An Albury/Wodonga Member

To: ABC Management
From: An Albury/Wodonga Member

I am writing as a very keen ABC listener from Albury/Wodonga of 3LO, in response to the recent restructure due to occur at the ABC for the evening programs.

Living in a regional area means having to accept relative isolation and inaccessibility to services, entertainment and intellectual forums that are usually available to large-city residents.
The ABC however offers a very attractive alternative to these facilities and obviously has the advantage of reaching many country people in many areas so long as they have a radio and the reception.

A regional dweller must also be prepared to form mental links with the capital city from which the radio program originates in order for the bulk of the content to be meaningful and enjoyable.
It is fortunate that I have an interest in Melbourne and the analysis of issues commonly discussed during the evening shows.

As a full time working woman, who finds TV almost insulting in the choice of shows to watch, my only option for intellectual and stimulating entertainment is the Radio and, in our case in Albury/Wodonga, 3LO.

The ABC is my friend at night, my relaxation and my only ability to keep up with the national and state events and current affairs as well as social perspectives.

I am very disappointed and very skeptical of the plan to commence radio programming from Sydney in the evening.
One of clear distinctions between Sydney and Melbourne for me even though I live in Albury, NSW, is the inability of Sydney to recognise a viable thriving society beyond the Blue Mountains. My two years living in Sydney in the 1980s brought this fact home for me in a painful way.
Now I am supposed to make friends with a medium from this distant city who I KNOW is not interested in making friends with me.
I relate to the culture of Victorian Radio.

I spend all my working hours dealing with and tolerating differences, alien views, disinterest and difficulties and now, in my hours out of work when I need the nurturing of relaxation and rest, I am being expected, if I want to listen to the ABC, to embrace a radio culture, and other city cultures (and I use this word in its broadest sense) which I do not relate to. It is not that I don't want to remain broad minded, it is that I would like to do so within a framework of pleasure not work, when I leave my workplace for the day.

Please, to those who have planned this restructure, consider the impact of your decisions, from a social point of view instead of always a financial point of view. Consider that I, as a tax payer have some rights in standing up for the preservation of fine institutions such as the ABC, Victoria, which through the dedication and skills of the staff, (Terry Laidler in particular), is a constantly stimulating medium and a source of inspiration to me.
Please save the ABC Victorian Radio evening programs from 3LO.

Re: ABC Review

Dear Mr Mansfield

I am writing with concern at the possible future direction of the ABC. I am concerned that the current preoccupation with 'value for money' will create enormous pressure for the ABC to become 'ratings driven'. This in itself is not a concern, but put into the context of the Australian Media scene, both print, radio, internet and television, it reduces diversity of opinion and weakens the role of media in a democracy. Although our society appears to be happy to reduce biodiversity, we are also engaging in an attack on intellectual diversity. We already have countless radio and television commercial networks chasing the same market and producing a near identical range of programming options.

Were the ABC to join the merrygoround it would result in them being outbid for quality programmes and left with the lower quality programmes unwanted by the commercial networks. It would reduce the range of opinion and perspectives that the viewer or listener can choose from. The economic fundamentalist view appears to assume that the 'market' is not interested in choice and diversity for this is wasteful. The Government somehow has no role in ensuring choice and diversity. I believe that this view is flawed. Certainly the ABC must be accountable to the citizens of Australia, but popularity poles or ratings of political balance are poor measures of a valued service to the community. Were this the case, politicians would find their activities and funding most seriously curtailed!

The role of the ABC must be examined in the context of what it can offer to the Australian sociocultural perspective as a whole. In addition to its role in enhancing diversity of opinion and perspective, the ABC plays an important role in the life of rural Australia. Local representation and views are essential, and the announced funding cuts threaten to reduce the ABC country presence to that of mere relay stations for metropolitan services and opinion. This current cross-fertilisation works two ways, for it also enriches urban life with country perspectives and acts as a unifying force between urban and rural society. Radio National is a case in point. This is an essential and valued national radio resourse that is threatened by its 'low ratings'.

Adequate funding for the ABC is also essential. Dramatic and large cuts have a devastating effect on morale and productivity (as I witness daily in my work in the Victorian Health system), in addition to its effects on richness and diversity of programming. The ABC must be effectively funded so that it is able to resist the commercial pressures to 'chase ratings' or to accept advertising.

Regards

Dr. Michael Block
M.B.,B.S. Psychiatrist

P.O. Box 73
Airy's Inlet
Victoria 3221

17 June 1996

The Hon. Senator Richard Alston
Minister for Arts and Communications
Parliament House
Canberra 2600

Dear Minister

This letter is written to urge your continued and increased support for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. It needs nurturing, not punishing; feeding, not starving.

The ABC is a unique cultural institution which gives Australian life a certain panache, an interesting and unexpected distinction. Those who see us as sport-mad philistines are surprised by the quality of the ABC and its place in our national life. Crocodile Dundee listens to Radio National.

The commercialisation of culture proceeds apace, a depressing trend of the late 20th century globalisation which must be resisted. In many countries they have never had an institution of the quality of the ABC. I have lived in both the United States and Canada. In America most radio is unspeakably awful, manipulated to flog highly sectional interests or commercial products. Their 'public' radio struggles to provide an alternative, but is weak and under-funded. Canadians now bitterly regret forcing the once splendid CBC to take advertising to make its way. Here in Australia we still have a refuge from the binge of buying and selling, the insults and the cretinisation of culture for commerce.

I write mostly in praise of radio because I think the funding shortages at the ABC show up in the low number of experimental or courageous television programmes which the ABC should be undertaking. Do you remember This Day Tonight? That kind of creativity is produced by a confidant and optimistic organisation, sure of its future. The previous Government also seemed frightedned of the ABC, judging from its cutbacks.

Let us never underestimate the contribution the ABC makes to the breadth, depth and scope of public discussion. It reflects the rich diversity of Australian social, cultural and intellectual life and is not afraid of controversy and contested issues. There are serious issues here of representation and control, and I am surprised that a liberal government is even contemplating such a reactionary step as to want to limit the freedom of the press and the right of the people to express a wide variety of views.

We don't know how lucky we are to have the choice and quality which the ABC offers, commercial free. It is a precious cultural heritage for us to enjoy and to pass on to our children. A truly independant non-commercial public broadcaster is a rare treasure which we must nourish, feed and cherish.

Can you imagine Australia without the ABC? Unthinkable! I would be delighted to double my 8 cents a day, though one less air force fighter would be better.

Yours sincerely

Rachel Faggetter

8 July 1996

Mr Peter Costello MHR
Federal Member for Higgins
1027 High Street
Armadale Vic 3143
(By fax to: 03 9822 0319

Dear Mr Costello

I write to express my horror and disbelief at the prospect of losing 'my' Radio National and to object to the threatened government cuts to the ABC.

I am a keen ABC enthusiast - radio, television, concerts and bookshops - and simply cannot imagine life without Life Matters, Australia Talks Back; Singers of Renown; Lateline; The Damnations of Harvey McHugh - to name only a few. I thoroughly enjoyed a recent Lateline when Maxine McKew superbly interviewed the brilliant Charles Hardy about work practices and management styles in the next century. This was the most enlightening and challenging programme I have seen in a long time - a programme which put me more in the picture of where we are heading than any debate I have ever seen with a politician! More leasure lime, it seems (as confirmed by just about everybody), and therefore more time to be listening to radio and keeping up with political debate. Hopefully there will be a proper medium by which to do this!

ABC news (radio and TV) is factual, to the point and unbiased. I cannot support sensational, incorrect and often demeaning current affairs programmes on some commercial networks. The richness in format and content and the thoroughness and quality of so many of the Radio National programmes stimulate, inform and entertain me as well as keeping me up-to-date.

I am currently undertaking a survey entitled Parenting 21. The main thrust of which is to establish where people obtain their support and knowledge for parenting. Radio National programmes such as Life Matters and The Health Report, in no small way provide me with information, support, enlightenment and education.

Sandy McCutcheon on Australia Talks Back is a fine example of an intelligent and informed interviewer whose patience, courtesy and understanding is quite exceptional. He certainly dispels the belief that one end of talk-back radio always comes off looking stupid - he somehow manages to listen, hear, empathise and support. I feel privileged to listen to him and hope I can benefit from his wisdom. It is hard to imagine 'Ausralia Talks Back - brought to you by the Commonwealth Bank' (for example) and it certainly would not have the same ring of integrity - especially if the programme dealt with the performance of banks!

Not only must we ensure that the ABC remains as good as it is but also help it to strive to be even better. To reach for and achieve excellence for the sake of excellence rather than the dollar is all too rare a value in this materialistic and commercial age. We need to support and encourage the ABC because it is striving for these ideals and setting high and excellent standards which we can only hope will be the inspiration of others to follow. Please, let us not lower our standards.

Yours sincerely

[signed]

Lyn Journeaux

cc Senator Richard Alston, Minister for Communications and the Arts
Friends of the ABC (Vic)

Dear Mr Mansfield,

My name is Joanne Kummrow and my purpose for submitting this email to the ABC Review Committee is to express my wish that the ABC continues to function as an independent and national broadcaster - meeting the needs of many Australians from different parts of the county.

The ABC is a fabulous resource that Australia and the government should be proud to call its own. From Radio National, 3LO (for Melbourne listeners), Triple J and Channel 2 the ABC informs and comments on local and overseas affairs with a depth of knowledge and expertise which commercial stations find elusive to achieve.

The ABC should not be subject to political will when there is a change of government and its future should not be held to ransom by economic rationalists with short term agendas. The ABC means more to people around Australia than it is often given credit for. It brings Australians closer together enabling them to hear and reach each other, no matter in which state, small country town or big city.

Its support for Australian television and movies is outstanding, while also bringing us the best from overseas. The television shows I have watched on the ABC have been the best by far whether entertaining or informative.

I hope that this email sufficiently reflects my desire to maintain the ABC as an independent body: commentating, critising, educating and questioning the country we live in and the wider world. Before cutting ABC funding and altering its role to meet tbe political agenda of the current government - ask yourself - what price for quality broadcasting with an independent voice?

Yours sincerely,

[signed]

Joanne Kummrow
SCC Assistant
Student Computing Centre
Ph 9344 4826

Jean L Menere
ALBURY NSW

8 July 1996

Senator Richard Alston
Minister for Communications and the Arts
Parliament House
CANBERRA ACT 2600

Dear Senator Alston

Constantly I ask why our culture is being destroyed. Why our banks and utilities are privatised, our football teams detribalised, our prisons put in the hands of profit-makers? Why one in eight, (some say one in five) people are out of work? Why our children and grand-children attend sub-standard schools? Why our Academics live in fear for their jobs? Why our hospitals close, as do our CES offices?

Why are we being told that our country is prosperous? When any ninny who knows the truth of the above can see that it is not?

Why all the above? Are the proposed cuts to the ABC intended to stifle all debate, to render the 'elite' voiceless. Unstimulated zombies?

Why are we, the ABC adherents labelled pejoratively, the 'elite'? There is no shame to considering oneself 'elite'. I am an aging pensioner, certainly not part of a moneyed elite; I do not even own my own home. However I do consider myself as belonging to the intellectually 'elite'. During a long lifetime I have paid taxes, and believe I am entitled to the provision of a national broadcasting service. In Albury there is no SBS, so the national broadcaster provides me these days with almost my sole intellectual stimulus.

I believe I deserve that service without cuts, advertising or sponsorship.

In fact I believe that if all advertising was taken from the ABC an inordinate amount of money would be saved. Those tedious, boring advertisements signalling the onset of a main program must cost money to make and to broadcast. Popular programs are promoted - to a captive audience; to the converted. To find the gems, one needs seek in the programs provided by the print media. If all advertising was taken from the ABC and perhaps replaced with classics from the past, there should be savings galore.

Yours faithfully

[signed]

Jean L Menere

31 July 1996

The Hon John Howard
Prime Minister

Senator The Hon Richard Alston
Minister for Communications and the Arts

Parliament House
CANBERRA ACT 2600

Dear Prime Minister and Dear Minister

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) must be allowed to continue as a responsible broadcasting and interactive cultural organisation in Australia and abroad, independant of commercial and political influences, pressures and demands.

The Producers and Directors Guild of Victoria (PDGV) is a non-partisan professional association of practitioners in film, television, theatre, radio and new media.

In the opinion of the PDGV, the whole of Australia will be the poorer if your government's announced drastic financial cuts to the ABC's maintenance are not reconsidered and repealed as a matter of urgency.

Leaving aside for the moment any other cultural activities of the ABC, the communications importance of the ABC's television and radio presence to Australia's city, regional and outback areas alike is infinite, and accordingly, difficult for bureaucrats to quantify.

A concerned woman speaking to talkback radio from a country area last week made the simple point that the reliance on the ABC of people in such regional areas for important information upon which many primary industry decisions are regularly made is obviously not understood by anyone willing to diminish that communication lifeline. Such wilful damage would be a direct and serious injury to significant elements of Australia's export earning potential, as the most basic result. Similar detrimental ripple effects can be expected to have immeasurable impact on our global television and associated film marketing initiatives. Our high standing in international screen esteem must suffer as a result.

We surely have a sad case of cutting off important parts of the nose at a time when the government is overtly encouraging the growth of the greater face of Australian export development and international recognition at large.

The PDGV believes that the resultant retardation of cultural, communicational and technological development in all areas of the ABC's influence throughout Australia and abroad will be virtually irreparable. Such indecent intellectual and fiscal assault will damage, diminish and scar the perpetrators of the misdeed and the unconsulted people of Australia equally. Your government will not be thanked by this or future generations, nor will history judge you kindly for a short-sighted budgeting decision that will create a negative long-term multiplier factor.

Strangely, similar unreasoned fear of the ABC's independance has afflicted governments of each and every political pursuasion over the years in Australia. History shows that suppression of diversity and dissemination of opinion is a manifestation of a darker suppression and erosion of basic democratic rights.

For the ABC to be able to remain impartial and unbiased, and to function fully without fear or favour, funding must be maintained at the level promised at pre-election by you for the current three-year period, with at least a similar indexed expectation for subsequent periods. On-air sponsorship or advertising obligations would unacceptably compromise the ABC's integrity and independence of information gathering and presentation.

The ABC is unique in the world today in its breadth of community benefit and its high level of quality output. Its continuing security from ill-conceived interference must be made non-negotiable.

Hence, the PDGV calls on you and your government to show enlightenment and integrity by declaring the retention of full funding to the ABC without delay.

Your response to the specific matters of this letter would be appreciated as a matter of urgency.

Yours sincerely

[signed]

Mal Bryning
Vice President
Producers and directors Guild of Victoria

E. Saunders

16 March 1997

The Prime Minister
Parliament House
Canberra
ACT 2600

Dear Prime Minister,

I write to express my horror at the recommendation, in the Mansfield Report, to close Radio Australia. I know you must have received many other letters and petitions on this subject, some with political or very personal motivation. However, I write not out of political or emotional motivation but with a practical and long-standing knowledge of the importance of Radio Australia to your government, or for that matter, any Australian Government.

As a British Migrant (now naturalised) who has lived and worked in other countries of the Asia/Pacific Region, I am very aware of the geographic and cultural isolation of Australia. This has engendered a disinterest among many Australians about the importance of the impression and influence our country has in the region. Thus it is easy to save money by closing a Radio Service that is not understood, appreciated or mourned by the majority of Australian citizens.

However, being in government requires difficult, courageous decisions, worthy of people who worked hard for many years to attain that position. While considering your decision on the future of Radio Australia, I ask you to consider the following ideas of a 'new' Australian with much experience of the world outside these shores, and who wishes to see Australia play a more active and meaningful role in the Asia/Pacific Region, and in the World.

Some points I wish to make are:-

1. In addition to providing informative and entertaining programmes, in many languages, Radio Australia carries goodwill and friendship to the many countries it reaches.

2. In the aftermath of the racism which reared its ugly head in Australia since Pauline Hanson's maiden speech, Radio Australia broadcasts the tolerant, multicultural views of most Australians. The overseas born personnel employed at Radio Australia enable their listeners to understand that, in Australia, there is freedom to express ideas and opinions regardless of racial, religious or political background. This projects an impression of a nation which welcomes cultural diversity, helping to counteract the appalling views of Mrs. Hanson. In so doing, Radio Australia helps to present a welcoming face, which attracts migrants, students, tourists and investors.

3. Radio Australia is an important lifeline for people thoughout the Asia/Pacific Region who wish to hear uncensored views and commentary. There are many thousands who tune in hear the many information programmes the station broadcasts. There are also incalcuable numbers who listen to the sport programmes relayed by Radio Australia. The latter provide an important link, both for expatriate Australians, and sports enthusiasts throughout the Region, with developments in the world of international sport. As an expatriate Australian working in Kiribati many years ago, access to Radio Australia was very important, and was sometimes our only contact with the outside world on the remote island on which I was living, and where local communication systems frequently broke down and could not be repaired. Many expatriates from other countries, Britain, New Zealand, South Africa, Sri Lanka, India and the United States to name a few, were introduced to Australian life and sport by Radio Australia. Some of those have settled here and follow the football teams they adopted during those years in Kiribati. Others retain friendships and an interest in this country, frequently visiting as tourists, but always taking away positive feelings about Australia.

4. The personnel at Radio Australia, whether Australian or overseas born, have an enormous reserve of expertise on cultures within the Asia/Pacific region. I know that various government departments have consulted Radio Australia personnel when seeking unbiased expert advice on international developments and on cultural practices and customs. Perhaps you yourself have felt the need to seek specific information prior to your imminent visit to China.

5. Local businessmen frequently request advice on how to conduct trade within the Region. Surely facilitating overseas trade is of vital importance to Australia at this time.

6. The language expertise of Radio Australia personnel is often employed to translate and 'dub' promotional videos to be used to sell Australian products and services. This is of especial value to various educational establishments who wish to attract secondary and tertiary students. These are the most important long-term visitors to this country, for they are the future leaders, teachers and business people in their own countries. They take back an affection and respect for Australia, its people and its institutions, having already made in invaluable contribution to Australia's economy through fees and living expenses. Attracting such students will be all the more difficult without Radio Australia's broadcasts, and its assistance in making promotional videos.

I remain,
Yours faithfully

[signed]

Elizabeth Saunders (Miss)

Copies to:
Senator Richard Alston
Mr. Donald McDonald
Mr. Brian Johns