Michelle Guthrie warns Australians will not tolerate the ABC becoming a political punching bag
Managing director of the ABC Michelle Guthrie warned the government and Liberal Party this afternoon that Australians would not tolerate the broadcaster being a political ‘punching bag’.
Speaking at a Melbourne Press Club lunch, Guthrie also criticised the Federal government’s pressures on the ABC’s funding and the Liberal Party’s calls to privatise the broadcaster.
ABC managing director, Michelle Guthrie: “
“This is a debate that affects real people,” Guthrie said about the discussion over the ABC’s value to Australia. “I talk here of my very valuable colleagues, who have displayed enormous resolve, dedication and commitment over the past few years in the face of continued criticism.
“But I refer also to the people of Australia, who regard the ABC as one of the great national institutions and who deeply resent it being used as a punching bag by narrow political, commercial or ideological interests.”
In her response to the ABC’s critics, Guthrie cited the trust built up over the public broadcaster’s 86 years, claiming 82% of Australians look to the service as their trusted source of information and 77% of Australians think a healthy ABC is essential for Australia’s future.
“What price do you put on public trust in an independent, commercial-free news organisation at a time of fragmentation and disruption?” Asked Guthrie. “As the Prime Minister himself noted at the Liberal Party council meeting, it is difficult to establish the facts in a disputed media landscape full of echo chambers and ‘fake news’ outlets.
“What price do you put on an ABC devoted to serving the nation – across its vast expanse and through a myriad of services, with quality and distinctiveness as a hallmark? This, at a time when the pressures of the new landscape are forcing our commercial colleagues into a relentless focus on their balance sheets.”
Guthrie also hit back at the government’s funding freeze and ongoing ‘efficiency dividends, defended by Minister Mitch Fifield last week, saying: “It ignores the accumulation of efficiency takes by Canberra over the past four years and the fact that these efficiencies rob the ABC of its ability to finance new content and innovation. This whittling away of our funding represents a real opportunity cost and, in the end, serves only to punish those audiences.”
“The anti-ABC case has been crystallised in two recent developments – the launch of a tome by two people associated with the IPA calling for the sale of the national broadcaster, and last weekend’s policy motion at the Liberal Party federal council meeting in Sydney demanding the ‘privatisation’ of the ABC.
“The argument seems to carry a misplaced notion of both privatisation and conservatism. But, more importantly, it completely ignores the public value of the ABC, both in direct dollar terms but also as far as the wider public good remit.”
Guthrie concluded on a defiant note about the value of a national broadcaster to Australia: “As a nation, we could choose not to have the ABC; or we could hobble it so that it becomes the market failure organisation it was never intended to be.
“Inherent in the drive against the independent public broadcaster, is a belief that it can be pushed and prodded into different shapes to suit the prevailing climate. It can’t. Nor should it be.”
The ABC vs the IPA.
Its going to be a bit like watching an MMA fighter take on an out of shape drunk isn’t it?
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Slight re-arranging of words, Michelle.
Won’t tolerate it being a tax-payer funded Marxist mouthpiece for much longer.
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I love this line…
“What price do you put on an ABC devoted to serving the nation….etc etc”
perhaps if they weren’t so devoted to serving the Labour party and left leaning causes they’d be able to serve all of the nation better and justify their huge budgets, as opposed to constantly pandering to their own constituents
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Looks like you’re part of the other 18%.
As Michelle mentioned, 82% of us are thankfully more level-headed on the topic of journalism in Australia.
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I’m a small ‘l’ liberal.
I don’t want the ABC to disappear.
I simply want it to provide balance as per its charter.
The fact that commercial stations have right of centre hosts is irrelevant.
What they do with their money is their business.
But, what the ABC does with taxpayers money is our business.
It’s not the ABC’s role to act as the mouthpiece of Labor and The Greens.
Just provide a balanced – left AND right – vigourous and provocative debate and the issue will soon disappear. If it doesn’t, I fear the ABC will.
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Oh look another Young Liberal numpty peddling their rubbish.
Guthrie was put in by the Liberal Party. I have no faith in her but the last thing she is is left leaning you utter womble.
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… and just who are the ABC’s constituents? Many years ago, then PM John Howard used the line “The ABC is our enemy talking to our friends” because the ABC’s most avid consumers tended to be older conservatives. Since then the ABC has jettisoned them in an ungrateful way as it tried desperately to woo the under-45s – at which it has spectacularly failed. So it’s lost the old conservatives, obviously the young conservatives want it gone, so who’s left? A rump of left-aligned academics and wannabees who just want the “government” to pay for everything, whether it’s housing, childcare or broadcasting. Not a strong base upon which to build a loyal audience.
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I just want to know when High Definition is coming to iview, surely it’s about time.
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“Australians will not tolerate….”? Which Australians? Oh of course. The ones who live inside Sydney’s inner-west, 6sqkm Lefty bubble, the only people with whom ABC types ever connect with groupthink. At the very least, this discussion should lead to selling off the Ultimo real estate and moving the ABC to the centre of Australia’s biggest city: Parramatta. Or even Blacktown. Then we’d see just how committed to their work the ABC luvvies really are.
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You non-inner-west, un-lefty types have all the good ideas Mike. Let’s sell the Ultimo site for $300 million and build a $600 million purpose-built facility in Parra or Blacktown, and then add the several hundred million in relocation costs, bargain. Better still, why not merge it with The Powerhouse Museum, might save a few dollars.
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Why is it the Liberal Party feels anyone who doesn’t follow their spin and narrative is ‘biased’ and ‘left-leaning’ or a ‘Marxist mouthpiece’?
So, anyone and any platform who reports the truth and questions the system – as it the basis for a democracy – is the enemy? That is the kind of mentality that Trump is riding in the US, and now Turnbull – a former journo, no less – is trying the same thing here. it’s a disgrace. Keep fighting, Michelle – and God help the Liberals if they allow this to become an election issue, which it seems it is already well on its way to becoming.
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That requires having a functioning NBN framework in place that is actually able to deliver streaming HD content at scale to people who dare to expect to be able to access it wherever they want.
Telstra can’t seem to manage to operate at even a basic level for a whole month without going down. Meanwhile the Optus and Foxtel streaming platforms consistently collapse as soon as more than 10 people get on to watch the same thing – gasp – at the same time.
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Ex ABC – re your question “So who’s left?”
…82% of the nation.
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well said fiddy
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Nope, 82% claim that they “sample” the ABC in any given week – they’re not “constituents” and would happily go elsewhere if there was no ABC or if those programs were on another free-to-air channel. In fact, previous research has indicated that many of those who tick the box claiming to “trust” the ABC actually don’t even watch it!
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All the kool-aid drinkers screeching about how Left/Marxist/Labor/Greens-loving the ABC is merely demonstrate their lack of critical, independent and informed thinking and are simply regurgitating the propaganda of neo-fascists in the LNP and IPA. (If you think calling the Government and their IPA puppet masters neo-fascists is a little extreme, they pretty much meet every characteristic… in this instance, see point 6. http://www.rense.com/general37/char.htm)
The facts are that the ABC has been exonerated of bias umpteen times by independent auditors; if anything, the ABC has been shown to demonstrate a slight leaning to the Right. “According to the Gans and Leigh study the only statistically significant slant was for the ABC Channel 2 News programme which preferences Coalition-favoured intellectuals in their reporting. This suggests the ABC news has a right-wing bias with a score of 0.511.” https://www.smh.com.au/business/study-finds-abc-bias-leans-towards-coalition-20090902-f8gm.html
The ABC has also been run by hand-picked right wing appointees for decades and the current board stacked with far right luvvies, so to bellow about ‘lefty bias’ is both pathetically ignorant, viciously disingenuous or rampantly fascist.
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Hmmm … ‘The “Our ABC: report of the Senate Select Committee on ABC Management and Operations” found that in 1995, six of the nine board members had an ALP background. This accords with evidence from the Friends of the ABC and others that all governments, no matter what persuasion, have attempted to influence the operation of the ABC through appointments to the ABC Board.’ (Report of the Senate Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts References Committee September 2001). History notes that the first to blatantly do so was Gough Whitlam who sacked the entire ABC board and replaced them with “Labor mates”.
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First I assume you mean the broadcaster ABC and not the child learning centre.
Either way, the ABC is better off that you are no longer there.
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Pssst. That was 1995.
You do know that television is now digital. Your were probably horrified when it went from B&W to colour!
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