What is the 'job to be done'?

Austin Whitten

Another notoriously crooked polling question
greeted Australians on March 30, compliments of the Sydney
Morning Herald and the Age.

Both newspapers claimed a poll conducted by ACNeilson on
March 26-28 showed that most Australians wanted troops to stay
in Iraq "until the job was done".

In the Herald, we were not given the wording of
the question. Only the phrase, "until the job is
done". Nevertheless, Louise Dodson, the
Herald's chief political writer, didn't
hesitate to interpret the results for us, that it shows
"strong public support for Australian troops to remain in
Iraq" and that "61% favour the prime minister's
position of keeping forces in Iraq until post-war
reconstruction is completed".

"Keeping forces in Iraq until post-war reconstruction
is completed" was not part of the question, however.

The Age report gives us more of a glimpse of the
text of the question: "In the poll of 1403 people, 61%
agreed with the statement that 'Australian troops should
stay until the job is done', while 35% agreed that the
troops 'should be brought home immediately'".

ABC morning news broadcasts repeated the poll results, also
without giving the wording of the question. The ABC news
website, however, was a little more honest, noting that
"The poll question did not define what the
'job' was or how long it would take".

The next day, both newspapers printed letters critical of
the poll. One to the Age described it as using a
"highly prejudicial phrase ", adding, "of
course it sounds bad to abandon anything before 'the job is
done'". The writer pointed out that, to be credible, the
question should simply have asked if troops should come home
before Christamas or stay in Iraq beyond that date.

Nevertheless, that day the Herald carried four
articles referring to the poll, without clarifying that there
was any ambiguity in it, and its "results " remain
fixed inmany people's minds.

What is the "job" to be done?

If the "job" had been defined as to support an
illegal occupation driven by imperialist motives, then what
would the poll results have been? Or even if the
"job" had been defined as anything resembling
reality?

Foreign minister Alexander Downer has attempted to define
the "job" as protecting our diplomats in Iraq.
Whatever happened to the policy of withdrawing Australians
when they are in danger?

The reason for the loaded poll question, formulated by
corporate media, is not hard to discern. It is in direct
support of the Coalition government's agenda.

The same day that the poll was reported, PM John Howard
attempted to put a motion to parliament, which according to
ABC News, was "opposing artificial deadlines for the
troop withdrawal and supporting the continued presence of the
Australian forces in Iraq until their work is finished".

In her speech to the World Social Forum in Mumbai earlier
this year, Arundhati Roy said: "It is important to
understand that the corporate media doesn't just support
the neoliberal project. It is the neoliberal project."

If ACNeilson had real scruples, it would have refused to
ask such a meaningless question, which was so clearly designed
to elicit the required response. All who were involved in such
a shameful exercise deserve to be condemned.

[Austin Whitten is a member of the Socialist Alliance
editorial board.]

From Green Left Weekly, April 7,
2004.

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Left Weekly home page.

From GLW issue 578