George Campbell (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

But he is not prepared, Senator Vanstone, to give them a voice in saying how their organisations or corporations should be run. In fact, he has quite deliberately set out to remove any voice they have in that respect. He has set out to restore absolutely the managerial prerogative as the central focal point upon which companies in this country are run, and this is simply another step in that process.

If the government were really serious about addressing the issue of good governance, it would end the practice of stacking the ABC board with its cronies. You only have to look at the list of people who have been appointed by this government to see the political bias of the individual. The current chairman is a very close friend of the Prime Minister. Michael Kroger is an ex-president of the Liberal Party in Victoria. Janet Albrechtsen—I do not think I need to explain her credentials; you only have to read her articles in the Australian to know what side of the political fence she is coming from. They are all appointments by this government to create a particular bias on the board.

Since 2003, Labor has argued that there should be an open and transparent process for making appointments to the ABC board. What is wrong with that approach? What is wrong with having a situation where the appointments are open and transparent? What is wrong with having an approach where vacancies are advertised on clear, merit-based selection criteria? An independent selection panel should conduct a short-list selection process. The selection of the short list would be independent of the minister. If the minister does not appoint a short-listed candidate, he or she should have to table in parliament a formal statement of the reasons for departing from the short list. That is a reasonable proposition: to justify why you do not deal with the people who are put up as priority candidates.

They are only some of the issues that could be addressed by the government if they were serious about introducing good corporate governance into the ABC. But this is not about good corporate governance. This is about preventing people in the ABC from having a genuine voice in the way in which that institution is run. We know the pressures that are and have been exerted on that organisation internally. We know some of the dictates that have been issued by senior management in the ABC about the way in which reporting will take place. We know that there have been specific directives issued by the head of news and current affairs, a Mr John Cameron, as to how the government should be addressed and the particular language that should be used to refer to the government so as not to embarrass them. We know that the pressure on individuals at the ABC has been consistently turned up to force them to conform to a set of strictures which, I presume, are emanating from the board. And that has all been done in order to ensure that the ABC, when it presents news or current affairs in particular, presents it in a particular way to put the best possible face on the government.

That is what the agenda is about. Obviously one of the ways of ensuring that is to get rid of the independent voice of the board. I understand that the individual who turned up at the hearings, Quentin Dempster, has just been selected by the employees of the ABC to replace Ramona Koval as the staff-appointed director. I think that in his previous time in that position he did a reasonable job on behalf of ABC staff.

What the staff-appointed directors bring to the corporation is something the current management of the corporation does not possess in the main, and that is broadcasting expertise. There are two clear divisions in the ABC: there is the administrative or corporate division, which runs the organisation and is growing like a mushroom at the moment from what it used to be, and there is the other division, which contains the people who make the programs—the people who put the stories to air; the people who go out, collect the news, present the news and give Australians and Australia as reflective a message about what is happening in society as they can. I think they are operating under great difficulties but still provide as independent a message as you will get through any media outlet in this country.

It is very significant that staff are represented within the structures of the ABC. It is very significant that the ABC board does have that voice represented when it comes to make decisions about the way in which that corporation will be run, because without it there is a real danger that people whose lack of expertise in broadcasting, presenting stories and putting stories together will make decisions that make it difficult for the organisation to operate or that put bias into the nature of the reporting of that organisation. Having the independent director there, representing particularly the interests of the program makers, is a major brake against that sort of situation occurring.

Why do we want to get rid of them? Senator Ronaldson attempted to argue here—I would not say it was argued—that it is about good corporate governance. There is also an argument that, somehow or other, because Ms Koval would not sign a protocol she was not independent. I am not aware of any occasion when the staff-elected director on the ABC board has been told or instructed by a meeting of their peers that they had to act in a particular way. To my knowledge, there is no evidence of any such circumstance occurring. I do have a little insight into the ABC from time to time because of my relationships with people at the ABC, but I am not aware of any occasion at any time I have known people there when any of the staff directors have been issued instructions that they had to act in a particular way. They have been appointed by the staff, they have the goodwill of the staff and the staff expect them to act in the best interests of the organisation—and if they act in the best interests of the organisation then they would be acting in the best interests of the staff themselves. That has always been the approach that has been taken.

I know how much the minister, Senator Coonan, likes to please the Prime Minister. She has had a meteoric rise to fame since she jumped the fence from the moderates to the conservatives—to the Prime Minister’s faction in the New South Wales Liberal Party. She is now the Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate, and she is quite keen to please the Prime Minister in the way in which she handles her portfolio. But she cited the refusal of Ms Ramona Koval to sign the ABC board protocol in her attempts to justify the removal of the position.

Ms Koval has explained to the board and to the Senate committee that inquired into the bill that she sought independent legal advice in respect of the protocol, which she said was actually inconsistent with her legal obligation to act independently. She was actually being asked to sign a set of protocols which, as I understand it, her legal people were saying would be a restriction on her acting independently on the board. She was being asked to subscribe to something that would restrict her capacity to genuinely represent in an independent fashion the people who elected her to that position. I think it is perfectly justifiable that she refused to do so.

I just wish that some of the people who sit on the boards of directors of companies would read the companies act occasionally, reflect on what their responsibilities regarding good corporate governance are and act accordingly and take their position seriously in ensuring they act independently and on behalf of the shareholders of companies. If they did, we might not have had some of the fiascos that we have had in recent times with companies in this country. We certainly might not have had the fiasco we had with Westpoint, in terms of the super rip-off that has affected thousands of senior citizens who invested in that, thinking that they were laying a nest egg for the future, only for that nest egg to suddenly disappear. I wish that directors would sit down and think about acting independently and reflect on the requirements for them to operate as directors of companies or corporations in the same way that Ms Koval has.

The reality is that this is not about the leaks from the board. Who knows who leaks information from the board? The government are quite often keen to leak what happens in the cabinet room when it suits them. We already know three-quarters of what is in tonight’s budget. It has been in the papers for the last three days because the Treasurer has been telling us what is in it.

Why are we suddenly worried about a leak from the ABC board? How do we know that it was not the management of the ABC that leaked some of the stories about the dealings of the board? How do we know whether or not some of the people on the board did it deliberately to try and reflect the independent director in a bad light? No-one really knows. No-one can prove that Ms Koval or Mr Dempster—or whoever else is the independent director on the ABC board—was responsible for leaking, because there is no evidence. No evidence has been found or presented to suggest that any of the directors of the ABC board leaked any of the information that is supposed to have been leaked.

Quite frankly, the motivations behind this have nothing to do with the issue of good corporate governance. This is about removing what is seen by this government as another impediment to them being able to do what they want to do with the ABC. This is about another hurdle being pushed to the side so that they can move in and do whatever it is that they want to do with that organisation. That is what the agenda is here; that is what the agenda has always been with this legislation.

It is a pity that the government took a hardline decision. We know they took a decision in the cabinet room to get rid of workers’ representatives from organisations. I know that Tim Fischer, when he was Deputy Prime Minister, fought hard to retain the person on the Austrade board, because they were making a contribution. He had to fight vigorously to retain them. But most of the rest of them were shifted very quickly. This is an extension of that agenda. At heart, the government have an implied hatred for workers being organised and being represented independently. This is about ensuring that the managerial prerogative becomes the central focal point of how organisations are run in this country and that workers will go to work, do as they are told and accept it without any question.

As far as I am concerned, this amendment ought to be rejected by the Senate. I know it will not be; I know it will be carried; I know you will proceed to run your agenda at the ABC. People out there listening should be warned: if that happens, think carefully about the messages that you hear coming through your radio and television, because the truth is a whimsical thing these days in modern broadcasting.