Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Unless I am mistaken, I do not think that Senators Webber or Stephens were actually at the inquiry, but if you were then I offer my humble apologies. Given the fact that I actually have not heard them complaining about that comment, I assume that they were not. How Senator Stephens can then wax lyrical about what evidence was given at the committee, I am not entirely sure. But anyway, leaving that to one side, I actually was at that committee hearing, and I did not hear any semblance of evidence given that would indicate that there is any case for the retention of the SED—the staff-elected director’s position. I heard not one ounce of evidence that would substantiate that, and I think what we have seen clearly today is that the ALP is prepared to put good corporate governance to one side in an attempt to curry favour with the ABC staff and with certain ABC journalists. I think that is a very poor reflection on it.

I very strongly support the majority report by the Senate Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts Legislation Committee on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Amendment Bill 2006. There are a number of matters I would like to bring to the attention of the Senate in support of that position. The first is that staff matters are the domain of the organisation, and they are not the domain of someone apparently representing them on the board. There is a complete structure within the ABC, right up to the managing director, for staff matters to be addressed by the organisation. If that fails, the unions—who appeared at the hearing—made it quite clear that they were there to represent the staff interest. Indeed, they were a little bit miffed when it was suggested to them that it might be the role of the staff-elected director. In fact, they were more than a little miffed with that accusation.