Laurie Oakes is doing well - but can he break through the superficiality of the Work Choices issue?

I have been extremely critical of Nine Network's Laurie Oakes in the past, particular about his reporting of the 2007 election. The bias and the cavalier dismissal of John Howard and his calling Tony Abbott a joke and the mad monk were reprehensible for a media commentator of his supposed stature. This election campaign has marked a real change.

Deservedly his question to Julia Gillard at the National Press Club was called a 'bombshell'. This was journalistic theatre that was entirely legitimate. It got to the heart of an incident of national importance, an incident that had been closed off by the participants - or so two out of the three thought. That question rocked Julia Gillard and her supporters and will continue to echo through the election campaign. In addition Oakes has mostly been judicious and balanced in his reporting so far. The exception is the Work Choices issue and the way Gillard and the Labor are working it over. Why hasn't he gone a little deeper than the media en masse is doing. The superficiality of the reporting is exemplified in Nine's political reporter Jayne Assopardi. This morning on the Today show she began her report by saying that Tony Abbott had announced a

...raft of budget cuts among which was 'cutting funding to Industrial elections, things like secret ballots when they're being conducted by unions, but the problem with that is it would require him to make changes to Labor's Fair Work Act which is something he promised not to do as part of his pledge not to bring back Work Choices. So when the Prime Minister addressed a union function in Melbourne last night she took that political gift and she ran with it and lashed out at the opposition leader...

We then had vision of Gillard with this excerpt from her talk:

Tony Abbott needs to explain to the Australian people without legal niceties and weasel words his plans. He needs to speak out how he plans to honour his promise to business groups to bring back individual contracts and strip away protection from unfair dismissal...

[Assopardi] ...So we are likely to hear more of that campaign work choices today.

You've got to ask why Assopardi left it at that. Why can't she see Gillard's unwarranted leap in argument that Assopardi herself has isolated? How on earth can one conclude from Abbott's cutting of funding to Industrial elections that he is going introduce his Work Choice legislation. The conclusion does not follow. But there is a further absurdity connected to this bodgie reasoning. If any change at all to the Fair Work legislation is ruled out of court because it means a step to the introduction Work Choices then any improvement Abbott could make to the Fair Work legislation logically means that it is aimed at destroying it by introducing Work Choices. This is madness.

We know, of course, that logic has nothing to do with Gillard's performance. The aim is to discredit Tony Abbott in any way possible - even if that means running illogical argument in a vehicle of choice weasel words.

Come on, Laurie Oakes, let's have a break through in this Work Choices issue.

Comment: gerard@gerardcharleswilson.com