Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: "Because we can", in reply to Glenn Pearce,
Just to be correct she didn’t say (as Keith says in the spreadsheet) there were 161,000 beneficiaries who’d been on a benefit for 5 out of the 10 years, she said “people”. In theory they could all be working now but had been on benefits for 5 of the last 10 years.
You may be correct. But that’s not how the average person would have heard it – and it completely defeats the claim about people being intractably on benefits. They’re mobile – and, indeed, the system needs the labour market liquidity they represent. The unemployment benefit covering workers as they move in and out of the workforce is what’s actually meant to happen.
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And with that, Keith appeared. he says:
At Jun-12, 64,648 people on a main benefit have been on a benefit for >10 years. 69,449 for >4-10 years. Figures include people who have changed benefits over this time.
So, roughly speaking, the minister doubled the numbers. And no one called her on it.
Here’s the Google Doc.
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Hard News: Tired and emotional, for reals, in reply to Felix Marwick,
Russell, regarding your earlier point about being surprised that journalists don’t read transcripts. I
I'm more surprised that people in official positions don't read official transcripts. Journalists, especially in radio, not so much. You already have a verbatim record.
Having said that your get did actually make for an interesting story in and of itself. I’m guessing the State Department’s made some changes as a result.
I bet. Although I gather it was a little bit of a perfect storm that the problem coincided with a US public holiday.
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Hard News: "Because we can", in reply to Rob Stowell,
A minor gaffe? That’s not how it’s playing out-
He's fucked.
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Hard News: "Because we can", in reply to Richard Aston,
Considering a fair portion are solo parents it would be a stretch to double that figure to get the number of parents but I’d gues its less than 150 – 170,000 parents on all main benefits. Seems like pretty well all of them have been on benefits forever .
Which they quite clearly haven't. Has she juiced it up by counting the children of beneficiaries too? Or has she just made it up?
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Hard News: "Because we can", in reply to Ben Curran,
Do the numbers make more sense if you include sickness and/or superannuation?
Definitely not super -- that's not among the "main benefits". It possibly relates to invalid benefits, but there are only 83,000 of those, and they definitely haven't all been in receipt for 10+ years. They're also not to be subject to the sanctions the government is to pursue, so it's misleading to imply that they will.
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Hard News: Tired and emotional, for reals, in reply to Stephen Judd,
But if you want senior, is the new editor of The Press enough for you? ( @jojourno )
Turns out she was following me already. She clearly has excellent taste.
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Hard News: Tired and emotional, for reals, in reply to Stephen Judd,
I don’t see an obvious disparity between the two companies’ activity online, but I’m interested what Alastair had in mind.
I see what he meant. The two most senior editorial employees at the Herald, editor-in-chief Tim Murphy and editor Shayne Currie, have been active on Twitter, engaging with readers and largely getting the tone right. That's notable.
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Hard News: Tired and emotional, for reals, in reply to Stephen Judd,
(Why Campbell is lumped in with content-pillagers I have no idea. He writes long pieces that in no way rely on links or quotes from others.)
Hmmm ... he will sometimes focus on a handful of linked sources, but generally it's something I haven't already seen and always fairly attributed.
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Cracker: Bloggers: Pr*cks, Ars*holes,…, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Same is true in Science, travelling to conferences is tiring, sitting through boring seminars is … but you get to goto another country and meet some amazing people and some boring ones and some who are both.
You can’t really be taken seriously when you complain.
Sorta. It’s quite a bit harder when you have to find ways to file a story every day, even when there isn’t really a story, and you’re on the move and you have to hustle to get people to talk to you. Armstrong also has non-trivial health issues.
When I was an IT journalist in the glory days, it was much easier. You were really only expected to file one story, on return. And we really did get treated very well sometimes. Onya, Larry Ellison …