Apropo of the new Australian 'national conversation' about vested interests - most of them mining - I was struck last year by an episode of The Gruen Nation which went behind the green-washing of the mining and resources industries. An insider reveals how communities who oppose are bought off by the developers. If only Wayne Swan had shown this clip to the nation at his Press Club address we would have seen it for how it really is - a nation that can be easily spun, or bought-off. For example, Australians have come to believe through massive expenditure in advertising and spin that mining constitutes 30% of the economy and 10% of the work force when it is actually more like 10% and 3%.
Clips like this also presage the current preoccupation with billionaires.
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