Person: Dan Webb Political journalist.

Q1. What is the role of the media in our democracy?   DW. If you have not got media covering politics then people do not know what is going on. I have got a little experience in that I went to Brazil as the dictatorship in Brazil was ending. It was quite frightening to see how a large proportion of the public was kept in the dark about what was happening in Brazil while the dictatorship was running things,and so it is pretty easy to see. Also, if you have a look at what is going on in Yugoslavia or Serbia at the moment, it is clearly important that people should be informed. Otherwise what is the point of having a democracy if you cannot exert your rights and vote freely and know what is going on and get the truth recorded, if you don’t then I do not think you have much chance of a lasting democracy.   Q2. Is it a hard life being a political journalist?   DW. I didn't find it hard; I really enjoyed my years as a political journalist. I was 14 years, I think it was, covering state politics in Victoria and I enjoyed it all the time. I found it pretty hard - the biggest problem I had was keeping up with the reading of reports. I found I had to bring them home at night and, as a result, in retirement I am enjoying reading all the things I wanted to read but couldn't because of having to go through acts that were about to be introduced or reports, hundreds of reports are tabled in Parliament every year and to keep up with those is important because very often you get a good story out of it.   Q3. What are the relations like between the Parliament and journalists?   DW. Between the Parliament and journalists I would say the relations are pretty good. If you mean between parliamentarians and journalists, it varies. I found that if you wanted to know what was going on in Parliament, supposing a new bill was being introduced and you didn't fully understand it, the best thing was to go to selected members of Parliament and ask them, especially those who were interested in that particular bill. I say it without any shame at all, I had a very good contact in the Victorian Parliament in Peter Ross-Edwards, the Leader of the National Party. He was not in government because he was not part of a coalition and he was not associated with the Labor Party so he was the Leader of the National Party and he had a very good perspective of legislation that was being introduced. I used to go to him and ask him if he could spare me a few moments to explain what he thought the legislation was all about. The relations are what the journalists make them. There are some journalists, I think, who try, or used to try, to become television stars by being aggressive and rude and unpleasant. I don't think it got them anywhere because I don't think any parliamentarians had very much to do with them.   Q4. Are there any constraints on what and how you report?   DW. In Parliament, no. There are occasions when they go into a closed session where the press is excluded but question time is the most productive time for journalists in Parliament, and all the parties know that. This is why they direct questions, either to embarrass or to get embarrassing answers, but I don't think there are any constraints, not on the part of the Parliament and certainly not on the part of the editors who send you to Parliament to cover the stories there.   Q5. So can the Parliament prevent you from running a story?   DW. Federal Parliament can, well, used to be able to, anyway. There was a sort of order called a D notice. I think it stemmed from World War 2, and the press is always playing up the freedom of the press and arguing that the press should be completely free. There were some things like the bombing of Darwin which had to be kept secret because they didn't want the Japanese to know how much damage they had done in Darwin so they clamped a D notice on that sort of thing and as far as I know that is really the only area. There is an expression, which I am sure you have heard, 'this is off the record'. There are parliamentarians who in the middle of an interview will say, 'This is off the record' and when they say it is off the record it is and you are not really permitted to quote what they said, but there are ways of getting around it. Experienced journalists know how - they say unnamed sources said that such-and-such a thing happened and that is the way they dived around it. Most journalists who are ethical would respect an off-the-record request, and certainly if you did not respect a D notice, well, you would be in real trouble.   Q6. How hard is it to get a story? Do people in the Parliament leak things to the media or do you have to find out everything by investigation?   DW. Certainly people in Parliament leak things to the media and the various parties have people who are chosen to leak things to journalists. It is done on a discriminatory basis, usually because the parties leaking the information want a considered report rather than a wild sensational report on something. The media is used quite heavily by all parties and by individual politicians too to suit their needs. But, look, it is not difficult to get a story. I mentioned at the start about reading all these reports. Any journalist that read all the reports tabled in Parliament in a year would have far more stories coming out of what he picked up in those reports than he could ever run. There is never any shortage of stories in politics but the trouble is getting space in the media, and this is one of the things I used to find very annoying. If there was a bus crash or a bushfire, my story would be dropped. Now my story, in my opinion, was far more important than the bus crash or the bushfire.   Q7. Do the political parties manipulate the media?   DW. Yes, I think so. When you say 'manipulate' they use the media for their own ends and I am not sure - yes, there are times when one party will purposely go out of its way to get a story put to air or published in the paper which will bring an opposition party screaming to its defence. It is done on purpose - yes, the parties do manipulate the media, I am sure of that.   Q8. To what extent do the political biases of newspaper editors affect what articles get published?   DW. I never ever had any interference from my editor. He was very respected - John Maher, he was a top editor at Channel 7, and he never ever told me not to run a story even when I received anonymously a letter signed, reportedly signed, by the director of the Liberal Party. It claimed that there was branch stacking going on in one of the branches of the Liberal Party. It was quite a sensational piece of information to have in my hands and John Maher wanted to know what my sources were. I could not tell him because I didn't know - it was something that was on my desk when I arrived at work one morning. So, yes, it is a bit difficult to answer your question. But as far as I am concerned - and I think you would have to deal with this on a personal basis, because all editors obviously watch what their journalists are doing - if you are trusted completely then you are in a place of great respect and I felt that I was always in that position.   Q9. Has there ever been an occasion where the media got it seriously wrong in their treatment of a political news item?   DW. I don't know how to answer that question. I am sure, yes, if you look at the defeat of Jeff Kennett at the last election. None of the media tipped Jeff Kennett's defeat. They all assumed that he was going to be returned. I think they got it and they got it wrong in their reporting leading up to the election, but that is a fairly minor thing. I think what you are asking is whether the interpretation of legislation was wrong. I think there have been occasions of course. I don't know that I can cite them except for some reason or other I used to be sent to the lock-up for the federal budget and also for the state budget and as somebody who was not trained in economics at all and really did not understand fiscal matters, I probably misinterpreted something and got it wrong. I never got rapped over the knuckles for it but it is easy to get things wrong. It is easy to misinterpret, unless you have the guidance of some of the experts in Parliament itself. That is why it is important to have a contact in Parliament, in the parties, to be able to go and ask them are you reading it right or not.   Q10. If you could change one aspect of political life tomorrow, what would it be?   DW. I think the party system. When I was in Parliament, the party system was a thing that worried me. I felt that there were many occasions when I saw politicians voting in favour of legislation which they did not personally favour, and they had to vote in favour of it because that was following the party line. I felt it was wrong. I think it is a pity because the party line tends to eliminate the characters of Parliament and if you look back in history, there have been some tremendous characters. People either hated him or they loved him - Jeff Kennett was a very controversial character. I remember once when he first went into opposition he spoke at a meeting down at, I think it was Morwell, but it was certainly down in Gippsland. He spoke off the cuff and it was a remarkable speech because he felt it and you could tell from the way he delivered it that he felt it and he was very sincere about it and it was an excellent speech. It was misinterpreted in many parts and sensationalised I think because it was just so different from what we had been used to getting from people like Dick Hamer and so on, but there was this very forthright speech and he got a rap over the knuckles from the Liberal Party, according to my sources, about this and was told that in future he would have to speak from notes. Well, I think that is a pity. I think it is a pity when individual politicians are restricted by the party organisation. I think it is a mistake, but sometimes, of course, it brings parties to power and personalities to power.   Q11. Do the members of the opposing parties really hate each other or do they quietly go off and have beers together after a hard day at Parliament?   DW. I'd find it hard to answer the second part of the question. They don't hate each other, obviously, I mean all politicians have something in common and that is a desire to do something for the public. I am not so cynical that I believe that politicians are in there to make a quid for themselves, an easy buck, that is not true. Politicians are really there to do something for the community, and in that capacity they tend to get together and discuss what they see wrong and what they see right and they certainly, well of course they have a beer together, but they don't hate each other.   Q12. What would you like to see changed about the reporting of political life in Victoria?   DW. I think I made the complaint already that my stories used to be dropped on Channel 7 not for any reason that they were politically sensitive or anything like that, but there was not space. There is not enough space on television for good political coverage, I think. But on the other hand, the editor, the management of a television station particularly might argue that if you went to any greater lengths in your reports then it would be very boring and people would turn off. I think radio would probably be the same thing - that people would yawn - so you really only get the headlines in the radio and the television and I think Current Affairs programs could do a little bit more on the political basis rather than all the cripples and the hard-done-by stories. I would like to see more politics on current affairs.   Q13. Do you feel the youth of today are actively involved in politics and are they aware of political issues?   DW. I can only really answer that because I have got a grandson who is studying politics and I was interested that he and his brother both went down and worked in an electoral office voluntarily at the last state election. They were not getting paid and they put in three or four days down there and they were really upset at the end that nobody said thank you. So they are interested in politics and the studies are interesting. I have books on politics and this middle grandson of mine, Lachlan, he will come over and ask if he can borrow them. He goes through my library. I have still got a library of political books and he goes through those and he tells me he enjoys them. I hope he does.   Q14. Do you think the nature of modern media distorts the political process or the public perception of it?   DW. Yes, I think so. I don't think the public has got much idea of how much thought goes into legislation. All of a sudden you see it on the front page of The Age that something is going to be changed or there is a new GST concession from Canberra - I know that is federal politics. But I think the media, because of the constraints of space and time tends to distort things, to emphasise, or over-emphasise the importance of some legislation and perhaps to miss the importance of other legislation. It is something that comes with the pressure of news on the day. I always remember a very good quote I heard - 'News is a measure of the conflict in our society'. That has nothing to do with politics necessarily except that when there is a lot of conflict and a lot of things going on that perhaps we don't really want to see from overseas or maybe from other parts of Australia. That takes up the space that should be given to local politics and legislation which is of importance to the local community.