STORM ALERT 27 - NW SHELF OIL 'RUNS OUT'

                                           STORM ALERT 27

STORM ALERT is published in the national interest. No action should be inferred or implied. 

North-West Shelf gas & oil from the new oil fields off Western Australia are earmarked for export via US energy giants Exxon & Chevron to China only. None is reserved for 'domestic consumption' even in Western Australia. It is predicted this will lead to a shortage of oil & gas in WA itself by 2015.

The same situation applies in Qld & NSW where their Coal Seam Gas fields are being emptied by Chinese gas companies for export to China on Chinese ships via Chinese pipelines & Chinese ports. Not heard about this?

Back to the 1990's, under the Hawke Federal ALP regime, we had the 'Cash for Comments Affair'. A corruption scandal emerged which revealed major sections of our private media, including John Laws, at that time our highest paid talk-back radio host, were being paid NOT to criticise certain companies.  Laws alone was paid AUD$4.5 million per year for his silence. Even the media title for the Affair - 'cash for comments' is misleading. It should have been 'cash for silence'.

Laws alone was exposed. Many others continue to receive payoffs. Laws was never punished nor was his radio station. Was this an isolated case? No. In 2008 the retiring former CEO of CNN boasted "we allow no criticism of our major advertisers". In other words, just like John Laws, when you buy advertising space  on a media outlet you are also buying immunity from public exposure.

You should no longer wonder why so little real 'news' appears on the TV 'news'. Indeed, these now appear to be little but 'info-mercials' plugging the latest fashions or trends. A source revealed to us in the 1990's that "the Sales division at Channel Seven (our No.2 ratings network) has taken over the News division".

The advent of so many females to the media has only accelerated this (a recent QUT Journalism class had 24 females to three males). Females have a natural bent away from 'conflict' (stories like war) & towards consensus ('puff' pieces like food or fashion). That is why your TV 'news' now follows a format similar to the 'Australian Woman's Weekly' or 'Women's Day'.

This is the end result of loud calls by feminists for 'a women's perspective in the media'. These two trends, towards bribe-taking for soft peddling news on corporate giants combine with a female-dominated media who dodge all tough issues, produce the trivalised dross we now call 'media' where they only pursue little fish - those not paying them bribes.