December 8, 1997

Dear Editor

Reported comments of Senator Alston, Minister for Communications (The Age 5.12.97) reveal Federal Government intent to cripple the ABC if it cannot control it.

Budget cuts of $66 million (12%) are resulting in loss of quality programs and local content. Increasingly, programs produced in one capital city are networked to other states. But the Government is not content with slashing funds to limit the ABC's capacity to gather news and produce excellent programs. Senator Alston's comments to the ABC National Advisory Council confirm a desire to go further. He reportedly claimed that the ABC's budget has been achieved painlessly, that the ABC Charter needs to be changed, that the 'ABC should be a broadcaster, not a producer'.

The present charter that governs the ABC serves the public well. Government plans to meddle with the charter had faded into the background after the Mansfield Review, which made recommendations for a more limited charter, was exposed in leaked Cabinet documents as a means of legitimising the Government's intention to control the ABC.

Production is an essential part of the ABC's role. Senator Alston's interest in the ABC becoming simply a broadcaster of material produced by others is a ploy to maintain the ABC in name only.

Maintaining a healthy, independent and comprehensive national public broadcaster is crucial to our democracy and culture. Whichever way the government goes about undermining the ABC, it will be seen as the cynical excercise it is. As a 1998 election looms, the Howard government must think again.

Yours sincerely,

[signed]

(Dr) June Factor
National Spokesperson, Friends of the ABC