This morning I caught glimpses of stories making the waves. Among them are – the Minister of Finance (Treasurer) Peter Costello is publicly fighting with the PM, his boss. He wants the PM to step down well in advance of the next election and let him become PM. He told the Sydney Morning Herald the PM is wrong to carry on. Can you imagine a senior cabinet member telling Pak Lah the same thing and more importantly can you imagine the NST or Star reporting this? That’s why Malaysia is ranked somewhere between 121 and 123 in a press freedom ranking recently published. Don’t know where Australia ranks, but I think it is considerably higher than Malaysia. There are scores of stories everyday which demonstrate the role a free press should play in a mature society.  These stories would never see the light of day in Malaysia, even assuming the journalist have the courage to try. Yet since coming over to Melbourne 4 months ago, I have been stingy on spending on newspapers. I used to read the Sun and Star everyday in Malaysia, but here I only read The Age Newspaper once a week, Saturdays, in the library. I must do something about this.