The ABC Has Lost Its Way After A Decade Of Coalition Bullying
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My late mother loved the ABC. She was a big fan of Philip Adams: and attended the Save Our ABC rallies back in the day. I wonder what she would make of the shallow rendition of the national broadcaster today. The ABC has lost its way after a decade of Coalition bullying. Budgets were slashed and repeated threats were made to the management about apparent bias. There was no bias, it was just the journalists and presenters standing up to the government and holding them accountable.
LNP Government Stuff Ups & Ideological Battle With The ABC
The nation has suffered through nearly 10 years of neoliberal policies, which have made Australia a much more unfair place. Robodebt topped the bill, as an ideological attack on some 500, 000 ordinary Australians. Accusing them of owing money to Centrelink that they didn’t owe. Wrongly and illegally accusing these people of being welfare cheats. That’s the thing about the LNP, they not only come from ideologically abhorrent standpoints, they stuff things up too.
Robodebt has cost tax payers $1.8 billion in a settled class action. It cost the lives of vulnerable Aussies.
PwC & The Consultancy Billions
The PwC corporate tax crime comes hot on the heels of a massive blow out by Coalition governments in outsourcing to consultancy firms. Gutting the public service and outsourcing allowed the Morrison/Turnbull/Abbott governments to avoid transparency and accountability. Billions were spent on reviews by these private corporate accountants and lawyers. Neoliberal syphoning of public money into private hands. The ultimate betrayal of the nation was the PwC tax agent selling off secrets learned about the ATO corporate tax minimisation crackdown to those self-same companies.
This is what you get when you place sensitive information into the hands of non-government profit making entities and individuals.
RSH
LNP Incompetence In Government
Snowy 2.0 is going to be another very expensive white elephant for this nation.
“The full findings of the Snowy 2.0 project review and reset, which in August revealed that the cost of delivering the huge pumped hydro project had ballooned out to $12 billion, are being kept under wraps by the federal government, it has been revealed.”
The national inland rail initiative, yet another badly organised initiative by the Coalition.
“The cost of delivering the 1,700-kilometre Inland Rail project in the eastern states has blown out to $31.4 billion, according to a damning new report, which warns the price tag may climb even higher because it is still unclear where the line “will start or finish”. “
The ABC’s Progressive Voice Has Been Silenced
In Australia today, we lack a progressive media network to balance the conservative tendencies of Murdoch, Nine Fairfax, and Kerry Stokes. The ABC used to provide this, in part, but has been chastened by Coalition bullying into a middle of the road voice. All of our newspapers are right wing and conservative. Most of our radio stations are similarly coming from that right of centre perspective. The axing of The Drum current affairs panellist programme is a further blow to diversity in the media landscape. The ABC management is entrenched in a no risk taking policy in the 2020’s.
Who is going to speak truth to power if the ABC is ducking responsibility?
ABC Takes Safe Options Like Covering The Weather
The ABC has become home to light entertainment and the weather. News coverage focuses inordinately on disasters and weather events. Concern about ratings sees the management in a race to the bottom with the commercial stations on TV. Current affairs coverage always takes the click bait politicisation angle, rather than any debate about ideas or policy. Intelligence has left the building and been replaced with smarmy cynicism.
The ABC has lost it’s way after a decade of Coalition bullying.
Robert Sudha Hamilton
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