Nine Entertainment — owner of the Nine Network, the SMH, The Age, 2GB, 3AW, 4BC, 6PR and more; chairman Peter Costello — “used its historic TV studios in the Sydney suburb of Willoughby to host a $10,000-a-head corporate fundraiser for the Liberal party on Monday night. …[C]orporates paid handsomely for the chance to dine with the prime minister, Scott Morrison, and the communications minister, Paul Fletcher… All the funds raised — at least $700,000 — will go into Liberal party coffers.” This is shameless, but not surprising. As Tim Dunlop pointed out last week, “People often claim, or presume, that there is, or has been, some sort of ideological divide between the Murdoch media and Fairfax, with the former habitually anti-Labor, and the latter more progressive. What [Sally] Young shows [in Paper Giants] is that, in terms of electoral support, ALL Australian newspapers have been virulently anti-Labor. … It is a useful reminder of the hill Labor has to climb at every single election, when the mainstream media is so implacably opposed, almost to their very existence, and at the least, to the idea of them forming government.”
archive: September 2019
3 September 2019
1 September 2019
Men need to take more parental leave: “What can a government do to encourage the best fathers possible? The single greatest gift might be functional parental leave policies that actually encourage men to take time off and be active early in family life. Right now paternity leave in Australia isn’t working for fathers. Just one in four use the two weeks’ leave available to them as ‘partner pay’ in the first year of a child’s life. The obvious reason is it is paid at the minimum wage, which means it doesn’t resolve the conflict that fathers face in choosing between financially supporting or spending time with their families.” Recent studies link increased paternal leave with more equal division of housework (even years later), greater life satisfaction for both partners, and lower divorce rates. Setting up the father’s involvement is important for their kids, too: “Toddlers whose fathers play with them with warmth and encouragement go on to have better results in maths and reading in primary school… in addition to other benefits for the child’s emotional regulation, social adjustment and mental health… The specific activities were less important than the quality of the play and father’s degree of involvement.”