Federal crossbench politician Adam Bandt, was huffing and puffing the other day threatening to sue Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus KC for making allegedly defamatory statements suggesting the Greens’ leader was responsible for damage to some MPs’ electorate offices where long-running protests by pro-Palestinian groups have been staged to highlight the genocidal tactics being used by the Israeli Government against the people living (at time of publication) in Gaza.

Our Media Glass House researchers take this opportunity to offer Mr Bandt some gratuitous and totally unqualified advice – that is unqualified in the sense that none of them is a lawyer.

They suggest that Mr Bandt instead sue the Murdoch media for its blatantly defamatory treatment of him and his party.

The national broadshit The Australian is the best example of how the hair-trigger response by News Crap Australia is to accuse critics of being antisemitic if they make even the slightest criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu and the murderous genocidal gang of war criminals masquerading as his government.

Take for example the headline in Thursday’s Australian (below) which followed attacks on Bandt and the Greens by PM Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton. It was not a quoted criticism or accusation by a Bandt critic. It was a statement by The Australian presented as fact.

Then there was the paper’s editorial and Thursday’s main editorial cartoon. (below)

Our MGH teams point out that to qualify as antisemitic your comments need to be pretty horrendous, according to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. Visit the IHRA site to see for yourself.

Our MGH teams also reckon that the reported comments by Bandt and others over the course of the Gaza war fall a long way short of qualifying.

Unfortunately, Bandt’s sin has been not to toe the Murdoch media’s line on the Gaza war and therefore incur the wrath of News Crap Australia and its willingness to label as antisemitic any utterance even mildly critical of the Israeli Government and its military tactics – something that doesn’t meet the IHRA definitions.

Once again, some unqualified advice to Mr Bandt from our MGH teams – sue The Oz and all who continue to defame you and your fellow MPs who are being equally defamed by News Crap Australia.

If you think you can’t afford the bills, wait until you start a crowdfunding campaign!

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A lot of media outlets wrote a lot of stories about the promise made on Tuesday by Queensland Opposition Leader David Crisafulli (pictured below in an official LNP-issued photo) to honour commitments in the Labor Government’s 2024-2025 State Budget if his Liberal National Party wins office at October’s election.

Our MGH teams noted that his announcement on Tuesday sparked some heavy criticism. After all, here was the alternative Premier of Queensland promising to back Labor’s priorities and programs.

Not only that, but the State Budget isn’t handed down until next Tuesday.

It was a clumsy attempt to cut short Labor claims of an LNP government taking a machete to departmental budgets, programs, and staffing numbers.

“What is the point of changing governments?” many observers asked including Crisafulli’s former party leader and former premier Campbell Newman.

As noted above, the LNP leader’s statement provided material for lots of stories in the days after he made it. (below)

But apparently The Courier-Mail, the daily turdbloid newsletter published by the Bowen Hills branch of the LNP trading as News Crap Australia, didn’t think it worth following up.

It ran a rather small initial item in its Wednesday edition on page 10 (below) but then left it well alone, preferring apparently to pretend he never made the statement or that others thought he’d rather put his foot in it.

Our MGH researchers felt confident enough to bet their collective life savings on a wager that if a Labor Party leader had uttered such a statement they would be pilloried on page one every day until the election. And beyond.

Still, when you are basically the state opposition’s PR firm, you need to make such decisions not to run stories that might crowd out others such as ones we will see in coming days quoting the LNP opposition on how bad the 2024-2025 Budget is – when it’s delivered.

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It was good to hear News Crap Australia CEO Michael Miller use his speech at the National Press Club on Wednesday not only to warn of the risks posed by big global technology firms but also to declare hand-on-heart that his outfit is not obsessed with the ABC and is not running a campaign to destroy it just to enhance the Murdoch empire’s financial position.

A lot of people might have almost believed him when they read his remarks in the Thursday edition of their daily Murdoch turdbloid – until they shifted their gaze to the facing page. (below)

Maybe the anti-ABC yarn should have been a page or two further back in the book.

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