A new kind of interference in the future of the national broadcaster

It may come as a surprise from one who as Managing Director of the ABC had to contend with the most swingeing funding cuts from government in the ABC's history, but I am convinced that the lack of vision in Canberra about the purpose and relevance of public broadcasting is the crucial problem.

We are indeed in the midst of an information revolution in which we are contending with a so-called convergence of forces. We need more than ever to value the quality, the richness, and the diversity of the information and entertainment which are the commodities of this new revolution. And public broadcasters will be essential if this is to be achieved.

Technology is merely a means of distribution. For there to be substance to this revolution there must be content – content relevant to Australians which adds value to our lives and expands our horizons.

The content must help to bind us as a nation as well as satisfy our individual tastes. I believe that there must be looms to support this extraordinary fabric of content.

As long ago as 1994, the Broadband Services Expert Group, appointed by the Keating Government and which I chaired, declared that the national focus should be on content.

The report was a pioneer document in and beyond Australia in stressing the importance of content rather than technologies, concentrating on what was to be delivered rather than the means of delivery. Later its recommendations were implemented with funds provided by the Keating Government's Creative Nation strategy. But these funds have petered out.

We are now in very real danger of repeating the mistakes of the past.

I could traverse a long sad journey of the struggles we have had in my time alone to establish Australian creative content – in films, in television, in books – indeed across the whole spectrum of creative activity in this country. We recognised in 1994 that the key to avoiding repetition of these struggles and further decades of mistakes was to build what we called a creative infrastructure. Above all, the creative effort was to be mobilised by coordinated and linked funding and patronage.

Obviously the public broadcasters, the ABC and the SBS had roles to play in establishing the critical mass required to generate Australian content that could contend with overseas material on our home ground and compete with it overseas which is why in my first months at the ABC, despite the funding harassment, we set about establishing ABC Online.

The success of that is fairly well recognised with the ABC spending a mere fraction of the tens of millions outlaid by the commercial players. The real basis of that success however was the way the ABC at the time embraced the logic of convergence by proceeding with a fundamental reshaping of the organisation.

Others placed their net initiatives outside their existing structures. We built ours in the very midst of the existing ABC so we could leverage off all the resources we had.

Under the banner of the One ABC we drew on content across the whole organisation which was one of the reasons why we did for a few million what others did for scores of millions. I emphasise that I make these points only to identify the tasks so that there can be an intelligent and aware response to future challenges. I want to convey the shape of the information environment, the environment in which Australia is operating and the ABC's strategic response.