Piers Akerman: Ita Buttrose objects but ABC deserves Senate inquiry

ABC chair Ita Buttrose may object to a proposed Senate inquiry but the ABC’s news and current affairs programs are beyond a joke, writes Piers Akerman.

The extraordinary over-reaction by ABC chair Ita Buttrose to a proposed Senate inquiry into its farcical internal complaints handling procedure suggests that there is more, much more, within the taxpayer-funded organisation that needs examination.

Any casual listener to the ABC’s news and current affairs programs would be well aware that the views and opinions proffered by the overwhelming majority of guests on topical issues are from a deep Green-Left perspective.

That same listener would also be unable to escape the conclusion that such sentiments from that end of the political spectrum are wholly acceptable to the most senior ABC presenters and greeted with approval.

ABC chair Ita Buttrose. Picture: Supplied

Should any opposing voice be permitted on the ABC’s airwaves they are inevitably met with ridicule, scorn and unrelenting interruption.

Such is the norm with the ABC because its staffers permit not a single conservative presenter to host a mainstream prime time program.

The institution is a haven for the so-called progressive and as such is in lockstep with organisations like the Guardian, Crikey and GetUp.

7.30 host Leigh Sales.

As a regular commentator on the Insiders Sunday morning television program from its inception until the Gillard government, I watched as host Barrie Cassidy increasingly tilted the program further and further to toward the ALP and unfortunately lost much of the objectivity he had initially displayed.

Famously, Cassidy and his Left-wing guests chortled when I suggested that the Labor Party’s plans to institute a form of government control on the media was a dangerous step towards the slippery slope of censorship as practised in totalitarian nations globally. A video clip of that exchange still exists in the ethereal vaults of YouTube and is worth watching.

My experiences as a guest on another ABC flagship program, Q&A, only further demonstrated the commitment the broadcaster had to the Left. Not only were conservative guests routinely subjected to ridicule from whoever was hosting the program but the specially selected audience members were coached and had their questions vetted to fit the ABC-approved ideology.

Labor politicians and trade unionists appearing as panellists were feted on their arrival at the Ultimo studio such that then ACTU boss Sharan Burrow (now head of the international trade union movement) was given her own dressing room with her name on the door on one occasion when I was on the same program. Other guests made do in the communal make-up area.

The wishes of Left-wing guests such as infamous John Pilger were met with alacrity, conservatives were treated condescendingly.

Conservative guests are routinely ridiculed on the ABC show Q&A, writes Piers Akerman.

On one occasion, after I had been told I would never be reinvited to appear on Q&A, a staffer called me at short notice to beg me to join the program the following evening as Pilger was to appear to promote yet another collection of his anti-capitalist, anti-Western maunderings and, concerned with the possibility that the ABC might be seen to be providing the platform for his marketing ploy, would I join the panel so the organisation would not appear biased?

As a favour to the staffer, a relative of a newspaper executive who helped me when I was starting out, I agreed.

Pilger was nowhere to be seen when I arrived at the studio and I was told he had pulled out at the last minute because he wasn’t going to be grilled on his views by someone from the other side of politics!

I haven’t been asked back, I doubt whether I would appear as the show is as predictably tedious as Paul Barry’s Media Watch. Regular readers of this column know I rarely inject myself into this space as I am not a fan of the personality cults that some commentators embrace. No red bandanas here, folks.

I’ve broken my own rule today because I used to admire the ABC and over my life have had many friends working as reporters and managers within the organisation.

Today, its news and current affairs programs are however beyond a joke.

AM on morning radio to the 7.30 Report on evening television are abysmal. Ita Buttrose has been captured by those who run the sheltered workshop and has lost credibility.

Register the ABC as a political lobby group and stop its funding. Programs such as music and agricultural reports could get some support or rely on subscriptions.

Otherwise, close the show down.