‘The ABC is, after all, owned by all Australians’: Kim Williams outlines plans for cultural review
ABC chair Kim Williams has announced a forthcoming cultural review at the broadcaster, as well as plans to conduct a “thoughtful appraisal of the ABC’s performance” that will see the majority of its budget focused on news, current affairs, and general Australian content.
Williams made the remarks in the foreword of the ABC’s 2024 annual report, which was tabled in parliament on Tuesday evening.
Referring to himself as “an ABC devotee”, Williams acknowledged the “turbulence and challenge of change in the operating environment is evolving with a speed and unpredictably that is pervasive and awesomely powerful”.
Kim Williams opening ABC Parramatta in May.
Williams wrote this “disarray in media” requires “serious strategic review in order that the ABC continues as an institution which is provably fit for purpose in responding with agility to meet diverse identified needs in the Australian community as never before”.
Williams wrote: “In order for the Corporation to serve the nation well in this era dominated by dramatic change, I and my board colleagues believe it is imperative to aim over the course of the next few months to develop an invigorated sense of purpose for contemporary relevance at the ABC which is drawn from the Charter and the other core elements of the ABC Act.
“We are of the view that we must consciously reference these primary instruments that artfully describe the ABC remit in terms to meet today’s needs ensuring we are well aligned in determining the right priorities to serve Australians well.”
Williams said this will “require a cultural renewal in many settings at the ABC and a determination to thoughtfully review our performance with a keen eye on our never ending obligations to the community and the many audiences contained within it”, adding: “The ABC is, after all, owned by all Australians.”
Elsewhere in the foreword, Williams pledges a renewed focus on content, saying the board “agrees that the purpose and success of the ABC is only ever evidenced and measured in the quality, originality, diversity and relevance of its content and the proven connection with the multiplicity of Australian audiences”, calling this “our sole reason for being”, explaining. “it has to receive the maximum effort in the priorities of our consideration as to policy, resourcing, advocacy and critical review”, saying ABC content will “have much higher strategic prioritisation”.
The report revealed the ABC received $1.138 billion in taxpayer funding during the 23/24 financial year, and earned an additional $98.7 million from its commercial income, news agreements with tech giants, and international grants. The broadcaster is earmarked to receive $1.196 billion in the current financial year.
“In financial allocation, impacts on Australian content will always be measured first,” Williams pledged. “In matters of finance and budget we must aim to have a first order priority to our news and current affairs and general Australian content.
“In a similar vein we believe we need to undertake as a board, a thoughtful appraisal of the ABC’s performance against the nominated content priorities and the content themes which are specific requirements of the Charter as the Corporation’s dedicated areas of responsibility under the ABC Act, and to listen to community feedback to ensure that we are on message in aiming to be an improved force for social cohesion.
“Our purpose is an avowed dedication to the national interest in ways which celebrate and interrogate Australia as the mirror, camera and microphone to the nation.”
Williams reiterated the ABC’s need for financial support to aid its dedication to truth-telling during the Menzies Oration, which he gave Wednesday afternoon at the Federation University in Ballarat.
“The best positive step we can make [against disinformation] is by increasing investment in journalism,” he claimed. “We must fight fire with fire. Disinformation with truth. Liars with well-trained journalists.
“Funding is a matter for government of course. But it’s my belief that as the need to combat the organised lying by democracy’s enemies becomes more and more obvious, all sides of politics will come to recognise the good sense of properly funding not just the ABC but of helping news organisations of all types flourish.
“Investing in factuality is maybe the most important investment our democracy can make. And that’s a proposition all sides of any great democracy like ours should accept.”
Williams added he doesn’t “hold the fashionable position that bias is acceptable and inescapable and that journalists have the right to express their personal political beliefs and pursue their personal political causes in their work as objective journalists,” saying this view “may sound progressive or liberating,” but “is ultimately damaging to our liberty”.
He added: “People who want to pursue personal and political causes cannot do so at our ABC” and that under his leadership the broadcaster will “strive for objectivity and high journalistic standards, at all times.”
“When such qualities are doubted, there will be investigations with answers and accountability.”
In his Redmond Barry Lecture at the State Library of Victoria in June, Williams proposed conceiving of the ABC as a “reimagined national campfire” where “we all come together to share our ideas, dreams, friendship and our sense of common purpose to enable our country to face much of the darkness beyond, with confidence and strength”.
In his outgoing address, ABC’s managing director David Anderson said “the ABC will respond to this challenge by continuing to adapt and evolve its services to meet the needs of the nation.”
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Nathan Jolly is the Features Editor at Mumbrella. He joined the team in July, 2023.
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