The Institute of Public Affairs and the Victorian branch of the Liberal Party support privatising the ABC, and despite Tony Abbott hosing down any suggestions that this would occur under an incoming coalition government, the Friends of the ABC are not convinced.
The Liberals have form in this area. In 1996, on election night, Senator Richard Alston promised that Keating’s ABC funding model would be retained in real terms, and yet to fill the ‘Beazley Black Hole’ John Howard cut $11 million when taking office and another $55 million for the rest of his first term.
Given the Coalition’s strong position on returning to surplus and their rhetoric of a ‘budget emergency’, it is possible some cuts in undetailed areas of policy are coming. The opposition’s statement this week, which gave some detail as to where $31 billion of savings would found quarantined certain areas of public policy – including health and education. However, no such guarantee was made on media policy.
The Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull ruled out cuts in May: “There are no plans to privatise the ABC or even review privatising the ABC.’
Abbott did the same: ‘‘We have no policy to go down that path. We have no intention of going down that path. And we won’t go down that path.”
While more or less holding this line during the election campaign, Abbott has conceded that the ABC “could do it’s job better”.
The lingering concern about cuts lies more in the institutional push within the Liberal Party to reform the ABC, rather than representations from heads of the federal parliamentary party though. Such deeply held feelings within the party show that while Abbott proudly tells voters that returning to surplus, stopping the boats, and reducing the nanny state are ‘in the Coalition’s DNA’ – cuts to public broadcasting may also be part of those mysterious nucleic acids.
That cutting the ABC would be in the Coalition’s DNA is supported not only by the history of their previous term, but by statements such as these to Fairfax by the IPA’s John Roskham – an institution closely aligned to the Liberal Party:
”This issue holding back the Coalition from properly assessing the future of the ABC is a perception of strong support for the ABC in rural and regional areas…‘This is something the Coalition is going to have to address. Talk to Coalition MPs as the election comes closer and there is an even stronger view … that the ABC is barracking for one side.”
Futher, a motion at the state conference of the Victorian Liberal Party – to which a significant number of Federal coalition MPs are members – suggested “partial or complete privatisation of the ABC and SBS”.
”Public ownership of like corporations is not compatible with Coalition policies,” the motion says. ”In a complex communication market where media outlets are required to set the agenda, ABC/SBS are finding it increasingly difficult to comply with their respective charters, thereby alienating constituents.”
Indeed, it is this concern with bias that seems to be the primary consideration behind these proposals. A defence of this position is outlined by Tom Switzer in his Quadrant article ‘Why the ABC should be privatised’:
“A soft-Left “group-think” clouds its editorial content, which alienates large segments of the Australian public. Group-think, taken together with expansion into the internet and digital broadcasting, makes the case for a taxpayer-funded broadcaster highly questionable.”
Friends of the ABC have a lingering concern that the ABC is set to be significantly restructured, with Gael Barrett recently penning this letter to The Age and the Herald’s editor:
“Claims that a Liberal-National party government would not privatise the ABC are not reassuring on their own. (Sunday Age, 25 Aug report on the IPA)
There is more than one way to skin a cat if an Abbott-led government wants to comply with the wishes of two of its major backers, the right-wing Institute of Public Affairs and Rupert Murdoch.
To date, the Coalition has not ruled out cutting the national broadcaster’s scope or funds, or even charging for some of its services. Nor has it promised not to hive off any ABC activities to the likes of Murdoch’s News Corp empire.
Be it up-front privatisation or erosion though the back door, the eventual outcome would be the same.
Australia would lose its most significant contributor to our local culture. The scrutiny of major bodies that impact on our lives would be poorer.
The community would lose a politically and commercially independent source of information. And it would lose a major platform for public debate.
It would be at our peril if we allowed this to happen in a media landscape in which the influence of one major media proprietor, Rupert Murdoch, has already become so great that it is undermining our democratic processes.”