background briefing 2-1 ..............2

The ABC's independence as a national broadcaster

Former ABC Chairman MARK ARMSTRONG, Director of the Network Insight Group at RMIT University, on the realities behind the abstractions we use to discuss the ABC.

This is the shortened text of a talk broadcast on Lingua Franca , Radio National ,12 February. The whole talk is accessible on ABC Online.

The ABC is a 'public broadcaster'. But it would be a great mistake to think of our national broadcaster as part of the government.

The concept of everything public has been in turmoil since US influence really started to rise after the Second World War. This is a genuine clash of cultures. The ABC's been damaged by the resulting turmoil, and out of it has come some idea of the ABC as a government broadcaster, which the government has a responsibility to mould and shape. The last example was in January, when Senator Alston, the Minister for Communications, was reported to be discussing a range of performance requirements with the ABC before the government would consider further funding. Allegedly these included returning the 7.30 Report on ABC TV to a State-based format; more efficiency in TV production; and reviews of ABC programs by independent panels.

Whether the leaks about this are accurate doesn't really matter, because we already have on the record a host of similar suggestions or requirements from the Minister about how the ABC should provide its service. The justification for most of these is yet another of the usual abstractions about the ABC - 'accountability'. Accountability sounds like a good thing, but of course it can be used to give respectability to any form of intrusion or interference.

The whole history of the ABC, the official documents and surveys of opinion, have established that the ABC does not answer to the government, and that it must not. The ABC answers to the Parliament, representing the whole Australian community. If it answered to the government it would lose credibility, audiences, and even its right to exist. The ABC Act sets up various mechanisms to prevent the government dictating to the ABC, formally or informally.

This is not a government broadcaster and never has been. Yet in 20 years of experience in dealing with governments about broadcasting, I've found that most politicians and bureaucrats would like to control the national broadcaster, if they could get away with it.

Politicians are in the business of managing information to make themselves look good. No commercial outlet is as turbulent, as investigative or as critical as the ABC. Why should the politicians feed the mouth that bites them?

I'm describing an attitude, based on personal experience, which is so ingrained in many politicians that it's neither rational nor conscious. And Ministers for Communications have recounted to me on several occasions the experience of seeking resources for the ABC in the Cabinet room. By all accounts, the denunciations of shabby treatment by various news and current affairs programs come from all around the room.

What the public rarely understand is that these attitudes are common within any government. The very position of being in government and exposed to the seemingly unfair and negative output of the ABC produces the hostile response. Government parties don't seem to differ much on this, whatever their political ideology. Happily, the destructive instincts of the wounded politicians are usually kept in a miraculous, if fragile, balance of power by public opinion and the role of the Democrats in the Senate, which cannot be overstated. It's fortunate that the Democrats are more a party of policy and review than of government. The Democrat Senators don't carry the same wounds and hatreds as Coalition or Labor ministers.

Unfortunately, there have been signs at the end of the century that the convention is breaking down. The current Minister has criticised the ABC since the time he was appointed. He's made innumerable suggestions for reform, increased accountability, and all the usual means of intervention in the ABC. Unfortunately, these interventions come from the same person who is the channel for ABC funding.

The ABC's true accountability, to all citizens through the Parliament, is short-circuited by the ability of the government to control the funding. One solution would be to have the funds appropriated directly by the Parliament. This would at least reduce the influence of the one small group of people in Australia who have the sharpest axes to grind against the ABC, the Federal Cabinet.

In my experience the government has been the greatest danger to independence. Next on the list is commercial pressure.

Alan Jones and John Laws, the Sydney talkback radio celebrities, have demonstrated what commercial pressure can do to the content of a broadcast.

If services are seen as commercial, they'll eventually be taken away from the ABC. For example, the Corporation put years of work into building up an excellent international television service, but the government insisted that it should carry sponsorship, and some of our executives portrayed the service as a commercial service, which it wasn't. When it was reaching full cost recovery level, it was sold to the Seven Network.

Commercialisation and corporatisation are just steps on a path to privatisation. All the surveys show that taxpayers are proud of the ABC and that it's one of the few services they're prepared to pay for. But how many of us would pay for an ABC which did what the commercial broadcasters do anyway? There's just no point. But we certainly need a service which does the creative, adventurous, challenging things that the commercial sector isn't free to do.

The latest controversy is about an ABC joint venture with Telstra to provide content for Telstra's online services. Is that a threat to ABC independence, or will ABC output become subject to Telstra direction? From the leaks published so far, we cannot really judge. This doesn't mean the ABC should ever accept commercialisation. If it did, it would abandon its right to exist. The point is that educated people who care about ABC creativity and independence should avoid fundamentalism. In every practical case, the real challenge is to decide whether a particular plan will interfere in the marvellous service the ABC provides to the public.

On a practical Richter scale of danger to the foundations of the ABC, I would rate the Telstra proposal at 1; and the Alston proposal to increase accountability to the government at 5.5.

MARK ARMSTRONG ABC Chairman 1991-96