Originally Posted by
crosscutter
Role of the media?
Two News Corp papers, the Herald Sun and the Courier Mail have covered the ‘China’ story. However, Fairfax papers really haven’t touched it, and The Australian (arguably the choice of the most educated right wing) has been relatively mute and have preferred to extensively cover the Brisbane Government story and private equity investors.
So, why?
Is the China story just that, a story, designed to evoke strong reactions from the Australian ‘patriots’ to further pressure the local/federal governments?
If it is a genuine story, why aren’t the pre-eminent business papers covering it extensively? I doubt Virgin would give accurate exclusive information to the above publications and not their mates in the Fin Review etc.
I’m not convinced this is a China investment story, rather a story playing on a population with a China bias and fear. I’ve said before, if a takeover offer was announced by China, it would be politically too hot and the Federal Government would come to the party and join forces with the private equity interested parties.
This makes too much sense for this thread, and China is not dumb enough to "rescue" VA, just wait with everyone else and buy the good bits without the associated debts when and if VA goes into administration. And realistically, voters are more worried about how much rescue they get from centrelink and ATO in this crisis, than to change their votes to Labor and Greens just because they are calling for a VA rescue. In a crisis, oppositions really have limited issues to oppose about, and VA is one of those issues.