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Media Watch - Season Episode 16
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00:18A week on from the federal budget and the government cannot escape the anger.
00:23Small business owners continue to lash Labor over changes to taxes.
00:27They're now venting their frustrations in a wave of AI-generated memes.
00:32Hello, I'm Linton Besser. Welcome to Media Watch.
00:36And first tonight, the federal government's plain sailing in selling easy-to-explain tax reforms
00:42that have caused barely a ripple in the media and prompted no concern whatsoever in the electorate.
00:49Two major polls out today show there's budget backlash.
00:52More than half of those surveyed expect to be personally worse off because of this year's budget.
00:57Labor MPs not panicking at all.
01:00Greeted at the stoop day after day by front pages declaring the reforms an act of electoral rage-baiting
01:08and a tax ambush that ensnares families in a death tax dilemma.
01:14The meme lords of the internet also having a say.
01:18An AI online onslaught depicting Anthony Albanese as an effective partner in small businesses,
01:25claiming he'll grab 47% of the capital gains when they sell.
01:30A clever campaign that began six days earlier.
01:34Entrepreneurs Frank Grief and Julian Fayad, a former candidate for Clive Palmer's party,
01:40turning AI elbows into unwanted business partners.
01:44After five and a half years as a solo founder, blood, sweat and tears, I now have a new co
01:50-founder.
01:50Share your favourite pics with your new co-founder, who's gotten 47% equity of your business.
01:57Ha ha ha.
01:58The meme then hot forged and churned through the presses.
02:03But is that 47% claim accurate?
02:06Yes, but only if you're being taxed at the highest rate when you sell your business, which Grief happily conceded.
02:14Most businesses won't face a 47% tax.
02:18Unfortunately, you know, the more nuance you have, the quicker someone will scroll past and not really care about what
02:24you're saying.
02:24That dreaded nuance.
02:26So, how bad is the budget?
02:29It's so bad, people are fleeing the country.
02:33Two days after the budget dropped, tech start-up founder Jana Lanwin was at her local post office applying for
02:39an Irish passport.
02:40The capital gains tax changes with a final straw.
02:43Tech entrepreneurs Jana and Trent Lanwin told the AFR last week that thanks to the budget, their European backup plan...
02:52...has become an immediate exit strategy.
02:54She says the family will move to an EU country with more favourable conditions.
02:59Except Jana Lanwin, after a call from us to check the Finns' story, posted a little clarification on her LinkedIn
03:07page.
03:08The couple weren't fleeing, just disembarking in an orderly fashion in the medium term.
03:14Elsewhere in the coverage, people weren't fleeing to Ireland, but to China.
03:19Chinese-Australian residents in one of the country's most marginal seats
03:23are considering returning to their homeland amid the federal government's controversial tax policy changes.
03:30Bennelong has been held by Labor since 2022.
03:33Yes, after Jim Chalmers' clanger budget, those in Bennelong now prefer Beijing.
03:39Evidence of the stampede?
03:41One Samson Lee, who runs a vitamins shop in the suburb of Epping.
03:46China provides a better life than Australia right now, so I was thinking of going back.
03:51Only Epping isn't in the seat of Bennelong.
03:54It's next door in Borowra.
03:57And I called Samson just to triple check.
04:00It really was that awful budget that has him planning his return to China.
04:05No, it's not just the budget.
04:07That's just a small thing.
04:08The bigger part is the infrastructure and our cost of living.
04:12That's the main thing.
04:12But he is planning to move back, yes?
04:16It's 80% likely.
04:18I have to let my daughter finish school first.
04:20And how old is Samson's daughter?
04:22She's nine years old.
04:24So no moving to China until she finishes year 12?
04:28Yes, or until she finishes university.
04:31For the benefit of the Telegraph 2037.
04:36Assuming she doesn't do a Masters.
04:38Though the Telegraph did have another important voice in its Bennelong bombshell.
04:44Bennelong business leader, Philip Wang, said the government's tax changes would continue
04:48to drive capital and innovation out of the country.
04:51I called the businessman last week to ask how it was that the Telegraph found him.
04:57I got a phone call from a friend in the Liberal Party.
04:59They asked around to see who's willing to take that call.
05:02Yes, the Bennelong business leader is a paid-up member of the Liberal Party.
05:07Now, who could blame indignant business owners for bellyaching about Labor's reforms?
05:13And who could blame the press for gorging on their outrage?
05:18But perhaps we might advise a little portion control, not least to prevent the later heartburn.
05:25And now to the gifted surgeon, effectively prohibited from operating in Australia.
05:32I am not allowed to recommend an operation while I'm in Australia, seeing an Australian patient,
05:39even if I think that that's going to save their life.
05:42Enjoying some reputation rehab in 2026 is Charlie Teo, the Australian neurosurgeon propelled
05:50to celebrity, thanks to his skill, his top-shelf contacts in the media, and his impatience
05:56with the caution of his colleagues.
05:58A good surgeon not only has manual dexterity, good intellect, he also has courage.
06:04Grow some balls.
06:06Teo, who without question has performed some remarkable operations, has also had his operating
06:13licence restricted for the past five years.
06:16By a medical establishment, he claims, is motivated by professional jealousy.
06:21That's got nothing to do with patient care.
06:24It's got everything to do with being jealous of someone or wanting to take someone down
06:29because they're just, you know, they're backing the system.
06:32And no one, with the exception perhaps of Teo himself, has better championed his cause than
06:39News Corp, which just this year has published six news.com.au articles, all of which have
06:46the flavour of barracking for the surgeon to be allowed to operate in Australia.
06:51So why is it that Charlie Teo is stuck practising neurosurgery overseas?
06:57Wind the clock back to 2021, when serious complaints prompted the regulator to place the first
07:04restrictions on Teo's licence. Before the following year, 60 Minutes, came out with this.
07:10Dr Teo's futile and costly operation catastrophically damaged the once happy, playful boy.
07:19He spoiled our last 13 months. After the operation, he was in a bed. He cannot play.
07:29He can just blink his eyes and say yes or no to us.
07:33In 2023, a Professional Standards Committee inquiry heard evidence Teo had pressured patients
07:40into high-risk surgery.
07:41Dr Teo said words to the effect...
07:44I'm not going to bullshit anything. If you don't have this operation by Tuesday,
07:47you'll be fucking dead by Friday.
07:49One, having viewed videos of him on YouTube and believing Teo, a god, suffered a catastrophic
07:56outcome under his knife, never regaining consciousness following a procedure few would have performed
08:03and which one surgeon said was irresponsible.
08:07In a second case, a mother of three with terminal cancer undertook her risky surgery the day
08:13after her initial consultation, under pressure because Teo was due to travel to India.
08:20An expert witness later pointing out that it was wrong to ask patients to make life-threatening
08:26decisions without a cooling-off period. The patient never regained consciousness and died five
08:33and a half months later, Teo admitting he'd botched the surgery.
08:37I went too far and I've damaged this lady. I'm not disputing that.
08:41The inquiry finding he should never have conducted the surgery in the first place.
08:46In July 2023, it found the neurosurgeon guilty of unsatisfactory professional conduct.
08:53Among the findings against him, he lacked insight, empathy and judgement and failed to properly
09:00explain the risks of the operations.
09:03As a result, Teo can no longer perform certain specific brain operations in Australia without
09:09the sign-off of a second experienced neurosurgeon. He also has to obtain hard proof of patient consent,
09:17which still is proving all too much for the star surgeon, as news.com.au revealed.
09:25I can tell you now my record keeping was abysmal. It's improved, but it's still not good.
09:30I've tried to maintain videos of consent processes and interviews with patients, but...
09:36And which he now claims may see him struck off altogether.
09:40Sadly, I think this might be the final nail in the coffin.
09:44This year's flurry of news.com.au articles, which only sometimes explained why Teo's licence
09:51is restricted, were written by chief reporter Sidonie Marden, who also voiced this video.
09:58Dr Teo says that stripping him of his licence will have dire implications for Australia's
10:03healthcare system.
10:04Sidonie Marden was herself one of Charlie Teo's patients, an important fact, sometimes disclosed
10:11by her publisher, but sometimes not. And who, since investigations into the surgeon began,
10:17has written some 30 articles about Teo, including this enormous 2024 special in the Sunday Telegraph,
10:25which are overwhelmingly supportive of the doctor.
10:29On Saturday, and prompted by our questions, Sidonie Marden published an impassioned defence
10:35of her reporting on Charlie Teo, expressing once more her gratitude to the surgeon.
10:41I am grateful that I'm still here to tell my story, but more importantly,
10:45relay without favour the stories of others. That's something I will continue to do until they don't need me to.
10:52Also boosting Teo's campaign to have his full operating privileges restored, a Channel 9 anchor
10:59with a Plan B podcast.
11:01I don't know if the punishment fits the crime, though.
11:04I don't mind people calling me a show off and an arsehole and all that kind of stuff, but let
11:09me operate.
11:10Like News Corp's writer, Karl Stefanovic also has a conflict of interest. He's an official
11:16ambassador for the Charlie Teo Foundation and…
11:19I've been friends with you for years.
11:23…which played no part, I am sure, in why he treated the reasons for the surgeon's
11:29unsatisfactory conduct findings like this.
11:32How did you get through?
11:34What? The…
11:35The dramas. I'm not diving too much into that. It is what it is. It's there for people to, you
11:41know,
11:41to have a look at.
11:42Such treatment difficult to swallow for some, including the widower of one woman featured in
11:49the inquiry.
11:50They're not reporting the bad cases. I think they are falsely representing the risk. Putting out
11:55information which is going to affect people's decision, it's worrying and may encourage some
12:01very vulnerable and desperate people to make an uninformed decision.
12:04The head of news.com.au told us his chief reporter has acknowledged on dozens of occasions that she
12:11was once Teo's patient and has repeatedly reported the adverse findings made against the surgeon.
12:18He also said…
12:19We unreservedly stand by Sedoni Martin's reporting on Charlie Teo. She has always covered this case
12:25with integrity, based solely on its newsworthiness and public interest and will continue to do so.
12:31And as for Carl…
12:33Charlie Teo is a great fucking Australian. Leave him the fuck alone.
12:37Carl, it's not Teo we're worried about.
12:41They only apply to news.com.au and not to Stefanovic's podcast, but the Australian
12:46Press Council standards are a useful guide. They state conflicts of interest should be avoided
12:53or adequately disclosed and, critically, should not influence publications. And yet here,
13:00it seems obvious to us, these principles have at different times been compromised by a grateful
13:07former patient and an openly declared friend. Of course, Charlie Teo is entitled to fight his corner,
13:15his patients too, but that is not the media's job. Not least because among their audience,
13:21they'll be a small number who, confronting a terribly difficult medical decision, deserve only the most
13:29impartial of information. And now to the ABC's mini-news for kids, with the scoop on their most
13:38favourite of topics, school. More people than ever are going to private schools. And Australian parents are
13:45paying more than anyone in the world for their kids to get an education. So why? And where is this
13:51leaving our public schools? This segment last Tuesday from the ABC's youth-focused Behind the
13:58News online spin-off called BTN High included a warning that... We now have one of the most segregated
14:06education systems in the developed world. And that segregation is based along social class.
14:14Jane Caro, a long-standing advocate for public schools and director of the Public Education Foundation,
14:20was the only person formally interviewed in the eight-minute item, which had the private
14:27schools lobby choking on its Weet-Bix. And firing off a letter to Aunty detailing...
14:32Serious concerns about the story. The framing. It is not impartial journalism.
14:37The letter, which quickly made its way to that great friend of the ABC, The Australian, had the
14:44broadcaster taking the extraordinary step of yanking the program. In fact, the Independent Schools
14:51Association had relayed these concerns before the segment aired, offering an interview never taken up
14:58by the program. The segment dominated instead by Caro's criticisms like this.
15:05Now, private school fees are in the top five causes of bankruptcy in Australia.
15:11Not quite right. That graphic doesn't show the causes of bankruptcy,
15:16but the organisations which instigate bankruptcy proceedings.
15:20BTN High has a higher obligation to ensure contested political arguments are not presented to young
15:27people as settled fact. Late on Friday, the ABC published this correction, confirming the item would
15:34not reappear. The story lacked contextual information and inaccurately stated that private school fees are
15:42in the top five causes of bankruptcy in Australia. A show for schools, about schools, getting schooled by
15:49a school's lobby in an ironic and rather terrible error of judgment from a program meant to teach media
15:57literacy, instead serving up Exhibit A in what not to do. And that's all from us tonight. Be sure to
16:04check
16:05us out on ABC iview, as well as YouTube and Facebook. You can find full statements on our website. And
16:11don't
16:11forget to send us your tips. See you next week.
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