1. You get your friends where and when you can
Russell Grenning
Will the outrages inflicted on the caring and sharing sector by the crypto-Nazi Abbott
Government ever stop?
Sensitive, aware and caring people are still in shock at the savaging the ABC got in
the 2014 Budget – a massive 1% (yes a whole one per cent!) cutback has been
inflicted on our treasured national broadcaster and Managing Director Mark Scott has
issued a grave warning that this will mean redundancies and service cuts.
Also axed in the budget was the ABC’s $233 million 10-year contract with the
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to run the Australia Network which
broadcasts to Asia and the Pacific and that, according to Mr Scott, “sends a strange
message to the region that the government does not want to use the most powerful
tools available to it to talk to our regional neighbours about Australia.”
One of the sensitive, aware and caring people who immediately recognised the real
reason for this unpardonable behaviour is the Russian Ambassador to Australia,
Vladimir Morozov.
Through an interpreter, Mr Morozov told it like it is – the Abbott regime had
sacrificed freedom of speech to protect its own interests.
In a thoughtful and measured statement, this esteemed diplomat said, “We are well
aware of the constant criticism over freedom of press in Russia though I doubt the
situation is really as serious as presented. There is no problem for the domestic
audience as well as for people abroad to access the materials of opposition media.
On the other hand, I’d like to draw to your attention that in some western countries
the freedom of speech is easily sacrificed under the pretext of the protection of
national interests.”
Really hitting his stride, the Ambassador continued, “There are fresh examples here
in Australia. The fact that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation portrayed the
government policy on asylum seekers unfavourably made the government consider
the fund cutting of the ABC Asia broadcasting and dropping the ABC 10-year
contract to broadcast Australian news to the region.”
Oddly enough, the ABC itself somehow overlooked this statement of support. Perhaps
Ambassador Morozov’s clear implication that the ABC in Australia was the
“opposition media” was a tad too close to the bone for the sensitive, aware and caring
people who run the ABC. After all, they absolutely insist that they run a balanced,
decent and principled outfit.
Such is the devastation caused to the ABC by this extraordinary budget cut that Mr
Scott has grimly warned that it will take the ABC board some time to decide what
staff and services will be sadly dumped.

2. I don’t want to appear picky but I’m pretty certain that one of the savings that the
ABC board will not contemplate is a pay cut or even freeze for their MD’s salary. Mr
Scott now struggles by on well over $800,000 a year which is $300,000 more than the
PM gets from the public purse.
But this is entirely justified because Mr Scott cares deeply about things like climate
change, refugees, education, health and public accountability while Abbott is a lying,
vicious, cold-hearted fascist. There is no debate about that self-evident truth among
sensitive, aware and caring people. Mr Scott might be channelling Mother Teresa and
Dr Albert Schweitzer but there is no need to have to live like them, is there?
Perhaps I go a little too far when I say that Mr Scott cares deeply about public
accountability – at least on the home front. He went ballistic late last year when “The
Australian” published a leaked internal ABC document showing what their
executives and on-air folks got. It was just terrible and a gross invasion of privacy and
well, just terrible. Awful actually.
It takes an inspired big picture man to create innovative, cutting edge, trail-blazing
programs in which ABC sensitive, aware and caring lefties talk to other sensitive,
aware and caring ABC lefties about how awful the government is.
Now here’s a tip for Mr Scott to go even more cutting edge with current affairs –
invite the PM to appear live on the 7.30 Report at 7.25pm and, when he doesn’t front,
start the show with a picture of an empty chair and a shocked, grave announcement by
the presenter that “This is where the Prime Minister would have been sitting if he had
had the courage and the decency to accept our invitation to answer some serious
questions about the wreckage his disgusting regime is causing. Instead, we cross to
our Canberra correspondent to reveal even further abominable, outrageous and
unforgivable sins against civilisation by his regime. ”
Apart from these sensitive, aware and caring current affairs shows, quite a good deal
of ABC programming is full of elderly BBC shows which I really enjoy because it
makes me feel 15 again. I inadvertently started watching one recently on the ABC and
was mightily impressed by the high production values – the settings, the music, the
fashions (lasses in pill-box hats, chaps wearing paisley ties just to mention two)
indeed everything really. I wondered where the creators of this screen classic had got
hold of a gleaming, seemingly new Bristol 411 and I’m sure I glimpsed somebody
who looked like a young Martin Shaw.
Well, it was a young Martin Shaw as I discovered later. The show was made in 1969
and the car was brand new. But still I am grateful – I missed it in 1969 because I was
probably out and I was so thankful that I was given the opportunity to watch it now.
Scott once famously observed that the ABC should be viewed as a “market failure”
organisation providing what the commercial media doesn’t. Perhaps, albeit
inadvertently, he got close to the stark reality of what the ABC has become when he
used the word “failure”.

3. The ABC website predictably has a very modest entry about their innovative, trail-
blazing and inspirational MD. It reflects his sincere and self-effacing personality as
well as his amazing leadership
Noting that he has been running the show since July 2006 and that he is now in his
second five-year term which will expire in mid 2015, the ABC proclaimed, “In this
time, the structure and operation of the ABC has been transformed and the ABC’s
services and reach have dramatically expanded.”
“Dramatically expanded?” Well, recent nation-wide ratings showed that the ABC,
with four TV networks – ABC 1, ABC 2, ABC 3 and News 24 – managed to get
15.6% of the viewing public. News 24, their flagship news network scored a
whopping 1.1% of the viewing audience which could almost be dismissed as being
within the margin of error.
It’s most popular program, the UK-made “Death in Paradise” rates only 26. I
suppose that critics of the ABC and its perceived bias should at least be glad that it
only preaches to the converted and is ignored by the rest.
Of course, if the ABC really wanted to do a probing, investigative expose of dodgy
government deals then they could examine why the Gillard Government awarded the
$233 million, 10-year Australia Network contract with the Department of Foreign
Affairs and Trade to the ABC when the expert committee appointed by Ms Gillard’s
best chum, then Foreign Minister K Rudd Esq, recommended it go to Sky News.
Somehow I doubt that they even considered it, program-wise.
Just one example of how the ABC under Mr Scott’s famed leadership handles
complaints in a sensitive, caring and aware way was the complaint by the former
ABC Chairperson Maurice Newman a couple of years or so ago. Mr Newman had a
whinge about ABC science journalist Robyn Williams saying that climate change
sceptics could be compared to paedophiles. Naturally the fiercely independent ABC
complaints department decided that Williams was right – as any sensitive, caring and
aware person would.
In a recent speech, Mr Scott had a few things to say about the commercial media in
Australia which, as we all know, is run by and populated by people who are not
sensitive, caring and aware. He predicted that Australian media would likely follow
the USA and the UK and become “increasingly politically partisan”.
Indeed, he pointed out that the News Corporation’s Fox News in the USA had shown
that “market segmentation” was “a way to make very significant money”. Perhaps
there was just a scrap of envy in that comment – the ABC’s “market segmentation”
policy targets sensitive, caring and aware people and the ratings sadly show that far
from making money if it was a commercial operation, it would lose buckets.

4. There was almost an implied sense of smugness and self-satisfaction when he
surveyed what the public watched and said proudly that in 2013, “not one of those
Top 50 rating shows was on the ABC”
Nothing should be read into the fact that Mr Scott delivered this speech on April 1 last
as I am sure he was being deadly serious.
A common theme running through the speech was how truly wonderful the ABC is
and was – “by far the most trusted media organisation in the country”, and “…the
ABC remains the most trusted and respected source of news and information in the
country” are but two examples. Who was he trying to persuade this was true? His
audience? Himself?
Mr Scott, before his ABC appointment, spent 12 years with Fairfax Media including a
stint as Editorial Director where he made a huge contribution to the ever-sinking
fortunes of “The Sydney Morning Herald”. We have two more years of his
leadership, his care and his concern.
Perhaps he should invite Ambassador Morozov (and his interpreter) to be a guest
panellist the next time there is some ABC discussion about how sensitive, caring and
aware people are desperately worried – and rightly so – about commercial news
organisations pandering to the puerile tastes of ordinary little people.
This mouthpiece for the enlightened, progressive and freedom-loving President Putin
could outline how the Russian Government’s approach to the media is a beacon for
the free world compared to the ruthless oppression of the Abbott Government.
And it would be yet another opportunity to remind everybody that Abbott trained to
be a priest although there is no need to point out that Putin started his career as a KGB
thug in the Soviet Union. After all, as sensitive, caring and aware people know, Putin
has changed.