What Media Watch package didn’t tell us

Chris Merritt
JUNE 18, 2014
THE AUSTRALIAN
THE ABC’s Media Watch has ­declined to explain why it sought to defend the effectiveness of the Gillard government’s plain-packaging laws for tobacco by ­relying on analysis by two of the Gillard government’s advisers.
Based on the views of those ­advisers, Media Watch concluded on Monday that The Australian was wrong when it reported plain- packaging laws had led to an ­increase in cigarette consumption.
The political involvement of one of these advisers, Mike Daube, was disclosed by Media Watch while the other, Stephen Kouk­oulas, was described only as a well-known economist.
Professor Daube had chaired a government panel that favoured plain-packaging laws while Mr Koukoulas had been Julia Gillard’s senior economics adviser.
Media Watch executive producer Tim Latham declined to say whether he knew Mr Koukoulas had been on Ms Gillard’s staff and instead issued a statement describing him as a well-respected economist whose conclusions were supported by figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Mr Latham declined to explain why Media Watch had selectively quoted from a tobacco industry statement in a way that excluded material that supports The Australian’s report cigarette sales were rising despite the plain-packaging laws.
The material excluded by Media Watch says: “Subsequently, since plain packs were introduced on 1 December, 2012, industry ­volumes have actually grown for the first time in a long time to +0.3 per cent.
“With growth in industry volumes, fewer people quitting and a jump in the amount of cheap ­illegal cigarettes on the streets, you could draw the conclusion that people are actually smoking more now than before plain packaging came into effect.”
Instead of explaining his program’s lack of disclosure and selec­tive quoting, Mr Latham issued a statement saying Media Watch disputes The Australian’s report and had explained its reasons using all available data including figures from the ABS.
The transcript of last Monday’s program, available on the Media Watch website, shows the program relied on Mr Koukoulas’s analysis of the ABS data and repeatedly cited his conclusions. Mr Koukoulas had been with Ms Gillard as senior economics policy adviser between September 2010 and July 2011 — a period that overlaps with the plain-packing laws.
When the draft legislation was unveiled in April 2011, Mr Koukoulas had been on the former prime minister’s staff for seven months.
Instead of explaining the ­exclusion of tobacco industry statements that undermined his program’s conclusions, Mr Latham’s statement says the industry’s figures “show the number of smokers and number of cigarettes smoked per person is falling”.
“And the ABS figures show overall consumption in 2013 was 0.9 per cent lower than overall consumption in 2012, a figure that is even higher when adjusted for population growth.”
Media’s Watch’s decision not to disclose Mr Koukoulas’s political past comes soon after The Age also sought to cast doubt on The Australian’s report by relying on the views of the other key player in Monday’s Media Watch segment, Professor Daube.
On June 7, the day after The Australian’s report, The Age quoted Professor Daube as dismissing the research that formed the basis for the report as “shonky and appalling”.
That newspaper’s readers were not told that Professor Daube had chaired a Gillard government panel that favoured plain-packaging laws.
The decision by Media Watch not to reveal Mr Koukoulas’s role in the Gillard government is out of step with the practice adopted by other parts of the ABC including the PM program and ABC website The Drum.
The code of ethics of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance — the union that covers jour­nalists — has rules against suppressing relevant facts.
Clause one of the code of ethics says: “Report and interpret honestly, striving for accuracy, fairness and disclosure of all essential facts. Do not suppress relevant available facts or give distorting emphasis …”
Mr Koukoulas makes no secret of his political past. His website says: “Between September 2010 and July 2011, Stephen was senior economic adviser to the prime minister, Julia Gillard.”
He left Ms Gillard’s office just over two years before she was replaced by Kevin Rudd, but Mr Koukoulas remained fiercely loyal to his former employer.
On election night last year, when Labor lost office, Mr Koukoulas’s use of Twitter made headlines. Some of his tweets were reproduced in The Sydney Morning Herald.
They included: “Time for Rudd to leave politics. A poisonous man who takes all the credit for Abbott’s win. I assume Abbott will thank Rudd first. What an ­absolute shit show. Go Kevin. Bye. Loser, Spoiler, Snake