New ABC boss David Anderson condemned over political stance

Former ABC chair Maurice Newman attacks the broadcaster’s new managing director for his “partisan’’ position.

ABC managing director David Anderson. Picture: Hollie Adams

Former ABC chairman Maurice Newman has criticised the public broadcaster’s new managing director­, David Anderson, for his public “partisan position”, despite this week insisting there was no bias at the publicly funded media organisation.

Mr Newman said it was ­“extraordinary” that Mr Anderson, who has worked at the ABC for nearly 30 years, used his first media interview on Monday night to encourage the public to vote for Labor or any political party other than the Coalition, just three days after being ­appointed.

Mr Newman also questioned Mr Anderson’s warning that cuts to staff and services were inevit­able because the Coalition would strip $84 million from the ABC over the next three years. He described the comments as “cute”.

Mr Anderson told ABC’s Radio National that cuts were unavoidable if the broadcaster’s funding was not increased.

“It’s very clear: what he’s saying is that if you care about the ABC vote Labor or anything other than the Coalition,” said Mr Newman, who was ABC chairman for five years until the end of 2011.

“Whatever he may think personall­y, to actually go out publicl­y and really encourage voters to support anything other than the Coalition, I find amazing.”

Josh Frydenberg last month confirmed a freeze on the index­ation of the ABC’s $1 billion an­nual­ budget allocation, which would mean $83.7m in expect­ed funding increases over the next three years would not be given to the broadcaster.

However, the ABC was allocated an extra $43.7m in the federal budget to continue the Enhanced Newsgathering measure, which supports local news and current affairs.

The $83.7m was based on an inflatio­n rate of about 3 per cent, which has “substantially reduced” to about 1.3 per cent, suggesting the amount of the indexation forgone­ is “significantly south” of the figure forecast in last year’s budget, Mr Newman said.

Mr Anderson said “if the indexation is reversed, then that is obvious­ly a much better scenario for us, but we will still have to find efficiencies to bridge the gap and what it costs to be the ABC”.

“When I look at our ­options, they are not real options, they are not in keeping with what it is that we are trying to achieve, which is being independent, innovative and invaluable over the coming year,” he added.

“And we will still do that but we will do that with a reduction in our services in the coming years of $84m.”

Mr Anderson also talked about his role, which he saw as being an advocate for increased funding and stressing to politicians the importan­ce of the ABC to the whole nation.

Last year, he wrote to Communications Minister Mitch Fifield proposing a change in funding for the ABC to a five-year cycle, “to break us away from a three-year political cycle”.

Mr Anderson and ABC chairwoman Ita Buttrose, who was appointe­d by Scott Morrison in late February, weren’t available to comment yesterday.

“Ita isn’t doing interviews on the ABC. David is trying to do as much media as he can but he can’t do everything, unfortunately,” an ABC spokeswoman said.