If I thought for one moment that Malcolm Turnbull had the public’s interest at heart then I would support him. But I am very disappointed in his behaviour since he became leader of the opposition party.

I admit that when he became leader I was an enthusiastic supporter of his and very hopeful that he would be a viable alternative to the government. But he is not. He turned out to be someone who will oppose just to oppose instead of weighing up the situation and thinking of the good of the country.

His ambition is as strong as Kevin Rudd’s and that would be excusable if he were willing to contribute some good suggestions for the economy. After all, as a banker by profession he should benefit from his experience and yet, in interviews he always refuses to offer an alternative. When asked what he would do he criticises the government. If he has good suggestions he is keeping them to himself and that shows where his priorities lie.

Mind you, Peter Costello is doing the same thing. Now wouldn’t you expect him to help out during this crisis? On second thought, perhaps not. I suspect he would like every Australian to suffer deprivation rather than be a helping hand. And then he would smirk and give interviews when what he deserves is a big slap in the face.

I don’t support the Rudd government’s money handouts. But I do support the rest of the stimulus package and it is shameful that Turnbull will now prance around trying to get headlines “when things is grim”. This is not a time to be divided.

As it is, even the infrastructure projects will take a few months to get off the ground. We have no time to lose and Turnbull is doing himself a lot of damage by pretending to be against the initiative.

I don’t even know what he stands for any more. He has lost my support and I am surprised that I could have had such high hopes for him and been so wrong.

Yesterday, we cancelled our subscription to “The Age” newspaper. We have written to Don Churchill (CEO and publisher of that newspaper) to explain why we can no longer tolerate the philosophy which guides “The Age”. He should be receiving our letter sometime this week. From next week we will be getting delivery of “The Australian.”

As background information, we relocated to Melbourne at the end of July last year. Avid readers that we are, we believed we should be learning about local Victorian issues and becoming familiar with the situation here. Our friends advised us against getting “The Age” if we wanted a balanced reporting about Israel. Despite their advice we went ahead and subscribed to the publication.

We are not sorry that we did this because now we know how biased this newspaper’s reporting is. Whenever something about Israel came up in the news, “The Age” was eager to blame Israel while defending the Palestinian or Muslim or Arab point of view.

Even when they published letters from the Jewish community which objected to this unbalanced reporting, there would be one letter that was pro-Israel, and three letters that were condemning Israel. Glaring factual errors were not corrected, or most likely, not allowed to be corrected

This was unfair and made us question “The Age’s” motivation.

The cartoons from Leunig and others were so prejudiced that had this approach been taken towards the Arabs, there would have been riots in the streets. As indeed there were over the Danish cartoon hysteria.

I stopped paying attention to what “The Age” was writing but my husband believes that it is good to know what the “enemy” thinks and does. His use of that terminology is revealing, isn’t it?

As for getting news about Melbourne, we learned a lot about some “reformed” druggie called Ben Cousins and other pathetic examples for our youth to emulate. As far as we could see, the local news was not informative. We could learn immediate news items from the internet and TV.

Let’s face it, newspapers are not current. By the time they are published, the news has been broadcast on other media. So the biggest attraction of newspapers is their longer articles, the columns from contributors, and even the Letters to the Editor which should be a selection of opinions from both sides, for and against and not just from one side. I would not want “The Age” to be totally biased against the Arab view either. There is no benefit in that because it just becomes propaganda.

The tipping point, to use the latest jargon, was “The Age’s” reporting on the constant shelling of Israeli towns by Hamas militants and the subsequent retaliation by Israel which is still going on as I write.

I don’t intend to go into the details of what is happening in the Middle East right now, but in my opinion, if you keep shelling me I will not keep taking it forever. Everyone has a right to self-defence. Israel should not be expected to sit back and do nothing about missiles being directed towards its civilian population. I am always amazed by Israel’s patience in the midst of such provocation.

None of this patience is ever mentioned in “The Age”. The fact that Israel wants to live in peace alongside its Arab neighbours is conveniently played down by this paper.

And if that is the way that “The Age” reports on affairs in the Middle East, then how can I believe what it writes about the rest of the world?

By lunchtime yesterday I had given up watching the broadcast of the 2020 Summit in Canberra. Call me a sucker for punishment, but I couldn’t resist watching some more in the afternoon. Continue reading →

He was not invited. He is no friend and yet he has the audacity to turn up in Israel before going to fraternise with Hamas leaders in Gaza. As if that’s not enough of an insult, he intends to meet with Hamas supremo Khaled Meschaal who’s operating from Damascus. Continue reading →