Slightly ridiculous reporting

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As much as I dislike the GOP and will cheer at any electoral downfall they experience over the next few years, this piece by America's ABC news is anything but informative.

So. GOP activists were partying with Lobbyists with the tab paid by big corporations. And this while Hurricane Gustav was heading towards Louisiana.

Well, unless you want to declare every single bar and nightclub in America banned during a hurricane, what's the problem with going out on the town when something goes wrong? Bush didn't close down bars and nightclubs after 9/11 and people still went there, muted as their enjoyment would have been. If GOP activists and operatives were schmoozing with lobbyists paid for by big corporations, what's the issue? I'm sure the Democrats did it in Denver and if a hurricane was hitting Louisiana during that convention I wouldn't have had any problem either.

The only reason for this report was to depict Republicans as being partying elitists who don't care about ordinary people. Of course, the fact that Republicans ARE elitist and DON'T care about ordinary people is quite provable... but partying during a convention while a Hurricane blows and linking that to elitist, uncaring GOPers is ridiculous.

At the risk of going Godwin, the fact that Hitler was a non-smoker doesn't mean his non-smoking proves he was a tyrant. The same is true for the GOP (although, since Nazi analogies are fraught with danger, I need to point out that Hitler and the GOP are not analogous. Any evil the GOP has done is magnitudes smaller than the evils of Hitler. I just couldn't think of a better analogy.)

Not a Photoshop

A retarded film?

Ben Stiller is not my favourite actor. With the notable exception of Mystery Men and that stupid Return of the King Easter Egg, I own no DVD in which Ben Stiller is present. And I'm proud.

To me, Ben Stiller represents all that despise about Hollywood. He appears in films that I find turgid, desperate and mechanical - typical 21st century Hollywood cookie cutter comedies that are big on simplicity and small on sophistication. Call me an elitist if you wish, but I am certainly thankful that I don't have to look forward to the next instalment of Ben Stiller's terrible acting career.

Stiller's latest movie, Tropic Thunder, is one that I will probably never see. Any film with Stiller's presence automatically means that I won't view it (other actors whose presence means danger are Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas).

Tropic Thunder, however, is not looking like just another Ben Stiller picture. The film seems to be upsetting all sorts of people at the moment. Is this a good thing? Are people finally saying "no more" to Ben Stiller? No. They're annoyed at how the film treats people with intellectual disabilites and the usage of the "r" word - retarded.

In order to understand where these people come from, I have had to actually read some of the film's script and have even viewed a segment of the film that was deemed to be problematic. To be honest, watching Ben Stiller and listening to his dialogue was a more disturbing experience than, say, looking at actual war footage from the current conflict in Georgia. Nevertheless, I pressed on and this is what I found.

Tropic Thunder is about 3 method actors (Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr) in a war film. For whatever reason, the film's director decides to give them real guns and places them in a real conflict in some tropical area of the world where they are left to fend for themselves. All three actors are Prima Donnas - exactly the sort of actor everyone loves to hate. They are self obsessed, oblivious to the real world and demand all sorts of attention. Stiller's character, Tugg Speedman, had just played an intellectually disabled person in a previous film called Simple Jack. While walking along in the jungle, Stiller's character speaks to Downey Jr's character about the difficulties in playing "retards" on film.

It is that scene that has made people angry. In the Washington Post, Patricia Bauer argues that such a scene has done untold damage to intellectually disabled people in America. Bauer and others seem to believe that this dialogue will increase the proliferation of negative stereotypes and lead to difficulty in getting intellectually disabled people accepted into society.

The problem with Bauer and others is that they are aiming at the wrong target. Tropic Thunder, for starters, is hardly going to change community attitudes on anything (except reinforce the market for bad films and the career of Ben Stiller).

The use of the word "Retard" by Stiller and Downey Jr in the film is designed to be confrontational. It is a situation in which two people are using a negative word quite freely - a word that is not used much in today's conversations. The conversation is supposed to make the audience unsettled. Why? Because it highlights the vapid and closeted nature of the characters. In other words, the use of the word "retard" actually makes the Stiller and Downey Jr characters less likeable in the audience's mind. The joke is on them.

Imagine, if you will, a film in which racist behaviour in America's Southern states is a main theme. Imagine that we see a bunch of white men talking about "niggers". Of course, in a film like this we should naturally hear racial epithets being used as the characters depicted are trying to be faithfully recreated. The fact that racist attitudes and racial epithets are present in a film in which racism is a major theme should not surprise us.

In Tropic Thunder, Tugg Speedman and Kirk Lazarus (Stiller and Downey Jr) are two Prima Donna actors who have no idea that modern societal attitudes are different to theirs. They are blinded by their selfishness and by their self absorbtion. It is in that context that they refer to intellectually disabled people as "retards". The joke is upon them - they, not intellectually disabled people - are the ones being laughed at by the audience. Moreover, by these two being the butt of the joke, societal acceptance of intellectually disabled people is actually reinforced.

Tropic Thunder does not depict Moses or Jesus or George Washington referring to intellectually disabled people as "retards" - it depicts two obviously selfish, self absorbed individuals describing intellectually disabled people as "retards". Therein lies the difference - the usage of the epithet in the text is by characters that are depicted in a negative way. Thus, if there is any message from this part of the film, it is that only stupid and vacuous people call others "retards" - and that has to be a good thing.

(Note: I have worked with intellectually disabled people - I used to be a workplace trainer for a non-profit disability services organisation called House With No Steps)

The inevitable result of Islamophobia

From the department of publishing what people want to hear:

The Sun newspaper has come over a bit modest. Following a Channel 4 documentary about media reporting of Muslims, the paper accepts some of its stories were "distorted". But they're not doing themselves justice. They weren't distorted – they were entirely made up. For example, a story about a Muslim bus driver who ordered his passengers off the bus so he could pray was pure fabrication.

But if reporters are allowed to make up what they like, that one should be disciplined for displaying a shocking lack of imagination. He could have continued, "The driver has now won a case at the Court of Human Rights that his bus route should be altered so it only goes east. This means the 37A from Sutton Coldfield will no longer stop at Selly Oak library, but go the wrong way up a one-way street and carry on to Mecca. Local depot manager Stan Tubworth said, 'I suggested he only take it as far as Athens but he threatened a Jihad, and a holy war is just the sort of thing that could put a service like the Selly Oak Clipper out of business'."

Then there was a story about "Muslim thugs" in Windsor who attacked a house used by soldiers, except it was another invention. But with this tale the reporter still claims it's true, despite a complete absence of evidence, because, "The police are too politically correct to admit it." This must be the solution to all unsolved crimes. With Jack the Ripper it's obvious – he was facing the East End of London, his victims were infidels and he'd have access to a burqua which would give him vital camouflage in the smog. But do the pro-Muslim police even bother to investigate? Of course not, because it's just "Allah Allah Allah" down at the stations these days.

I have no politically correct notions that demand that I ignore racially motivated violence. I know that minority racial groups can often give rise to racially motivated violence - like Lebanese men in Sydney gang-raping white women.

What I can't tolerate is when the media, in order to capitalise on this fear, creates stories out of thin air in the same way in order to gain financial rewards (more newspapers sold, more advertising space sold). In this sense, the market rewards the media for distorting facts rather than reporting facts.

Much of our current debate about terrorism since 9/11 has been based upon fear and ignorance. While Islamic terrorism is certainly on the rise it has yet to impact us (since 9/11) in the West any worse than, say, the IRA bombing campaigns in Britain or radical leftist groups like the Red Army Faction.

And this means, of course, that 9/11 in the light of history is now appearing to be an exceptionally unusual event rather than the beginning of a new pattern of terrorism.

NSW Politicians cynically create media storm

From the department of look at the evil painting:

The Premier and the Prime Minister are again appalled, but a young girl photographed nude by her mother says the image, on the cover of the latest Arts Monthly Australia, is her favourite.

In the latest row over the depiction of nude children, Morris Iemma and the state Opposition Leader, Barry O'Farrell, are so offended by the nude pictures of a young girl they want the magazine that published them stripped of federal funding. Kevin Rudd said he could not stand them.

But the girl says the picture is her favourite image and still hangs in the house.

"She just enjoys it. It's acting. She just loves it," said the 11-year-old girl's father, Robert Nelson. "Poli [Polixeni Papapetrou, the girl's mother] wrote a doctoral thesis on this. It's a highly researched body of work."

The images, part of a practice in which Papapetrou works with her daughter, were reproduced in an edition of the magazine that explores the storm over the Bill Henson photographs that were to be shown in Sydney in May.

Here is the offending painting:

That picture is NOT a form of paedophilic pornography. It's just a painting of a kid at the beach. It has nothing remotely to do with the Bill Henson photographs. The state government, so embroiled in other more worthy scandals, has basically created this media storm to deflect people's attention from them to the dirty paedophile elitist artistic community.

If that painting is pornographic, then this album cover is as well:

Time to burn our Led Zeppelin albums... 35 years after they came out onto the shelf.

Update:
The 1st picture above was sourced from The Sydney Morning Herald. It is different to the one that is actually on the front cover of the magazine. Here is the original:

So it's a picture of a child on a painted background, rather than a painting. Nevertheless there is nothing terribly offensive about this picture.

AAAAAAAAA

A blog post with every single category marked (I'm doing this for scribefire)

Here's a dumb news story

From the ABC:

A new study of wealth in Australia suggests that everyone is getting richer, thanks to superannuation, share values and higher housing prices.

The annual survey of household income and labour dynamics produced by the Melbourne Institute has found big changes in household wealth between 2002 and 2006.

The average net worth of an Australian household, or assets minus debts, is estimated to have jumped by more than 50 per cent in the four years to $608,000.

But the Melbourne Institute says it is not just the wealthy becoming wealthier.

It says the median or typical household saw its worth rise by more than $100,000 to $326,000.

Higher house prices have been the key, but superannuation, other property and share values also increased substantially over the period.

Wow, so the reason why every Aussie is richer is because assets like shares, superannuation and property have appreciated in value.

These are, of course, the exact same assets that have been tumbling in value in the last 6-9 months.

Nothing in the report about savings - which, of course, means money in the bank not over-valued assets.

New Line Cinema is no more

From the department-of-oh-that-explains -why-they-were-reneging-on-payments-to- Peter-Jackson-and-Tolkein's-estate:

It's the end of the line for New Line -- at least in its current form.

The 40-year-old studio behind such franchises as "Lord of the Rings," "Austin Powers" and "Rush Hour" will become a significantly smaller version of itself and merge into the Warner Brothers unit of Time Warner's Warner Bros.

The development marks the end of an era for New Line founder Bob Shaye and his longtime top lieutenant, co-chairman and co-CEO Michael Lynne, who will leave the company. In recent weeks, the pair, whose contracts expire at the end of the year, made a last-ditch failed attempt to stay aboard, presenting Time Warner management with a reorganization plan that would have ensured their continued employment.

It is unclear how many people will lose their jobs as a result of the consolidation. New Line Cinema employs more than 600 people in Los Angeles and New York.

I just don't understand how a film company responsible for the three Lord of the Rings films - which were absolutely MASSIVE cash cows - could manage to go under. Inefficiency and stupidity most likely.

Public Broadcasting stupidity

I'm a big fan of public broadcasting. I think it provides better news and current affairs than commercial channels and that the entertainment that it does produce can be quite influential in how commercial channels adjust their programming.

But where does public broadcasting get its funds? Here in Australia, the ABC is funded directly by tax revenue, and the amount given is determined by the federal government. In the US, PBS is funded by a combination of advertisers, government funding and viewer donations.

But by far the most weird way of funding is to be found in Britain. The BBC is funded by what are called "Television Licences". If a person wants to watch TV in Britain, they need to buy a licence. Those licence fees then go towards paying for the BBC's content. It's a novel way of doing things, but, I have to say, it is crazy.

Britain is (as far as I know) the only country in the world where you can be arrested for watching TV. If you haven't paid your licence, government heavies can get you taken to the police. Fines and even imprisonment can occur if you haven't paid your licence fee.

Ah, you may ask, but how would they know? Simple. "They" (ie the BBC) know exactly which residences don't have licences. So what they do is get a "TV detector van" to patrol the streets and nab people for watching TV without a licence.

Of course, owning a TV and only watching DVDs or videos is completely legal in Britain. It's when you start watching broadcasts without paying the licence that you get in trouble.

I have to say, the whole idea is obsolete and inefficient. Here in Oz we just buy a TV and start watching. No licences, no TV detector vans patrolling the streets, no threats mailed to you by the BBC.

To see just how ridiculous this system is, read this website. In it, a person has collected over two years worth of letters he has received since he stopped paying his licence fees. He is treated as though he were a criminal. Moreover, as the letters continue to arrive, he begins to discover bogus statistics and even three different signatures from the same person. Using FOI legislation, he is able to compare what his legal rights are to what he is told by the BBC. It's amusing and very annoying.

I am a devil worshipper

On Fox News yesterday, Bill O’Reilly let loose on “far-left websites” like DailyKos, stating, “If you read these far-left websites, you’re a devil worshipper. You are.” O’Reilly’s ombudsman responded, “As a journalist, you know better than that.” O’Reilly shot back: “Satan is running the DailyKos. Yes, he is!”

To find the source for this quote and to become a devil worshipper yourself, click here.

A mixture of sporting metaphors

“This is a slam-dunk reversal, admitting error. Now, when they play poker, they show their hands to each other, so they don’t get another curveball.” - Tim Weiner, quoted in the New York Times.

Is News Corp trying to keep Malcolm Turnbull in power?

From the department of more evidence against Rupert Murdoch?:

Award winning journalist Caroline Overington hurled abuse at Labor candidate for Wentworth George Newhouse before slapping him across the face at a polling station in Sydney's east, witnesses say.

Ms Overington, a Gold Walkley winning reporter who works for The Australian newspaper, has been embroiled in a dispute involving a series of emails to independent candidate Dani Ecuyer urging her to preference Wentworth Liberal MP Malcolm Turnbull.

Ms Ecuyer is the ex-girlfriend of Mr Newhouse.

Ms Overington also sent a series of flirtatious emails to Mr Newhouse, which were then published in rival papers.

Polling booth attendants and voters were shocked to see Ms Overington stride up to Mr Newhouse, strike him across the face and then walk away, those who saw the incident told AAP.

One witness at the Bellevue Hill Public school polling booth said Ms Overington yelled abuse and appeared furious.

To summarise: a well-known journalist from The Australian, a News Corporation entity, was trying to influence preferential voting in an electorate in order to favour Liberal Party minister Malcolm Turnbull. As part of her work, she sent some flirty emails to Turnbull's political opponent in the electorate. What happened in the shadows no one knows, but at some point Overingham got angry enough that when she saw him at the polling station she had to walk up to him and slap him in the face.

Newpoll - is it reliable?

I know that polling often brings about various results, but this is interesting:

A polls analyst from Newspoll is expecting tomorrow's federal election to be an extremely close contest and says it could be a week before a definitive result emerges.

Martin O'Shanessy says that, based on a poll to be published tomorrow, the result is certain to be a cliffhanger.

"I think we might find it very very close in those key marginal seats that we have to see and there may be a lot of recounts and protests around the edges," he said.

Today's polls all show Labor in front, but by widely differing margins.

An AC Nielsen poll gives Labor a massive 14-point lead, after preferences, but a Galaxy poll has the ALP leading by just four points - the best result for the Coalition this year.

Hmmm, so while other polls show a substantial Labor lead, Newspoll shows it to be very close.

Could Newspoll be modifying its results in order to support a conservative government?

And guess who owns Newspoll?

Iranians criticise Dinnerjacket

From the department of Iran-is-obviously-not-Nazi-Germany:

In a rare attack on Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a hardline newspaper has accused him of behaving immorally towards his political rivals.

The Islamic Republic daily, close to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has said Mr Ahmadinejad's behaviour is dangerous for Iran.

The publication is seen as a newspaper with impeccable Islamic credentials.

The attack would be difficult to imagine without at least tacit support from Ayatollah Khamenei.

In a hard-hitting editorial on Wednesday, the Tehran paper said the president's treatment of his critics was immoral, illogical and illegal.

Since many anti-Ahmadinehad people somehow think the guy is your standard dictator who has an iron-fisted control over his country, this news dispels this idea. Remember, this is a hard-line Islamic newspaper saying this.

More evidence, if any was needed, that Iran is not a threat to us, and doesn't want to be.

Woman cries. Media thinks she's pregnant.

From the department of maybe-there-are- other-reasons:

Tennis Mum Bec Hewitt's teary public breakdown has fuelled speculation the former TV starlet may be pregnant with her second child.

The former Home and Away star (pictured) couldn't hold back the emotion during her first official gig as ambassador of the Children's Hospital Westmead yesterday - breaking down in tears during her presentation as media and hospital staff looked on.

Hewitt - who was without her 23-month-old daughter Mia - attended the opening of the hospital's new diabetes research centre, with the unveiling coinciding with UN World Diabetes Day.

But the wife of tennis champion Lleyton Hewitt became so overwhelmed while talking about juvenile diabetes she had to stop several times - eventually cutting her speech short in a flood of tears, reports Health Reporter Kate Sikora.

"These kids are very special and they are doing such an amazing job," a choked up Hewitt said.

"It's quite emotional really. I guess having a little one myself . . .," she trailed off, unable to go on.

The young mum has recently said she and her husband want to have more children and the display of emotion prompted talk she may already be expecting.

Her manager said Hewitt felt "a little embarrassed" about the public display.

"She told Lleyton afterwards what happened. Basically, she stepped into the shoes of the children and being a mother herself, it was very emotional," David Drysdale said.

If she is pregnant, Hewitt did a good job of hiding any baby bump by wearing a red loose-fitting top.

An article worthy of the News Corporation that brought it to you.

Fox News is Propaganda

From the department of lies-will-set-you-free:

For the second straight day, Fox News stood virtually alone in advancing thinly supported speculation to raise fears that the wildfires ravaging California are not the result of a confluence of arid heat and high winds but were set deliberately by al Qaeda terrorists bent on destroying America.

Fox & Friends, the conservative cable channel, was panned Wednesday for breathlessly reporting a sketchy, four-year-old FBI memo as if it offered new information linking America's enemies in the "Global War on Terror" with a plot to burn down southern California.

The morning team was back at it Thursday, as anchor Alisyn Camerota introduced a segment on the fires that again mischaracterized and over-inflated warnings from a 2003 interview with an al Qaeda detainee.

I'm sick of this whole "war on terror" and the communists fictional "islamofascists" who threaten world peace by spreading communism a caliphate around the world.

Organisations like Fox reinforce the lie that Al Qaeda and Osama have almost mythical powers to attack and damage America freely. The reality is that they don't even control a single nation, let alone have amazing power to hurt America.

It's obvious now, six years later, that 9/11 was a complete fluke, a mixture of good planning and good luck by Osama and sleepy incompetence by America. Since then the US has not had a single terrorist attack within its border. Why? Because Osama and Al Qaeda cannot rely upon good luck and American incompetence any more.

There have been, of course, terrorist attacks elsewhere - Bali, Barcelona, London - but when you look at the history of terrorism since 1970 there has been nothing "special" going on. The IRA killed more people in Britain than unhappy Muslims ever did, and ETA killed more people in Spain over the years than the Islamic terrorists in Barcelona.

Fox, and other unworthy media channels, are promoting fear. Fear, of course, sells. If it wasn't for fear, people wouldn't have stopped immunising their kids and some kids would still be alive today. Irrational fear, based not upon factual information but upon impressions and falsehoods, is what leads to many wrongheaded actions. The Iraq war, for example, was waged because Americans feared that Iraq would give chemical, biological or nuclear weapons to terrorists who would then use them against America. Fear led America to invade Iraq, even though there was no real evidence WMDs existed, which is what has subsequently been found out.

The fact that fear sells is one of the problems with modern media. Since media is owned by profit-making corporations, the reporting of objective, truthful news is hardly going to be a priority. Fear is profit for the media.

This is yet another example of market failure. Steps need to be taken to punish news organisations for peddling lies and half-truths, and rewards need to be given to such organisations for objective, dispassionate and accurate reporting. The marketplace is not going to do this, so the government must step in.

I love News Limited

From the department of Up-is-down:

A Father has been cleared of murdering his three young sons after they tragically drowned when his car plunged into a dam.

A Supreme Court jury has just found Robert Donald William Farquharson, 38, not guilty of murder in the wake of one of Victoria's most heart-wrenching trials.

Little Jai, 10, Tyler, 7, and Bailey, 2, died on Father's Day, 2005

(Source: Herald-Sun, owned by News Limited).

But wait, there's a subtle twist to this:

The jury in the murder trial of Robert Farquharson has found him guilty of three counts of murder.

Farquharson, 38, was charged with the drowning murder of his three sons, 10-year-old Jai, seven-year-old Tyler and two-year-old Bailey, who died when the car he was driving ran into a dam at Winchelsea, near Geelong, in 2005.

(Source: ABC News Website)

Other news sites that support the "theory" that Farquharson was found guilty: Sydney Morning Herald, NineMSN, Geelong Advertiser.

Update:
Yeah, yeah, it was probably a mistake. They had two stories ready to go and accidentally published both. So they weren't stupid really... just unprofessional in handling important news stories.

Tim Blair continues to be an idiot

I just read this piece of tripe from Tim Blair:

The day after 9/11 a friend went to dinner with some Australian publishing types. He still works with these muppets, so I won’t identify him, but I will record his description of their mood that night.

They were happy. Not dance-about-the-room Hamas happy, but satisfied happy. America had been taught a lesson. These folk would imagine themselves to be educated, sensitive, intellectual, creative ... yet their response to the murder of nearly 3,000 innocent people by fascist maniacs was to voice a smug contentment; at last, the US got what was coming to it.

Contrast their post-9/11 views to those of Formula One drivers preparing to compete in the 2001 Italian Grand Prix, as reported by Matt Bishop in the May 2007 edition of F1 Racing (no link available):

It’s barely 100 hours since we all watched what would be known simply as ‘9/11’ play out, live, on our TV screens. Like you, like me, like everyone, F1’s biggest stars are still shell-shocked ...

They’re shrugging, grimacing, and muttering words like “bastards” or “bâtards” or “bastardos” or “bastardi” or, in Kimi Raikkonen’s case, and I overhear him utter the word in exactly the context I’m describing, to a Finnish journalist, “äpärä”.

These guys drive cars for a living. Most have no university education. Which might explain why they’re so morally advanced compared to Australian bookniks.

So, what do we learn from Blair here?

1. Since Blair is a member of New Limited, the "Pubilshing types" he speaks of are essentially non-Murdoch. Thus non-Murdoch media hate America and like it when people die.
2. That intellectuals like people dying.
3. It's okay to make broad insults against people you don't like without providing any evidence whatsoever.

What can I say except that it is typical of this guy's lack of intellect that he would come up with such tripe. If this is the guy who edits the Letters to the Daily Telegraph - a publication that seeks to dumb down ordinary Australians - then there is no wonder that people are so confused about important issues like the Iraq War and Global Warming.

To me, Blair has no credibility. Moreover, those who admire him lose credibility of their own.

Madeleine McCann - another Chamberlain?

The parents are now suspects.

I have seen a few times in the past parents who use the media to share their grief over their missing child, only for them to admit guilt in killing them.

However, as the Chamberlain case reminds us, often hysteria and bias can get in the way of impartiality and good investigation. Moreover, both the parents are GPs, which gives less weight to the current theories of Madeleine being accidentally killed by her mother by using too many sedatives.

New IR laws liked by employees?

From the department of the-devil-is-in-the-details:

A study has found many people believe the Federal Government's controversial WorkChoices policy has provided a better balance between work and family life.

About 40 per cent of those surveyed by Deakin University said they were allowed more personal carer days since the inception of WorkChoices last year, and 27 per cent said their sick days had increased.

Fifty-five per cent of the survey respondents complained of an increased need to seek legal advice about their work agreements.

The findings were the result of a survey of just over 1000 companies, all members of the Australian Human Resources Institute.

The University says four-fifths of the survey respondents would have had direct experience with the Work Choices legislation.

The companies said that negotiation with individuals on pay and conditions had risen by 25 per cent, while union involvement in settling grievances had decreased by 12 per cent.

Okay, the fact that this study has been released by Deakin University gives it credibility. If it was released by some organisation representing employers I would doubt the veracity. Nevertheless, the way the media is reporting it is problematic.

The important thing to note in the story is that it took a sample of employees from companies which are members of the Human Resources Institute. From the institute's website, we find this quote:

The AHRI vision people leading business recognises the changing requirements of Australian business against a background of considerable economic challenge. It also acknowledges the continuing opportunity for the HR profession to actively contribute specialist knowledge for the delivery of people management solutions to business.

In other words, the employees in this study who are happy with the IR laws work for companies that employ Human Resource managers and have expertise in people-management.

I'm all for the importance of Human Resources. Companies that have HR managers understand the relationship between employee productivity and employee needs. It is good to hear that these new IR laws have allowed such companies to use the new laws to further productivity and work more closely with their employees.

Of course, the simple fact is that most companies around Australia do not have a HR department. Many employees work for small-medium sized businesses that don't have the luxury of having HR. It is in these companies that employees will have the most dissatisfaction.

The media have unintentionally "spun" this news to create the impression that large percentages of the workforce are happy with the new IR laws. What the media should have done is be more judicious in its reporting, and titled it "Some employees are happy with IR laws".