background briefing 2-2 ..............7

Communication breakdown (cont)

That last word was picked up by Mark Armstrong, chair of the board from 1991 to 1996, who observed on ABC Radio National's Lingua Franca program:

"Accountability sounds like a good thing, but of course it can be used to give respectability to any form of intrusion or interference." Armstrong's view of what this government, through its minister, has been doing to the ABC deserves wider currency.

Traditionally, he observes, ministers for communication have done their best to uphold ABC independence. Not this one, who "has criticised the ABC from 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."

Alston spoke again in the ABC's Media Watch on 21 February, with flashing smile - bland, evasive and impenitent. To The Canberra Times' Robert Macklin, Paul Barry's interview "revealed an aggressive Liberal apparatchik who believes it's his right to take an activist role in the corporation".

What do Alston and Howard and their advisers really believe about the ABC? Do they see themselves, as others do, bullying into submission an enemy now at their mercy? Or does their strategy of cutting and intimidating rest on some principle, such as a conviction that the statutory authority is an obsolete form? (It's certainly a misunderstood one: many otherwise well-educated people think the government, not the board, chooses the ABC's managing director.)

When Professor Roger Wettenhall, expert on that subject, reviews the first term of the Howard government, he observes a strong dislike of the traditional form of the statutory authority. More generally, he judges, there was no longer much faith in the value of checks and balances within the governmental system; the cause of non-partisanship in the apparatus of public administration now has few defenders.

Possibly we are seeing in the ABC's tribulations the story in microcosm of the fate of the public service and beyond that of public enterprise. The Hawke and Keating governments, enthralled by the gospel of economic rationalism, began the devaluing and diminution of the public sector.

Would a Beazley government do more to nurture and cherish our public institutions? Why, for a start, have we not heard more from Beazley and his procession of shadow ministers for communications about what their opponents are doing to the ABC?

Meanwhile, Richard Alston smiles on. I wonder if he kept a straight face when saying that a Senate inquiry into the ABC's proposed deal with Telstra would be "unwarranted interference in internal ABC decision-making". Mark Armstrong says that "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 the accountability to the government at 5.5".

Ken Inglis is the author of This is the ABC.

He is currently writing a book bringing the story of the ABC up to date and considering its prospects for survival.

Myth and fact

A Liberal MP during a visit from a group of his constituents launched into an irate attack on the ABC for 'running a campaign against the Government'. He maintained that Friends of the ABC was a front for the ABC. It seems that this is a myth with credibility among the ranks of the Coalition and it is a myth which should be put to rest.

The ABC provides FABC with information and that is as far as our association goes. We think we are appreciated, for who else stands up for the broadcaster and can mobilise such strong and widespread public support? But we frequently irritate management with our criticisms and questionings. We can be uncomfortable supporters at times.

The fact that some ABC personalities speak at our meetings and rallies does not mean that the ABC as an organisation supports our campaigns. Indeed, one of our disappointments has been that ABC management has never fought against the cuts. It took the budget cuts on board, let go over 1000 staff and learned to live with less - all without adverse public comment on the cuts from either management or board.

We believe that Cabinet ministers expected more resistance to the cuts than they got, and that some in the ALP were surprised that a struggle on the lines of the '8 cents a day' campaign - which halted plans of ALP Communications Minister Gareth Evans to split up the ABC and part-commercialise it - was not taken to the present government.

This was not former managing director Brian Johns' way. But buckling to government has not brought about any better treatment. Indeed the position of the ABC and relations with the federal Government are as bad as we have feared they could become.