Apr 112008
 

This issue raises the question of just what is and what isn’t acceptable to the Australian media – let alone the Australian public – in regard to what a PM’s wife does for a career, what her earnings are & where they come from, and essentially, just how well off the PM might be due to his marital share in his wife’s profitability.


As a guide to just how far up the ladder of importance the issue ranks, let me say firstly that I found the item three-quarters of the way down the page of the online Herald Sun edition. It ranked well and truly after a story about Darrell Lea winning a court case against Cadbury over a shade or purple, and received one-third of the commentary feedback from the usually partisan conservative crowd which read the rag.
Putting aside the matter of Labor Party hierarchy inefficiency in not ensuring that such matters are well and truly dispensed with and out of the purview of the partisan media, the primary question I just have to ask is this. Do we, as Australians, really care how well off our Prime Minister is? Do we care about what his wife does or doesn’t do by way of her own career path, her earnings and occupation? Let’s be honest and admit that we all envy the incomes of our elected representatives but rarely, if ever, take into account the 24/7 call on their time for which the remuneration compensates. Certainly, being a pollie is a ‘perky’ job. That’s the nature of the calling. Plenty of corporate high-fliers would be doing a damn sight better, I’m sure. Should we, perhaps, be demanding that every single politician nominate their spouses annual earnings and sources on their pecuniary interests register? I’ll bet a pound to a penny that some very untoward revelations would be forthcoming were that the case.
If this type of journalism is all the MSM have on Rudd, then I say, good luck to them. What Therese Rein does by way of making a buck matters not a dot to me, grants included. Doubtless, there are many more supposed irregularities out there which have greater impact on the public purse, that the MSM don’t see as newsworthy enough to publish. What matters to me is the way Kevin Rudd and federal Labor conducts affairs of state and administers the political environment we all live under.

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