It’s time to privatise the ABC

In recent weeks, the ABC has made a case for its own privatisation. The recipient of more than $700 million of taxpayer revenue, it should be the mouthpiece of balanced, informative journalism. Instead, it’s become of the mouthpiece of the left. It is the voice of a one-sided militant campaign on a range of controversial issues. From WorkChoices to global warming, from private schools to interest rates, the ABC has shown its true colours as a biased broadcaster driven by political motivation.

It’s time to sell the ABC.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation is a statutory authority governed by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act 1983 (Cth). According to the ABC website, the ABC Charter outlines that the principal function of the ABC is, inter alia, to provide services that inform, educate and entertain all Australians.

In spite of this stated function, the ABC is far from achieving this aim. There are only a handful of shows produced by the ABC today that actually provide a balanced point of view on any issue. Insiders, and Inside Business airing on Sunday morning are two excellent news review programs which contain a panel of commentators from differing political backgrounds. They both provide insightful analysis and debate.

Unfortunately these two programs appear to be the exception to the rule at the ABC. Perhaps the Insiders programs might be joined by the new show Difference of Opinion, which appears to be somewhat balanced. Moreover, what’s unfortunate about Insiders and Inside Business, is that they air at very unpopular viewing times for the average Australian: Sundays at 9am and 10am respectively.

One could have even included Lateline in that list. But since one of the hosts, Maxine McKew, was preselected as the Labor candidate to run against John Howard in the seat of Bennelong, it certainly does not deserve to remain in that small list of unbiased ABC programs.

McKew is not alone in terms of Labor involvement at the ABC. The much-admired 7:30 Report is hosted by Kerry O’Brien, a former press secretary to Gough Whitlam, and later a staffer to Deputy Lionel Brown.

One tends to wonder, given the considerable involvement of ABC personalities with the left, what sort of impact this has on the objectivity in their reporting. And what impact it has on achieving the ABC’s aims of providing services that inform all Australians. One would expect that this purpose would include serving all Australians, even those on the right side of politics.

The ABC’s bias manifests itself more than in just the personalities hosting its programs. Its bias is a mixture of blatant overt agenda-pushing through the choice of programs it chooses to produce or air, on the one hand, and more subtle commentary suggesting a particular point of view, on the other hand. Sometimes it is dressed up as proper news. Sometimes there is even a token opposition opinion to satisfy the right. But the result is the same. The agenda that is pushed is from only one side: the left.

The more overt agenda pushing has been seen in the last six months in the choice of programs the ABC has chosen to air.

The first that comes to mind is Bastard Boys, in May 2007. Commissioned by the ABC in 2005, the mini-series was a dramatisation of the 1998 Waterfront dispute between Patricks Corporation and the Maritime Workers’ Union. At the time of the ABC’s announcement that it would commission the mini-series in 2005,Andrew Landeryou, tongue-in-cheek, commented that he expected the mini-series to be “a dispassionate, unbiased and highly reasoned approach to the issues” which would no doubt expose the reality of rorts and corruption on the docks.

Of course, Bastard Boys, was far from that.

Instead, what we saw was a glorification of the Union movement, in particular, of Greg Combet, who, as Michael Duffy pointed out in a Lateline interview, was portrayed “as an absolute marvellous character. He is picking up his daughters from day care and so on, which will do him no harm at all I'm sure with the vote, in his new political career.” As Duffy concluded in an article in the Sydney Morning Herald, “The series is the most blatant union propaganda”.

It demonised Corrigan and ignored even the most important factual details of the dispute. Those being that the waterfront workers were lazy - nay, the laziest - in the world, with one of the lowest crane-lift rates in the OECD. Corrigan was dehumanised. No recognition was given to the years he spent attempting to negotiate with the wharfies to lift productivity.

In response to allegations of bias, the ABC’s response was simply to deny it had any influence over the production of the series. The series’ writer, Sue Smith, said that the ABC provided no "instruction or censorship or anything else”. “They accepted our approach and supported it," she said.

Of course it did not need to have any direct influence over the production. Smith delivered the series to the ABC with sufficient bias already injected. Smith was quoted saying the ABC approved the script and thought it was “fair”. Of course it did.

It is an easy way for the ABC to deny any allegations of bias. It had nothing to do with the production. It had no influence over the script. It had nothing to do with direction. It merely commissioned the right person to create a program that suited its needs. Hands clean. But the bias still intact.

The response to the program from the right was completely fair. Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells comments that the series smacked “of wasteful spending by the ABC, being used to drive an anti-government, pro-left agenda, conveniently timed to appear during an election year".

Hear, hear.

What else?

In the recent airing by the ABC of the Martin Durkin’s polemic documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle the ABC sealed its own fate. It showed that even after Mark Scott took the helm of the National Broadcaster, its leftist agenda would remain. In what was lambasted by ABC Director, Kim Dalton, as the best evidence of the ABC’s priority of “allowing principal relevant viewpoints on matters of public importance to be aired” (see “ABC should air dissenting opinions”, May 25, 2007, The Australian), The Great Global Warming Swindle, was far from that.

The airing of the documentary was supposed to give an opportunity for Australians to hear arguments opposing the existence of global warning. Durkin’s documentary featured criticism of the science and indeed the business surrounding climate change. It was interesting, through-provoking and challenged the climate change orthodoxy which has taken a strangle-hold of the Australian thinking on the subject.

But the ABC failed in its aim, as Dalton alleged, “to be Australia’s town square where people can debate, hear alternative views and learn from each other”. Instead, it was nothing more than a hand-holding experience. The ABC could not just air the program and leave the concepts and ideas with Australians to mull over themselves. Instead, the ABC’s Tony Jones (usually the host of Lateline) conducted a panel discussion after interviewing Durkin that essentially blocked out any anti-climate change opinions. Whatever has been said about the performance of the climate change sceptics in the discussion, it does not change the fact that Jones’ approach to the “discussion” was completely biased.

Jones even blocked the opinion of the ABC’s own highly-respected conservative voice, Michael Duffy. Duffy could not get a word in, having made it clear that he would not tow the ABC pro-climate change line. Early on in the panel discussion, Duffy had queried why there was such organised criticism and deconstruction of Durkin’s documentary, and no such treatment of Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth.

A valid question indeed. Why did the ABC feel the need to aggressively deconstruct Durkin’s documentary? Why did it feel that Al Gore’s documentary deserved no criticism?

The answer of course, was simple. The ABC has a particular agenda to push. It remains accountable to no one. Its revenues are secured. The taxpayers will continue to be forced to pay no matter how biased the coverage is or how enraged the voters are.

This environmental agenda is pushed further by other programming choices the ABC makes. In Carbon Cops the ABC is really on to you - invading your home and checking to see if your carbon footprint is bigger than it should be.

In The New Inventors all inventions have be “environmentally-sound”. Watching the show, one wonders whether an invention claiming to cure a life-threatening disease would lose because it demanded too much packaging or refrigeration. What is otherwise an entertaining show, is tarnished by the ramblings of the requisite environmentalist panel member carping on about why everything needs to be environmentally-sound. If it is a good invention, why should this matter at all? Because it matters to the ABC.

But the ABC’s bias does not stop at this overt sort of bias. Indeed, the more dangerous manifestation of its bias is the covert kind. The kind to which you have to be alert. The kind that is dressed up as balanced, but under this subterfuge still pushes its political agenda.

A good example of this was (and is often seen) on the 7:30 Report on July 30, 2007. The show featured a story discussing the retirement of Victorian Premier Steve Bracks. What should have been a story about Steve Bracks, was nothing more than a campaign to suggest that Prime Minister John Howard should, following the lead set by Steve Brack's fine example, retire. He should pass the reins onto someone else and give someone else an opportunity to lead. The reporter was even so brash as to say it herself: “Some political observers have suggested there's a moral in this for John Howard.”

Up front and centre was none other than ABC favourite, Bill Shorten, Federal President of the ALP saying "It is unprecedented in the modern era of politics I think, when you've got someone who is at the top of their game to say, ‘Ok, I've done my bit, now it's time for someone else’.” Of course, always a thinking politician, Shorten followed that comment by suggesting it was a moral for all, saying “It's not just a lesson for John Howard or Peter Costello, I think it's a lesson for everyone in public life.”

To appear to be balanced, the story included a snippet of Federal Minister for Workplace Relations, Joe Hockey saying something - obviously cut-down and edited - that had little to do with the agenda the ABC was trying to push. Of course, then it became a nice fluffy piece about newly elected Victorian Premier, John Brumby whom Kerry O’Brien, with a cheeky grin, referred to as “bean-counter plus”.

So it is happening. The ABC is pushing a particular point of view. Why then, is this a problem?

It is a problem because taxpayer funds are used to fund the opinions of a certain part of the political spectrum. It is wrong that taxpayer money is pumped into an organisation which is motivated to provide a platform for particular political opinions.

As someone who views themselves on the right side of the political spectrum, it enrages me that opinions of the left are aired and then legitimised by the national broadcaster. And I am forced to pay for it.

When it is the private sector, it is a different matter: no money is stripped compulsorily in the form of taxation to fund the views aired on commercial Television Stations.

We all support a clash of ideas and opinions. Robust democracies survive best in an atmosphere where rigorous debate takes place on issues important, or even unimportant, to society and its individuals. But the balance is unfairly skewed where the national broadcaster, secured by a constant flow of ever-increasing tax revenues, takes a stance that upholds one point of view, and not others. Moreover, no debate is taking place at the ABC. Instead, as the post-Durkin documentary panel discussion shows us, debate against left-wing orthodoxy is shut down.

So what is it worth to the taxpayer?

The funding that the ABC receives is not insubstantial. In a press release dated October 2005, the Minister for Communications, Senator Helen Coonan, outlined that the ABC’s total government funding for 2005-06 would be $792.1 million. This was up on the $522.24 million it received in 1995-96. The ABC was budgeted to receive nearly $2.3 billion in government funding over 2003-06 period. The Minister even boasted “The ABC’s current funding levels exceed those under the Labor government prior to the 1996 election”.

But taxpayer funding of the ABC is entirely unnecessary. It unfairly accords the ABC a monopoly over certain types of shows, locking commercial stations out of the competition. With its stable stream of taxpayer income, it is virtually impossible for competitors to edge into the market that the ABC has dug out for itself. The ABC, however, would be entirely capable of continuing to exist on advertising revenue alone. When one considers the nature of ABC audiences, the argument against government funding is strengthened.

First, the ABC attracts a substantial audience share. In Week 28, the OzTam Ratings Report (PDF 24KB) shows that for the five capital cities (Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane), the ABC had an audience share of 13.4 per cent. This was not far behind Seven (23.3 per cent), Nine (22.4 per cent) and Ten (17.1 per cent). The ABC was miles ahead of its subsidised sister, the SBS, with only 5.0 per cent of the audience share.

Given the huge chunk of the viewing audience the ABC reaches, why are taxpayer dollars needed at all to fund the national broadcaster? If the SBS, with only a 5 per cent share of the audience, can manage to raise revenue by advertising, why do we insist on stopping the ABC doing the same?

Second, the type of programming is geared towards an educated, older, usually wealthier, audience. In other words, taxpayer dollars are siphoned off to fund television programs for the educated, elite and wealthy in our society, at the expense of all taxpayers. This is an audience that is completely capable of paying for the programs itself. Or alternatively, it can endure the advertisements that could pay for free-to-air programs.

But of real importance is the quality of the educated ABC audience: advertisers would be dying to promote their products on the ABC. Just as we have witnessed credit card companies, expensive European car companies and international hotel chains advertising on the SBS because of its especially upwardly mobile, well-moneyed audience, the same type of advertisers see the ABC as a premier marketing vehicle. The ABC would be capable of being self-sufficient on advertising revenues.

Opponents of privatising the ABC argue that the “quality” programming the ABC creates could not be maintained if the ABC were forced to seek revenue from advertising.

But this is just not true. The ratings themselves show the ABC with its current programming is able to achieve a substantial share of the audience. It would still take the risks to create new programs and invest in Australian drama or documentaries, if that is what the viewing public continued to demand.

So what should we do? We have a national broadcaster that is the mouthpiece of the left, for which all taxpayers, left and right, are forced to foot the bill.

There is only one thing we can do: it is time to privatise the ABC.