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Glen - Breakfast Host: …

I paid a quick visit to Sydney’s Eastern suburbs beaches last week to ask people what they made of the some of the news stories of the week.

I was working for ABC TV’s Insiders program - it’s not something I do for fun - for the ‘Your Shout’ segment that aired on Sunday morning.

The questions about the government’s move to maintain protection for the local publishing industry from parallel importing of possibly cheaper books drew responses mostly supportive of the government action.

Many were keen to support Australian authors and were therefore happy to continue paying the current prices for books. Some, of course, thought books were too expensive and thought the local industry needs to be exposed to the full force of the international market and all its pricing pressures.

What I was amazed by was the quite feral reaction to the move by certain media outlets. The Australian newspaper reacted like it had been personally fouled by the government’s refusal to adopt free market economic models for all areas of Australian business and culture. Front page headlines screamed betrayal, comment pieces angrily decried the government’s failure to act, and editorial writers complained it was a weak-kneed decision made to merely appease the ‘luvvie set’ of book reading lefties from well-off suburbs. (Yes, dear.) Not everybody agreed. http://www.abc.net.au/insiders/content/2009/s2743137.htm

The reactions I received to questions about how people viewed the way the government had handled the asylum seeker stand-off in Indonesia were also interesting. Many saying it was sending the wrong signal and preferring the tougher stance of old. These different responses to separate issues from the same people shows you shouldn’t generalise about who might think what , no matter where they are from.

You can apparently be supportive of cultural protection and in favour of tough border protection at the same time. The story was moving at the time ( as were some of the asylum seekers), so the book issue was the one that ran on TV. The Sculpture By The Sea exhibition seemed to be meeting with approval as well, by the way.

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Marius - Politics:

The past weekend for me involved a lot of socialising with other journalists, both print and broadcast.

That involved a certain amount of substantial policy debate on emissions trading, asylum seekers and more.

But there was also time for a look at politics as sport, and particularly the heavyweight contest for leadership. Not a lot to be said about the government leadership, although one well informed print colleague has seen what he thinks could be the beginning of the end of the Rudd supremacy.

He saw that in the battle over the protection of the local book publishing industry. The ministry was split on the issue and Kevin Rudd had excused himself from the debate on it, on the grounds his daughter was an author.

The crack in the Rudd facade was seen in the fact that a cabinet minister had leaked the Prime Minister’s non-role to Paul Kelly in the Australian, indicating, he felt, deep dissatisfaction with the leader at the top of the Labor government.

Well, maybe. It could be a straw in the wind, but you’d like to see a little more hay blowing around before drawing conclusions about any definite change in direction.

On the other side of politics there was no shortage in weekend conversations of people ready to write Malcolm Turnbull’s political epitaph. Peter van Onselen, writing in the Sunday Telegraph, pointed to the final weeks of parliament sitting and the long summer break that follows as being a traditional “killing season” for leaders.

And there were quite a few people at the weekend gatherings ready to predict that the Liberal leader will be gone by Christmas - even though nobody particularly wants his job at the moment.

Those predicting his demise see him going after losing in the party room on the emissions trading issue and being replaced by, probably, Joe Hockey or, less likely, Tony Abbott.

Hockey has the appeal of being a generally liked figure, but the disadvantage is that he shares the small ‘l’ Liberal views of the incumbent - the views that have put him at odds with party power brokers like Senator Nick Minchin.

Tony Abbott is more in line with the Liberal “hardliners” on issues like climate change, but there is a question in the minds of many over his ability to command support in the decisive centre of Australian politics.

Stay tuned, the next couple of weeks will see the battle over emissions trading reaching a climax. The debate will see a heady mix of policy, personality and power.

And there could be some high drama before the silly season begins