The revamped ABC sports reporting is about better coverage for all states

So, what we are proposing is an enhanced packaging of that material into a segment that allows a truer news-value treatment, with consistent presentation standards and a snappier, more engaging style. We're piloting the concept with one of Australia's most experienced and talented sports commentator/journalists, Peter Wilkins.

"Why would you have a rugby league player reporting on Victorian AFL and VFL football?" asked Steve Bracks, in another example of fiction v fact.

Wilkins is a 25-year veteran in the trade, with credentials stacked to the rafters across a range of sports.

More than that, he's a bloody good journo, a man attuned to what's news and what's not - whether it be footy or farnarkeling.

The Wilkins report will aim to capture the major news of the day from the wider sporting arena, whether it be on-field action or "harder" news, such as a drugs controversy or a funding crisis.

This will allow us to concertina the present style of coverage into a more relevant form, allowing more time for localism.

In Victoria, for example, that should lead to a greater concentration on issues of local importance. And that is the truth that has been the casualty.

Melbourne reporters will be hunting and gathering the stories that matter locally. Those stories will go to air around the national/international package, and even interstate, depending on the news agenda of the day.

I'm not sure how this reasoned approach to better journalism and greater localism amounts to killing off state rights.

It should be noted this approach is a weekday one. Weekends will remain a more traditional diet, with locally presented sports packages on the events of the day.

It's interesting that historically, and again in this case, any hint of change is immediately characterised as a Sydney takeover of all things locally good and proper. Once again, it is paranoid nonsense to conveniently toss up this Sydney-centric tag.

We haven't the slightest desire or motivation to damage the fabric of the very successful ABC News flagships.

Our regional presence is paramount, and I can share that most of my ABC working life has been spent in the fiercely sporting-proud maroon colours of Queensland, rounded out with a little sense-correcting time at Ripponlea and Southbank in the nation's sporting capital.

The bottom line in all of this is a better product for our audience.

We are upgrading and evolving, not downsizing.