It would be naïve to imagine that the funding cuts to the ABC announced by the Minister for Communications, Senator Richard Alston, this week were merely part of an exercise forcing all government agencies to cut back so that the federal budget can be brought into surplus for the greater economic good of the nation.
Superficially, the government, on worst estimates needs to claw back $10 billion to get into surplus. That is about 10 per cent of federal outlays. The ABC’s 10 per cent is about $50 million, or about the size of the cuts announced by Senator Alston. But Senator Alston wants that to happen in one year, not progressively over three like every other area of spending. Moreover, the government has not just cut the ABC’s Budget; it has coupled this with an inquiry into the ABC’s charter and with the appointment of a new chairman of the ABC board who appears to have been given a specific brief to change the editorial approach of the ABC.
Senator Alston set out that brief in a letter to the chair of the Remuneration Tribunal, Professor Stuart Harris, which called for a higher allowance for the chair. The letter said, “”the chair will be required to instil within the corporation the need for higher standards of professionalism and integrity to provide a greater level of public confidence in the ABC’s objectivity”.
Clearly Senator Alston does not think the ABC, at present, is seen as objective enough. It seems that Senator Alston has a very subjective view of objectivity. One person’s view of bias is another’s assessment of objectivity.
In addition, the new chair, Donald McDonald is an acknowledged friend of Prime Minister John Howard. That, in itself, should not disqualify him, but it seems that a trusted has been chosen to change what the Opposition sees as the wrong political direction of the ABC.
Democrats leader Senator Cheryl Kernot has argued that the Coalition has pent up 13 years of anger and resentment against the ABC, thinking that the ABC did not give the Coalition a fair run in Opposition and now, in Government, it is time to hit back. From the statements of Senator Alston, there appears to be some truth in this view. Senator Alston has mentioned what he sees as ABC concentration on Aboriginal and multicultural affairs, for example. No government minister has said it overtly, but there seems to be a view in the Government that the ABC has a left bias that favours its opponents politically.
When the new chair, the inquiry and funding cuts are put together, the agenda seems to be to put pressure on the ABC to axe programs and people whose political tendency the Government does not like.
The juxtaposition of the inquiry and the cuts is especially revealing. Surely, a more reasonably approach would be to inquire first to find out what sort of funding is required to achieve what the inquiry recommends.
In all the Coalition has broken or at least bent several is pre-election promises about the ABC: that funding levels would be maintained; that independence would be respected and that there would be no advertising or sponsorship. On the last, the inquiry has also been asked to look at whether there should be sponsorship for ABC programs.
Together, this week’s announcements mark a serious attack on public broadcasting in Australia.
The breaking of election promises on the spending side is now becoming routine for the Government. Perhaps it was inevitable, given that its total election package was always going to be impossible, and probably had to be given the way the Australian electorate refuses to acknowledge reality. In those circumstances it may have been understandable for the Government to ask the ABC to cut spending in an orderly way over three years. What is not understandable is the clear political agenda to change the culture of the ABC in a way that the Coalition thinks will be more favourable to it. That is a far more serious breach of an election promise, though it is harder to sustain the accusation of a breach of promise than one of adding up budget allocations.
Senator Alston, of course, has argued that he has not broken any election promise on funding. He says that when the Coalition promised to maintain current funding, he was only referring to the present triennial arrangement which runs out at the end of the 1996-97 financial year, and that he was not referring to the life of the Parliament. That will not wash. It is either pedantry now or misleading before the election.
Looking at the broader picture, John Howard knows that his Government is far more likely to suffer electoral backlash from a breach of his promise not to raise taxes than any promise to maintain spending, and politically he is probably wise to cop the flak on spending in order to deliver a balanced Budget, no tax increases and the economic benefits that flow from it. However, if the spending cuts over the whole three year term are seen as vindictive or unfairly concentrated he would have failed in his broader promise to provide a more comfortable and relaxed society and to impose austerity with fairness.