From Cologne to Central Station

When Joe Hockey sued Fairfax Media for defamation, SMH editor Darren Goodsir insisted under oath that “Treasurer For Sale” did not mean “Treasurer Can Be Bought”. The judge may well have bitten his tongue to stop from laughing, but that was what the editor said. Words, if you go by Goodsir’s example, have unique and flexible meanings in Fairfax newsrooms, hence Peter Hartcher’s latest effort.

After mentioning the scenes of mass groping and sexual assault outside Cologne station and the Paris terrorist attacks, Hartcher notes that Europe’s heart is hardening toward “refugees”, that fences are going up and “a backlash”, as he puts it, is underway.

And what does all this mean for us?

“Australia is now in a position to make measured responses from a position of strength, by gradually increasing its refugee intake.”

This, according to Hartcher, is “an opportunity”! At Fairfax, words mean whatever they want them to mean at any particular moment. All except one word, which appears nowhere in Hartcher’s column: Muslim.

His column can be read in full via the link below.

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