Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Sport and Recreation) Share this | Hansard source

The ABC is one of our most important national institutions. It is widely understood that a strong and independent ABC plays a crucial role in Australia’s media market. The ABC often sets the standard for quality news, current affairs, documentaries, drama and kids TV. As such, it is an essential pillar of our democracy—perhaps even more so in light of the recent removal and watering down of cross-media laws. With these changes likely to reduce competition in Australia’s media markets, the ABC’s role in maintaining standards is more important than ever. Unfortunately, the ABC’s capacity to do so is continually undermined through lack of sufficient funding. After 10 long years of a Howard government, we have seen the ABC starved of funding, leading to a reduction in drama production, a cut in digital channels, new media advances being made on the smell of an oily rag and, perhaps the greatest travesty of all, its independence being threatened.

I find it hard to fathom how the tough, serious, no-nonsense ABC news service is interpreted as left-wing bias by the Prime Minister and his cronies. The only explanation is that this government have moved so far to the political right and the ABC has stayed unerringly in exactly the same middle spot it always has, leaving the government feeling precious about not being represented in the way that they would like. This arrogance has led the Howard government to bully and pressure the ABC into towing a new line: the government’s line. And, as arrogant governments do, they will try to force the ABC to interpret the world and goings on through their eyes and in their own image.

The government have attacked the ABC’s independence with a multitude of weapons. They cut the funding to the ABC where it hurt the most; they appointed their crony Jonathan Shier as CEO; they stacked the board with conservative mates; they forced the staff representative off the board of the ABC; coalition senators in Senate estimates attacked the ABC on endless spurious grounds; they changed editorial policy for news and current affairs; they forced the introduction of an expensive internal monitoring program; they continue to underfund the ABC’s digital expansion; they appointed more conservative extremists to the board; they relaxed genre restrictions on ABC multichannels and then did not provide any funding for digital content; and on and on it goes.

And now we see changes to editorial guidelines for the content of factual programs. This is apparently at the behest of the ABC board, which we can interpret as the Howard government, given the amount of board stacking that has been going on. The ridiculous new editorial guidelines announced last month will manipulate the content of ABC programs. It is being claimed that these guidelines will achieve a whole new level of so-called impartiality for the ABC. It is claimed that a wide range of programs will come under the jurisdiction of the new guidelines, including children’s programs, science programs, chat shows, comedy shows and documentaries. The changes will even extend to radio announcers. Under the new editorial guidelines, all of these genres will have to meet stringent impartiality tests, similar to those for current affairs and news. It is bizarre that the ABC board thinks it is necessary, or even appropriate, to monitor and regulate the content of many of these types of shows. But, then again, this board was appointed by the Howard government to do exactly that: obsess about nonexistent bias. These new guidelines are the Howard government’s latest attempt to pressure the ABC and bully and push their political perspective through even more types of content.

It is worthwhile thinking about just what this means in its practical application. Wildlife documentaries: I can imagine the trouble this conservative bunch will have interpreting the social life of the humble hermaphrodites! Will the board try and change Bananas in Pyjamas into apples for fear that people will be reminded of the rising cost of living under the Howard government, with rising interest rates, petrol prices and, indeed, the cost of bananas, every time they see them coming down the stairs? I hasten to add that the price of apples is not looking so rosy either. Will polluting corporations get the same airtime as shows advocating care for our environment? Science programs: I want to know if the ABC board will require equal time for creationism as for science documentaries. Do not laugh: remember who is on the board. Do these new rules mean comedy and satire must be controlled to ensure equal measure is taken out of respective parties? Just ask the crew of The Glass House how real the changes are to them. What an indefensible disgrace that this show was cut. It makes me wonder if these guidelines will be extended to drama next. You never know: we might see the board demanding a right of reply for Mary, Queen of Scots, following the success of the miniseries Elizabeth. If it were not so appalling and ridiculous, it might even be worth laughing about.

What about ABC local radio? How will the impartiality test work there? What about talkback on the ABC? What if the audience is biased or has a set view? There was an example on AM last month, when an interviewer asked a number of students what they thought of the request for them to report suspicious activity on campus. My memory of the report is that every student who was approached by the reporter thought the idea was absurd. How is the ABC going to manage impartiality there—fake a few students to give the perception of balance?

The practical application of these guidelines does not bear any thinking about, because it will not be possible. How will these guidelines affect presenters who rely on provocative interviews to give momentum to their shows? Will they censor callers to achieve so-called balance? It is not really public opinion that is being expressed at all; it is the presenter’s or the producer’s opinion—it is manipulated. How absurd. How ridiculous. No doubt the other big losers will be documentaries. Concerns have already been raised by some program makers that these new guidelines will ‘bland out’ ABC documentaries. How can anyone argue that this is in the public’s interest? We on this side of the Senate certainly do not believe it. Labor believe it is clearly not in the public interest.

There is also evidence that the culture being inflicted upon the ABC will result in blatant censorship. Remember how the ABC commissioned Chris Masters to write a biography of Alan Jones and how the ABC board effectively censored it? This presents a dangerous precedent for censorship. These moves to manipulate ABC content in the variety of ways that I have described are inappropriate and unworkable. They represent censorship of the worst kind, where decisions are made through a politically motivated board that is bullying and influencing employees, rather than a transparent process governed by professionals who are charged with the responsibility of ensuring that community opinion is represented through their work. These changes mean that we will not know what is and what is not being censored on the ABC. We as a community are therefore at risk of being manipulated and misled as the government asserts its control of Aunty.

For 10 long years, the Howard government has been intent on starving the ABC of funding and on bullying it into giving the government favourable coverage. With these guidelines in place and a board of welded-on Howardites, I suspect the Howard government will begin to drip-feed the organisation with funding on the government’s terms. It is blackmail really. I can see the threat: ‘You do this or you won’t get the funding you seek.’ Minister Coonan must be a master of the art by now. She and many ministers before her in this portfolio have had plenty of practice.

I refer to a similar scenario played out for another important national cultural institution—the National Museum of Australia. The museum was starved of funds, and independent thinkers were weeded out. When a Howardite board was fully in control—including, former Liberal-National President, Tony Staley; the Prime Minister’s biographer, David Barnett; and well-known conservative, Liberal apologist and columnist, Christopher Pearson—a funding lifeline was issued to the now compliant administrators, and the dictums of the board were implemented.