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Margo Kingston has received a reply from the Sunshine Coast Daily to Sunday’s open letter, asking them to ask Mal Brough some questions about Ashbygate.
Questions to answer: Fisher candidate Mal Brough (image courtesy ABC)
On Tuesday, 22 January 2013, Darren Burnett wrote:
Hi Margo
Thank you for your emails and correspondence regarding our campaign to fix the train service between Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast.
I have forwarded your list of questions to our journalist who we have assigned to ride the train to Brisbane with Mal Brough.
Regards
Darren Burnett
Editor in chief
Sunshine Coast Region
07 5430 8081
0407 589 114
sunshinecoastdaily.com.au
From: Margo Kingston
Date: Tuesday, 22 January 2013
Subject: Mal Brough
To: Darren Burnett <Darren.Burnett@scnews.com.au>
Hi Darren,
Thank you. I look forward to your journalists’ report, and hope your local paper trumps the big media which has failed to ask the tough questions so many Australians want answered.
Yours sincerely,
Margo Kingston
UPDATE 5.18PM Tuesday 22/1/12:
On Tuesday, 22 January 2013, Darren Burnett wrote:
Thanks Margo.
We have one of our best and most fearless journos on this one so I know she won’t be backward in coming forward.
Darren Burnett
Editor in chief
Sunshine Coast Region
07 5430 8081
0407 589 114
sunshinecoastdaily.com.au
From: Margo Kingston
Date: Tuesday, 22 January 2013
Subject: Mal Brough
To: Darren Burnett <Darren.Burnett@scnews.com.au>
Brilliant! Locals tell me you have a great record in ensuring the Sunshine Coast’s politicians are accountable to the people.
Sincerely and gratefully,
Margo
(For IA’s full investigation into Ashbygate, please click here.)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
19 Comments
Thank you for your emails and correspondence regarding our campaign to fix the train service between Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast. So will they ask the questions? only time will tell I suppose. Any one laying bets they don’t and what are the odds? lol
Nifty-:
I say to you (POLITELY).
MARGO is not the type to be taken on a train ride.
—WATCH THIS SPACE—
Nifty, I’m not confident they will put Brough under the blow torch, although Margo has been very clever in that she hasn’t been demanding but extremely polite and flattering.
I have written to Four Corners in the hope my message gets to Sarah Ferguson; this is right up her alley.
Even though ABC’s Mark Scott is an ex liberal party staffer and appears to be setting the tone for its journalists, Jim Spigleman (Chairman), I believe, is a more balanced individual. He was also appointed by this federal Government (I think).
Roy,RobbyB Agree margo is an inspiration..Breath of fresh air..What I was getting at was will the ask?..I hoping they will, but based on the previous 2 years, if it was not for brilliant people like DD, Margo and the rest,and we only relied on MSM / ABC we would be none the wiser. That was the point I was getting..Cheers
This is really exciting. Watching Margo at work is like sitting in on a masterclass in investigative journalism. And if Brough cancels the engagement – well, that’s a story in itself, right?
SC reply to Margo is notification of strictly ON TOPIC proceedure….said journo necessarily will be a poor little, pretty?little, clueless little, non political little obedient hack? (sorry for unpc)
It’s only about (vote buying) trains children…this IS Campbell’s..feeding those chooks again… Queensland (ah…happy memories)… (sort of) democratic one day, tyranical the next… where what’s left (right) of the media get regularly excluded from parliament for asking naughty questions..”it’s more important to be nice” said our queen Florence….no alluding to nefarious orific? dark plots upon the Sunny Coast Express thankyou.
Loved your latest Gee on this (Miss) Fisher who dunnit…some re- Orienting Express-ions for us.
Thanks Margo, good to see you on that bloodhound trail again…there’s never any end to political intrigue in this theatre of the damned.
Nifty
i agreed with your post in the first instance wholeheartedly
sorry to sound condescending that’s why i highlighted the( POLITELY)
my pr-eminent point was to highlight that MARGO possesses
—THE EYE OF THE TIGER—JOURNALISTIC—qualities–CHEERS
> I’m not confident they will put Brough under the blow torch
How long is the train journey? 45 mins? Longer? They will probably have time to do 10 interviews. It will look a bit odd if they don’t touch on the Ashby case at all…
To the contrary : I think the SC Daily will rise to the challenge but I think they will get the old “it’s a matter before the courts etc” runaround.
Depends where on the Sunshine Coast. Could be a 2 hour journey.
As a Queenslander I am disgusted that, to date, no Queensland media has seen fit to investigate, or even offer a serious “Opinion” piece in relation to a Queenslander attaining one of the highest offices in Australian politics (Speaker of the House of Representatives) and then resigning after prolonged and consistent attacks involving allegations of sexual harassment that a Judicial decision later found to be politically orchestrated.
What has come to be known as the “Slipper emails” appeared to have been released for political purposes (according to the Rares decision) and were, in my opinion, extremely derogatory and should not have been sent in a work environment, nor by a public office holder. I have no doubt that all genders have sent worse emails at some point in time, and Slipper resigning was the proper thing to do.
Now isn’t it time the spotlight was turned on those mentioned in the Rares decision ? ….. shouldn’t Queenslanders have a right to know how an LNP candidate came to be in possession of the Speakers diary, shouldn’t Queenslanders have the right to know what one of the poisonous LNP newman government Ministers involvement in all this political intrigue was ?
Shouldn’t all Australians be informed of the involvement of Abbott and his so called “conservatives” ?
Shouldn’t all Australians know the full story of the Slipper political intrigue ?
Queensland.
Monday one day – Tuesday the next.
I live in Bananaland, and I bet Russ Hinze’s daily grocery bill that the Quilton alternative par excellance heretofore known as Sunshine Coast Daily will in no way grill Orange Broughy, nor will their ‘Most Fearless Journo’ even attempt to bring some clarity to the fore. More likely give him open slather to blather about the really important stuff like what shade of yellow to repaint the Maroochydoes KFC parking lot or whether to name a new public loo in honour of Crikey Zoo Man.
Tough Brough questions? Not a snowflakes chance in Noosa.
Sadly the train, like any adequate investigation into the Ashby case, has been delayed. Fearless journo Kathy Sundstrom may not get time to ask Brough all those hard questions before he is hung, drawn and quartered by commuters.
http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/news/oh-dear-train-pollies-aboard-cops-30-minute-delay/1727759/
…and so the real story has been hijacked. As if THAT wasn’t going to happen?
I still wait with baited breath for Sandstorm’s in depth expose on Brough’s striking ability to colour co-ordinate his Pierre Cardin corduroy under garments with his office’s ashtray upholstery.
What a gem of a guy!
Currently listening to ABC 612′s Steve Austin interviewing Tony Abbott on TV. Not a mention of Ashbygate. Just the usual claptrap from both sides.
..and so it goes…
Far more important than any provincial paper’s promotion of Mal Brough, watch out for the ABC. They have grubbed for Brough on national TV before. And by their enthusiasm at his recent pre-selection, some ABC’s journo-geniuses could do it all over again.
In 2006 allegations of rampant sex crime among NT indigenous communities were “scooped” by Lateline, who presented them dramatically as confirmed fact; treating Brough as some pioneer for justice and decency. These sensational programmes led to the Intervention.
None of Brough’s claims of paedophile rings, run by senior indigenous men, were ever tested by the ABC. And none have been found true since. Neither Brough nor Lateline have had any accountability for their concerted claims. Nor have he or the ABC shown any hint of regret or reform over these claims. The Intervention persists.
Tony Jones was the Lateline presenter of these initial programmes. He gave Brough the magic carpet ride of one-sided hyperbole. Lateline recruited a fake “youth worker” as supporter of Brough’s claims. He turned out to be a shill from Brough’s department. We are supposed to believe and accept as if professional journalism that Lateline were too incompetent or lazy to check his bona fides.
The alternative is of course that Lateline were part of this deception. They were most definitely deliberately deceptive on other aspects of their dramatisation of this nasty legend of epidemic sex crime against children by adults.
2 years later John Pilger questioned Lateline on their allegations – in the light of official figures and investigation, which revealed no such epidemic of paedophilic sex crime. Jones in reply, avoiding the actual figures, pretended on air that the ABC Complaints set-up – through a so-called Independent Complaints Review Tribunal – had cleared Lateline of a complaint directly on Pilger’s questions.
This had not happened. Jones must be taken as basically competent enough to be aware that what he said was false. Jones, Lateline, and the ABC all know what had happened. And yet Jones’ pre-recorded falsehood went to air; and was then weirdly defended by the ABC when I complained. There is no other word but lie for this brazen defence. Their Complaints Review system is full of pretentious claims about procedure – and consistently lacks integrity and reliability in following that procedure. The lack is deliberate.
The actual complaint against Lateline, which Jones referred to so obliquely, was from an Aboriginal elder about his gratuitous targeting and misrepresentation on air by Lateline.
This man is of high reputation in his community.
This is what this man told me. He had recently made a doco on his life and his community. He thought that the ABC were interviewing him about that doco. And they presented themselves to him as doing this. The Lateline “reporter” had asked him only one question about Brough’s allegations. His reply of concern about the allegations did not go to air. Nor anything about the doco.
What went to air was an inserted “reporter’s” voice-over with the man’s remarks creatively edited, presenting him as if avoiding the issue of child procurement and rape.
Having had this contact with him, and then with the ABC, I compared their replies. His was open and showed an unmistakable dismay about duplicity, and the damage to his community and his reputation. The ABC were rhetorical and duplicitous, refusing to answer questions on their methods, misrepresenting the facts which were independently clear.
I read the ABC report denying the man’s evidently sincere and true complaint. This report is a woefully counter-factual, counter-logical whitewash. Even without facts which I have independently, it reeks of pretentious, pseudo-legalistic dismissiveness.
The context of Lateline allegations of widespread rape, and the series of comments by Lateline that elders were at least complicit with this epidemic, gave the obvious impression that this man was an identified face of that complicity. This impression was deliberately created by Lateline.
Throughout, the ABC has treated this whole matter with bald-faced immoral cheek and outright denial of obvious facts.
We see here the “professional” standards of “our” ABC. In retort to (the absent) Pilger, Jones misrepresented the complaint from the victim of Lateline’s misrepresentation. Orwellian consistency.
(Jones showed no interest in the victim of his programme. Of course not. Self-importance has its own version of moral priority. He was only interested in an excuse for making a snarky comment about Pilger; which he did.)
This Orwellian consistency knows no bounds, and intends to render the ABC unaccountable for serious malfeasance. In turn, my complaint to the ABC on Jones’ obviously untruthful reply to Pilger was met with fabrications and warped logic, contrived in the face of the clearest possible fact that Jones had misrepresented the complaint. The ABC’s so-called Independent Complaints Review Panel thus whitewashed Jones’ clear misrepresentation of the evidently contrived whitewash of the elder’s complaint. Orwellian consistency has to be endless.
Each stage of whitewash in this process of pseudo-accountability is signed Mark Scott; editor-in-chief.
This is a lasting disgrace to the name and history of the ABC. All those involved could never be trusted again by the indigenous community.
We should think and act likewise.
Just read the Sunshine coast daily online and it appears that the question or questions from Margo were asked but Brough wouldn’t answer them, he just peddled the old worn out line about it being under appeal and that it was Slipper who had to answer the questions. From the words of the journo it appears that he may have been a bit rattled at some stage of the questioning, he also said that he has never given an interview on the matter because no one had asked him!!!! And that he is available on his mobile. Well I reckon he is full of shit and I know people who have asked for an interview on the issue but have been refused. Maybe he hasn’t been asked by the MSM for an interview and in his mind they are the only ones who count.
He means no-one from a local paper that he expected to be asking about fete openings and footpaths. Cheers to the Sunshine Coast Daily and jeers to Mal Brough.