By Bob Gould

I'm fascinated by the outburst of abuse and rather forced indignation
at the legitimate questions I've asked about two things: the
apparently recent practice of Media Monitors of recording workers'
meetings with an eye onselling the recordings to clients who clearly
don't have trade union interests at heart, and the the apparent role
in this procedure of a bloke who is figure in the Socialist Alliance.

None of my questions have been answered, I've just been subjected to a
torrent of abuse, which speaks volumes about the political approach of
all the people involved.

Something very interesting to me is the considerable hostility to Dean
Mighell that is emerging in several of the contributions. While
weeping crocodile tears about the treatment of Mighell by Rudd, a
number of contributors blithely imply that he's not telling the truth
about the events.

Rohan Gaiswinkler and the man who has serially slandered me, Raven,
both imply that Mighell is not telling the truth, and Peter Murray
comes straight out and says he's not telling the truth.

Well, up to Friday of last week, when the story broke, the DSP
leadership apparently thought Mighell was telling the truth. In an
article in the current Green Left Weekly, obviously written before
last Friday, peddling the DSP's Third Period line on the Labor Party,
titled "Don't be fooled by the two-party con trick", Graeme Matthews
has this to say, in passing: "Responding to illegally taped comments
by Dean Mighell, Victorian Electrical Trades Union secretary, to a
delegates' meeting last year on the success of pattern bargaining,
Gillard said: 'That's not what Labor's policy is about.'"

The question of the role of Media Monitors as an organisation that
collects information about the workers movement with an eye to selling
it to commercial clients that are hostile to the labour movement is
pretty important in the current reactionary political climate. So,
also, is the apparent involvement of a personality in the Socialist
Alliance in the activities of Media Monitors in this respect.

These are important questions that won't go away. Engage in as much
spin as you like, and pour as much abuse on me and, to a lesser extent
Marcus Strom, as you like, but these questions still won't go away.
You can also start questioning Dean Mighell's veracity, if you like,
as some contributors have done, but my instinct is that you'll pay a
big political price if you choose to go very far down that path.

These very important questions require an adequate and concrete reply
on the circumstances surrounding the activities of Media Monitors and
the particular circumstances surrounding the meeting last November,
and I await a proper reply to my questions.