We must protect the independence of the ABC

THE ABC has been a member of the family for generations of Australians, and a target for governments of every stripe, writes Paul Syvret. And that’s the very reason we should value it.

OUR national broadcaster is no stranger to sustained political attack.

As one of Australia’s most trusted news source, according to recent surveys by both Roy Morgan and The Australia Institute, the ABC’s multiple platforms are accessed by millions of Australians on a daily basis.

One of my earliest and most enduring memories is of my father sitting at the old kitchen table in the morning, lighting his pipe after his boiled egg and cup of tea, as the theme tune of the 7.45am ABC news bulletin wafted out of the tinny speaker on a portable radio.

It was a ritual repeated every morning, and became as integral to my early childhood as Mr Squiggle and Bill and Ben the Flower Pot Men.

I’ve worked at the ABC. My wife spent many years as a reporter for ABC radio. Many of our friends work at the ABC.

It is a broadcaster that touches all of our lives, whether you are an avid consumer of news and current affairs, a follower of British and Australian television drama, a fan of test cricket on the radio, into contemporary music on JJJ or are being brought into the ABC fold via Bananas in Pyjamas.

Novelist Tom Keneally, actor Magda Szubanksi and journalist Kerry O'Brien at a Save the ABC rally in Sydney on Sunday. (Pic: Jeremy Ng/AAP)

Because of this reach and influence it is also a political target, and over the years has faced sustained attack from both sides of politics for its reporting.

In the Hawke Keating era for example, the ABS bore the ire of government for its reportage of the first Gulf War, and infuriated Bob Hawke for an expose of the business dealings of his friend the late transport magnate Sir Peter Abeles.

It was in 1987, in the face of budget cuts that year, that then managing director David Hill launched the famous “eight cents a day” campaign to ram home the value for money Australians get with our national broadcaster.

Back then the ABC had one analog television channel, Radio National, JJJ and local radio.

Today the broadcaster is host to four channels of television, multiple radio stations and a large online presence.

At the same time staff number have fallen from about 6000 to 4000 and budgets have been emasculated.

If that eights cents a day 30 years ago had kept pace with inflation it would be worth about 19 cents today.

Instead per capita funding for the ABC has fallen to a little more than 10 cents a day, making the organisation a leader in the modern economy’s grinding ‘do more with less’ equation.

Governments of all stripes have railed against the ABC’s journalism, including Bob Hawke’s, and that’s a sign it’s doing its job. (Pic: David Moir/AAP)

Now the Turnbull government is waging war on the ABC.

Funding has been repeatedly cut resulting in mass job losses and programming cuts. Coalition MPs, cheered on by their spear carriers in the right wing commentariat, seldom miss an opportunity to denigrate the ABC for perceived bias. These are crimes against reactionary conservatism such as actually reporting on children in detention, not blindly swallowing the government’s spin of the day or trusting the work of credible scientist when it comes to issues such as climate change.

Meanwhile former Foxtel chief executive Peter Tonagh will be heading an “efficiency review” of the broadcaster, which copped another $84 million in cuts in the most recent federal budget.

All this as Communications Minister Mitch Fifield wages his own guerilla warfare, lodging six formal complaints about the ABC in as many months.

Fifield also happens to be a card-carrying member of the Institute for Public Affairs, a right wing agitprop group that advocates the privatisation of the ABC.

It is our ABC, a network that backs and broadcasts Australian voices and Australian stories, and it costs us less than the price of a cup of coffee every fortnight

It is why if I get a chance during my lunch break tomorrow I will be joining other concerned Australians at a rally outside the studios in Southbank to add my voice in support of the funding for, and independence, of this vital pillar of Australian content, democracy and media diversity.

Save our ABC.

Paul Syvret is a Courier-Mail assistant editor.

@PSyvret