polite_gandalf wrote on Sep 16
th, 2016 at 12:14pm:
FD what "blatant lies" have I resorted to?
Would you call insisting you provided information, including links, about the two resolutions on your home page article a lie? Or would you like to go on the record that it was an honest mistake on your part? Either way the information you insisted was there is not.
I just thought its prudent to mention this while you are throwing the accusation of lying at me.
That was Gandalf's spin. The truth is rather different.
Contrary to Gandalf's repeated assertions, I provided information about the two resolutions on the home page of this website. Gandalf asserted that I did not provide him the information and that he obtained it from the media. His first post in the thread contained incorrect information (that relevant legislation was passed in 1998 and 2010), and he used his "knowledge" of these facts as evidence of adequate media coverage. He then insisted for a third time that the facts were widely reported and his mistake only reflected him "comprehending poorly". To back this up, he gave links to three newspaper articles to prove that the media did in fact report on the 1998 and 2010 resolutions. Not a single one of them mentioned the resolutions. It took Gandalf over a day to find an article in which the resolutions were mentioned. Ironically enough, it was from an article published before Labor and the Coalition decided to break the promises they made to the Australia public with those resolutions.
Gandalf is still yet to provide a single newspaper article on the August 31 vote. He is still yet to provide an article written after the August 12 announcement that also mentions the 1998 and 2010 resolutions, despite claiming to have read three of them on the abc site. He is still yet to provide a single example of a politician being asked any question at all about their broken promises that altered an election outcome. But he reassures us the coverage was adequate.
His latest excuses are alternatively that he "can't really be bothered," or to concede the media did fail to report these facts, but that to do so would be "spoonfeeding" facts to the public, when it is actually the media's job to make people go looking for facts whose existence they are unaware of. According to Gandalf, all we should expect from the media is that they mention the relevant facts "at some point or other", like a few months prior, in a separate article or a separate site owned by a different media company.
Gandalf stated that I thought the Antony Green blog did not mention the resolutions, shortly after I cited his blog as the source of my information on the resolutions. Gandalf also invented the story that I mistakenly believed the "senate decision" was made on August 31, rather than August 12. The truth is that I had made it clear all along that there was an agreement reached on August 12 and a Senate vote on August 31 (though it did take me a long time to find an article reporting the August 31 date). Gandalf invented the story that I was unaware of the August 12 decision or confused about the dates. He then went on to imply that the media could have reported on either the August 12 decision or the August 31 senate vote, but for some reason not both. Gandalf claimed he had to "delve into" my story to discover that the major parties reach an agreement on August 12 rather than August 31, despite me referring him rpeeatedly to the site home page with an entry dated prior to August 31, and despite Gandalf acknowledging links to threads I started, one of which was dated before August 31 and obviously only referred to the earlier announcement.
Some extracts from the entries I put on the home page of this site, whose existence Gandalf repeatedly denied.
http://www.ozpolitic.com/index.htmlPosted on September 11:
The two major parties have broken promises they made twice to the Australian public in order to secure these seats. These promises took the form of Senate resolutions on 22 June 2010 and 29 June 1998. Both resolutions passed with bipartisan support and stated that the Senate will use the new, fairer method to determine which senators get full (6 year) terms in the event of a double dissolution election.
This coup has been permitted by a mainstream media that is asleep at the wheel. No major outlet reported on the Senate decision of August 31. They did report on Labor and the Coalition reaching an agreement to do this several weeks earlier.
Gandalf quoted my reference to the August 31 "senate decision" in order to make the case that I was unaware the agreement was reached several weeks earlier, despite the fact that the very next sentence refers to the agreement being reached several weeks earlier.
Posted on the site home page on August 15 - a full 16 days prior to the date Gandalf insists I mistakenly believed the agreement was reached. The entry also contains links to a thread I started on the same day criticising the August 12 decision.
Now in 2016, both Labor and the coalition have reneged on their repeated promises to the Australian people. Why? Because it benefits them. Their own senators get more 6 year terms at the expense of other parties and independents.