The founding fathers, in their jealousy and wisdom, thought that the national capital should be at least 100 miles from Sydney. It was a question of influence. Melbourne was to house the national parliament until the new capital was founded. In return it was agreed that the new capital territory would be within the state of NSW, but sufficiently far from Sydney that it would not be a de-facto part of Sydney. Little did they think that the power of telecommunications 90 years later might mean that 100 miles (160 kilometres) would not be enough. Little did they think that the quaint words giving the Federal Parliament power to make laws with respect to “”postal, telegraphic, telephonic and other like services” would result in the creation of a publicly owned service that could project images into the homes of every Australian. Little did they think that the citizens of the new capital would one day be subsumed electronically by this service into the ambit of Sydney.
Well, it has happened. In August, 1991, the ABC decided to discontinue its separate television news service into Canberra. Instead the Sydney service would be beamed into Canberra homes. At the time we were assured that local Canberra news would still be covered with one reporter and a crew. And this week we find that this reporter has been moved to Parliament House. We have been assured that ABC resources at Parliament House would cover Canberra until a replacement is found.
Every other capital has its own ABC television news service, even Darwin and Hobart with lower populations. Excellent as the ABC’s international and national coverage are, the people of Canberra do not want their main television news bulletin determined on the imperatives of Sydney news values. A fire in Balmain, a car prang in Manly and the election of the Sydney City Council are no substitutes for stories about cuts in the AFP budget, flooding in Tuggeranong and the election of the ACT Legislative Assembly.
There are some thing print and radio cannot do. And there are many things print and radio do better when inspired by competition. On the commercial side, WIN television has lifted its game on local television news this year, Prime holds out considerable promise to do so, and Capital faces a major challenge to continue its previous standard after losing the bulk of its talent over the holiday period. The commercials aside, the national broadcaster has a duty to provide a quality local television news service to the national capital. At present it is failing in that duty. The people of Canberra have every reason to give the 7pm ABC television news a big miss and watch a commercial at 6pm and turn to SBS for international and national news at 6.30pm. the only trouble with that is that it clashes with ABC radio’s excellent üPM. But then again, there is always tape technology.
One thing’s for sure üThe Canberra Times has no desire to have a monopoly over the provision of local news in Canberra. We want competition and we want diversity; that can only improve public debate and the standard of public information. C’mon Aunty, give us the service we know you are capable of.