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Flat White

What do George Pell, Lindy Chamberlain and Tony Abbott have in common?

20 April 2020

4:07 PM

20 April 2020

4:07 PM

What do George Pell, Lindy Chamberlain, Tony Abbott and the Australian media have in common?

They are all strong-minded and relentless in what they believe in.

But three of them are victims and one of them is their attacker. Lives changed forever.

Australia’s media caravan — long ago hijacked by left-wing bias — has now moved on from Pell and is on the road looking for its next victim.

Australia is a tough place. A nation of 25 million people who thrive on being able to enjoy the freedoms so many around the world can only dream of. But, that freedom has led to the rise of an extremely left-wing media who refuses to apologise and accept when they are wrong.

Each year, media objectivity erodes away more and more.

Instead of reporting the facts, media organisations become barrackers for one side.

At the moment, if you are a socially conservative individual in Australia, you are the bullseye.

Prime for the picking just like Pell, Abbott and Chamberlain.

Everyone has a right to their view. Everyone. But, when the facts are not properly reported, a dangerous precedent occurs.

And in this case, a 78-year old man spent 405 days in jail for a crime he should not have been convicted for.

If it was any other man, other than Cardinal George Pell, the reporting would have been very different.

But when you have been on a bandwagon for so long and purposely shaped the view of your audience so they begin to believe what you want them to, it takes a hell of a lot to apologise and say you were wrong.

Instead, cutting off your nose to spite your face is more regularly the course of action for Australia’s left-wing media bias.

Australia’s High Court acquitted the Cardinal in a unanimous verdict 7-0 on seven child sex offences. That unanimity is in itself a rarity for a High Court verdict.

George Pell condemns all child sexual abuse and said he was ashamed of how the Catholic Church has dealt with it in the past. He has said he felt no ‘anger or hostility’ towards his accuser. He always maintained his innocence and came back to Australia to fight the charges against him.

He has now been forced to leave his home state of Victoria for New South Wales.

An innocent man facing death threats because people have been invested and indoctrinated by the media bias that they cannot possibly accept any other outcome other than the guilt they were told was the only possible outcome.


Because they want to believe, perhaps need to believe, that the “truth” they were force-fed is still true.

That way the organisations save face with their viewers and listeners.

The Federal Election result last year had already proven this hypothesis. The result remains unpalatable to those who were barracking for Bill and his Big Red Bus.

The questions that should be asked now by a genuine national broadcaster are deafeningly absent.

What about the failure of Victoria’s Court of Appeal as pointed out by the High Court? The repeated failure of numerous Victoria Police investigations?

And Victoria’s Premier Daniel Andrews?

“I make no comment about today’s High court decision. But I have a message for every single victim and survivor of child sex abuse: I see you. I hear you. I believe you.”

George Pell has also said he sees, hears and believes victims.

As Archbishop of Melbourne in the nineteen-nineties, he set up the ‘Melbourne Response’ protocol to investigate and deal with complaints of sexual abuse in his archdiocese. The protocol was the first of its kind in the world.

But he has importantly said that there are dangers with a one-sided justice system that treats every accusation as ‘gospel truth’.

The accusations against Pell have been tried and rejected by the highest Court in the land. The accusations levelled at Victorian Labor’s “Red Shirts” have never been advanced beyond perfunctory investigation stage under Andrews’ government. On Andrews’ own standard, why shouldn’t we all see, hear and believe those who accuse the “Red Shirts” of criminal activity from which Andrews and his government derived direct benefit?

Australia has been conditioned not to accept Pell’s innocence because it does not fit the narrative of needing a scapegoat to answer for the terrible and very real sins of the Catholic Church.

Sky News broadcaster Andrew Bolt asked the question that should have been asked by other media from the very beginning.

Could the very fact that George Pell uncovered extensive corruption in the Vatican be intertwined with, or a motive for, his prosecution for the alleged child sexual abuse?

Australia is quite myopic at times.

Australia’s twenty-eighth prime minister Tony Abbott is also a victim of the Australian media. A Catholic, socially conservative man who has done more volunteer firefighting and raised more money for charity than most is always conveniently forgotten.

Left-wing media jumped on the trendy bandwagon after a high-pitched shrill speech from Australia’s first female prime minister, Julia Gillard, to the then opposition leader in reaction to alleged sexism.

Abbott is married with three daughters and strongly supports a gay sister in her endeavours. Sexism? Really? More like a grab to ensure the left-wing biased narrative continues. Sadly, that narrative has stuck in the minds of too many Australians rather than the multitude of good deeds he continues to perform as a private citizen.

His decision as prime minister to ban cabinet ministers from the ABC’s Q&A panel discussion program, until some changes were made, was common sense.

Ahead of his time, Abbott made a Trump-like decision before Trump was even President. Trump has subsequently reset his nation’s media landscape by calling out similar behaviour.

Any fair-minded person only needed to watch a few minutes of any episode of Q&A to realise the bias and rigging of the show.

Our taxes at work.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation receives more than a billion dollars of taxpayers’ money.

Not one of their employees has lost their job or taken a pay cut as the rest of the Australian media landscape is collapsing around them.

Its budget is always on the Santa list of Australia’s other commercial media organisations.

Lastly, Lindy Chamberlain who was wrongfully convicted in one of this nation’s most publicised murder trials.

She was accused of killing her nine-week old daughter Azaria during a family camping trip at Uluru in 1980 and initially sentenced to life in prison.

After spending more than three years in prison she was released when a piece of Azaria’s clothing was found near a dingo lair and new inquests were opened.

Forty years ago, the Australian media’s focus was relentless and intense and at times was accused of being sensationalist.

The original trial was also criticised for being unprofessional and biased. Throughout the Chamberlains’ trial by both courts and media, the couple’s Seventh Day Adventist religious beliefs (little understood in early eighties Australia) were regularly alluded to in negative and sometimes even sinister terms.

Australia has come a long way since then, given that more examples of dingos trying to take and attacking children and adults have come to light.

But the fact remains, lessons from Australian media 40 years ago have not been learned and are being repeated today.

Jumping on a bandwagon to suit a narrative never ends well.

Media organisations need to present the facts and let the public decide.

Got something to add? Join the discussion and comment below.

Got something to add? Join the discussion and comment below.


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