Former ABC stars seeking GetUp alliance

A cabal of former ABC personalities will partner with the activist group to campaign against a move to privatise the national broadcaster.

ABC Alumni chairman Jonathan Holmes.

A cabal of former ABC political journalists and on-screen personalities with “star power and clout” will partner with far-left activist group GetUp to campaign against a move to privatise the national broadcaster – even though neither major political party has any plans to sell it off.

Last week, The Australian reported that the ABC Alumni, whose chairman is former Media Watch host Jonathan Holmes, had launched an online campaign to urge Australians to “support candidates who back a better-funded ABC”.

Holmes said his YouTube video on behalf of ABC Alumni “is not friendly to the Coalition”.

Among the candidates the group is seeking to support are independents Allegra Spender and ex-ABC foreign correspondent Zoe Daniel, who are running against Liberal MPs Dave Sharma and Tim Wilson in the electorates of Wentworth in NSW and Goldstein in Victoria, respectively.

While ex-ABC high-profile journalists including Kerry O’Brien and Quentin Dempster have already appeared at campaign nights for Ms Spender, and former on-air star Libbi Gorr is due to MC an event for Ms Daniel next month, it has now emerged that ABC Alumni is also looking to engage with far-left activist group GetUp, as well as Friends of the ABC, to further its cause.

Speaking at an ABC Friends virtual event in Ballarat late last month, Holmes said the Alumni group was now working with GetUp to counter the threat of the possible privatisation of the public broadcaster.

“Mostly our strategy is to provide a bit of star power and clout where we can go to organisations like the (ABC) Friends and GetUp! to some extent, although we are a little bit more cautious about GetUp!,” Holmes said.

Retired ABC journalist Kerry O'Brien. Picture: Mathew Farrell

The alignment between the ABC Alumni and GetUp is of particular significance because the national broadcaster is at pains to point out that it is not affiliated in any way with ABC Alumni, and by extension, GetUp.

But the ABC Alumni’s website clearly states it “trains and mentors current ABC staff”, and promises that a “dedicated program co-ordinator from ABC People and Culture team will be available to answer any questions and guide you through the process”.

Holmes rejected the idea that the mentoring program repres­ented an “affiliation” between the ABC Alumni and the ABC, as did a spokesman for the ABC.

Holmes said O’Brien was working closely with the ‘‘Voices of’’ movement to spread its message. “Kerry is doing a lot of work with (former independent MP) Cathy McGowan and the ‘Voices of’ movement, which is of course aligned to the independent candidates, although Kerry is careful not to endorse any particular candidate,” he said.

O’Brien last month addressed an event held by independent North Sydney candidate Kylea Tink, who is backed by Climate 200.

At the event, O’Brien echoed Holmes’ claim that “it is now a matter of formal party policy in the Liberal Party to privatise the ABC”.

Holmes told The Australian that the privatisation of the ABC remained the Liberal party’s formal policy position on the ownership structure of the national broadcaster, but conceded that the Coalition partyroom had not expressed any intention to adopt the Liberal “position”.

Last week, Communications Minister Paul Fletcher told The Australian: “The Coalition is fully committed to the ABC in public ownership.”