Are Murdoch media cartoons with Rudd dressed as a Chinese Communist really funny per se? I think not.
In fact, the cartoon doesn't even make much sense until you realise that it's tied to a shill story from "social researchers" at the rightwing Centre for Independent Studies. Here's the story blurb on the main Opinion page:
THE PM's child centres smell of command economies.Here's a pic, in case they change it:
In fact, the story itself doesn't seriously explore this political angle. It's just an underlying theme:
Let's call them PC centres, for with universal child care at its core, this is a very PC idea...The stupidity of the authors is fully revealed in the final para:
These centres will weaken the third sector [charities] and strengthen the power of government... Open, democratic societies rely on a strong and vibrant third sector as a check and buffer against government power. In Australia, this is fast disappearing.
These centres will further erode the autonomy of the states within our federal system... Canberra is shifting more power to itself in the name of efficiency.
Before it commits to a huge expenditure such as this, the Government should take a deep breath and tell us the ultimate objective of its family strategy. Is it to get more mums back into work to ease the labour shortage? If so, government-run baby farms may be a good plan.Disgraceful journalism (yet again) from the Murdoch stable and their corporate sponsors. Bill Leak should know better than to promote such blatantly biased bullshit.
UPDATE: Good to see Tim Dunlop has also picked up on this shilling.
