It’s no secret that Australia’s taxpayer-funded left-wing propaganda machine broadcaster is implacably hostile to the Coalition. Which makes it even more bewildering that no conservative government ever dares do anything about it.
Even worse, PM Scott Morrison seems determined to do everything in his power to keep enabling the ABC’s bad behaviour.
The Coalition senator who announced an inquiry into the ABC’s complaints handling procedures is understood to have been rapped over the knuckles by the Prime Minister’s office at the weekend.
NSW senator Andrew Bragg announced the ABC complaints inquiry last week, prompting the public broadcaster’s chair, Ita Buttrose, on Sunday to accuse the government of “political interference”.
Of course she did. The ABC complains of “political interference” every time it gets scared that it might be held to account at last. Hell, if it’s a bad weather day at the ABC’s harbourside headquarters, they probably blame that on the Coalition’s “lack of climate action”.
And of course, the ABC furiously denies being biased — to guffaws of disbelief across Australia. Anyone who has ever been masochistic enough to suffer through its flagship current affairs program QandA, and watched a lone, token conservative shouted down and bullied (and that’s just by the host), or lasted more than two minutes listening to Fran Kelly’s Morning Cavalcade of Smug without jamming knitting needles in their ears, has no illusions about ABC “impartiality”.
The numbers also tell the story: a survey of ABC journalists found that 74% of them voted Labor-Green. In fact, more than 40% voted Green — four times higher than the rest of Australia.
As even a former ABC executive producer has said, “The long march of young liberal-humanist progressives through the ABC’s many portals is as much a self-perpetuating cycle as the daughters of doctors choosing a medical career or the sons of great football players striving to match the sporting deeds of their fathers”.
A former manager of the ABC, Maurice Newman, has stated that the ABC is “shameless”, and its “bias is absolutely palpable”.
This is not just a matter of fairness, it’s a matter of law: the ABC Act requires that it ensures that “the gathering and presentation by the Corporation of news and information is accurate and impartial according to the recognized standards of objective journalism”.
So, why doesn’t the Morrison government do something about it?
But some senior government sources are furious with Senator Bragg, and have told The Australian they believe he went “rogue” in announcing the inquiry in the first place.
Senator Bragg, 37, was promoted by the Coalition to head the Senate’s communications committee only two months ago, seemingly with a brief to be the government’s focal point for scrutinising decisions made at the ABC.
The Australian
But was Bragg’s real sin that by “going rogue”, he has finally shamed Scotty from Marketing into taking a stand on the culture wars?
Scott Morrison has backed a Senate inquiry into the ABC, declaring that no government agency is above parliamentary scrutiny […]
But Mr Morrison said no government body could avoid the scrutiny of the Senate.“It is a government agency, they have their independence and nobody is questioning that, but they are not above the scrutiny of how they conduct themselves, using taxpayers money from any other government agency,” he said.
“This is business as usual for the Australian Parliament. I don’t know why they would consider themselves an exception to business as usual.”
The Australian
Because they’re the ABC, darling. If they wanted to be held accountable, they’d work in the private sector. The average ABC luvvie would sooner die.
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