Extract from The Guardian
The government’s continued attacks on the ABC make it seem like it’s trying to avoid scrutiny
Remember when Liberal Tony Abbott told us there’d be “no cuts to the ABC” when he pitched for election back in 2013?
What about when then-communications minister, Malcolm Turnbull, launched a Parliamentary Friends of the ABC group with a “passionate defence of the public broadcaster” back in 2014?
How acridly funny to muse on Abbott and Turnbull’s old oaths after last weekend. Their party’s federal council has voted 2:1 to privatise Australia’s government-funded, independent and hugely popular media network.
How popular is the ABC? So popular that the Australia Institute polled voters in the contested seat of Mayo and discovered 74% of respondents think the government should increase ABC funding. So popular that while not a single Liberal at their council meeting spoke against the motion to privatise, within 24 hours of a social media explosion, Josh Frydenberg – government minister – was a-hustle on Sky News, pledging: “It is not going to be sold and it can never be sold.”
Alas, the country has learned the hard way that Liberal lip-service means nothing. In the case of the ABC, Liberal lip-service is worth nearly a third of a billion dollars less than nothing. Because – disturbing conference motions notwithstanding – that’s what the Liberals have already ripped from the national broadcaster since coming to government. A third of a billion dollars.
Abbott took $254m dollars from an ABC he swore not to touch. And in the most recent budget, Turnbull whacked the ABC for another $84m. No, it’s not privatisation – but if the point of privatisation is to compromise the independence of a news service, it’s just as effective.
Turnbull once described himself as “the ABC’s biggest defender”. That “defender” has since been told that after the government’s last “efficiency review” of the ABC, there is “no more fat to cut” at the broadcaster. He’s been told that the ABC’s capacity to fulfil its charter is threatened, because present funding isn’t adequate to maintain quality or meet audience expectations.
Turnbull’s been told all of this by Michelle Guthrie, the managing director of the ABC, but he appears not to care. Could it be because while an independent broadcaster exists, it might scrutinise the Liberal-National government? If there’s one thing we’ve learned over five years of Abbott-Turnbull leadership, this crew just cannot hack that.
From their resistance to a federal anti-corruption body to their palpable aversion to a royal commission into the banks, scrutiny is anathema to Australia’s contemporary conservative cause. Why, the Turnbull government are yet to even tell us just why they gave $30m of taxpayer dollars to Rupert Murdoch’s media company, Newscorp, this past year, or how it was spent. The affair’s an effective demonstration of corporate news’ resistance to public transparency if ever there was one. It’s why we need the ABC.
The attacks from the Liberals aren’t limited to hobbling the broadcaster through withholding funds. They’re also hobbling it with the bureaucratic obligation of another “efficiency review”, a faux “competitive neutrality” inquiry and there are three bills before the Senate proposing changes to the ABC charter. They’ve already axed the ABC’s international Australia Network and ended its shortwave radio broadcasting.
This is before you even get to the petty tantrums in the form of their fake crisis over the changed date of Triple J’s Hottest 100, their public conniptions over a Tom Ballard comedy sketch, or their ongoing hounding of Emma Alberici, the journalist who dared analyse their tax policy. Mitch Fifield has just lodged his sixth complaint about the ABC in five months. He’s the communications minister.
Egged on by conservative think tank, the Institute of Public Affairs (of which Mitch Fifield just happens to be a member), the Liberal-National mania to destroy independent broadcasting has resulted in 800 job losses and 60% fewer hours of factual programming by the ABC since the Abbott came to power. There’s 20% less drama, 13.5% fewer documentaries. There is no popular will for this. Losing precious, job-creating Australian content is just collateral damage in a Liberal party crusade.
“We won’t privatise the ABC,” Mitch Fifield has now said. Of course, Liberal Senator James Patterson has been calling for the ABC to be privatised since 2014, and Senator James McGrath has demanded the same. Liberal MP Kevin Andrews is a member of a “privatise the ABC” Facebook group, started by Victorian Liberal MP, Bernie Finn. And in 2008, Fifield himself there was “merit” in privatisation proposals.
The reason parliament legislated the independence of the ABC back in 1947 was among post-war realisations that political processes must be transparent or democracy is compromised.
Honest politics depends on journalism without the filters demanded by commercial broadcasting or private interests. It demands the existence of independent news made available to every Australian.
This mission has defined the ABC from their first broadcast as an independent entity 71 years ago. “This is the news that you don’t have to fetch and carry. It comes to you with the turn of the knob that a child can turn,” the broadcast announced, “Nobody has to bring it home, it is there. It is the butterfly that flies into your net. The view you can get without having to go to your window.”
The ABC’s independent oversight is to encourage governments to higher, better standards of public service. And this government looks to be actually scared of it.
Turnbull didn’t even join the Parliamentary Friends of the ABC when he launched it. “He’s a small ‘f’ friend of the ABC,” a spokesperson said at the time.
It’s a stunning admission of fragility. No wonder his government’s just lost another Newspoll. Turnbull’s been in the top job three years and still hasn’t worked out that the only test of leadership that ever really matters is having the guts to front the public and account for yourself.
And this is what the Liberals’ ABC obsession truly reveals. If you’re too challenged by youth radio, too delicate for a bit of mockery, too scared of a few hard questions, you’ve got no business trying to lead the Australian people. This country deserves leadership with more spine than that.
What about when then-communications minister, Malcolm Turnbull, launched a Parliamentary Friends of the ABC group with a “passionate defence of the public broadcaster” back in 2014?
How acridly funny to muse on Abbott and Turnbull’s old oaths after last weekend. Their party’s federal council has voted 2:1 to privatise Australia’s government-funded, independent and hugely popular media network.
How popular is the ABC? So popular that the Australia Institute polled voters in the contested seat of Mayo and discovered 74% of respondents think the government should increase ABC funding. So popular that while not a single Liberal at their council meeting spoke against the motion to privatise, within 24 hours of a social media explosion, Josh Frydenberg – government minister – was a-hustle on Sky News, pledging: “It is not going to be sold and it can never be sold.”
Alas, the country has learned the hard way that Liberal lip-service means nothing. In the case of the ABC, Liberal lip-service is worth nearly a third of a billion dollars less than nothing. Because – disturbing conference motions notwithstanding – that’s what the Liberals have already ripped from the national broadcaster since coming to government. A third of a billion dollars.
Abbott took $254m dollars from an ABC he swore not to touch. And in the most recent budget, Turnbull whacked the ABC for another $84m. No, it’s not privatisation – but if the point of privatisation is to compromise the independence of a news service, it’s just as effective.
Turnbull once described himself as “the ABC’s biggest defender”. That “defender” has since been told that after the government’s last “efficiency review” of the ABC, there is “no more fat to cut” at the broadcaster. He’s been told that the ABC’s capacity to fulfil its charter is threatened, because present funding isn’t adequate to maintain quality or meet audience expectations.
Turnbull’s been told all of this by Michelle Guthrie, the managing director of the ABC, but he appears not to care. Could it be because while an independent broadcaster exists, it might scrutinise the Liberal-National government? If there’s one thing we’ve learned over five years of Abbott-Turnbull leadership, this crew just cannot hack that.
From their resistance to a federal anti-corruption body to their palpable aversion to a royal commission into the banks, scrutiny is anathema to Australia’s contemporary conservative cause. Why, the Turnbull government are yet to even tell us just why they gave $30m of taxpayer dollars to Rupert Murdoch’s media company, Newscorp, this past year, or how it was spent. The affair’s an effective demonstration of corporate news’ resistance to public transparency if ever there was one. It’s why we need the ABC.
The attacks from the Liberals aren’t limited to hobbling the broadcaster through withholding funds. They’re also hobbling it with the bureaucratic obligation of another “efficiency review”, a faux “competitive neutrality” inquiry and there are three bills before the Senate proposing changes to the ABC charter. They’ve already axed the ABC’s international Australia Network and ended its shortwave radio broadcasting.
This is before you even get to the petty tantrums in the form of their fake crisis over the changed date of Triple J’s Hottest 100, their public conniptions over a Tom Ballard comedy sketch, or their ongoing hounding of Emma Alberici, the journalist who dared analyse their tax policy. Mitch Fifield has just lodged his sixth complaint about the ABC in five months. He’s the communications minister.
Egged on by conservative think tank, the Institute of Public Affairs (of which Mitch Fifield just happens to be a member), the Liberal-National mania to destroy independent broadcasting has resulted in 800 job losses and 60% fewer hours of factual programming by the ABC since the Abbott came to power. There’s 20% less drama, 13.5% fewer documentaries. There is no popular will for this. Losing precious, job-creating Australian content is just collateral damage in a Liberal party crusade.
“We won’t privatise the ABC,” Mitch Fifield has now said. Of course, Liberal Senator James Patterson has been calling for the ABC to be privatised since 2014, and Senator James McGrath has demanded the same. Liberal MP Kevin Andrews is a member of a “privatise the ABC” Facebook group, started by Victorian Liberal MP, Bernie Finn. And in 2008, Fifield himself there was “merit” in privatisation proposals.
The reason parliament legislated the independence of the ABC back in 1947 was among post-war realisations that political processes must be transparent or democracy is compromised.
Honest politics depends on journalism without the filters demanded by commercial broadcasting or private interests. It demands the existence of independent news made available to every Australian.
This mission has defined the ABC from their first broadcast as an independent entity 71 years ago. “This is the news that you don’t have to fetch and carry. It comes to you with the turn of the knob that a child can turn,” the broadcast announced, “Nobody has to bring it home, it is there. It is the butterfly that flies into your net. The view you can get without having to go to your window.”
The ABC’s independent oversight is to encourage governments to higher, better standards of public service. And this government looks to be actually scared of it.
Turnbull didn’t even join the Parliamentary Friends of the ABC when he launched it. “He’s a small ‘f’ friend of the ABC,” a spokesperson said at the time.
It’s a stunning admission of fragility. No wonder his government’s just lost another Newspoll. Turnbull’s been in the top job three years and still hasn’t worked out that the only test of leadership that ever really matters is having the guts to front the public and account for yourself.
And this is what the Liberals’ ABC obsession truly reveals. If you’re too challenged by youth radio, too delicate for a bit of mockery, too scared of a few hard questions, you’ve got no business trying to lead the Australian people. This country deserves leadership with more spine than that.
- Van Badham is a Guardian Australia columnist
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