Talk:Ross Cameron

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one article was rated and this bot brought all the other ratings up to at least that level. BetacommandBot 04:01, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

WP:BLP problems with this article

Folks, I'm an American and have no personal opinions one way or the other about Australian politicians. I understand from the media reports linked in the article that this fellow is best known for how he came to lose his seat. It's fine to mention this in the article, but we don't need 21kb worth of editorializing & quotes from the media pundits, nor do we need four long paragraphs about the evil hypocrisy embodied by The Fellowship, which has not one, but two articles that already reflect the controversy. Please read WP:UNDUE and WP:COATRACK and try to express the controversy surrounding this individual in a paragraph or two of referenced scholarly discourse rather than four screens of blather. Thanks, --Versageek 09:28, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

discussion re edits

But Boulevardier, with regards to Ross Cameron's profile: you've discounted and edited out journalism (see edits from May 5th 2011) from major Australian daily newspapers, media reports from journalists and newspapers with liability for correct information far in excess of Wikipedia and our editing of it - those articles and reports have survived the scrutiny of publication, a scrutiny which is far more rigorous than wikipedias. Why would you discredit them and why would you discredit Ross Cameron by making up a false linked in account in his name? It seems to me that there is a selective editing going on here. It's not possible to account for why that would be except on the basis of content - which is not your role. I say again, it is common knowledge that Cameron is owner of a company called Mining Accommodation Solutions, that he has gained considerable income from this company over the last year, and that while i agree it is not important information how much he earns, but the fact that he is involved in mining interests in Australia is important public knowledge. — — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.163.183.55 (talk) 13:41, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Since you're just copying and pasting your comment to at least three different forums without responding to mine, I'll repeat mine here too. I have removed content from the article that does not comply with our policies on biographies of living persons, which are far stricter than the "scrutiny of publication" of Australian newspapers. That something is "common knowledge" is not enough - we need a reliable source, and as I have demonstrated to you, LinkedIn is not a reliable source as we define it. It is also not very helpful for you to try to impugn my motives. I had never even heard of Ross Cameron until I came across the dispute on a noticeboard here. I do not particularly care about Ross Cameron as a person, or about his political views. However, I do care that we present a reliable, well sourced, and neutral biography of him on Wikipedia. The edits you are making meet none of those criteria. bou·le·var·dier (talk) 13:59, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

So Boulevardier, if, according to you, the SMH is a reliable source of information to confirm that Cameron worked at Macquarie Bank until 2008, why is it not a reliable source for information regarding why Cameron chose to 'confess' the affairs for which he lost his federal seat. At the time (2004) the question was asked extensively in the media, and the SMH has written about the fact that Cameron revealed his affairs to the Good Weekend magazine because he had an affair with a woman who was flatmates with a News Limited Journalist (woops. He couldn't take his pre-emptive strike to The Australian, could he). This is information widely covered in the SMH, which in previous posts and edits you've discredited as a reliable source. There's a fair amount of hypocrisy from you here in your editing. I ask again, are you only working in the interests of Wikipedia? It doesn't look like it from here. 220.237.36.122 (talk) 20:55, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Controversy and Dispute

It's worth tracking back through the edits and history of this biography to see where the controversy is - the material has been heavily censored by editors at Wikipedia claiming impartiality - which based on the judgement parameters makes no sense . Try prior to May 5th 2011 for details like the following, which are all referenced back to Australian media:

Quotes collapsed for same reason they were removed from the article
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Other media commentators have noted Cameron's 'confession' in terms of a 'pre-emptive strike': "The Member for Parramatta, Ross Cameron, undoubtedly believed his “pre-emptive” strike in outing himself for his infidelity was the best available political option given that The Sydney Morning Herald clearly intended to write the story with or without his co-operation......But that depended heavily on the story “dying”, and on there being no further revelations. Well, the story has not died, and there have been further revelations...... We now know that his fling with the “exotic” Canberra solicitor (does that mean she does it on a pile of law books?) occurred only months before his wife gave birth to twins. But we also know there was at least one other affair along the way, one he most conveniently forgot to out himself on."[7] Ross Cameron, "who combined a public confession of an affair with an “exotic solicitor” (whatever that may mean), with a practice of sending out Christmas cards with pictures of his smiling family and appropriate Biblical verses"[8] "was a frequent overnight visitor to the house his mistress shared with a reporter" writes Mark Day in The Australian Mark Bahnisch wrote "He was probably also unwise not to enquire of the “exotic solicitor”‘s flatmate what her occupation was – she turned out to be a member of the Canberra Press Gallery – hence his pre-emptive confession" The Sydney Morning Herald later noted that Cameron "realised he had been so indiscreet – his lover shared a house with a News Limited journalist – that it would come out anyway".[9] Leslie Cannold in The Age added "It was former Liberal politician Ross Cameron's choice to gallivant around his electorate preaching family values, and plastering photos of his four children and smiling wife across his promotional materials. When he also chose not to keep his pants buttoned, the media was perfectly entitled – if not obliged – to let the public know."[10] In Truth Overboard,Time Magazine journalist Tom Dusevic opened with "When we teach our children about telling the truth, we tend to explain it like this: Always tell the truth because the real story will come out eventually." Dusevic concluded that once Cameron's story was in the public domain "...reporters in Canberra immediately ran with further details of Cameron's private life, unleashing stories they'd been sitting on for years"[11][12] Richard Wilson in The culture of contempt notes that there had been a "deliberate decision by a number of journalists not to report the often open philandering of Liberal MP for Parramatta Ross Cameron..... (Penberthy, D., 2004, The Daily Telegraph, p. 26). " noting that these media outlets ignored the public's right to know.[13] Ex-Liberal Andrew Elder concluded in 2010 that "the Liberal Party.... insisted that Cameron be married before he could be endorsed and go to Parliament. In marrying – a public display of his private life – Cameron's challenge was to find an avowedly Christian woman who did not mind his sexual infidelity but did not practice it herself: a tough ask, impossible for our Ross. When the inevitable happened in 2004, Ross decided to go public. Accept me as I am, he insisted: I'm going to talk family values but I won't practice it. Mrs Cameron realised that there was more dignity in abandoning this farce than standing by to prop it up. The people of Parramatta, not averse to voting Liberal, decided not to be represented by a man who could not act in his own interests let alone theirs. Cameron's political career is over and so it should be."[14] After a six week engagement, Cameron remarried. Like his first wife, his girlfriend was 6months pregnant when the ceremony took place on August 22, 2009 at All Saints Anglican Church in Hunters Hill. Cameron is expecting his fifth child in December 2009.[citation needed] In 2011 Cameron wrote of Marriage: "The vows are uttered in public because they are so outrageous they have to be witnessed"[15]

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.170.205.49 (talk) 00:00, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

It's clear that the controversy deserves a mention in this article, but it is both unnecessary and excessive to include quotes from half a dozen media pundits. --Versageek 01:44, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

But i think you're missing the site of the controversy. The controversy isn't around Cameron having multiple affairs as a politician who ran for office on a platform of traditional family values - there's no disputing that, it's agreed on in all the writings about the man. Rather, the controversy is over WHY he chose to disclose one of the affairs in the main Sydney based newspaper, the Sydney Morning Herald (owned by Fairfax). His argument is that it was out of a sense of being tired of his own hypocrisy - that he hadn't been a 'good husband', that he needed to come clean.

This is just simply not true. A small amount of google research shows that the woman he was having the affair with was flatmates with a journalist with the other National newspaper, The Australian (News Limited). Cameron realised he had a choice: control disclosure of this information by opportunistically releasing the information himself at the next available moment, or have the affair revealed at a time and place that he didn't/couldn't control. It's a grotesquely cynical move from a man who, as it is said, campaigned on family and overtly Christian Values. Once the revelation was in the public domain, all newspapers ran with many other stories that they had been sitting on for years, about multiple and very blatant public affairs by the man who would regularly, it is reported, send pictures of his smiling wife and four children to his constituents with a Christmas message. There is a dark level of cynicism in this behaviour - and the real controversy is over WHY he chose to make such a public disclosure - not over the fact that he was having affairs. To a Christian constituency, his redemption is to be found in his motives - the motive of true confession, versus the dark cynicism of the controlled release of information where he knew the only option out was to go further in. The fact that his wife left him days later is further evidence of the second, as is stated by many of the newspaper reports. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.170.205.49 (talk) 20:54, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Anti gay comments

On February 10th, 2017, during a speech to the far-right Q Society, Cameron constantly referred to homosexuality in his speech, stating at one point ""The NSW division of the Liberal Party is basically a gay club. I don't mind that they are gay, I just wish, like Hadrian, they would build a wall." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 27.123.171.119 (talk) 09:18, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

References

NSW Deputy Liberal leader Jim Cameron

Please include the fact that Jim Cameron was a NSW Deputy Liberal leader.110.33.0.155 (talk) 02:00, 11 March 2020 (UTC)