By Pip Hinman
The government is taking an axe to too popular an institution in its attacks on the ABC. PM Howard and Senator Richard Alston's announcement of an "independent review", to be headed by Bob Mansfield, former chief executive of the Fairfax publishing group, and the scale of the cuts have prompted widespread public support for "Aunty".
John Cleary, presenter of Meridian on Radio National and chair of the national delegates' committee of the ABC section of the CPSU, believes that Howard and Alston "invented an efficiency dividend" after promising that funding to the ABC would be preserved.
"The agenda is really not about efficiency", he told Green Left Weekly. "It's about politics." The ABC is facing cuts to the tune of $67 million — $11 million (2%) from this year's budget and $56 from next year's, pre-empting the ABC's triennial funding agreement when it comes up for renegotiation next year.
Cleary said that the cuts could amount to job losses for mor than one in three staff, about 2000 out of 5500. "The impact would be disastrous", he said.
The ABC's annual budget is $520 million, much of which is tied up in infrastructure in small, regional radio stations that dot the country. The bulk of the cuts, Cleary says, will be made in the programming areas. "You trim your programs, you trim your staff. There is no way that specialist quality and the ABC's geographic diversity will not be damaged."
Cleary told Green Left that the ABC's budget is small compared to commercial networks which — each — are on around $4700-4900 million a year. "Not only do you get a television network, all the symphony orchestras, the six radio networks, Australian television, Radio Australia, you get a huge range of services for much, much less than the cost of one commercial television network. For John Howard to talk about efficiencies in this context begs belief."
Cleary refutes Howard's charge that the ABC's programming is "not balanced". "There have been remarks about too many programs on Aborigines and not enough on business. You only have to listen to ABC radio to give the lie to that."
Newly appointed ABC chairperson Donald McDonald, a close friend of Howard, is renowned for his ability to drum up sponsorships. Cleary says the government has not ruled out sponsorships for the ABC.
"Sponsorship is more insidious than advertising, because the sponsor actually buys an interest in the program. It wants its views put across in the program, or at least views to which it is not opposed. Whereas with ads, at least you know where the money is coming from."
The other bad thing about sponsorship and advertising, Cleary said, is the pressure it can exert on a news or current affairs editor not to run, say, an investigation into a company which could threaten a sponsorship deal.
"It's impossible not to have sponsorship corrupt the organisation. You only have to look at any public broadcaster anywhere in the world — New Zealand, the US — which has taken advertising and sponsorship and has not, within four to five years, been completely corrupted."
The Coalition seems to be heading down the road recommended by the National Commission of Audit. It recommends, among other things, a purchaser/provider model for the ABC, arguing that under the current system it is "not accountable" for millions of dollars of taxpayers' money.
According to the audit, "A purchaser/provider funding model could provide a basis for funding public broadcasting in a way that ensures that community needs are satisfied while editorial independence over program material is preserved. The performance of the program deliverers could be assessed by the funding authority against legislated criteria or other principles that are available to the public."
Cleary is opposed to this. "The purchaser/provider model separates content providers from network controllers. That threatens the principle of public broadcasting. Producers who know and can analyse the material in depth will not have a direct role in deciding what goes to air. The network manager becomes the purchaser who will make all the decisions about whether to purchase in-house or outside programs.
"Where this has been tried, it has very quickly led to radio and television having to justify their existence by attracting the maximum number of bums on seats. You remove the tension between content and ratings; content very quickly becomes ratings- and economics-driven."
Asked about the possibility of a re-run of the successful 1980s "Eight Cents a Day" campaign, Cleary believes that it is not on the cards. "ABC management are afraid that if it campaigned too explicitly for its own survival, the big stick would be waved with even more stringency."
Phil Marchionni, industrial officer for the Media, Arts and Entertainment Alliance (MEAA), told Green Left Weekly that he has been taken aback by the level of anger about the cuts. "It is highly unusual to receive letters and telephone calls from the public supportive of industrial action."
Yet, the MEAA, which covers workers involved in producing ABC news and current affairs, has been concentrating on lobbying politicians, producing blue and white ribbons (ABC colours) and examining management structures in order to be "better informed" to "argue about where the cuts should take place".
"Before the budget cuts were mentioned, unions and management already had an agreement to look at reshaping the ABC. We are going to continue this. But in the current climate, apart from lobbying and raising as much noise as possible, we need to be prepared to deal with the inevitable."
The MEAA is supporting the ACTU-called day of protest on August 19 in Canberra where it, together with the CPSU and the Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists and Managers of Australia, will hold a strategy meeting.
ABC staff and, for the moment anyway, management, are running a joint campaign against the cuts. Phillip Adams is taking his Late Night Live show on the road in early August; his send-off will take place in Sydney on August 4 at the Domain. Cleary hopes that "Sunday in the park with Aunty" will involve all ABC supporters.