SHIRE OF YORK UNOFFICIAL SITE ‘EXCLUSIVE’

THE WEST AUSTRALIAN NEWSPAPERS DARK SECRETS REVEALED                                                

                                                    
                                                              ‘The West Australian’
                                                               (from riches to a rag)


Rural and Regional West Australians deserve better than the pap their daily newspaper serves up.

This now city-centric, populist newspaper representing the Perth masses has a care factor next to zilch where country folk are concerned. Since December, 2014, it is no longer circulated to Remote Area communities north of Broome because it cost too much to deliver.

Less than four decades ago it was a different story. The West Australian had its journalists stationed in major towns throughout WA and paid correspondents in others. It had dedicated journalists such as, Michael Zekulich, who covered major developments in rural industries as a permanent ‘roundsman’ and news-teams continuously patrolling the state to gather positive stories from Rural, Regional and Remote WA.

It was considered to be the ‘newspaper of record’ for the ‘ENTIRE STATE’ by the J.S Battye Library and the State Archive of Western Australia. (A newspaper to be proud of.)

Then Alan Bond acquired the paper through Bell Resources and (allegedly) cleaned out the tills to pay his lawyers to keep him out of jail.  They failed!

The use of Bell Resources, including The West Australian, by Alan Bond as a piggy-bank to the tune of $1.2 billion was the BIGGEST FRAUD in Australian corporate history.

How a newspaper that is supposed to uncover and publically expose fraud and corruption, allowed itself to be the target of such a monstrous scam is beyond belief.

David Aspinall, the then boss of Chanel 7, who had taken over Bond’s media interests, claimed in court that he knew all about the fiscal pillaging and tried desperately to get some of the money back into the newspapers’ coffers.

It beggars belief that The West Australian’s Editorial Executives Bob Cronin and Don Baker either did not know or chose to ignore that the paper they published was being ripped-off to the max.
(There appears to be no record of the newspaper publishing anything about the fraud going on under its very nose while it was going on.)

Since then Don Baker has disappeared back to the Eastern States and Bob Cronin is the Editor-in-Chief of West Australian Newspapers.

Having returned to West Australian Newspapers in 1990, I received a ranting phone call from David Aspinall regarding the delineation of copyright between journalists, photographers and newspaper proprietors.

Aspinall thought it would be another issue that the newspaper could not afford as it was a potentially expensive legal process with the possibility of industrial action being instigated by the then Australian Journalists Association.

Bob Cronin knew all about this phone call, he knew about ‘The West’s’ parlous financial state and appeared to do nothing to expose the fraud being perpetrated on his own newspaper.

In the early 1990’s the paper was put in receivership to the R&I Bank and since digging itself out of that huge hole it has mainly had publishers who publish in their own interest and the interest of their shareholders only.

Fifteen years ago it had an average daily circulation of 200,000 and could have bought The Age
newspaper from John Fairfax. Now Ray Morgan Research credits it with an online and print readership of just 50,000 per day and it could not even buy the ’York Community Matters’.

In the late 90’s ‘The West’s’ share price was north of $15, now its south of $5 per share.

Less than a decade ago, the then Editor, Paul Armstrong, came out with the concise public statement that he ‘could not give a fat rat’s arse’ about opinions. This attitude has carried on with particular emphasis on anywhere outside the metropolitan area.

Last Friday, April 29, 2015, the Avon Valley Residents Association met with the Premier, Colin Barnett, in York. The purpose was to discuss a waste dump, containing blue asbestos residue, on pristine farmland, in a water catchment area near York. 

The Premier conceded that the environment assessment of the SITA proposal could have been more stringent and the proposed route, the Great Southern Highway, was not in good shape to accommodate an increase in road train traffic. These could both be taken as the understatements of this millennium.

Was there a ‘West’ reporter there? No!

Could the ‘West’ and its current Editor, Brett McCarthy give ‘a fat rat’s arse’? No they would not!

Twenty-five years ago The West Australian ran a successful scare-mongering campaign against the Perth Daily News, claiming it would default on its creditors and not fulfil its contractual obligations to its advertisers. At that time ‘The Daily News’ had a circulation greater than The West Australian’s is today and (you guessed it) owed ‘The West’ $15 million in unpaid printing costs.

‘The West’s’ covert chicanery left it as Perth’s only daily newspaper, yet it has still stuffed it up despite now having nearly double the population to coerce into readers.
At one stage there appeared to be the possibility that the Daily News would return to WA Newspapers as it had been between 1950 and 1987.

Many believe that Bob Baxt, the Chairman of the Trade Practices Commission was the culprit by refusing to allow this to happen.

Yet there is another very plausible theory. WA Newspapers Editor-in-Chief, Bob Cronin, chose a Sub-Editor to promote and organize any integration of The Daily News back into the fold. This person had none of the skills required to undertake such a task.

It is highly likely that WA Newspapers hierarchy preferred the Daily News be liquidated because, as a major creditor, and broke itself, it wanted some of its $15 million printing debt back- and could not afford to take back the Daily News. (Only five staff from the Daily News were employed
or re-employed by The West.)

To cap everything off in its 20-year slide to mediocrity (and that is way too kind an assessment) there have been fifty-five redundancies in ‘The West’s’ editorial departments since 2009.

It now runs on ‘The Smell of an Oily Rag’- and it shows.

David Taylor.



LET’S TWIT AGAIN.  (There’s a merry din in Merredin and we’re hamming it up in Northam)

Media mediocrity is a virtue Voters

That old Nationals Rooster, Joh Bjelke Petersen used to say he was ‘off to feed the chooks’ meaning his pen-pals the ‘Press’. Particularly when he’d been caught tearing open paper bags full of dodgy cash from Queensland’s ‘White Shoe Brigade’.

He wasn’t being endearing, he felt the press were stupid and he could feed them stool on a stick.

Some say The West Australian journos are more like quail, you need much less lashings of stool and just a teeny twig! (I’m not talking the stool you sit on here, but the word does rhyme with ‘sit’.)

How dare they say that about my quail!

Mamamia loves her quail, they always make her look good in a hard hat, never mention Barbie Dolls, never ask about her allowing asbestos to be dumped in a water catchment area in her electorate and where all those paper bags full of Royalty for Regions slush funds have disappeared.

AND-I just love the way they headline ‘Exclusive’ on every little publicity hand-out they get from Sue Murphy at the Water Corporation such as ’Exclusive’ ‘Perth’s water use plummets’ on page 1, Wednesday April 27 edition and how they exclusively exclude any reference to Rural, Regional and Remote WA. (Sorry ‘The West’ doesn’t do ‘Remote’ anymore!)

The punters think journos have been sneaking through rubbish bins as good investigative journalists should- when all that happens is that a ‘Press Release’ pops up on a computer on the Chief of Staff’s desk.

Obviously my ‘Water Nymphs’ claim that all the ‘plummeting’ is because of our magnificent, hard-hitting ‘Whatever you do, just drop two’ (but not your daks in the shower) Waterwise campaign.

Yet what’s really been plummeting over the past year is the WA economy and thousands upon thousands now carefully watch their water bills, not for water conservation reasons, but for budgetary self-preservation.

I must admit that Daniel someone-or-other who wrote the story was a tad cheeky for a quail. She asked me, Mamamia, the Goddess of CO2, had me, myself, I been complacent in water management? I said of course not, we’ve spent $2 billion developing climate-resilient sources such as desalination plants.

The silly little chook, sorry quail, didn’t seem to cotton-on that $1.4 billion of that $2 billion was spent long before I became the Goddess, (sorry) Water Minister. (That was a big let off that I expect from my quail!)

She could have also been kind enough to mention that 300,000 million Indian’s currently do not have a drop-to-drink because of drought. That pales our little 2.8 million population water shortage problem into insignificance, doesn’t it?

It would appear that some of the Premier’s former cronies, like Rob Johnson, may now think that  Col. Barnett is becoming a bit of a ‘Mister Wobbly Helmet’ and a Colon rather than a Colin.

He’s been rabbiting on about how he is becoming a Liberal Party Deity, ‘low hanging fruit’ has all been picked, the state ‘is not on the bones of its bum’, he wants to use Royalties for Regions for ‘the real stuff’ and what he is doing would ‘ look very sensible’ not just sensible when a budget surplus returns.

Many are starting to think that that surplus may not return in your political lifetime Col. ‘Old boy’or the year 2090, whichever comes sooner.

Last week the Premier, like the Treasurer, snuck up the back alley into my York, the place I just love to little itsy-bitsy pieces.

He’s been discussing the Sacred SITA Rubbish Tip Site with my beloved constituents without my astute and highly valued input as someone who knows everything about CO2 (and I do give a ‘rat’s’).

Nice one Col!

TO OFFER YOUR CONDOLENCES TO ME- PLEASE DO NOT HESITATE TO CALL MAMAMIA ON 9041 1702 (MERREDIN OFFICE) 9622 2871 (NORTHAM OFFICE) or email mia.davies@mp.wa.gov.au .
(If sending flowers?-I love roses and carnations.)