From Hamburg: I’m away from the National Press Club for two seconds and I miss out? It’s not quite a case of FOMO, but jeez! On the eve of the Labor’s draconian digital identity laws banning under 16s from accessing social media (and by what I consider to be deliberate extension, introducing a Digital ID system) Labor’s Communications Minister, Anika Wells, took a leaf out of Chris Bowen’s court jester playbook and rejected the premise of everything she doesn’t like. In particular, facing the scrutiny of the free press.
Chris Bowen has conveniently skipped town at our expense. (I would have voluntarily funded his one-way ticket to a socialist country.) But his legacy remains.
When I questioned him at a Sydney Institute event I attended a few years back, he ‘rejected the premise’ of any question that challenged his dogmatic belief in wind and solar.
Those chickens that survived the blades of the wind turbines have well and truly come home to roost.
I remember thinking Bowen must have had formal speaking training by his subtle yet deliberate ‘heel elevations’ – a rhythmic, almost imperceptible rise onto the balls of his feet that command attention as effectively as any inner-city property auctioneer.
If only I could have witnessed Minister Wells in person, I might have confirmed my ‘reject the premise’ thesis empirically.
What does ‘rejecting the premise’ mean?
In Labor parlance, ‘rejecting the premise’ means ‘okay, you may think that you caught me fibbing, but I’m from the government and therefore you’re wrong’.
Bowen rejected the premise of Germany being the harbinger of expensive electricity based on the dogmatic pursuit of government-funded ‘renewables’.
It’s so expensive here in Germany, as I write. Imagine you’re looking at a menu in an average restaurant and you see the price for a burger and chips – 25.00. Expensive but not unusual in Australian terms. Then you realise the price is in Euro, and therefore double. And it’s the same everywhere it seems.
Back to Labor’s senior minister Anika Wells. Reports from the National Press Club indicate that she has rote-learnt Bowenism.
Q: Will the under 16s social media ban mean that adult Australians have to provide their ID documents to foreign social media companies to gain access to services they’ve had for over a decade?
A: I reject the premise of the question.
Q: Why is X banned but the left-leaning Bluesky (Bowen left X for Buesky because he rejected the premise of X) is okay?
A: I reject the premise of the question.
Q: Do you think Australia should remain a liberal democracy?
A: I reject the premise of the question.
And so on.
Australia deserves better than this. And while it may have taken some time, I at least think that the fourth estate (if we reject the premise of the ABC) is seeing the light.
Speaking of light, here in Hamburg we’re in bed by 6.30pm because it’s been dark for hours, and sunrises look like sunsets but they’re at 10am. Probably a good thing Bowen wasn’t in charge here. He would’ve rejected the premise that this far north, the days are short. He would have raved on about free energy from the sun and subsided German solar farms.
In my opinion, it’s time we rejected the premise of this Labor government before the damage is irrevocable.
Dr Michael de Percy @FlaneurPolitiq is the Spectator Australia’s Canberra Press Gallery Correspondent. If you would like to support his writing, or read more of Michael, please visit his website.
