Last month, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, a taxpayer-funded entity, made several people redundant, due to a cut in funding by the Federal Government. Among them was Emma Alberici, a presenter who has been lionised a great deal as someone with great talents, but who is actually a mediocre hack who lacks ability.<\/p>\n
What marked Alberici out is the fact that she had the glorious title of chief economics correspondent at the ABC, but was never seen on any TV show giving her opinion about anything to do with economics. Over the last two years, China and the US have been engaged in an almighty stoush; Australia, as a country that considers the US as its main ally and has China as its major trading partner, has naturally been of interest too.<\/p>\n
But the ABC always put forward people like Peter Ryan, a senior business correspondent, or Ian Verrender, the business editor, when there was a need for someone to appear during a news bulletin and provide a little insight into these matters. Alberici, it seemed, was persona non grata<\/em>. This article drew much criticism from many people, including politicians, who complained to the ABC. Her magnum opus<\/em><\/strong><\/a> has now disappeared from the web \u2013 an archived version is here<\/strong><\/a>. The fourth paragraph read: “Exclusive analysis released by ABC today reveals one in five of Australia’s top companies has paid zero tax for the past three years.” A Twitter teaser said: “Australia’s largest companies haven’t paid corporate tax in 10 years.”<\/p>\n And on cue … the vipers can’t help themselves<\/p>\n Grubby business\u009d<\/p>\n Oh the irony!<\/p>\n Emma Alberici joins insurance comparison website https:\/\/t.co\/bFWoGmg9n9<\/a><\/p>\n Emma Alberici (@albericie) September 24, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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\nThe reason why she was kept behind the curtains, it turns out, was because she did not really know much about economics. This was made plain in April 2018 when she wrote what columnist Joe Aston of the Australian Financial Review<\/em> described as “an undergraduate yarn touting ‘exclusive analysis’ of one publicly available document from which she derived that ‘one in five of Australia’s top companies has paid zero tax for the past three years’ and that ‘Australia’s largest companies haven’t paid corporate tax in 10 years’.”<\/p>\n\n