30th of August, Bolt stated mysteriously:

No politics until further notice. Principles to weigh up. Faith to keep. Sorry.

Bolt then went on 2GB radio and stated:

"I'd like people to check what was said before and what the prime minister responded to. It would be nice if they could check with what was said now and has been withdrawn completely and see what difference there is, but you can't do that. There is to be no debate and maybe that's fantastic, maybe that's great and what people want."

In this statement, Bolt claims that people cannot "check ... what the prime minister responded to".

This is a very strange claim to make. After all, Bolt's own readers had been able to read the text of the retracted allegation on Bolt's own blog for the whole of Monday, August 29 - a period of at least 11 hours after News Limited retracted and apologised for the original article. Everyone else could read the "startling" claim in Milne's article simply by reading the Fairfax reports about the article that remain published to this day.

If anyone is to blame for the inability of Bolt's readers to "check ... what the Prime Minister responded to", then it is News Limited.

In any case, if there is any doubt about exactly who said what, when, Stephen Mayne has provided a handy little compendium.

One really can't help but wonder if the removal of Bolt's blog posts, his subsequent dummy spit, and then his groveling thank you to News Limited management on August 31 that - "I thank News Limited for defying the Prime Minister and letting me write as I have above." - was part of an elaborate pantomine to make it appear that Gillard "pulled strings ... to shutdown a debate".

The facts seem clear.

On Saturday, Gillard sought from and was apparently given assurance by News Limited that it was not planning to pursue the story further. On Monday, contradicting this assurance, The Australian published an assertion of fact that Gillard believed was clearly false. Gillard, as is her right, demanded a retraction. News Limited promptly retracted the article and issued an apology in which it acknowledged that some of Milne's assertions were untrue. At some much later time, News Limited decided to remove Bolt's blog posts and he apparently spat the dummy and went on strike for a day. After claiming News Limited's own, apparently unprompted, removal of his own blog posts as evidence of the "Prime Minister's" desire to "shutdown debate" he put pen to paper again to write up his version of his brave and troubled struggle for our freedom.

Pantomime. Pure pantomime.

Update: 10:04 31/8 - Sorry, forgot what month we are in, so amended June -> August. I can't be certain that Michael Smith read parts of the statutory declaration on air Friday, August 26. However, if what Bolt wrote is accurate, Smith must have done so at some point before Bolt updated the 8/27 09:46 post. Again, it is not clear when that was.

11:43 31/8 - Clarified, by adding context, that Tony Wright's article quoted a contentious line from the Milne piece.

23:37 31/8 It appears I was overly cautious in my 10:04 update. It appears that Michael Smith did read from the statutory declaration on Friday August 26 as stated above. This is confirmed in numerous places, not least of which was Bolt's article of 31/8.

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Readers of this article may be amused/bemused/confused to learn that the full text of Milne's article was rescued from the weak knees and trembling hands of News Limited management by one John Winston Howard. Apparently he has been displaying it, unedited and unannotated, since 12pm on Monday 29th August on his facebook page.

Readers will note that there is not a single controversial assertion or allegation in the full article that has not been highly visible in the public domain since Monday.

This fact continues to make a mockery of Bolt's claim that the intent of Gillard's demands was to "shutdown debate". There is nothing else in the retracted article that is contentious.

It seems clear as day to this author that Gillard's primary intent was, as she stated, to demand the repudiation, by The Australian, of a single allegation that she has long insisted was false.

To let it stand unchallenged would have been to concede its truth. And why should she do that?

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3 Sep, 11:58 The Australian has now published an account of the conversations that occurred between Gillard, Hartigan and Milne on Saturday last week and Monday this week. I may write a separate post about this at some point.

In the meantime, and since comments on the "The Drum" copy of this article are now closed, feel free to comment here if you believe there are any significant errors of fact or speculation in this post.

Please keep it calm. Stick to the facts and critique my statements and speculations, if you must. Attack me personally and you will be ignored for being a #truckwit. I don't expect I will have to remove any comments, but if I do, I will document the nature of the comments that I remove and why. I reserve the right to alter this moderation policy if circumstances warrant it. If I do that, I will explain why.

Romak Suction Cups

Just in case I ever need to find these again:

Gromet Suction Cups (794110, 22m, Qty 3)
Romak Hardware Distributors  (03) 9795 6789

On Applications, Plugins and Packages

I am having a bizarre discussion on the git mailing list about whether it is ok for an application (git, say) to provide its own plugin installation command.

E.g.:

  git install gitwork.

The idea has been described as 'horrid', 'utterly horrid' and 'crap'.

Bizarre.

The concept of a division of responsibilities between 3 roles seems to be misunderstood.

There are 3 roles:

application, plugin and package.

• The application provides the plugin manager.
• The distribution provides the package manager.
• The package manager packages the plugin as a OS-specific package.
• The package manager installs the package, containing the plugin.
• The package manager calls the application's plugin manager to activate the plugin

Optionally, the application delegates plugin installation request to one or more package managers.

Simple, isn't it?

Yes, Ruby got it wrong. Why did it get it wrong?

ruby got it wrong because ruby has a plugin manager (gem) that wants to be a package manager.

Just because Ruby got it wrong, doesn't mean git can't get it right and be a better platform for it.

Read 1st - http://goo.gl/6KKwJ

One reason you may be reading this is that your WiFi client let you know that there was an Open or WEP-encrypted WiFi network with the name "Read 1st - http://goo.gl/6KKwJ".

If so, you need to be aware that the WiFi network so described is quite insecure and anyone connected to it can intercept all unencrypted traffic passing across it.

You also need to understand Firesheep. In particular, you need to understand the vulnerability Firesheep exploits, and why it is in your interests to protect yourself against the techniques it exploits.

If you have any questions, send me an e-mail: jon.seymour@gmail.com.