ABC SPREADS FAKE NEWS IN WAR ON THE GOVERNMENT

The ABC is too big and biased for a democracy. It is now acting on its boss's threat to the Turnbull Government, and its  news chief even spreads fake news: "The ABC’s director of news says he 'can’t fully explain' why he said the federal government was cutting $43 million from the nat­ional broadcaster’s newsgathering services."   

The ABC is too big and biased for a healthy democracy.

Proof? Even the ABC's news chief spreads fake news about the Turnbull Government to protect the ABC's bloated budget:

The ABC’s director of news says he “can’t fully explain” why he said the federal government was cutting $43 million from the nat­ional broadcaster’s newsgathering services, a claim rejected by the Communications Minister...

On Wednesday, following the budget, Mr Morris said in a memo to staff and on Twitter that the government would discontinue $43m in funding for newsgathering services...

{Communications Minister Mitch] Fifield ... said this claim was “completely false”...

Yesterday, Mr Morris told the press club he could not explain how he had arrived at the $43m figure. “I can’t fully explain what was or wasn’t said. What I do know is our ­people were left with a very clear impression that news funding would be discontinued,” he said. “Now if that’s not the case and the government is open to a conversation about continuing that funding, we are ready to go ... I can’t fully explain the discrepancy between the accounts of what was and wasn’t said.”

If the ABC news chief cannot even correctly report on what the ABC gets from taxpayers, how can you trust a single thing the ABC says?

 Then there was this:

Gaven Morris ... also said there was “no fat left to cut” at the ABC, despite announcing on the same day that there would be extra episodes of Four Corners this year.

Yeah, right.

The Government did, though, freeze any increases in the ABC's funding of more than $1 billion a year, costing the ABC $84 million over four years.

But the danger is that the ABC is now a media behemoth so big and greedy that it can campaign over its four national TV stations and five national radio stations against any government that denies it a single dollar or which attempts to reign in its unlawful Leftist bias.

ABC boss Michelle Guthrie even issued an ominous threat this week about this cut:

In the coming year Australians will head to the polls for the next federal election. More than 80 per cent of Australians value the ABC, a point that should not be lost on anyone seeking government.

And Guthrie's vast empire immediately started to strike back. As just one example of many, here is ABC presenter Raf Epstein yesterday demanding answers from Fifield, and demonstrating that the ABC is now too dangerously big and biased for any government to restrict or hold to account:

RAF EPSTEIN:

One of the losers in Tuesday’s Federal Budget is the radio station you’re listening to. The ABC received a freeze on its funding... The ABC and the Federal Government agree that is worth something like $80 million. The ABC says there is no more fat to cut, they will have to cut into muscle. That means programs or jobs will go. Let’s ask the Communications Minister why it’s all happening. Last night we spoke to former ABC staff-elected board member, he’s also a veteran of the ABC. This was Quentin Dempster’s interpretation of the Government’s funding freeze.“It’s punitive because the ABC was blindsided, they had no idea...  I think everybody’s entitled to come to the concluded view that it’s punishment.”... Is it punishment?

FIFIELD:

No.

EPSTEIN:

Then why do it?

FIFIELD:

Every Commonwealth organisation needs to be the best possible steward that it can be of the taxpayer dollar...

EPSTEIN:

If you give Foxtel $30 million if you give the free to air stations something like a $400 million discount on their licences and you give extra money to SBS in this Budget but then you take money away from the ABC, that sounds like punishment doesn’t it?

FIFIELD:

Raf, it’s important to look at the numbers. And the ABC over the next triennium of funding will have $3.16 billion. The ABC will continue to receive in excess of a billion dollars a year. And what that means is that the ABC has greater funding certainty than any media organisation in the nation. ...

EPSTEIN:

Does it have anything to do with our coverage of politics?

FIFIELD:

No. Absolutely not. The ABC…

EPSTEIN:

The freeze would still happen I mean you’re allowed to and you’re entitled to and it’s your right to complain about things like the report about Tony Abbott, but if all of our politics coverage was exactly as you wished it to be and unbiased as you would like it to be would the freeze still happen?

FIFIELD:

This Budget decision has nothing to do with the way the ABC covers news and current affairs. Whenever I’m asked about the ABC, and whether it is an organisation that tilts one way or the other – I always cite the Parliament House bureau of the ABC as being a very straight down the line operation. And I think they do good work.

EPSTEIN:

Can I ask if any of the Cabinet or sub-committee meetings of Cabinet talking about the funding freeze. Anybody mention the ABC’s politics coverage in those discussions?

FIFIELD:

I  would never talk about the deliberations in Cabinet. But I can assure you that the decision that was taken in relation to the ABC’s indexation pause was entirely about ensuring that the ABC continues to be a good steward of taxpayers’ dollars. And was entirely about every Commonwealth Government organisation living within its means and making a contribution to ensuring that we’re in a position where we can balance the Budget...

EPSTEIN:

And we might get into income tax cuts as well. But if it didn't happen in a Cabinet or sub-committee meeting, then you can say it didn't happen. I mean if it's completely unconnected, you can assure us all that political coverage wasn't mentioned?

And so on.

I don't think enough Liberals realise what an existential threat the ABC poses to them - or at least to the notion of a Liberal party that stands for traditional Liberal causes. And those that do seem to have no plan to either cut the ABC to a safe size or make it comply with its statutory duty to be impartial.