A Star is Born in Betlobbyham

It's a rare day in the media when the SMH's arch-conservative correspondent PP McGuinness and its leftie ABC secondee David Marr actually agree with each other. And even rarer when The Parish Pump concurs with both of them. What could possibly give rise to such an unholy consensus? Answer: the current campaign by the Federal government-sponsored "Farmhand" drought relief appeal to 'drought-proof' Australia by turning our northern rivers inland!

MEDIA WATCH, Auntie's pale imitation of ABCwatch, filed a report on an expensive public works project with sex-appeal.

How to do sex-appeal: Buy the support of the Platinum Parrot and the Golden Tonsils, put Kerry Packer on the cheer squad (he's too rich to do it for money - isn't he?), pummel the opposition in the media (especially yours) until they retire wounded, then present it to the Government as a simple choice: take the votes we've assembled for you or take a pasting in (our) media.

Can't fail.

Just one problem. How do you find a sexy project that'll cost at least 10 billion bucks in funny money the taxpayer will never see?

Of course! Turn the Rivers Inland! Every native-born Australian knows the rest of the fairy-tale by heart.

So Platinum and Tonsils and Packer and Telstra chair Mansfield and others from the Telstra/Packer/Foxtel gang front the media (mostly theirs) conference to break the good news.

But wait, there's more!

They've put their hands in their pockets and found a spare $20 million to hand out to hard cases in the bush. Called this spare change Farmhand. They want you to sling your money in too.